Fancy, Fraidy, Fuzzy and Friends

By Mary Elizabeth Hankins

This is a collection of children's stories, which include Fancy the cow who has self-esteem issues; Robbie Ribbitt, the young frog with a special gift; Fraidy Freddy the fire truck, who always hung his head in shame; a little forgotten dream, who is searching for his dreamer; Ezra the littlest elf and his two Christmas adventures; Corky the cat who is in love with his red drinking straw; and Corky's pals on the farm, Mellie the pigeon-toed crow, Mr. Bean and Hyssop, and Freckles the hound.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Feb 14, 2015
• ISBN: 9781312918320

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Fancy, Fraidy, Fuzzy and Friends

FANCY, FRAIDY, FUZZY AND FRIENDS

DEDICATION

To my sons and grandchildren

©2001 Mary Elizabeth Hankins

This work may not be reproduced in any form without written permission of the author.

Graphics by Mary Hankins, clipart permissions of Clipart.com.

BEING FANCY

On a big farm in a grassy meadow lived a gentle cow named Fancy.   Big black spots covered her coat, and large brown eyes were topped with exceptionally long eyelashes.  Fancy had a better-than-average tail.  Sometimes on a good day, she could swat five flies at one time.  Everyone in the barnyard, except the flies of course, loved to gather around and watch Fancy's fly-swatting antics.

Now, all of these things were very nice and she was grateful for having all of these fine qualities, but Fancy had a problem.  She felt ordinary…...so very ordinary.  Fancy just could not understand why Farmer Ben had given her such a special name.  She was certainly no different from any other cow on the farm. Her moos were just plain moos, her spots were just plain spots, her horns were just plain horns, and her milk was just plain milk.  Plain! Plain! Plain!  Fancy was so, so, so sad.

Fancy spent her days munching the green grass in her field and thinking very hard of a way to be different.  Then, one day, Farmer Ben carried out a big ladder and propped it against the side of the barn. 

Fancy had an amazing sense of curiosity. She stopped chewing her cud and moved closer to the fence where she could get a closer look.

Farmer Ben brought out a paint bucket and a paintbrush.  Fancy wondered what in the world Farmer Ben was up to now, and she just had to find out.            

Farmer Ben slowly climbed the ladder, dipped his brush into the bucket, and wiped the most beautiful red color on the barn that Fancy had ever seen.

Fancy could just picture herself as a beautiful red cow.  If only her coat could be that wonderful color, everyone would have a reason to call her Fancy.

The longer Fancy watched, the more excited she became. Finally, she could hold back no longer.  Over the fence she went, straight toward the ladder. Down came the ladder onto the ground, down came the farmer onto a bale of hay, and down came the bucket of bright red paint….all over Fancy!!!

Fancy had never seen Farmer Ben so mad.  He jumped up, shook his fist at her, and locked her back in her meadow. She