without knowing where I was, and finally I did strike the right path by
some great good luck. But, while I was lost, I saw the strangest sight
I have ever seen in my life!”
“What was it?” asked his hosts, eagerly.
“Why,” the traveller began, “I saw more cats than I ever beheld in all
my life before; every one sad and crying, as a coffin, with a crown
and Grimalkin the Fifteenth marked upon it, was being lowered into the
ground.”
He had got no farther in his story than that, when the large black cat
who had seemed to be asleep in front of the fire, leaped up and cried:
“What! Grimalkin the Fifteenth dead! Then I’m the King of the Cats!”
and springing up the chimney, he disappeared, and was never seen again!
* * * * *
“The reason he was never seen again,” Impty explained, “was because he
went straight to Cat-Land, and people can’t go there, you know. That
black cat was my grandfather, and he’d never hoped to be King so soon.
But, you see, Grimalkin the Fifteenth lost all his nine lives at once,
and so my grandfather succeeded to the throne immediately. Some day,
perhaps, I’ll be King of the Cats, and if I ever am, I’ll make a new
law so that you can come to Cat-Land just as you are without changing
your shape. Wouldn’t that be nice? Good night!”
THE NINTH NIGHT
Dolly was sitting up in bed when Impty came purring in the next
evening. She looked very happy, and she called out gayly to the black
kitten: “Oh, Impty! Mother is coming home to-morrow! Miss Jane told me
so when she was undressing me.”
“I know,” answered Impty, curling up comfortably. “The cook was talking
about it to Eliza when I was eating my supper in the kitchen. Yes,
this is our last night together, and because it’s the very last time
I shall ever talk to you, I’m going to tell you the finest cat-tale in
the whole world. It’s ‘Puss-In-Boots.’”
[Illustration: PUSS-IN-BOOTS]
Once upon a time, long, long ago, in a little country village, there
lived a miller and his three sons. He was poor, but he had been able to
bring them up respectably, and let them live well enough; though, when
he died, his sons found that all he had left them was his mill, his
donkey, and his cat.
The oldest son took the mill, the second the donkey, and for the
youngest there was left only the pet cat. He was sad indeed when he
thought of his inheritance. “What shall I live on now?” he asked
himself. “My brothers can go into partnership, and so always earn their
living; but when I have eaten my cat, and made myself a muff out of his
fur, all that will be left for me is beggary.”
While he was thus thinking aloud, the cat came and rubbed up against
his legs, purring, and then, to his great surprise, spoke.
“Master,” said Puss, “you haven’t fared so badly as you seem to think.
Just have a pair of boots made for me, and get me a sack, and you’ll
see fine things!”
The young man hardly knew whether to believe he was awake or asleep.
He had never even heard of a cat talking before, but he remembered how
clever Puss had always been about catching mice and rats, hiding in the
grain and playing dead; and he thought it would do no harm to try what
luck his cat would bring him.
So a fine pair of high, yellow leather boots was made for the
cat, and when Puss had slipped them on, and slung the sack over his
shoulder, his master began to have faith in his good-fortune at once.
[Illustration: “MASTER,” SAID PUSS, “YOU HAVEN’T FARED SO BADLY AS YOU
SEEM TO THINK.”--_Page 220._]
The cat hurried straight to the warren, where hundreds of rabbits were
nibbling grass and clover leaves, and lying down, he opened his sack
wide and scattered bran at its mouth. Soon, a silly little rabbit, who
knew nothing of tricks and traps, came and entered the sack the better
to eat the bran. Quick as a flash Puss drew the strings and killed him
without mercy.
Very proud of his prey, he went to the palace of the King, where all
the court wondered at seeing a booted cat who could talk. He was shown
at once into the throne room, and there, after he had made a low bow,
he laid the rabbit at the King’s feet, saying, “Here, Sire, is a
present from my master, the Marquis of Carabas,” for so he had chosen
to call the miller’s son. The King was very much pleased. “Thank the
Marquis, my good fellow,” he said, “for sending me such fine game, and
here’s a piece of gold for you.”
