A Surprise in the Oven 

Illustrated By: Jesse Einhorn-Johnson

Listen while you read along! Thanks to Elderberry Tales

Once upon a time a plump old woman name Tante Adela lived in French Canada.  She lived all alone with her big grey cat and the cows in her barn.

 

 

One morning she got up very early as it baking day and there was much to do.  She took a load of wood outside to her oven. 

“Now why would oven door be open?” she said.  She poked a stick inside to see that no leaves or twigs had blown in.  But the stick would not go far – something was in there!

The old woman bent over to look in.  When she saw what she saw, Tante Adela slammed the oven door shut.

 

 

She ran out of her yard and down the road as fast as she could.

 

 

At Felix Bell’s farm, she saw the neighbor drawing a bucket of water from the well.

“Felix, Felix!” she called out. “Come quick!  There is a skunk in my oven!”

“Are you sure?” said Felix.  “Maybe it is your cat.”

 

 

“Of course I am sure!” said Tante Adela.  “Does my cat have a white stripe down his back?”

“I will come as soon as I draw this bucket of water,” said Felix.

She headed for the next farm, the farm of

of breath. “Come right away!

it is not a scrap of old

coat?” said Tante Adela. “Am I the

Ross.  “I will come over as

the road and limped to

must come to my farm.  There

“Maybe you saw a shadow

Tante Adela.  “Does a shadow grit its teeth

said Samuel.  “Just as soon

she made it back home, Felix and Louis were already there. Soon after, Samuel

all right,” said Madame Ross, who

Tante Adela.  “The question

get my gun,” said Felix.

Tante Adela.  “Think

bake bread in there for a

said Samuel.  He trapped for furs

daughter of Samuel and Madame Ross.  “A dog will

scared,” said Tante Adela,

tie it to a string?” said someone else.  “The

Adela.  “And if I did, I

use their own meat to lure the skunk out of

is me!”

to serve any food or drink for everyone who had come.  Soon Felix Bell and his wife remembered they had to milk the

into the yard.  The young man may be simple-minded,

is a skunk in my oven. 

He opened the door and leaned inside.  He spoke in

stuck out of the oven doorway.  Everyone stepped back a few feet. 

the yard, holding its head high.  And

thrilled.  All the

him to come out?”

say to it?”

he stayed in the oven any more, he would begin to smell like Tante

head. “That a low creature like a skunk

of self-respect,” said Alice Roy, “no matter who

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