Brick Fairy Tales: Cinderella, Rapunzel, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Hansel and Gretel, and More (74 page)

and the beggar-man had to lend a hand himself to get anything fairly done.

When they had finished their scanty meal they went to bed; but he forced her to get up quite early in the morning in order to look after the house.

For a few days they lived in this way as well as might be, and came to the end of all their provisions. Then the man said, “Wife, we cannot go on any longer eating and drinking here and earning nothing. You weave baskets.” He went out, cut some willows, and brought them home.

Then she began to weave, but the tough willows wounded her delicate hands.

“I see that this will not do,” said the man; “you had better spin, perhaps you can do that better.”

She sat down and tried to spin, but the hard thread soon cut her soft fingers so that the blood ran down.

“See,” said the man, “you are fit for no sort of work; I have made a bad bargain with you. Now I will try to make a business with pots and earthenware; you must sit in the market-place and sell the ware.”

“Alas,” thought she, “if any of the people from my father’s kingdom come to the market and see me sitting there, selling, how they will mock me?”

But it was of no use, she had to yield unless she chose to die of hunger.

For the first time she succeeded well, for the people were glad to buy the woman’s wares because she was good-looking, and they paid her what she asked;

many even gave her the money and left the pots with her as well. So they lived on what she had earned as long as it lasted, then the husband bought a lot of new crockery. With this she sat down at the corner of the market-place, and set it out round about her ready for sale.

But suddenly there came a drunken hussar galloping along, and he rode right amongst the pots so that they were all broken into a thousand bits.