Soon after, Puss caught a brace of partridges, and these, too, he
carried to the palace. The King was as gracious as before; again he
thanked the Marquis, and gave the cat a handsome present. So things
went on; from time to time Puss carried game to the King, who always
showed him the greatest favor. At last, one day, when the cat had
learned that the King and his daughter, the loveliest princess in the
whole world, were to drive through their village that afternoon, he ran
to his master, and cried: “Quick! Quick! Do as I tell you, and your
fortune is made forever. Take off your clothes, jump into the river,
and leave the rest to me.” So saying, he took the young man’s workaday
clothes and hid them under a large rock. Then, as he heard the rumble
of chariot wheels on the high road, he began to cry at the top of his
voice: “Help! Help! My master, the Marquis of Carabas, is drowning!”
The King, hearing these shouts, popped his head out of the coach
window, and seeing the cat who had so many times brought him presents
of game, he commanded his guards to go to the rescue of the Marquis.
“Alas, your Majesty!” cried Puss, “my master’s clothes have been
stolen. While he was bathing, robbers came and carried them away, and
although I cried, ‘Stop, thief! Stop, thief!’ I could not prevent them
from doing this wicked deed. And now he cannot appear before your
Majesty.”
“I will send the groom of my wardrobe for one of my finest suits,” said
the King; and when the suit was brought, and the Marquis of Carabas
had put it on, every one marvelled to see how handsome he was. The King
invited him to get into the coach and drive with them, and, as for his
daughter, the pretty Princess, she fell head over heels in love with
him.
All this time Puss had been busy, too. He ran quickly ahead of the
coach, and, stopping at a fine field, he cried aloud to the peasants
who were mowing it: “Good people! If you do not tell the King, when he
rides by, that this field belongs to the Marquis of Carabas, I will
chop you into mince-meat!”
The peasants were very much frightened at this threat, and, when the
King passed by, and asked them who owned the field, they cried with one
voice, “It belongs to the Marquis of Carabas.”
Puss, who was keeping ahead of the coach, had already come to the next
field, a rich meadow which the laborers were reaping. “Good people,” he
said to them, “when the King rides by, if you do not tell him that this
meadow belongs to the Marquis of Carabas, I will make mince-meat of
you!”
Terrified, the peasants promised, and when the King asked them whose
meadow they were reaping, they answered as one man, “Sire, it belongs
to the Marquis of Carabas.”
“You have some very fine property, Marquis,” said the King, pleased
to find the young man as wealthy as he was handsome. And the Marquis
seemed to grow richer, for Puss had stopped at each field, and the
peasants declared that all the land there-abouts belonged to the
Marquis of Carabas.
At last Puss stopped before the drawbridge of a mighty castle owned by
the richest and most powerful ogre in the whole country-side. The cat
begged that the warder would announce him to the Ogre as one who had
heard so much of his magnificence that he could not pass by without
seeing it. The Ogre, who was very vain, was pleased by this compliment,
and received Puss with the greatest kindness. After a while, the cat
said: “They tell me that you can change yourself into any shape you
please; that, in a moment, you can become a lion or a tiger, or any
tremendous thing you wish to be.”
“So I can,” said the Ogre, “and just to show you, I’ll turn into a
lion.” In the wink of an eye there he was, roaring away, and poor Puss
was so frightened that he ran up to the top of the house, slipping at
each step, for his fine, shiny boots were never made to climb roofs.
“Come down,” cried the Ogre, changing back into his real shape. “I
won’t hurt you! Come down!”
Very much scared, Puss clambered down, and, as soon as his voice came
back to him, he said, “They say, too,--but this I cannot believe,--that
you can take the shape of the tiniest animal, a mouse, for instance.”
“Of course I can,” said the Ogre, proudly. “Just watch me.” He at once
became a little mouse scampering over the floor, and Puss, like a
flash, sprang on him and ate him up!
By this time the coach had drawn up to the gate-ways of the castle, and
Puss, seeing it stop, ran to throw open the doors, crying: “Welcome,
your Majesty! Welcome to the castle of the Marquis of Carabas!”
