III

Gathering courage, Rose-Marie at last ventured into the dark opening

before her. The way led downward; it was slippery, and now and then

drops of water fell upon her. At last she came into a small square

chamber. In one corner was a stone fireplace, wherein a few logs

smoldered. Wood was piled on each side. Dried herbs and bones hung from

the rafters, and one or two rude shelves were crowded with utensils and

strange objects whose names she did not know. A low, rough bedstead

filled another corner, and one or two heavy benches were pushed against

the walls. Rose-Marie was so busy in staring about her that she did

not notice a little person who sat on a low stool by the fire, until

a malicious chuckle startled her, and looking closely, she could just

make out in the dim light a little old lady in a dull brown garb, with

high pointed cap pulled well down over a dark little face. Two very

bright eyes peeped at her, and the witch’s nose went down as her thin

mouth turned up in a shrill laugh, that echoed through the cavern and

was answered by a whimper from somewhere beneath her feet.

Rose-Marie’s heart stood still. But she set her lips firmly and made a

little courtesy and said, “Good evening, mother!”

The Witch o’ Woods jumped up with a startled look on her face.

“Hoity-toity! Here is the first mortal that ever spoke to me. Come

hither, girl, and let me see the only being in the Harzberg who does

not fear the Witch o’ Woods.”

As she stood there leaning on her tall cane, Rose-Marie thought she

looked like a figure carved out of brown wood, and so she did, all but

her eyes, which were piercing, though they did not look unkind now.

“But I _am_ afraid, ma’am,” said Rose-Marie. “But I had to come for my

brother Eldwald; and O madam, if you have changed little Eldwald into a

rabbit, I beg that you will release him, for my mother weeps all day,

and my father cannot work for sighing. I will serve you faithfully and

well if you will only let him go.”

“What is your name?” said the witch, though she knew it already, being

a witch.

“I am Rose-Marie, the daughter of Hans, the stone-cutter,” answered the

girl, with another courtesy.

“Go to the corner cupboard, Rose-Marie, and take down some supper on a

platter you will find there, and then we shall see what we shall see.”

In the cupboard was a nice plump cake, all iced, with a knife lying by,

and it said, “Eat me!” On a shelf above stood a finely baked capon in a

silver dish, and it cried, “Eat me!” And by its side stood a handsome

bottle of wine, which gurgled, “Drink me!” And down on the lowest shelf

of all stood a little brown loaf and an earthen cup of milk, which said

nothing at all; these Rose-Marie took and placed on the platter as she

had been told, and going to a bench near the fire, began to eat with

good appetite.

“Hum,” said the witch, “not greedy. Why did you not take the good

things in the cupboard, stone-cutter’s daughter?”

“Why, they did not seem suitable for me, ma’am, and I thought that,

had you intended such grand provisions for my eating, you would have

mentioned it.”

“Had you eaten them, you would now be a hare with the others,” growled

the witch, very much disappointed.

When Rose-Marie had eaten and set away the platter and cup, the witch

showed her a pallet where she might sleep. And after a little prayer,

the tired girl lay down and slept as peacefully as if she had been in

her own little bed.

The Witch o’ Woods sat mumbling by the fire all night long, trying to

change Rose-Marie into a rabbit; but try as she could, all her magic

failed. For when we send up a thought of thankfulness and ask help of

the Love that is ever near, a beam of light comes down like a lovely

angel and guards us from all harm. So at dawn the Witch o’ Woods sat

cold and cross by her dead fire, and wondered to find a power greater

than her own.

Then she roused Rose-Marie, who hustled about busily, and soon had the

chamber bright with a crackling fire, clean as a good sweeping could

make it, and a hot breakfast smoking before the old witch, who for the

first time in years found herself comfortable.

When they had eaten, she took up her staff and a great sack of grain,

which she spilled over the whole room until it fell into every crack

and crevice.

“Now,” said she, “I shall try you. If you serve me well three days and

do the tasks I set you, you shall go free with little Eldwald; but

if you fail, he will remain a little hare and you shall be my slave

forever, and never again see the sun. By the time I return to-night,

this spilled grain must be back in its sack, and, mind you, not one

kernel must be lost!”

And with that she went out, and slammed the heavy door behind her,

bolting it fast.

Rose-Marie’s heart sank; but she glanced at the rush-broom in the

corner, and crying, “At least I can try,” set to work. But though she

persevered until noontime, only a small part of the grain had been

gathered.

Resolved, however, not to despair, she sat down to eat the bread and

cheese the witch had left out for her, when she heard the whimpering

that had frightened her the night before, and seeking for the sound,

she opened a trap-door in the floor, to find there a cage filled with

all kinds of rabbits. These were the poor little children the Witch

o’ Woods had caught, and there was a snow-white one that reached his

little paws through the cage and cried more piteously than the rest,

with tears in his little round eyes. And this, she knew, must be little

Eldwald.

