The girl left the room to go to the loft, and as soon as she got outside, she found all the cats waiting for her.Walking in procession, as was their custom, they followed her into the loft, which was filled with caskets big and little, plain and splendid.She lifted up one and looked at it, and then put it down to examine another yet more beautiful.Which should she choose, the yellow or the blue, the red or the green, the gold or the silver? She hesitated long, and went first to one and then to another, when she heard the cats' voices calling: 'Take the black! take the black!'
The words make her look round--she had seen no black casket, but as the cats continued their cry she peered into several corners that had remained unnoticed, and at length discovered a little black box, so small and so black, that it might easily have been passed over.
'This is the casket that pleases me best, mistress,' said the girl, carrying it into the house.And the old woman smiled and nodded, and bade her go her way.So the girl set forth, after bidding farewell to the cows and the cats and the sparrows, who all wept as they said good-bye.
She walked on and on and on, till she reached the flowery meadow, and there, suddenly, something happened, she never knew what, but she was sitting on the wall of the well in her stepmother's yard.Then she got up and entered the house.
The woman and her daughter stared as if they had been turned into stone; but at length the stepmother gasped out:
'So you are alive after all! Well, luck was ever against me! And where have you been this year past?' Then the girl told how she had taken service in the under-world, and, beside her wages, had brought home with her a little casket, which she would like to set up in her room.
'Give me the money, and take the ugly little box off to the outhouse,'
cried the woman, beside herself with rage, and the girl, quite frightened at her violence, hastened away, with her precious box clasped to her bosom.
The outhouse was in a very dirty state, as no one had been near it since the girl had fallen down the well; but she scrubbed and swept till everything was clean again, and then she placed the little casket on a small shelf in the corner.
'Now I may open it,' she said to herself; and unlocking it with the key which hung to its handle, she raised the lid, but started back as she did so, almost blinded by the light that burst upon her.No one would ever have guessed that that little black box could have held such a quantity of beautiful things! Rings, crowns, girdles, necklaces--all made of wonderful stones; and they shone with such brilliance that not only the stepmother and her daughter but all the people round came running to see if the house was on fire.Of course the woman felt quite ill with greed and envy, and she would have certainly taken all the jewels for herself had she not feared the wrath of the neighbours, who loved her stepdaughter as much as they hated her.
But if she could not steal the casket and its contents for herself, at least she could get another like it, and perhaps a still richer one.
So she bade her own daughter sit on the edge of the well, and threw her into the water, exactly as she had done to the other girl; and, exactly as before, the flowery meadow lay at the bottom.
Every inch of the way she trod the path which her stepsister had trodden, and saw the things which she had seen; but there the likeness ended.When the fence prayed her to do it no harm, she laughed rudely, and tore up some of the stakes so that she might get over the more easily; when the oven offered her bread, she scattered the loaves onto the ground and stamped on them; and after she had milked the cow, and drunk as much as she wanted, she threw the rest on the grass, and kicked the pail to bits, and never heard them say, as they looked after her: 'You shall not have done this to me for nothing!'
Towards evening she reached the spot where the old woman was leaning against the gate- post, but she passed her by without a word.
'Have you no manners in your country?' asked the crone.
'I can't stop and talk; I am in a hurry,' answered the girl.'It is getting late, and I have to find a place.'
'Stop and comb my hair for a little,' said the old woman, 'and I will help you to get a place.'
'Comb your hair, indeed! I have something better to do than that!' And slamming the gate in the crone's face she went her way.And she never heard the words that followed her: 'You shall not have done this to me for nothing!'
