He knocks louder.
Nobody.
Then he stands up on end, puts his two fore paws on the latch, and the door opens.
Not a soul in the house.
The old woman had risen early to sell herbs in the town, and had gone off in such haste that she had left her bed unmade, with her great night-cap on the pillow.
"Good!" said the wolf to himself, "I know what I'll do."
He shuts the door, pulls on the grandmother's night-cap down to his eyes; then he lies down all his length in the bed and draws the curtains.
In the meantime the good Blanchette went quietly on her way, as little girls do, amusing herself here and there by picking Easter daisies, watching the little birds making their nests, and running after the butterflies which fluttered in the sunshine.
At last she arrives at the door.
Knock, knock.
"Who is there?" says the wolf, softening his rough voice as best he can.
"It's me, granny, your Little Golden Hood. I'm bringing you a big piece of cake for your Sunday treat to-morrow."
"Press your finger on the latch; then push and the door opens."
"Why, you've got a cold, granny," said she, coming in.
"Ahem! a little, my dear, a little," replies the wolf, pretending to cough. "Shut the door well, my little lamb. Put your basket on the table, and then take off your frock and come and lie down by me; you shall rest a little."
The good child undresses, but observe this:—she kept her little hood upon her head. When she saw what a figure her granny cut in bed, the poor little thing was much surprised.
"Oh!" cries she, "how like you are to friend Wolf, grandmother!"
"That's on account of my night-cap, child," replies the wolf.
"Oh! what hairy arms you've got, grandmother!"
"All the better to hug you, my child."
"Oh! what a big tongue you've got, grandmother!"
"All the better for answering, child."
"Oh! what a mouthful of great white teeth you have, grandmother!"
"That's for crunching little children with!" And the wolf opened his jaws wide to swallow Blanchette.
But she put down her head, crying, "Mamma! mamma!" and the wolf only caught her little hood.
Thereupon, oh, dear! oh, dear! he draws back, crying and shaking his jaw as if he had swallowed red-hot coals.
It was the little fire-colored hood that had burnt his tongue right down his throat.
The little hood, you see, was one of those magic caps that they used to have in former times, in the stories, for making one's self invisible or invulnerable.
So there was the wolf with his throat burned, jumping off the bed and trying to find the door, howling and howling as if all the dogs in the country were at his heels.
Just at this moment the grandmother arrives, returning from the town with her long sack empty on her shoulder.
"Ah, brigand!" she cries, "wait a bit!" Quickly she opens her sack wide across the door, and the maddened wolf springs in head downward.
It is he now that is caught, swallowed like a letter in the post. For the brave old dame shuts her sack, so; and she runs and empties it in the well, where the vagabond, still howling, tumbles in and is drowned.
"Ah, scoundrel! you thought you would crunch my little grandchild! Well, to-morrow we will make her a muff of your skin, and you yourself shall be crunched, for we will give your carcass to the dogs."
Thereupon the grandmother hastened to dress poor Blanchette, who was still trembling with fear in the bed.
"Well," she said to her, "without my little hood where would you be now, darling?" And, to restore heart and legs to the child, she made her eat a good piece of her cake, and drink a good draught of wine, after which she took her by the hand and led her back to the house.
And then, who was it who scolded her when she knew all that had happened?
It was the mother.
But Blanchette promised over and over again that she would never more stop to listen to a wolf, so that at last the mother forgave her.
And Blanchette, the Little Golden Hood, kept her word. And in fine weather she may still be seen in the fields with her pretty little hood, the color of the sun.
But to see her you must rise early.
163
The next Perrault story is given in the traditional English form made by "R. S., Gent." Perrault met the popular taste of his time for "morals" by adding more or less playful ones in verse to his stories. Here is a prose rendering of a portion of the Moralité attached to "Puss-in-Boots": "However great may be the advantage of enjoying a rich inheritance coming down from father to son, industry and ingenuity are worth more to young people as a usual thing than goods acquired without personal effort." In relation to this moral, Ralston says, "the conclusion at which an ordinary reader would arrive, if he were not dazzled by fairy-land glamor, would probably be that far better than either tact and industry on a master's part is the loyalty of an unscrupulous retainer of an imaginative turn of mind. The impropriety of this teaching is not balanced by any other form of instruction. What the story openly inculcates is not edifying, and it does not secretly convey any improving doctrine." But on the other hand it may be argued that the "moral" passes over the child's head. Miss Kready, in her Study of Fairy Tales (p. 275), makes a very elaborate and proper defense of "Puss-in-Boots" as a story for children. There is delight in its strong sense of adventure, it has a hero clever and quick, there is loyalty, love, and sacrifice in Puss's devotion to his master, the tricks are true to "cat-nature," there are touches of nature beauty, a simple and pleasing plot, while we should not forget the delightful Ogre and his transformations into Lion and Mouse. The story is found in many forms among many different peoples. Perhaps the great stroke of genius which endears Perrault's version is in the splendid boots with which his tale provides the hero so that briers may not interfere with his doings. (Extended studies of this tale and its many parallels may be found in Lang's Perrault's Popular Tales; in McCulloch's Childhood of Fiction, chap. viii; in an article by Ralston in the Nineteenth Century, January, 1883, reprinted in Living Age, Vol. CLVI, p. 362.)
PUSS-IN-BOOTS
There was once a miller who left no more estate to the three sons he had than his mill, his ass, and his cat. The partition was soon made. Neither the clerk nor the attorney was sent for. They would soon have eaten up all the poor patrimony. The eldest had the mill, the second the ass, and the youngest nothing but the cat.
The poor young fellow was quite comfortless at having so poor a lot. "My brothers," said he, "may get their living handsomely enough by joining their stocks together; but for my part, when I have eaten up my cat and made me a muff of his skin, I must die with hunger."
The cat, who heard all this, but made as if he did not, said to him with a grave and serious air; "Do not thus afflict yourself, my good master; you have nothing else to do but to give me a bag and get a pair of boots made for me, that I may scamper through the dirt and the brambles, and you shall see that you have not so bad a portion of me as you imagine."
Though the cat's master did not build very much upon what he said, he had, however, often seen him play a great many cunning tricks to catch rats and mice; as when he used to hang by the heels,