The Cozy Lion: As Told by Queen Crosspatch

by Frances Hodgson Burnett

He smiled and smiled and got up so carefully that he did not upset three or four little boys and girls who were sitting on his back. You can imagine how they shouted with glee when he began to trot gently about with them and give them a ride. Of course everybody wanted to ride. So he trotted softly over the grass first with one load of them and then with another. When each ride was over he lay down very carefully for the children to scramble down from his back and then other ones scrambled up. The things he did that afternoon really made me admire him. A Cozy Lion is nicer to play with than anything else in the world. He shook Ice–cream–grape–juice Melons down from the trees for them.

He carried on his back to a clear little running brook he knew, every one who wanted a drink. He jumped for them, he played tag with them and when he caught them, he rolled them over and over on the grass as if they were kittens; he showed them how his big claws would go in and out of his velvet paws like a pussy cat's. Whatever game they played he would always be "It," if they wanted him to. When the tiniest ones got sleepy he made grass beds under the shade of trees and picked them up daintily by their frocks or little trousers and carried them to their nests just as kittens or puppies are carried by their mothers. And when the others wanted to be carried too, he carried them as well.

The children enjoyed themselves so much that they forgot about going home altogether. And as they had laughed and run about every minute and had had such fun, by the time the sun began to go down they were all as sleepy as could be. But even then one little fellow in a white sailor suit asked for something else. He went and stood by the Lion with one arm around his neck and the other under his chin. "Can you roar, old Lion?" he asked him. "I am sure you can roar."

The Lion nodded slowly three times.

"He says 'Yes—Yes,'" shouted everybody, "Oh! do roar for us as loud as ever you can. We won't be frightened the least bit."

The Lion nodded again and smiled. Then he lifted up his head and opened his mouth and roared and roared and ROARED. They were not the least bit frightened. They just shrieked and laughed and jumped up and down and made him do it over and over again.

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Now I will tell you what had happened in the village.

At first when the children ran away the mothers and fathers were all at their work and did not miss them for several hours. It was at lunch time that the grown–ups began to find out the little folks were gone and then one mother ran out into the village street, and then another and then another, until all the mothers were there, and all of them were talking at once and wringing their hands and crying. They went and looked under beds, and tables and in cupboards, and in back gardens and in front gardens, and they rushed to the village pond to see if there were any little hats or bonnets floating on the top of the water. But all was quiet and serene and nothing was floating anywhere—and there was not one sign of the children.