Jr.

"Yet there is one thing I would warn you of," replied the retainer,
pausing before taking himself off. "In yonder forest is a gingerbread
cottage. Beware of it, for within lives a wicked witch." With these
words he turned away and crossed the gingerbread bridge that led back to
Cranberry Tart Island.

"A gingerbread cottage," laughed Puss to himself, following the path
that led into the forest:

"A gingerbread bridge
And a gingerbread house,
A gingerbread cat
And a gingerbread mouse.
But the gingerbread cat
Ate the gingerbread mouse
As she ran on the bridge
From the gingerbread house."

PUSS IN BOOTS, JR., VISITS THE OLD WOMAN IN THE SHOE

It was now about high noon; but the air was cool and balmy, for the sun
hardly penetrated the deep recesses of the green forest. As Puss trudged
along he sang a little song to himself. I think he must have been
something of a poet, for unconsciously his words rhymed and the air also
was of his own making. A little brown wren, who was hopping along on the
green moss that covered the floor of the great forest, heard him, and
she told it to some one who afterward told it to me. And this is the way
the little song went:

Through the woods, the cool woods,
The green woods, sweet with balm and fir,
To the music of the breeze
Singing softly through the trees
This the song I purr:--
Happy he who travels far,
Travels far and free,
Over valley, over hill,
Over smiling lea;
Never weary of the road,
Happy that he be
Just a jolly traveler
Wandering, like me!

As Puss finished his song he emerged from the woods and found himself
upon a broad highway. "This must be the road that will lead me to my
father's home," he said to himself, and joyfully proceeded on his
journey.

In the distance he saw what looked like a queer little house, but as he
drew nearer he saw it wasn't a house at all, but a big shoe. So many
children were playing around, running in and out, that he would have
found it difficult to count them, even if he had tried.

"Hello!" he called out to a little boy who was the only one who hadn't
run into the shoe to tell mother that a big cat with boots on was coming
up the garden walk.

"Hello!" Puss, Jr., said again, and the little fellow bashfully put out
his hand.

"You have pretty boots," he said, looking down at them.

"Yes," answered their owner, "I'm rath