ft, ten for the fingers and four for the toes; but
there was not one for the little toe, so it could not be brought back.
Of course, after that there was great rejoicing, and Prince Nix Naught
Nothing and the Magician's daughter were married and lived happy ever
after, even though she only had four toes on one foot. As for the
hen-wife witch, she was burnt, and so the gardener's daughter got back
her earnings; but she was not happy, because her shadow in the water was
ugly again.
MR. AND MRS. VINEGAR
Mr. and Mrs. Vinegar, a worthy couple, lived in a glass pickle-jar. The
house, though small, was snug, and so light that each speck of dust on
the furniture showed like a mole-hill; so while Mr. Vinegar tilled his
garden with a pickle-fork and grew vegetables for pickling, Mrs.
Vinegar, who was a sharp, bustling, tidy woman, swept, brushed, and
dusted, brushed and dusted and swept to keep the house clean as a new
pin. Now one day she lost her temper with a cobweb and swept so hard
after it that bang! bang! the broom-handle went right through the glass,
and crash! crash! clitter! clatter! there was the pickle-jar house about
her ears all in splinters and bits.
She picked her way over these as best she might, and rushed into the
garden.
"Oh, Vinegar, Vinegar!" she cried. "We are clean ruined and done for!
Quit these vegetables! they won't be wanted! What is the use of pickles
if you haven't a pickle-jar to put them in, and--I've broken ours--into
little bits!" And with that she fell to crying bitterly.
But Mr. Vinegar was of different mettle; though a small man, he was a
cheerful one, always looking at the best side of things, so he said,
"Accidents will happen, lovey! But there are as good pickle-bottles in
the shop as ever came out of it. All we need is money to buy another. So
let us go out into the world and seek our fortunes."
"But what about the furniture?" sobbed Mrs. Vinegar.
"I will take the door of the house with me, lovey," quoth Mr. Vinegar
stoutly. "Then no one will be able to open it, will they?"
Mrs. Vinegar did not quite see how this fact would mend matters, but,
being a good wife, she held her peace. So off they trudged into the
world to seek fortune, Mr. Vinegar bearing the door on his back like a
snail carries its house.
Well, they walked all day long, but not a brass farthing did they make,
and when night fell they found themselves in a dark, thick forest. Now
Mrs. Vinegar, for
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