The Hen's child said, "My mother said I must come and ask thee how early shall we go to the neighbouring town?"
The Cat said to the Hen's child, "Go and tell thy mother to arise and come at the cockcrowing; for what should eat her?"
The Hen's child returned to its mother, and said to her, "Behold I went to the Cat's place where thou sentest me, and am come back."
The Hen said to her child, "What did the Cat say? Let me hear what word she spoke?"
Her child answered and said to her, "My mother, the word which the Cat spoke is this: 'Go and tell thy mother to come to me when the cock crows, that we may go; for what should eat her?'"
Its mother, the Hen, said to her child, "My child, lie down in your house, for I have heard what the Cat said."
The child of the Hen obeyed her mother, went and lay down, and also her mother lay down. They slept their sleep until the cock crew, which when the Cat heard, she arose, got ready and waited for the Hen, thinking, "May she come that we may go!" The cock crew the second time, and the Cat looked out on the way whence the Hen was to come, thinking, "May she come that we may go!"
The Hen did not get up at home and day came on. When it became day, the Cat arose in her house, went to the Hen's home, and said to her, "Hen, thou sentest thy child to me, and asked at what time thou shouldst rise up, and I said to thy child, 'Go and tell thy mother to come when the cock crows, that we may go.' Did it not tell thee what it was told by me, that thou art still sitting at home although it has become day?"
The Hen said to the Cat, "Sister Cat, if thou wishest to have me for a friend, I must never get up in my house and come out at night."
The Cat said to the Hen, "What art thou afraid of that thou sayest, 'I will never come out at night'? What is there in the way?"