[1] I have tried to give this story in the most familiar form; it
varies a good deal in the hands of different story-tellers, but this is
substantially the version I was "brought up on." The form of the
ending was suggested to me by the story in Carolyn Bailey's For the
Children's Hour (Milton Bradley Co.).
Once upon a time there was a little old woman and a little old man, and
they lived all alone in a little old house. They hadn't any little
girls or any little boys, at all. So one day, the little old woman
made a boy out of gingerbread; she made him a chocolate jacket, and put
cinnamon seeds in it for buttons; his eyes were made of fine, fat
currants; his mouth was made of rose-colored sugar; and he had a gay
little cap of orange sugar-candy. When the little old woman had rolled
him out, and dressed him up, and pinched his gingerbread shoes into
shape, she put him in a pan; then she put the pan in the oven and shut
the door; and she thought, "Now I shall have a little boy of my own."
When it was time for the Gingerbread Boy to be done she opened the oven
door and pulled out the pan. Out jumped the little Gingerbread Boy on
to the floor, and away he ran, out of the door and down the street!
The little old woman and the little old man ran after him as fast as
they could, but he just laughed, and shouted,--
"Run! run! as fast as you can!
"You can't catch me, I'm the Gingerbread Man!"
And they couldn't catch him.
The little Gingerbread Boy ran on and on, until he came to a cow, by
the roadside. "Stop, little Gingerbread Boy," said the cow; "I want to
eat you." The little Gingerbread Boy laughed, and said,--
"I have run away from a little old woman,
"And a little old man,
"And I can run away from you, I can!"