“Is this yours also, my dear Marquis,” cried the King. “What splendid
battlements, and what a noble gate-way! Come, let us enter, and see if
the interior is as fine, too.”
As he spoke, he walked into the castle, and the Marquis gave his hand
to the pretty Princess, and led her in.
Puss flung wide the doors of the banqueting-hall and showed a long
table covered with a fine repast, for the Ogre had invited friends to
dinner that day, and this feast was prepared for them.
The King, the Marquis, and the pretty Princess ate it in their stead;
and at the close his Majesty said, in great good humor, to the young
man, “It all depends upon you, Marquis, whether or not you’re my
son-in-law.”
The Marquis, who was in love with the Princess quite as much as she
was with him, gladly consented, and that very evening the wedding was
celebrated.
So the poor miller’s son became the heir of a mighty king, and, as for
Puss, who had brought him all this good-fortune, he became a great
lord, and caught rats and mice only for his own amusement.
* * * * *
The last Kitty-Cat Tale was finished.
“Now, good-by, little Mistress; go to sleep,” purred Impty, as he
rubbed up against Dolly’s arm. “I can never, never talk to you again
this way, for once, only, does our King permit a cat to talk to a
mortal. But, sometimes, when you are petting me, please remember the
stories I used to tell you. Now, I’m going to curl up on your pillow,
just because it’s the last time. How surprised Miss Jane will be when
she sees me to-morrow morning! But it won’t make any difference, for
we’ve had our nights, nine of them just like a cat’s lives; and I don’t
mind if she shuts me out now. Good-by! I’m going to Cat-Land again.
They’re having a wedding there to-night.”
“Couldn’t I really ever go to Cat-Land? If you were king, couldn’t
I?” begged Dolly, wistfully. “I’d truly be good, truly, Impty. And how
would I get there?”
“Why,” the black kitten answered, “Cat-Land lies East of the Sun and
West of the Moon, and the road runs all along the edge of Wonder-World.
But it doesn’t take me any time to go because I’m one of the Royal
Family. I just close my eyes, and whisk my tail nine times, and I’m
there. But I promise, by the whiskers and ears of his Majesty, the King
of the Cats, that I’ll take you there if ever I get the chance.” He
held out his paw solemnly, and Dolly shook it just as gravely. “Now,
mind! It’s a bargain,” he said, snuggling down beside her.
“All right! Good-by!” answered the little girl, sleepily, and when the
moon looked in soon after, Impty was off in his dreams to Cat-Land, and
Dolly had gone to the Land of Nod.
_The Dorothy Dainty Series_
_By AMY BROOKS_
LARGE 12mo CLOTH ILLUSTRATED BY THE AUTHOR PRICE $1.00 EACH
_Dorothy Dainty_
_Dorothy’s Playmates_
_Dorothy Dainty at School_
_Dorothy Dainty at the Shore_
_Dorothy Dainty in the City_
_Dorothy Dainty at Home_
[Illustration:
DOROTHY DAINTY AT SCHOOL
BY AMY BROOKS
]
“LITTLE DOROTHY DAINTY is one of the most generous-hearted of
children. Selfishness is not at all a trait of hers, and she knows
the value of making sunshine, not alone in her own heart, but for her
neighborhood and friends.”--_Boston Courier._
“DOROTHY DAINTY, a little girl, the only child of wealthy parents, is
an exceedingly interesting character, and her earnest and interesting
life is full of action and suitable adventure.”--_Pittsburg Christian
Advocate._
“No finer little lady than DOROTHY DAINTY was ever placed in a book
for children.”--_Teachers’ Journal, Pittsburg._
“MISS BROOKS is a popular writer for the very little folks who can
read. She has an immense sympathy for the children, and her stories
never fail to be amusing.”--_Rochester_ (_N. Y._) _Herald._
[Illustration:
DAINTY DOROTHY AT THE SHORE
BY AMY BROOKS
]
LOTHROP, LEE & SHEPARD CO., BOSTON
LITTLE BETTY BLEW
Her Strange Experiences and Adventures in Indian Land
BY ANNIE M. BARNES
Illustrated by FRANK T. MERRILL 12mo Cloth with gold and colors 300
pages Price $1.25
[Illustration:
LITTLE BETTY BLEW
ANNIE M. BARNES
]
One of the very best books with which to satisfy a young reader’s
natural desire for an “Indian story” is this one of little Betty
Blew and what she saw and experienced when her family removed from
Dorchester, Mass., two hundred years ago, to their home on the Ashley
River above Charleston, South Carolina. Although Betty is but a small
maid she is so wise and true that she charms all, and there are a
number of characters who will interest boys as well as girls, and old
as well as young.
