"She won't pay to winter, then," said Farmer Johnson. "We had better eat her." And the following Sunday, when Farmer Johnson sat down for dinner, they brought a big platter of steaming fricassee to the table and that was the end of Old Gray Hen.
A day or two after, when the gobbler happened to meet Madam Duck, she said: "I hear that Gray Hen has left us."
"Yes," said the gobbler, "and I hope she is happier than she was here, but her contentment was greatest when others were distressed."
headpiece to The Worsted Doll
THE WORSTED DOLL
Good Mother Munster and her husband Jacob had five daughters. Of course they loved them dearly, but they often wished for a son.
"Then he could help me in the shop," said Jacob, who was a maker of dolls. "Not that I would exchange one of our girls for a boy," he added, "but I wish we had a son as well as the five girls."
Whether the stork heard this talk between Jacob and his wife and took offense because they questioned his judgment, or whether he thought Jacob and his wife had their number of children, I do not know; but he never called again at their door and their daughters grew up to womanhood without a brother.
One day Jacob hurried in from his shop, which was back of his house. He was very much excited, and talked so fast that good Mother Munster could not understand half he said.