From 'West Highland Tales.'






The Story of a Very Bad Boy




Once upon a time there lived in a little village in the very
middle of France a widow and her only son, a boy about fifteen,
whose name was Antoine, though no one ever called him anything
but Toueno-Boueno. They were very poor indeed, and their hut
shook about their ears on windy nights, till they expected the
walls to fall in and crush them, but instead of going to work as
a boy of his age ought to do, Toueno-Boueno did nothing but
lounge along the street, his eyes fixed on the ground, seeing
nothing that went on round him.

'You are very, very stupid, my dear child,' his mother would
sometimes say to him, and then she would add with a laugh,
'Certainly you will never catch a wolf by the tail.'

One day the old woman bade Antoine go into the forest and collect
enough dry leaves to make beds for herself and him. Before he had
finished it began to rain heavily, so he hid himself in the