e wild boar's ear, she pounced upon it, thinking it
was a mouse in the straw.

The wild boar got up in a dreadful fright, gave one loud grunt and
disappeared into the wood. But the cat was even more startled than the
boar, and, spitting with terror, she scrambled up into the fork of the
tree, and as it happened right into the bear's face. Now it was the
bear's turn to be alarmed, and with a mighty growl he jumped down from
the oak and fell right on the top of the wolf and killed him as dead as
a stone.

On their way home from the war the fox caught score of mice, and when
they reached Simon's cottage he put them all on the stove and said to
the cat, 'Now go and fetch one mouse after the other, and lay them down
before your master.'

'All right,' said the cat, and did exactly as the fox told her.

When Susan saw this she said to her husband, 'Just look, here is our old
cat back again, and see what a lot of mice she has caught.'

'Wonders will never cease,' cried Simon. 'I certainly never thought the
old cat would ever catch another mouse.'

But Susan answered, 'There, you see, I always said our cat was a most
excellent creature--but you men always think you know best.'

In the meantime the fox said to the dog, 'Our friend Simon has just
killed a pig; when it gets a little darker, you must go into the
courtyard and bark with all your might.'

'All right,' said the dog, and as soon as it grew dusk he began to bark
loudly.

Susan, who heard him first, said to her husband, 'Our dog must have
come back, for I hear him barking lustily. Do go out and see what's the
matter; perhaps thieves may be stealing our sausages.'

But Simon answered, 'The foolish brute is as deaf as a post and is
always barking at nothing,' and he refused to get up.

The next morning Susan got up early to go to church at the neighbouring
town, and she thought she would take some sausages to her aunt who lived
there. But when she went to her larder, she found all the sausages gone,
and a great hole in the floor. She called out to her husband, 'I was
perfectly right. Thieves have been here last night, and they have not
left a single sausage. Oh! if you had only got up when I asked you to!'

Then Simon scratched his head and said, 'I can't understand it at all. I
certainly never believed the old dog was so quick at hearing.'

But Susan replied, 'I always told you our old dog was the best dog in
the world--but as usual you thought you knew so m