LITTLE RED RIDING HOOD.
BY the side of a wood
A cottage once stood,
Where a little girl dwelt, who wore a red hood.
Her father of trees in the forest was cutter,
And her mother sold poultry, milk, eggs, cream, and butter.
The little red hood,
It must be understood,
Belonged to a mantle—as pretty and proper a cloak
As e'er you set eyes on:—in short, a red opera cloak.
But operas ne'er, that I am aware,
Had been heard of by any one dwelling round there;
Whereas every dame had a cloak bright as flame
That she wore when out riding (which gave it its name.)
For then in those parts
They'd no chaises, spring-carts,
Gigs, or waggonettes, such as a farmer now starts;
So Hodge, Reuben, or Giles,
Went his eight or ten miles
By the road—or the bridle path, dodging the stiles—
On his nag, grey or brown, to the next market town.
And were you to meet him, I'd bet you a crown
You would certainly find him
(If your sight's not, like mine, dim,)
A-jogging along with the goodwife behind him,
Perched up on the pillion of Dobbin or Dapple,
With a cloak like a poppy and cheeks like an apple:—
A cloak with a hood, that was really some good,
For use, not for ornament—one that you could
(That is, if you would)
Draw over your face quite closely, in case
The sun was too warm or the rain fell apace,—
A both-ears-protecting, eyes-shading, hair-hiding hood.
And that's why they called the child Little Red Riding Hood.
By the side of the cot where Red Riding Hood dwelt
Was a garden, surrounded by trees;
The flowers were the sweetest that ever were smelt,
And were greatly beloved by the bees,
Who led jolly lives
In a couple of hives
Well sheltered from shower and from breeze.
Beyond the small garden, whose flowers were so sweet
Bees wooed them through long summer days,
The woodman had cleared a small patch for the wheat
That, as each year came round, he would raise,
To grind and to bake
For bread and for cake——
Simple wheat, not that wonder, a maize!
Now the sun rises and the world awakes,
For morning—like a careless servant—breaks;
And from house, hut, and cot,
Hind, farmer, or what not,
Each villager his way to labour takes.
Each stride he makes a thousand dew-drops shakes
From off the fresh green grass they were besprinkling,
And makes them wink,
And gleam, and glance, and blink,
Until the peasant in great haste you think
Because he walks the whole way in a twinkling.
Red Riding Hood's father has shouldered his axe,
And is off to the woods again.
At the thwacks and the cracks as the timber he hacks
The echoing shades complain;
But woe to the stem that his steel attacks,
For its murmurs are all in vain.
Red Riding Hood's mother has risen with day,
As soon as the hens were awake,
And down to the kitchen has taken her way,
From the hearth all the embers to rake,
And the butter and flour on the table to lay,
For she's bent upon making a cake.
But little Red Riding Hood's slumbering yet—
She is terribly lazy, I fear;
For little folks up in the morning should get
As soon as the light becomes clear,
And not sleep away
The best time of the day,
Which is six, or about:—as I hear.
When the cake's nice and brown
The young lady comes down,
In her little white apron and little blue gown;
Has for breakfast a bowl of fresh milk from the cow,
And when she has finished, her mother says, "Now,
Just slip on your cloak, dear, as quick as you can; I
Want you to carry some things to your granny!"
Red Riding Hood's drest,
And, looking her best,
Is only awaiting her mother's behest.
On the table is laid
The cake that was made
Ere Red Riding Hood opened her eyes, I'm afraid,
And beside it a pot
Whose equal could not
At Fortnum and Mason's be easily got;
For, as every one tells me, fine fragrant fresh honey
Is not always obtainable, even for money.
There are very few treats in the matter of sweets,
Like the honey one fresh from the honeycomb eats.
But fond as I am of a little fresh honey,
I can't watch the bees in their wanderings sunny
Without a great risk of a painful disaster,
Though I think it would trouble the famous "Beemaster"
(As his real name's a secret, we 'll say Dr. Thingamy)
To explain to a "fellah,"
Qui tam amat viella,
How it is that the bees make an object to sting o' me.)
"Little Red Riding Hood, child of mine,".
Said the mother to her daughter,
"Through the forest of beeches, and larches, and pine,
And down by the pool of water,
And over the fields to your grandmother's cot
With the griddle-cake and the honey-pot,
Go, and tell her what you have brought her.
But—mind what I say—do not delay
To chatter with folks or pick flowers on the way!"
Little Red Riding Hood promised her mother
She'd not stop on the road to do one or the other.
"Such allurements I old enough now to withstand am,
So I 'll carry the honey and cake to my grandam,
And then you shall see how quick I can be.
Good bye, dearest mother!" And off hurried she.
The fields with buttercups are gold,
The hedges white with may;
The woodbine's trumpets manifold
Are bright beside the way;
The foxglove rears its lofty spire
Where hang the purple bells;
In shady quiet nooks retire
The modest pimpernels;
The poppy the green corn-fields decks,
The meads are bright with cowslips.
