HISTORY
OF
WHITTINGTON AND HIS CAT
In the reign of the famous King Edward the Third, there was a little boy called Dick Whittington, whose father and mother died when he was very young, so that he remembered nothing at all about them, and was left a dirty little fellow running about a country village. As poor Dick was not old enough to work, he was in a sorry plight; he got but little for his dinner, and sometimes nothing at all for his breakfast; for the people who lived in the village were very poor themselves, and could spare him little more than the parings of potatoes, and now and then a hard crust.
For all this, Dick Whittington was a very sharp boy, and was always listening to what every one talked about.
On Sundays he never failed to get near the farmers
