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Puss Junior and Robinson Crusoe

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<hr style="width: 65%;" />[95] <h2>"WHEN I WAS A LITTLE BOY"</h2> <div class='cap'>IT was a queer looking house that Puss, Junior, saw in the distance. It seemed more like a box, with another little box tacked on, through the top of which rose a long piece of stove pipe, which, I suppose, served as a chimney, although chimneys are usually made of bricks in Old Mother Goose Country.</div> On the front porch sat a little old man, smoking a pipe, from which the smoke drifted away in little gray clouds, while the smoke from the stovepipe chimney stretched out like a long black feather. "Good-day," said Puss, taking off his hat. "Come and rest beside me," said the old man, pushing forward an armchair. So Puss sat down, and after wiping the perspiration from his forehead remarked, "A warm day, my good sir." "Yes, indeed," replied the little old man, "but all days seem very much alike to me." "Do they?" asked Puss. "Why?" "Well, I'll tell you the story of my life," said the little old man, and, taking his pipe from his lips, he began:[96] <div class='poem'> "When I was a little boy I lived by myself, And all the bread and cheese I got I laid upon the shelf. The rats and the mice They made such a strife, That I was forced to go to town, And buy me a wife. The streets were so broad, And the lanes were so narrow, I was forced to bring my wife home In a wheelbarrow. The wheelbarrow broke, And my wife had a fall. Farewell wheelbarrow, wife and all." </div> "And have you lived alone ever since?" asked Puss. "Yes," replied the old man, "and the mice and the rats give me no peace. They eat up all my cheese and flour." "I'll help you," said Puss. "Let me stay here to-night, and I'll catch every rat and mouse that bothers you inside the house." "You can make up poetry as well as I can," said the old man, with a laugh. "Why, that's the first laugh I've had in many a long year. I like you, Sir Cat. You are an obliging sort of person. You shall have the best that my small home affords. I only hope you will rid the place of rats and mice." "Leave that to me," replied Puss, with a grin. <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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