ile Puss said good-by and rode away.

"DONKEY, DONKEY, OLD AND GRAY"

"DONKEY, donkey, old and gray,
Open your mouth and gently bray;
Lift your ears and blow your horn
To wake the world this sleepy morn,"

sang little Puss, Junior.

"I'm no rooster," replied the little donkey. But he gave a gentle bray,
just the same, and then the Good Gray Horse neighed, and after that a
little adder crawled out of a hole in the ground and said:

"Gracious me! What's all this noise?" And that only goes to show what a
dreadful din it must have been, for adders are deaf, so they tell me.

Well, anyhow, Puss didn't wait any longer, but rode away, and by and by,
after a while, he met a funny little man with a sack over his back.

"What have you in your bag?" asked Puss, for he felt sorry for the
little old man and meant to give him a lift in case he had a heavy load,
you see.

"What's that to you?" asked the little old man, with a scowl. And before
you could say "Jack Robinson!" he disappeared inside a stump.

Puss jumped off his Good Gray Horse and peeped in. But he couldn't see
anything, only a big black hole. Well, he was just going to turn away
when he heard a voice say:

"Mother, I've brought you a bag of gold
For the little pink-and-white pig I sold."

[Illustration]

So Puss peeped in again, and pretty soon he saw a tiny light way down
deep, like the flicker of a candle. And by and by, as his eyes grew used
to the darkness, he saw a flight of stairs. Then what do you think he
did? Jump into the hollow stump and climb down? That's just what he
did, and it wasn't long before he found himself in a little hall
opposite a small door with a glass knob inside of which was an electric
light, which I suppose had been put there by the little old man in case
he got home after twelve at night and his wife had blown out the candle.

All of a sudden the door opened and a little old woman, bent and
withered, asked, in a shrill voice:

"How dare you come down to our Hollow Stump hall?
I'll cut off your whiskers, tail and all."

"Please, ma'am," said little Puss, Junior, "I won't tell anybody." And I
guess he would have climbed up the stairs then and there if he hadn't
feared she might cut off his tail when he turned around.

"Let him go, mother," said the little old man. "He would have given me a
ride on his horse on my way home had we met sooner