She loiters on her way, nor recks
How rapidly time now slips.
She enters now a glade,
Dappled with light and shade,
Through which the path is to her grandam's made;
And as she strolls along,
Singing her careless song,
She meets a grim grey wolf. She's not afraid,
Because close by
She hears her father ply
His axe, and knows he'd to the rescue fly
If Master Wolf should any treason try.
And Master Wolf knows too it would not do,
Although it's hard with such a meal in view;
And so most laudably
He makes himself quite pleasant,
For the present,
Albeit his stomach's crying "cupboard" audibly.
"What a nice cloak of scarlet!
How pretty you are! Let
Me carry that cake or that very big jar:—let
Me carry it, pray—are you taking it far? Let
Me see you safe there!" said the wicked old varlet.
Alas! for Little Red Riding Hood,
That she should be naughty instead of good;
That she should let the old wolf flatter,
And allow him to walk
By her side and talk,
When her mother so strictly forbade her to chatter.
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"What your name is, my dear," he said, "fain I'd be knowing."
"I'm Little Red Riding Hood." "Where are you going?"
"I am going to my granny's, to carry this jar
And this cake from my mother." "Indeed! Is it far?"
"Oh, you go through the wood, and a little beyond
You 'll see a small cottage that stands by a pond."
"And your granny lives there?" "Yes; but now she's so old
She can't get out of bed and she suffers from cold."
"Poor dear," said the wolf, with a pitying grin;
"But how does she do about letting you in?"
"When I reach granny's cottage I always take care
To knock at the door till she calls out 'Who's there?'
]Your grandchild, who brings you a bite and a sup
From her mother,' say I;
And she's sure to reply,
'If you pull at the bobbin the latch will fly up.'
That's how I get in." "Oh!" said wolf, in a hurry,
"This lane is my way,
So I 'll wish you good day."
And he vanished at once in a terrible scurry;
Said Red Riding Hood, "Doesn't he seem in a flurry!"
Like a shot from a rifle,—or faster a trifle,
Away goes the wolf, and, I 'll wager my life, 'll
Be up to some mischief or other ere long,
For his only delight is in doing what's wrong.
Off through the wood—(he's up to no good),
Hastening still—(bent upon ill),
Round by the pond, to the cottage beyond
(He's after some evil I 'll give you my bond),
Stealing along—(intending a wrong)
Towards the grandam's abode, by the skirts of the road,
(By skirts I don't mean either muslin or calico,)
He sneaks to what Shakespeare has called "miching mallecho."
Rap, tap! at the door.
In the midst of a snore
The old lady woke up with a start, and said, "Lor!
Red Riding Hood ne'er knocked so loudly before.
Oh, deary me, it cannot be she;
I 'll pretend I 'm still sleeping, and then we shall see."
Rap, tap! once more
She heard at the door:
The wolf rapped so hard that his knuckles were sore.
"The old woman sleeps like a top—what a bore!
If she doesn't make haste,
My time I shall waste—
I shall miss that tit-bit who's so much to my taste."
Rap, tap! Tap, rap!
"She must wake from her nap,
Or the child will be here
Before I can clear
Her foolish old grandmother up, every scrap."
At last said the grandam,
"I rather a hand am
At sleeping, I know,
Very soundly, and so
Perhaps she has waited and knocked there so long
That, in order to wake me, her tap becomes strong.
Who 's there?" then she cried;
Said the wolf from outside,
Disguising his voice the deception to hide,
And whispering low with his mouth to a cranny,
"It's no one but Little Red Riding Hood, granny!
I've brought you some butter, some eggs, and a cake
That mother got up in the morning to make,
And she sends you besides some nice cream in a cup"
"If you pull at the bobbin the latch will fly up!"
Wolf pulled at the bobbin,
And—what a sad job!—in
He went; but no sooner had thrust his grim knob in
(But for rhyming, instead
Of "knob" I'd say "head")
Than the frightened old lady sat bolt up in bed:
But before she had time to exclaim, "Oh my gracious!"
She was bolted entire by the monster voracious;
Who, though the fierce pangs of his hunger were gratified,
Remarked to himself, with a grumble dissatisfied,
Tough skinny old folks are not nice things to victual one;
However, no matter! Here goes for the little one!"
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Then he turned down the bed-clothes and quickly jumped in,
And granny's big nightcap tied under his chin:
And he cuddled the clothes
Close up to his nose,
And was speedily off in a very nice doze;
For said he, "For Red Riding Hood if I'd have any
Respectable twist I must first digest granny.
For though at one meal I could eat child, pa, and mamma,
There's a good deal of picking somehow about grandmamma!"
