English Fairy Tales | Page 9

teeth must just tackle it."
"Best or worst is all one," answered the daughter, quite sulky, "for I've ate the lot, so you
can't have one till it comes again--so there!"
Well, the mother she bounced up to see; but half an eye told her there was nothing save
the empty dishes; so she was dished up herself and done for.
So, having no supper, she sate her down on the doorstep, and, bringing out her distaff,
began to spin. And as she span she sang:
"My daughter ha' ate five pies to-day, My daughter ha' ate five pies to-day, My daughter
ha' ate five pies to-day,"
for, see you, she was quite flabbergasted and fair astonished.
Now the King of that country happened to be coming down the street, and he heard the
song going on and on, but could not quite make out the words. So he stopped his horse,
and asked:
"What is that you are singing, my good woman?"
[Illustration: "What is that you are singing, my good woman?"]
Now the mother, though horrified at her daughter's appetite, did not want other folk,
leastwise the King, to know about it, so she sang instead:
"My daughter ha' spun five skeins to-day, My daughter ha' spun five skeins to-day, My
daughter ha' spun five skeins to-day."
"Five skeins!" cried the King. "By my garter and my crown, I never heard tell of any one
who could do that! Look you here, I have been searching for a maiden to wife, and your
daughter who can spin five skeins a day is the very one for me. Only, mind you, though
for eleven months of the year she shall be Queen indeed, and have all she likes to eat, all
the gowns she likes to get, all the company she likes to keep, and everything her heart
desires, in the twelfth month she must set to work and spin five skeins a day, and if she
does not she must die. Come! is it a bargain?"

So the mother agreed. She thought what a grand marriage it was for her daughter. And as
for the five skeins? Time enough to bother about them when the year came round. There
was many a slip between cup and lip, and, likely as not, the King would have forgotten
all about it by then.
Anyhow, her daughter would be Queen for eleven months. So they were married, and for
eleven months the bride was happy as happy could be. She had everything she liked to
eat, and all the gowns she liked to get, all the company she cared to keep, and everything
her heart desired. And her husband the King was kind as kind could be. But in the tenth
month she began to think of those five skeins and wonder if the King remembered. And
in the eleventh month she began to dream about them as well. But ne'er a word did the
King, her husband, say about them; so she hoped he had forgotten.
But on the very last day of the eleventh month, the King, her husband, led her into a room
she had never set eyes on before. It had one window, and there was nothing in it but a
stool and a spinning-wheel.
"Now, my dear," he said quite kind like, "you will be shut in here to-morrow morning
with some victuals and some flax, and if by evening you have not spun five skeins, your
head will come off."
Well she was fair frightened, for she had always been such a gatless thoughtless girl that
she had never learnt to spin at all. So what she was to do on the morrow she could not tell;
for, see you, she had no one to help her; for, of course, now she was Queen, her mother
didn't live nigh her. So she just locked the door of her room, sat down on a stool, and
cried and cried and cried until her pretty eyes were all red.
Now as she sate sobbing and crying she heard a queer little noise at the bottom of the
door. At first she thought it was a mouse. Then she thought it must be something
knocking.
So she upped and opened the door and what did she see? Why! a small, little, black Thing
with a long tail that whisked round and round ever so fast.
"What are you crying for?" said that Thing, making a bow, and twirling its tail so fast that
she could scarcely see it.
"What's that to you?" said she, shrinking a bit, for that Thing was very queer like.
"Don't look at my tail if you're frightened," says That, smirking. "Look at my toes. Ain't
they beautiful?"
And sure enough That had on buckled