Lean Gray Wolf comes creeping, creeping, creeping up. He smells in the snow the tracks of the little white rabbits. He sniffs, and sniffs, and sniffs.
I looked, and saw two wolves running through the field: one was full-grown, and the other a whelp. The whelp was carrying a dead lamb on his shoulders, and holding on to one of its legs with its teeth.
‘Granny!’ Red Riding Hood cried, ‘What very long arms you have got!’ The Wolf answered, ‘The better to hug you, my child.’
The wolf thought to himself, ‘That tender young thing would be a delicious morsel, and would taste better than the old one.’
The poor child said to the Wolf: ‘I am going to see my grandmother, and carry her a custard and a little pot of butter from my mamma.’
The Gray Wolf said: ‘Paupukewis, try to remember that it is not a long tail which makes a good hunter.’
‘What do you mean,’ said the Wolf, glaring upon the Lamb with his fierce eyes, ‘by taking up so much of the path where I am walking?’
It was not long before some one knocked at the house-door and cried, ‘Open the door, dear children; your mother is here, and has brought something back with her for each of you.’
‘Oh, gently! gently!’ replied the Ass, as the Wolves proceeded to feel his pulse.
Leopard and Wolf promised the ants that on their return they would spread a feast for them. Unfortunately, Spider heard the invitation and made up his mind to benefit by it.