Little Red Riding Hood loitered along,
Stopping to hear while the thrush sang his song,
Or to list in the croft to the blackbird's clear whistle,
Or to follow the feathery down of the thistle—
Or blowing in flocks
The seeds from the "clocks"
Of the bright dandelions, or searching the docks
For the burrs, whose chief trick
Is to catch and to stick
To one's garments, no matter if thin ones or thick:
(Though it matters to you,
Because they come through—
Supposing your clothes are the former—and prick.
Why, foolish butterfly,
Will you skip, flutter, fly
Close by the child? You 're an idiot utter, fly!
She puts down the honey and cake in a trice,
And the latter's immediately stolen by the mice.
But what does the latter at all to her matter:
She's after that butterfly, mad as a hatter.
[It's not clear to me
Why a hatter should be
Proverbially called a fit subject for De
Luncitico—so runs the writ—inquirendo;
But I fancy the hatter this harsh innuendo
Must, in the first place, to a humorous friend owe,
Who fain in the sneer would his gratitude smother
For a man who's invariably felt for another.]
Through pastures and meads as the butterfly leads,
Red Riding Hood follows, and little she heeds
The orders and warning her mother that morning
Had given her, or even her grandmother's needs.
But when she comes back once again to the track,
And finds the cake gone, she grows frightened. "Alack!"
She cries, "what a loss!
Won't granny be cross,
To breakfast off nothing—with honey for sauce?"
Just then a glittering dragon-fly
On gauzy pinion darted by.
Oh, he was clad in burnished mail,
His wing a fairy galley's sail,
And he was twice as big, I ween,
As the biggest butterfly she had seen.
Soon forgotten the honey's;
She off with a run is
Where the dragon-fly glancing so bright in the sun is.
By ditches and hedges, by rushes and sedges,
By ponds full of reeds and all sorts of weeds,
By pools that are stagnant, and brooks full of waterbreaks,
She chases Libellula Eagerly. [Well, you'll a-
Llow there must some
Awful punishment come
When her mother's commands in this manner a daughter,
But conceive her concern
When, on her return,
She finds that an empty jar's all she can earn.
For the ants had discovered it placed in a sunny spot,
And cleared all the honey, and left but the honey's pot.
Said she, "Lack-a-day!
What will grandmother say?
And shan't I get scolded for stopping to play!
I'd better get on without further delay!"
Resolution how vain! Again and again
She loiters in meadow, wood, highway, and lane—
Strays into the coppice
To pick the bright poppies,
Or climbs up the hedge for the nest that a-top is;
Or else she emerges
Where widely diverges
The forest's long avenues—leafy green arches
Of beeches, of ashes, of elms and of larches,
Which she lingers beneath
To pick for a wreath
A bright trail of ivy, that some lofty stem on is,
Or with bluebells her apron to fill—or anemones;
Or to watch the quaint habits
And ways of the rabbits,
And the plans of the crows,
Who, as every one knows,
Establish their scouts
At certain look-outs,
To warn them of danger whenever they 've doubts.
[As touching these rooks,
Natural History books
Declare that the thing to their greatest éclat's The fact—which should win them the warmest applause—
That nothing they do is e'er done without caws.]
But now she has passed
Through the forest, and fast
Is approaching her grandmother's cottage at last.
What excuse can she make
For the honey and cake?
At the thought of that scrape she's beginning to quake.
She creeps through the garden,
Attempting to harden
Her heart, and declare she "Don't care a brass farden."
But, in spite of her trying,
She's very near crying,
And asking her granny to grant her a pardon.
The knock is so faint, that the wolf's scarce aware
That there's any one knocking, but cries out, "Who's there
"Red Riding Hood"—here on her speech broke a sob in—
"Come to see you." Said wolf, "If you pull at the bobbin,
The latch will fly up!" So she opened the door,
And tottered with terrified feet o'er the floor.
Said wolf, "Where's the cake
Mother promised to make?"
"Please, granny, to-day she's not able to bake,
For love or for money."
"Then where is my honey?"
"What makes you expect any, granny? How funny!"
Said Little Red Riding Hood, trying to smile,
Although in a terrible fright all the while.
"To send me no breakfast," said wolf, "she was silly;
I 'm feeling so hungry and faint, I'm quite chilly.
As you 've brought me no food, you must warm me instead;
I 'll take you in place of my breakfast in bed.
So take off your things, and, some help to your gran to be,
Jump into bed, just for once warming-pan to be."
She takes off her clothes,
And into bed goes.
Old wolf keeps the counterpane up to his nose,
But the child sees with fear
That, now she's so near,
Her grandmother's looking remarkably queer.
She trembles with fright, and in sad perturbation,
Commences the following brief conversation:
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"Oh, granny, I view your long ears with surprise!"
"They 're to hear all you say to the letter."
"Oh, granny, how fiery and big are your eyes!"
"They 're to see you all the better."
"Oh, granny, your teeth are tremendous in size!"
"They 're to eat you!"
—AND HE ATE HER.