t him by the throat; while the
Phantom Cats stood still in amazement. Drawing his sword the lad hurried
to Shippeitaro's side, and what with Shippeitaro's teeth and the lad's
hard blows, in an instant the great Tomcat was torn and cut into pieces.
When the Phantom Cats saw this, they uttered one wild shriek and fled
away, never to return again.

Then the soldier lad, leading Shippeitaro, returned in triumph to the
peasant's cottage. There in terror the maiden awaited his arrival, but
great was the joy of herself and her parents when they knew that the
Tomcat was no more.

"Oh, sir," cried the maiden, "I can never thank you! I am the only child
of my parents, and no one would have been left to care for them if I had
been the monster's victim."

"Do not thank me," answered the lad. "Thank the brave Shippeitaro. It
was he who sprang upon the great Tomcat and chased away the Phantom
Creatures."

HANSEL AND GRETHEL

BY THE BROTHERS GRIMM (ADAPTED)

Hard-by a great forest dwelt a poor wood-cutter with his two children
and his wife who was their stepmother. The boy was called Hansel and the
girl Grethel. The wood-cutter had little to bite and to break, and once
when a great famine fell on the land he could no longer get daily bread.
Now when he thought over this by night in his bed, and tossed about in
his trouble, he groaned, and said to his wife:--

"What is to become of us? How are we to feed our poor children, when we
no longer have anything even for ourselves?"

"I'll tell you what, husband," answered the woman; "early to-morrow
morning we will take the children out into the woods where it is the
thickest; there we will light a fire for them, and give each of them
one piece of bread more, and then we will go to our work and leave them
alone. They will not find the way home again, and we shall be rid of
them."

"No, wife," said the man, "I will not do that; how can I bear to leave
my children alone in the woods?--the wild beasts would soon come and
tear them to pieces."

"Oh, you fool!" said she. "Then we must all four die of hunger; you may
as well plane the planks for our coffins." And she left him no peace
until he said he would do as she wished.

"But I feel very sorry for the poor children, all the same," said the
man.

The two children had also not been able to sleep for hunger, and had
heard what their father's wife had said to their father.

Grethel wept bitter tears, and said to Hansel, "No