a wild boar, and
shall I be afraid of those who are standing outside my room door?"

And when they heard the tailor say this, a great fear seized them; they
fled away as if they had been wild hares, and none of them would venture
to attack him.

And so the little tailor all his lifetime remained a king.

ASCHENPUTTEL

THERE was once a rich man whose wife lay sick, and when she felt her end
drawing near she called to her only daughter to come near her bed, and
said,

"Dear child, be pious and good, and God will always take care of you,
and I will look down upon you from heaven, and will be with you."

And then she closed her eyes and expired. The maiden went every day to
her mother's grave and wept, and was always pious and good. When the
winter came the snow covered the grave with a white covering, and when
the sun came in the early spring and melted it away, the man took to
himself another wife.

The new wife brought two daughters home with her, and they were
beautiful and fair in appearance, but at heart were black and ugly. And
then began very evil times for the poor step-daughter.

"Is the stupid creature to sit in the same room with us?" said they;
"those who eat food must earn it. Out upon her for a kitchen-maid!"

They took away her pretty dresses, and put on her an old gray kirtle,
and gave her wooden shoes to wear.

"Just look now at the proud princess, how she is decked out!" cried they
laughing, and then they sent her into the kitchen. There she was obliged
to do heavy work from morning to night, get up early in the morning,
draw water, make the fires, cook, and wash. Besides that, the sisters
did their utmost to torment her,--mocking her, and strewing peas and
lentils among the ashes, and setting her to pick them up. In the
evenings, when she was quite tired out with her hard day's work, she had
no bed to lie on, but was obliged to rest on the hearth among the
cinders. And as she always looked dusty and dirty, they named her
Aschenputtel.

It happened one day that the father went to the fair, and he asked his
two step-daughters what he should bring back for them.

"Fine clothes!" said one.

"Pearls and jewels!" said the other.

"But what will you have, Aschenputtel?" said he.

"The first twig, father, that strikes against your hat on the way home;
that is what I should like you to bring me."

So he bought for the two step-daughters fine clothes, pearls, and
jewels, and on his way