ourtyard the old hen,
who sat on the top of the wall, called out:

'Click, clock, clack,
Our golden maid's come back.'

Then she went in to her stepmother, and as she had returned covered with
gold she was welcomed home.

She proceeded to tell all that had happened to her, and when the mother
heard how she had come by her riches, she was most anxious to secure the
same luck for her own idle, ugly daughter; so she told her to sit at the
well and spin. In order to make her spindle bloody, she stuck her
hand into a hedge of thorns and pricked her finger. Then she threw the
spindle into the well, and jumped in herself after it. Like her sister
she came to the beautiful meadow, and followed the same path. When she
reached the baker's oven the bread called out as before:

'Oh! take me out, take me out, or I shall be burnt to a cinder. I am
quite done enough.'

But the good-for-nothing girl answered:

'A pretty joke, indeed; just as if I should dirty my hands for you!'

And on she went. Soon she came to the apple tree, which cried:

'Oh! shake me, shake me, my apples are all quite ripe.'

'I'll see myself farther,' she replied, 'one of them might fall on my
head.'

And so she pursued her way. When she came to Mother Holle's house she
wasn't the least afraid, for she had been warned about her big teeth,
and she readily agreed to become her maid. The first day she worked very
hard, and did all her mistress told her, for she thought of the gold she
would give her; but on the second day she began to be lazy, and on the
third she wouldn't even get up in the morning. She didn't make Mother
Holle's bed as she ought to have done, and never shook it enough to make
the feathers fly. So her mistress soon grew weary of her, and dismissed
her, much to the lazy creature's delight.

'For now,' she thought, 'the shower of golden rain will come.'

Mother Holle led her to the same door as she had done her sister, but
when she passed through it, instead of the gold rain a kettle full of
pitch came showering over her.

'That's a reward for your service,' said Mother Holle, and she closed
the door behind her.

So the lazy girl came home all covered with pitch, and when the old hen
on the top of the wall saw her, it called out:

'Click, clock, clack, Our dirty slut's come back.'

But the pitch remained sticking to her, and never as long as she lived
could it be got off.(26)

(26) Grimm.

MINNIKIN

T