Maybe I have got this story twisted awry in the telling; all the same, Tommy Pfouce says that it is a true-enough story, if you put on your spectacles and look at it from the right side. [Illustration] [Illustration] [Illustration] Five O’clock· _Pussy-Cat_, _Pussy-Cat_ what do you dream, Sleeping out there in the _Sun_? The _Red Cow_ and _White Cow_ are out in the _Lane_; I guess that the _Milking_ is done. [Sidenote: ☾’s pl. Const.] [Sidenote: ☉ K.P. ⊕] _Pussy-Cat_, _Pussy-Cat_ open your _Eyes_, And see what your _Kitten_’s about; She’s found a great _Rat-Hole_ that’s close to the _Step_, And is watching for him to come out. [Illustration: The Simpleton _and his_ Little Black Hen.] XVII. There were three brothers left behind when the father died. The two elder, whose names were John and James, were as clever lads as ever ate pease with a fork. As for the youngest, his name was Caspar, he had no more than enough sense to blow his potatoes when they were hot. Well, when they came to divide things up between themselves, John and James contrived to share all of the good things between them. As for Caspar, “why, the little black hen is enough for him,” says John and James, and that was all the butter he got from that churn. “I’ll take the little black hen to the fair,” says Caspar, “and there I’ll sell her and buy me some eggs. I’ll set the eggs under the minister’s speckled hen, and then I’ll have more chicks. Then I’ll buy me more eggs and have more chicks, and then I’ll buy me more eggs and have more chicks, and after that I’ll be richer than Uncle Henry, who has two cows and a horse, and will marry my sweetheart into the bargain.” So off he went to the fair with the black hen under his arm, as he had promised himself to do. “There goes a goose to the plucking,” says John and James, and then they turned no hairs grey by thinking any more about the case. As for him, why, he went on and on until he came to the inn over the hill not far from the town, the host of which was no better than he should be, and that was the long and the short of it. “Where do you go with the little black hen, Caspar?” says he. “Oh,” says Caspar, “I take it to the fair to sell it and buy me some eggs. I’ll set the eggs under the minister’s speckled hen, and then I’ll have more chicks. Then I’ll buy me more eggs and have more chicks, and then I’ll buy me more eggs and have more chicks, and after that I’ll be richer than Uncle Henry, who has two cows and a horse, and will marry my sweetheart into the bargain.”