ls and with the clay
floor, which soon looked like nothing but a big mud pie. But that was
what Browny enjoyed, and he was as happy as possible, rolling about all
day and making himself in such a mess. One day, as he was lying half
asleep in the mud, he heard a soft knock at his door, and a gentle voice
said:

'May I come in, Master Browny? I want to see your beautiful new house.'

'Who are you?' said Browny, starting up in great fright, for though the
voice sounded gentle, he felt sure it was a feigned voice, and he feared
it was the fox.

'I am a friend come to call on you,' answered the voice.

'No, no,' replied Browny, 'I don't believe you are a friend. You are the
wicked fox, against whom our mother warned us. I won't let you in.'

'Oho! is that the way you answer me?' said the fox, speaking very
roughly in his natural voice. 'We shall soon see who is master here,'
and with his paws he set to work and scraped a large hole in the soft
mud walls. A moment later he had jumped through it, and catching Browny
by the neck, flung him on his shoulders and trotted off with him to his
den.

The next day, as Whitey was munching a few leaves of cabbage out of the
corner of her house, the fox stole up to her door, determined to carry
her off to join her brother in his den. He began speaking to her in the
same feigned gentle voice in which he had spoken to Browny; but it
frightened her very much when he said:

'I am a friend come to visit you, and to have some of your good cabbage
for my dinner.'

'Please don't touch it,' cried Whitey in great distress. 'The cabbages
are the walls of my house, and if you eat them you will make a hole, and
the wind and rain will come in and give me a cold. Do go away; I am sure
you are not a friend, but our wicked enemy the fox.' And poor Whitey
began to whine and to whimper, and to wish that she had not been such a
greedy little pig, and had chosen a more solid material than cabbages
for her house. But it was too late now, and in another minute the fox
had eaten his way through the cabbage walls, and had caught the
trembling, shivering Whitey, and carried her off to his den.

The next day the fox started off for Blacky's house, because he had made
up his mind that he would get the three little pigs together in his den,
and then kill them, and invite all his friends to a feast. But when he
reached the brick house, he found that the door was bolted and barred,
so in his sly manner he be