From The Child's Picture and Verse Book;
Commonly Called
Otto Speckter's Fable Book.
Translated From the Original German, By Mary Howitt,
(New York: D. Appleton & Co., 1845.)

THE CAT IN THE SNOW.

Why lift up your little paw, Pussy-Cat, so?
And why do you look so uneasy, I pray?
Do you fear you may sink to the neck in the snow?
And really, 'tis terribly cold to-day!
It would be much better, I do declare,
If good stout boots you were to wear!

Truly of boots the Cat had no store,
But she helped herself, like a Cat discreet —
Ran through the snow to the barn's open door,
Shook herself, and then licked her feet;
And there she had space, and was merry enough,
And climbed to the highest beam in the roof.

*
From Picture Fables,
Drawn by Otto Speckter.
With Rhymes Translated from the German of F. Hey,
By Henry W. Dulcken.
(New York: D. Appleton & Co., 1858)

THE CAT IN THE SNOW

"Pussy, you lift your paws so high,
And look down on them so ruefully,
To your neck almost you sink in the snow.
It's cold, is it not, down there to go?
Would not your walking be better done
If a pair of good stout boots you'd on?"

She didn't wear boots, our good little cat,
But she march'd on bravely, in spite of that.
Through the snow she whisk'd at the barn-door in;
Where she shook, and she lick'd her paws quite clean.
And she caught no cold, but sprang merrily
To the highest beam of the old root-tree.