a little
house, and an old woman was peeping out of it, but she had such great
teeth that the girl was terrified and about to run away, only the old
woman called her back.

"What are you afraid of, my dear child? Come and live with me, and if
you do the house-work well and orderly, things shall go well with you.
You must take great pains to make my bed well, and shake it up
thoroughly, so that the feathers fly about, and then in the world it
snows, for I am Mother Hulda."[A]

[Footnote A: In Hesse, when it snows, they say, "Mother Hulda is making
her bed."]

As the old woman spoke so kindly, the girl took courage, consented, and
went to her work. She did everything to the old woman's satisfaction,
and shook the bed with such a will that the feathers flew about like
snow-flakes: and so she led a good life, had never a cross word, but
boiled and roast meat every day. When she had lived a long time with
Mother Hulda, she began to feel sad, not knowing herself what ailed her;
at last she began to think she must be home-sick; and although she was a
thousand times better off than at home where she was, yet she had a
great longing to go home. At last she said to her mistress,

"I am home-sick, and although I am very well off here, I cannot stay any
longer; I must go back to my own home."

Mother Hulda answered,

"It pleases me well that you should wish to go home, and, as you have
served me faithfully, I will undertake to send you there!"

She took her by the hand and led her to a large door standing open, and
as she was passing through it there fell upon her a heavy shower of
gold, and the gold hung all about her, so that she was covered with it.

"All this is yours, because you have been so industrious," said Mother
Hulda; and, besides that, she returned to her her spindle, the very
same that she had dropped in the well. And then the door was shut again,
and the girl found herself back again in the world, not far from her
mother's house; and as she passed through the yard the cock stood on the
top of the well and cried,

"Cock-a-doodle doo!
Our golden girl has come home too!"

Then she went in to her mother, and as she had returned covered with
gold she was well received.

So the girl related all her history, and what had happened to her, and
when the mother heard how she came to have such great riches she began
to wish that her ugly and idle daughter might have the same good
fortune. So she sent her t