



Produced by Elaine Laizure from images generously made
available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.





THE COZY LION

FRANCES HODGSON BURNETT



The Cozy Lion

As told by Queen Crosspatch

By

Frances Hodgson Burnett

Author of "Little Lord Fauntleroy"

With Illustrations by Harrison Cady





The Century Co.

New York


Copyright, 1907, by

THE CENTURY CO.

Published October, 1907

Printed in U. S. A.




I AM very fond of this story of the Cozy Lion because I consider
it a great credit to me. I reformed that Lion and taught him how
to behave himself. The grown-up person who reads this story aloud
to children MUST know how to Roar.




THE COZY LION

I SHALL never forget the scolding I gave him to begin with. One
of the advantages of being a Fairy even quite a common one is
that Lions can't bite you. A Fairy is too little and too light.
If they snap at you it's easy to fly through their mouths, and
even if they catch you, if you just get behind their teeth you
can make them so uncomfortable that they will beg you to get out
and leave them in peace.

Of course it was all the Lion's fault that I scolded him. Lions
ought to live far away from people. Nobody likes Lions roaming
about--particularly where there are children. But this Lion said he
wanted to get into Society, and that he was very fond of children--
little fat ones between three and four. So instead of living on a
desert, or in a deep forest or a jungle he took the large Cave on
the Huge Green Hill, only a few miles from a village full of the
fattest, rosiest little children you ever saw.

He had only been living in the Cave a few days, but even in that
short time the mothers and fathers had found out he was there, and
everybody who could afford it had bought a gun and snatched it up
even if they saw a donkey coming down the road, because they were
afraid it might turn out to be a Lion. As for the mothers, they
were nearly crazy with fright, and dare not let their children go
out to play and had to shut them up in top rooms and cupboards and
cellars, they were so afraid the Lion might be hiding behind trees
to jump out at them. So everything was beginning to be quite
spoiled because nobody could have any fun.

Of course if they had had any sense and believed in Fairies and had
just gone out some moonlight night and all joined hands and danced
slowly around in a circle and sung:

     Fairies pink and Fairies rose
     Fairies dancing on pearly toes
        We want you, Oh! we want you!
     Fairy Queens and Fairy slaves
     Who are not afraid of Lions' Caves
        Please to come to help us,

then it would have been all right, because we should have come in
millions, especially if they finished with this verse:

     Our troubles we can never tell
     But if _you_ would come it would all be well
        Par-tic-u-lar-ly Silverbell.


But they hadn't sense enough for that--of course they hadn't--_of
course they hadn't_! Which shows what <DW38>s people are.

But you see I am much nicer than _un_-fairy persons, even if I have
lost my nice little, pink little, sweet little Temper and if I am
cross. So when I saw the children fretting and growing pale because
they had to be shut up, and the mothers crying into their washtubs
when they were washing, until the water slopped over, I made up my
mind I would go and talk to that Lion myself in a way he wouldn't
soon forget.

It was a beautiful morning, and the Huge Green Hill looked lovely.
A shepherd who saw me thought I was a gold and purple butterfly and
threw his hat at me--the idiot! Of course he fell down on his nose--
and very right and proper too.

When I got to the Cave, the Lion was sitting outside his door and
he was crying. He was one of these nasty-tempered, discontented
Lions who are always thinking themselves injured; large round tears
were rolling down his nose and he was sniffling. But I must say he
was handsome. He was big and smooth and had the most splendid mane
and tail I ever saw.

He would have been like a King if he had had a nicer expression.
But there he sat sniffling.

"I'm so lonely," he said. "Nobody calls. Nobody pays me any
attention. And I came here for the Society. No one is fonder of
Society than I am."

I sat down on a flowering branch near him and shouted at him,
"What's the use of Society when you eat it up?" I said.

He jumped up and lashed his tail and growled but at first he could
not see me.

"What's it for _but_ to be eaten up?" he roared. "First I want it
to entertain me and then I want it for dessert. Where are you? Who
are you?"

"I'm Queen Crosspatch--Queen Silverbell as was," I said. "I suppose
you have heard of _me_?"

"I've heard nothing good," he growled. "A good chewing is what
_you_ want!"

He _had_ heard something about me, but not enough. The truth was he
didn't really believe in Fairies--which was what brought him into
trouble.

By this time he had seen me and he was ignorant enough to think
that he could catch me, so he laid down flat in the thick, green
grass and stretched his big paws out and rested his nose on them,
thinking I would be taken in and imagine he was going to sleep. I
burst out laughing at him and swung to and fro on my flowery
branch.

"Do you want to eat me?" I said. "You'd need two or three quarts of
me with sugar and cream--like strawberries."

That made him so angry that he sprang roaring at my tree and
snapped and shook it and tore it with his claws. But I flew up into
the air and buzzed all about him and he got furious--just furious.
He jumped up in the air and lashed his tail and _thrashed_ his tail
and CRASHED his tail, and he turned round and round and tore up the
grass.

"Don't be a silly," I said. "It's a nice big tufty sort of tail and
you will only wear it out."

So then he opened his mouth and roared and roared. And what do you
suppose _I_ did? I flew right into his mouth. First I flew into his
throat and buzzed about like a bee and made