YOU remember in the last story that Puss and his Good Gray Horse had
camped in a grove of trees for the night. Well, just as Puss was about
to curl up and take a little trip to dreamland he heard a voice singing:
"Little Boy Blue,
Come, leave your toys.
It's time to wash hands
For little boys.
"Supper is ready,
You must not wait.
Tuck in your napkin
And don't tip your plate.
"Oh, where is Boy Blue?
Let's all take a peep.
He's there on the sofa,
Fast asleep."
Puss opened his eyes and saw a little light twinkling through the trees.
So he got up and went toward it to find that it shone from the window of
a small cottage. As he knocked on the door he thought, "I may be asked
to spend the night, and that will be much more comfortable than lying
beneath the trees." And it turned out just as he thought. The pretty
woman who opened the door asked him in, saying, softly:
"Tiptoe in, my dear Puss, Junior, for Boy Blue has just gone to sleep."
And you know how softly a cat can tiptoe! But of course he first slipped
off his red-topped boots with their clanking spurs.
Then Boy Blue's mother gave Puss, Junior, some milk and cake, and after
that he put his Good Gray Horse in the stable and came back to sit down
by the fire.
Over the mantelpiece hung a silver horn, and as Puss looked up at it he
remembered long ago in Old Mother Goose Land a little Boy Blue who blew
his horn to call the cows from the fields of corn.
"Does your little Boy Blue go to sleep in a haystack?"
"No, my dear," laughingly replied his mother, "but his father did. And
that's the horn he used to blow in the early morn to call the cows and
the woolly sheep when under the haystack he'd fallen asleep."
"I met him once, a long time ago," said little Puss, Junior. "I remember
the place quite well. He carried me on his shoulder over to see little
Miss Muffet who sat on a tuffet, and she gave us some curds and whey
till a horrid old spider sat down beside us and frightened her away."
"And so you were the little cat who was with him, were you?" said little
Boy Blue's mother.
But Puss didn't answer, for he had fallen fast asleep and was dreaming
that he was once more with his dear father, the famous Puss in Boots.