andkerchief we have been sewing all these years.
Throw it to the ground, and it will turn into a lake of water. Perhaps
some day it will be useful to you."

"Thank you," says the little Prince, and off he gallops, on and on
over the wide world.

He came at last to his father's palace. The roof was gone, and there
were holes in the walls. He left his horse at the edge of the garden,
and crept up to the ruined palace and peeped through a hole. Inside,
in the great hall, was sitting a huge baby girl, filling the whole
hall. There was no room for her to move. She had knocked off the roof
with a shake of her head. And she sat there in the ruined hall,
sucking her thumb.

And while Prince Ivan was watching through the hole he heard her
mutter to herself,--

"_Eaten the father, eaten the mother,
And now to eat the little brother_"

And she began shrinking, getting smaller and smaller every minute.

Little Prince Ivan had only just time to get away from the hole in the
wall when a pretty little baby girl came running out of the ruined
palace.

"You must be my little brother Ivan," she called out to him, and came
up to him smiling. But as she smiled the little Prince saw that her
teeth were black; and as she shut her mouth he heard them clink
together like pokers.

"Come in," says she, and she took little Prince Ivan with her to a
room in the palace, all broken down and cobwebbed. There was a
dulcimer lying in the dust on the floor.

"Well, little brother," says the witch baby, "you play on the dulcimer
and amuse yourself while I get supper ready. But don't stop playing,
or I shall feel lonely." And she ran off and left him.

Little Prince Ivan sat down and played tunes on the dulcimer--sad
enough tunes. You would not play dance music if you thought you were
going to be eaten by a witch.

But while he was playing a little gray mouse came out of a crack in
the floor. Some people think that this was the wise old groom, who had
turned into a little gray mouse to save Ivan from the witch baby.

"Ivan, Ivan," says the little gray mouse, "run while you may. Your
father and mother were eaten long ago, and well they deserved it. But
be quick, or you will be eaten too. Your pretty little sister is
putting an edge on her teeth!"

Little Prince Ivan thanked the mouse, and ran out from the ruined
palace, and climbed up on the back of his big black horse, with its
saddle and bridle trimmed with silver. Away he gallo