The old Fox went on carrying the stone and never knew the difference.  My, but it bumped him well!  He was pretty tired when he got home.  But he was so pleased to think of the supper he was going to have that he did not mind that at all.  As soon as his mother opened the door he said, “Is the kettle boiling?”

“Yes,” said his mother; “have you got the little Red Hen?”

“I have,” said the old Fox.  “When I open the bag you hold the cover off the kettle and I’ll shake the bag so that the Hen will fall in, and then you pop the cover on, before she can jump out.”

“All right,” said his mean old mother; and she stood close by the boiling kettle, ready to put the cover on.

The Fox lifted the big, heavy bag up till it was over the open kettle, and gave it a shake.  Splash! thump! splash!  In went the stone and out came the boiling water, all over the old Fox and the old Fox’s mother!

And they were scalded to death.

But the little Red Hen lived happily ever after, in her own little farmhouse.

THE STORY OF THE LITTLE RID HIN[1]

[1] From Horace E. Scudder’s Doings of the Bodley Family in Town and Country (Houghton, Mifflin & Co.).

 There was once’t upon a time
   A little small Rid Hin,
 Off in the good ould country
   Where yees ha’ nivir bin.

 Nice and quiet shure she was,
   And nivir did any harrum;
 She lived alane all be herself,
   And worked upon her farrum.

 There lived out o’er the hill,
   In a great din o’ rocks,
 A crafty, shly, and wicked
   Ould folly iv a Fox.

 This rashkill iv a Fox,
   He tuk it in his head
 He’d have the little Rid Hin: 
   So, whin he wint to bed,

 He laid awake and thaught
   What a foine thing ’twad be
 To fetch her home and bile her up
   For his ould marm and he.

 And so he thaught and thaught,
   Until he grew so thin
 That there was nothin’ left of him
   But jist his bones and shkin.

 But the small Rid Hin was wise,
   She always locked her door,
 And in her pocket pit the key,
   To keep the Fox out shure.

 But at last there came a schame
   Intil his wicked head,
 And he tuk a great big bag
   And to his mither said,—­

 “Now have the pot all bilin’
   Agin the time I come;
 We’ll ate the small Rid Hin to-night,
   For shure I’ll bring her home.”

 And so away he wint
   Wid the bag upon his back,
 An’ up the hill and through the woods
   Saftly he made his track.

 An’ thin he came alang,
   Craping as shtill’s a mouse,
 To where the little small Rid Hin
   Lived in her shnug ould house.

 An’ out she comes hersel’,
   Jist as he got in sight,
 To pick up shticks to make her fire: 
   “Aha!” says Fox, “all right.