looked for all the world like a great dandelion
puff; and it floated away on the wind over the wall and out o' sight,
with a parting skirl of wicked voice and sneering laugh.

And did it come true, sayst thou? My word! but it did, sure as death! He
worked here and he worked there, and turned his hand to this and to
that, but it always went agee, and 't was all Yallery Brown's doing. And
the children died, and the crops rotted--the beasts never fatted, and
nothing ever did well with him; and till he was dead and buried, and
m'appen even afterwards, there was no end to Yallery Brown's spite at
him; day in and day out he used to hear him saying--

"Work as thou wilt
Thou 'lt never do well;
Work as thou mayst
Thou 'lt never gain grist;
For harm and mischance and Yallery Brown
Thou 'st let out thyself from under the stone."

Three Feathers

Once upon a time there was a girl who was married to a husband that she
never saw. And the way this was, was that he was only at home at night,
and would never have any light in the house. The girl thought that was
funny, and all her friends told her there must be something wrong with
her husband, some great deformity that made him want not to be seen.

Well, one night when he came home she suddenly lit a candle and saw him.
He was handsome enough to make all the women of the world fall in love
with him. But scarcely had she seen him when he began to change into a
bird, and then he said: "Now you have seen me, you shall see me no more,
unless you are willing to serve seven years and a day for me, so that I
may become a man once more." Then he told her to take three feathers
from under his side, and whatever she wished through them would come to
pass. Then he left her at a great house to be laundry-maid for seven
years and a day.

And the girl used to take the feathers and say:

"By virtue of my three feathers may the copper be lit, and the clothes
washed, and mangled, and folded, and put away to the missus's
satisfaction."

And then she had no more care about it. The feathers did the rest, and
the lady set great store by her for a better laundress she had never
had. Well, one day the butler, who had a notion to have the pretty
laundry-maid for his wife, said to her, he should have spoken before but
he did not want to vex her. "Why should it when I am but a
fellow-servant?" the girl said. And then he fe