Struwwelpeter: Merry Tales and Funny Pictures

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Funny Pictures, by Heinrich Hoffman
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Title: Struwwelpeter: Merry Tales and Funny Pictures
Author: Heinrich Hoffman
Release Date: April 23, 2004 [EBook #12116]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
0. START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MERRY
TALES ***
Produced by Suzanne Shell, Sandra Brown and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team.
[Transcriber's Note: This book was first published in German in 1844,
and in English translation in 1848. This edition was not dated. Color
illustrations appear on every page, often "playing" with the text.]
STRUWWELPETER
MERRY STORIES AND FUNNY PICTURES
Heinrich Hoffman
Frederick Warne & Co., Inc. New York
STRUWWELPETER

Merry Stories and
Funny Pictures
When the children have been good,
That is, be it understood,
Good
at meal-times, good at play,
Good all night and good all day--
They
shall have the pretty things
Merry Christmas always brings.
Naughty, romping girls and boys
Tear their clothes and make a noise,

Spoil their pinafores and frocks,
And deserve no Christmas-box.

Such as these shall never look
At this pretty Picture-book.
Shock-headed Peter
Just look at him! there he stands,
With his nasty hair and hands.
See!
his nails are never cut;
They are grimed as black as soot;
And the
sloven, I declare,
Never once has combed his hair;
Anything to me
is sweeter
Than to see Shock-headed Peter.
Cruel Frederick
Here is cruel Frederick, see!
A horrid wicked boy was he;
He
caught the flies, poor little things,
And then tore off their tiny wings,

He killed the birds, and broke the chairs,
And threw the kitten
down the stairs;
And oh! far worse than all beside,
He whipped his
Mary, till she cried.
The trough was full, and faithful Tray
Came out to drink one sultry
day;
He wagged his tail, and wet his lip,
When cruel Fred snatched
up a whip,
And whipped poor Tray till he was sore,
And kicked and
whipped him more and more:
At this, good Tray grew very red,

And growled, and bit him till he bled;
Then you should only have
been by,
To see how Fred did scream and cry!
So Frederick had to go to bed:
His leg was very sore and red!
The
Doctor came, and shook his head,
And made a very great to-do,

And gave him nasty physic too.

But good dog Tray is happy now;
He has no time to say "Bow-wow!"

He seats himself in Frederick's chair
And laughs to see the nice
things there:
The soup he swallows, sup by sup--
And eats the pies
and puddings up.
The Dreadful Story of Harriet and the Matches
It almost makes me cry to tell
What foolish Harriet befell.
Mamma
and Nurse went out one day
And left her all alone at play.
Now, on
the table close at hand,
A box of matches chanced to stand;
And
kind Mamma and Nurse had told her,
That, if she touched them, they
would scold her.
But Harriet said: "Oh, what a pity!
For, when they
burn, it is so pretty;
They crackle so, and spit, and flame:
Mamma,
too, often does the same."
The pussy-cats heard this,
And they began to hiss,
And stretch their
claws,
And raise their paws;
"Me-ow," they said, "me-ow, me-o,

You'll burn to death, if you do so."
But Harriet would not take advice:
She lit a match, it was so nice!
It
crackled so, it burned so clear--
Exactly like the picture here.
She
jumped for joy and ran about
And was too pleased to put it out.
The Pussy-cats saw this
And said: "Oh, naughty, naughty Miss!"

And stretched their claws,
And raised their paws:
"'Tis very, very
wrong, you know,
Me-ow, me-o, me-ow, me-o,
You will be burnt,
if you do so."
And see! oh, what dreadful thing!
The fire has caught her
apron-string;
Her apron burns, her arms, her hair--
She burns all
over everywhere.
Then how the pussy-cats did mew--
What else, poor pussies, could
they do?
They screamed for help, 'twas all in vain!
So then they
said: "We'll scream again;

Make haste, make haste, me-ow, me-o,


She'll burn to death; we told her so."
So she was burnt, with all her clothes,
And arms, and hands, and eyes,
and nose;
Till she had nothing more to lose
Except her little scarlet
shoes;
And nothing else but these was found
Among her ashes on
the ground.
And when the good cats sat beside
The smoking ashes, how they
cried!
"Me-ow, me-oo, me-ow, me-oo,
What will Mamma and
Nursey do?"
Their tears ran down their cheeks so fast,
They made a
little pond at last.
The Story of the Inky Boys
As he had often done before,
The woolly-headed Black-a-moor
One
nice fine summer's day went out
To see the shops, and walk about;

And, as he found it hot, poor fellow,
He took with him his green
umbrella,
Then Edward, little noisy wag,
Ran out and laughed, and
waved his flag;
And William came in jacket trim,
And brought his