There are many Indians who figure most importantly in many exciting
scenes, but the book, though a splendid “Indian story,” is far more
than that. It is an unusually entertaining tale of the making of a
portion of our country, with plenty of information as well as incident
to commend it, and the account of a delightful family life in the brave
old times. It is good to notice that this story is to be the first of
a colonial series, which will surely be a favorite with children and
their parents. Mr. Merrill’s illustrations are of unusual excellence,
even for that gifted artist, and the binding is rich and beautiful.
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_Only Dollie_
By NINA RHOADES Illustrated by Bertha Davidson Square 12mo Cloth $1.00
This is a brightly written story of a girl of twelve, who, when the
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the book has an indescribable appealing quality which wins sympathy and
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“It is delightful reading at all times.”--_Cedar Rapids_ (_Ia._)
_Republican._
“It is well written, the story runs smoothly, the idea is good, and
it is handled with ability.”--_Chicago Journal._
[Illustration:
ONLY DOLLIE
NINA RHOADES
]
_The Little Girl Next Door_
By NINA RHOADES Large 12mo Cloth Illustrated by Bertha Davidson $1.00
A delightful story of true and genuine friendship between an impulsive
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_Winifred’s Neighbors_
By NINA RHOADES Illustrated by Bertha G. Davidson Large 12mo Cloth
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Little Winifred’s efforts to find some children of whom she reads in
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ought to know, and the story will hold the interest of all ages.
[Illustration:
WINIFRED’S NEIGHBORS
NINA RHOADES
]
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_The Children on the Top Floor_
By NINA RHOADES Large 12mo Cloth Illustrated by Bertha Davidson $1.00
In this book little Winifred Hamilton, the child heroine of “Winifred’s
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Jack, a brave little cripple, who is a year younger. In the end comes
a glad reunion, and also other good-fortune for crippled Jack, and
Winifred’s kind little heart has once more indirectly caused great
happiness to others.
[Illustration:
THE CHILDREN ON THE TOP FLOOR
NINA RHOADES
]
_How Barbara Kept Her Promise_
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Two orphan sisters, Barbara, aged twelve, and little Hazel, who is
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_Little Miss Rosamond_
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Rosamond lives in Richmond, Va., with her big brother, who cannot give
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she meets Gladys and Joy, so well known in a previous book, “The Little
Girl Next Door,” and after some complications are straightened out,
bringing Rosamond’s honesty and kindness of heart into prominence, all
are made very happy.
[Illustration:
LITTLE MISS ROSAMOND
NINA RHOADES
]
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A Boy of a Thousand Years Ago
By HARRIET T. COMSTOCK Large 12mo Profusely illustrated with
full-page drawings and chapter headings by GEORGE VARIAN $1.00
[Illustration:
A BOY of a THOUSAND YEARS AGO.
HARREIT T. COMSTOCK
]
It will at once be understood that the “boy” of the story is Alfred the
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“Not a boy lives who will not enjoy this book thoroughly. There is a
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“Mrs. Comstock writes very appreciatively of Little Alfred, who was
afterward the Great, and from mighty meagre materials creates a story
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The Story of Joan of Arc FOR
BOYS AND GIRLS
By KATE E. CARPENTER Illustrated by AMY BROOKS, also from paintings,
and with map Large 12mo Cloth $1.00
The favorite story of Joan of Arc is here treated in a uniquely
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respectively, to their intense delight. They look up places on the
map, and have a fine time while hearing the thrilling story, told in
such simple language that they can readily understand it all. Parents
and teachers will also be greatly interested in this book from an
educational point of view.
