this time it was getting late, and Mr Vinegar was tired, and when he saw a man coming towards him with a good stout stick in his hand, Mr Vinegar said, “Eh dear. I do wish I had a good stout stick in my hand to lean on, and then. But never mind.”
‘You can have my stick,” said the man, “if you’ll give me your gloves.”
“Done!” said Mr Vinegar. The man took the gloves, and Mr Vinegar took the stick and he marched off to show it to his wife.
Now there was a parrot sitting in a tree, and when it saw Mr Vinegar on the road it laughed, and said, “You rum cove! You could have got that stick from any hedge. Where are your golden guineas now?”
“You get off with your bother!” said Mr Vinegar, and he was so vexed he threw the stick at the parrot; but he missed, and the stick lodged fast in the tree where he couldn’t reach it, and the parrot flew away, laughing.
So, with no cow, no bagpipes, no gloves, and no stick, either, Mr Vinegar went back to his wife. But Mrs Vinegar, didn’t she give him some stick, after? What! She did that! I’ll say she did! She gave him stick all right, and no error!
Once upon a time there was a grey goat, and she had three kids. She went to the forest to fetch wood for the stove, and when she came back the kids had gone. They were not in the house. They were not in the Held. So the grey goat set out to find them.
She met a gull on a rock, and she said:
“Here am I,
a grey goat.
Lost are my kind kids.
Back and to I go.
Dark is the night
till I find them.”
But the gull said:
“By earth that is under,
by air that is over,
I have not seen your kids.”
The grey goat went on, until she met a crow at a gate, and she said:
“Here am I,
a grey goat.
Lost are my kind kids.
Back and to I go.
Dark is the night
till I find them.”
But the crow said:
“By earth that is under,
by air that is over,
I have not seen your kids.”
So the grey goat went on, until she came to the house of a fox; and she stood on the roof. The fox looked out of the window, and said:
“It grows dim here.
My pot will not boil.
My cake will not bake.
My child will not go to the well.
Who is on top?”
And the grey goat said:
“Here am I,
a grey goat.
Lost are my kind kids.
Back and to I go.
Dark is the night
till I find them.”
But the fox said:
“By thorn and by fire,
by earth that is under, by star and by storm, I have not seen your kids.”
The grey goat said, “Even so, let me in.” So the fox let her in. And the grey goat looked all around, and said:
“No food on the shelf.
No meal in the pot. Yet here’s a fat fox, not a lean one.”
And the fox said again:
“By thorn and by fire,
by earth that is under,
by star and by storm,
I have not seen your kids.
Never. Never.
I have not seen your kids.”
But the grey goat looked all around, and said:
“No food on the shelf—”
And a voice called out, “Mother!”
And the grey goat said:
“No meal in the pot—”
And a voice called out, “Mother! Mother!”
And the grey goat said:
“Yet here’s a fat fox,
not a lean one!”
And a voice called out, “Mother! Mother!