[Illustration:
THE STORY OF
JOAN OF ARC
FOR BOYS AND GIRLS
KATE E. CARPENTER
]
“The tale is well told and the children will delight in
it.”--_Chicago Post._
“Told so simply and clearly that young readers cannot fail to be
entertained and instructed.”--_Congregationalist, Boston._
_For sale by all booksellers or sent postpaid on receipt of price by
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_CHILDREN OF OTHER LANDS SERIES_
_When I Was a Boy in Japan_
By SAKAE SHIOYA Illustrated from photographs 12 mo Cloth $.75
[Illustration:
WHEN I WAS A BOY IN JAPAN
SAKAE SHIOYA
]
The author was born fifty miles from Tokio, and at the age of twelve
began the study of English at a Methodist school. Later he studied
Natural Science in the First Imperial College at Tokio, after which he
taught English and Mathematics. He came to America in 1901, received
the degree of Master of Arts at the University of Chicago, and took a
two years’ post-graduate course at Yale before returning to Japan. No
one could be better qualified to introduce the Japanese to those in
America, and he has done it in a way that will delight both children
and parents.
_When I Was a Girl in Italy_
By MARIETTA AMBROSI 12mo Cloth Illustrated $.75
The author, Marietta Ambrosi, was born in Tyrol, having an
American-born mother of Italian descent, and a Veronese father. Her
entire girlhood was spent in Brescia and other cities of Northern
Italy, and in early womanhood she came with her family to America. Her
story gives a most graphic account of the industries, social customs,
dress, pleasures, and religious observances of the Italian common
people.
_When I Was a Boy in China_
By YAN PHOU LEE 12mo Cloth Illustrated from photographs $.75
New York Independent says: “Yan Phou Lee was one of the young men sent
to this country to be educated here, and finally matriculated at Yale,
where he graduated with honor. ‘When I was a Boy in China’ embodies his
recollections of his native country. It is certainly attractive, with
more room for nature to operate and play in freely than is generally
attributed to Chinese life.”
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LOTHROP, LEE & SHEPARD CO., BOSTON
THE FROLICSOME FOUR
by EDITH L. and ARIADNE GILBERT
Illustrated by JOSEPHINE BRUCE Large 12mo Price $1.00
[Illustration:
THE FROLICSOME
FOUR
EDITH L. GILBERT
AND ARIADNE GILBERT
]
The story of two brothers and two sisters who are as noble in character
as they are enthusiastic in play. The authors have drawn wholesome
child-life with remarkable effect, and this book will win a conspicuous
place for that reason. Everyone will be interested in the fine
scholarship of Larry, the jolly spirits of Gwen, and the tenderness of
little Polly. And when finally Billy, well-meaning and awkward Billy,
actually wins a prize in a most unexpected way, the charm of the story
is complete. Miss Bruce has well caught the spirit of the story in her
illustrations, and with its merry-looking cover, large, clear print,
good paper and broad margins, this is exactly the book to choose for
young boys and girls.
“The authors have woven a clever juvenile tale, portraying child-life
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News._
“The story is happily told, and presents a pretty picture of vigorous
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suits the contents.”--_Episcopal Recorder, Philadelphia._
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They are funny, pathetic, and always lead the child reader or hearer
to think of the real happiness of the dutiful and unselfish traits of
character.”--_New York Observer._
“The book is natural and wholesome, and its attractive appearance in
pictures and type will make it a favorite with children.”--_Portland
Express._
_For sale by all booksellers, or sent postpaid on receipt of price by
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Lothrop, Lee & Shepard Co., Boston
_Cordelia’s Pathway Out_
By EDNA A. FOSTER Editor of Children’s Page in the “Youth’s
Companion” Illustrated by Clara E. Atwood 12mo Cloth $1.00
[Illustration:
CORDELIA’S PATHWAY OUT
EDNA A FOSTER
]