Breaking up her food, she divided it among them, and watered them in a

bowl from a huge piggin of water that stood behind the door. Then she

swept and cleaned their cage as well as she could through the bars, put

straw in it from her pallet, and after caressing and reassuring little

Eldwald, she shut them up again for fear the witch would come.

Then she went back to her task, but began to despair as the afternoon

wore away and she had made so little progress. At last she sat down by

the hearth to weep, and her tears fell into the cold ashes; when far

above her head she heard a soft “Cooee-cooee,” and found by stepping

inside, she could look up the chimney, on the rim of which sat six

pretty wood-doves, cooing and preening their feathers.

“Cooee, Rose-Marie,” they called; for the fairies had told her story,

and all the little woodland creatures were ready to help her. “Why do

you weep?”

Then Rose-Marie explained her plight, and down flew the six wood-doves.

In a jiffy their sharp beaks “pecked, pecked,” here and there, their

keen eyes spying out every grain, and by the time the sun went down,

they had filled the sack and left not one kernel outside. Then, with

a soft “Cooee,” they disappeared up the chimney, and Rose-Marie, much

relieved, set about getting supper, which the witch found smoking hot

when she came in at dark.

She gasped when she saw the great sack of grain standing in a corner,

but, poke and pry as she might, she could not discover one kernel left

out. So she was forced to sit down to her nice supper, and, looking at

her as they sat eating, Rose-Marie thought she was not so brown nor so

wrinkled as she had been.

At bedtime, after her usual prayer was said, Rose-Marie lay down on

her hard bed and was soon fast asleep, leaving the witch staring into

the fire, and there she sat all night, as before; and, as before,

her magic failed. In the morning she awoke Rose-Marie, and when they

had breakfasted, she emptied a great jar of peas into the ashes, and

repeating her commands, she hobbled away. And Rose-Marie thought she

was taller and straighter than she had been.

Rose-Marie picked up peas and put them into the jar, but gained little

headway; and at noon she fed and tended the little captives under the

floor.

And when, some hours later, she gave up in despair, declaring

that the peas seemed to grow more rather than less, she heard a

“scratch--scratching” at the door, then a “gnawing--gnawing,” and

finally, through a tiny hole they had gnawed at the door’s bottom, came

a mole, a squirrel, and a chipmunk; and, bowing low before the weeping

girl, they cried:

“We will help you, Rose-Marie!”

My, how sharp claws and teeth did fly! How furry coats did flash to and

fro over the floor, here and there and everywhere, until every pea was

safe in the jar, and they whisked out of the hole in the door just as

the witch’s steps sounded in the passage outside.

She came in to find Rose-Marie dishing up supper by the bright

fireside, and had to confess that every pea was in the jar and the

supper the best she had ever eaten, for Rose-Marie had baked little

cakes in the warm ashes, and set out a pot of honey and one of fresh

butter which she had found in the cupboard.

And that night it was the same as before: after her prayers were said,

little Rose-Marie slept safely and well, and the magic of the Witch o’

Woods failed.

Therefore, on the third morning she awoke the girl with a rough shake,

and when ready to go away, she took two great pails of water and

emptied them over the stone floor of the cavern, where the water stood

high enough to run over Rose-Marie’s wooden shoes. And bidding the girl

see to it that the pails were full when she returned, the Witch o’

Woods went out, chuckling with glee, for well she knew that no power on

earth could gather spilled water.

When she was gone, poor Rose-Marie climbed on a bench to be out of the

wet, and cried and cried and cried, and all the little captives under

the floor cried with her.

It was nearly noon, when down the chimney flew a sleek, pretty

swallow, with so merry a chirp that Rose-Marie smiled before her tears

were dried.

When he had heard her troubles, he sat for a moment on the mantel-shelf

with bowed head, for this, indeed, seemed a task too hard for any bird

or beast. At last he broke into an excited trill.

“I know,” he chirped. “Far, far away to the north, over the icy plains

of Norway into the ever-frozen fastness of the Arctic night, dwells the

north wind. He alone can help us. If I can find my friend the gull,

and he can carry the news, and north wind will come, you are saved.

Cheep--cheep.” And off he flew, like a rocket.

But Rose-Marie was not a whit comforted by his words, for there were

so many “ifs” in the way. And who knew, if the gull found north wind,

whether or not he would leave his beloved ice-floes, where he herds his

giant flocks of white polar bears, as farmers herd sheep, or drives the

seals far out to sea, as he blows great gusts over the bergs upon the

poor ships that flounder at their base.

Who could believe that so great a king would come far south to aid a

poor little peasant maid? And Rose-Marie’s tears began to flow afresh,

when a little song which her mother had taught her seemed to ring in

her ears:

“If God is All-in-all,

His children cannot fear.”

Over and over she hummed the comforting words all the long afternoon,

while the little rabbits whimpered for food, as she could not open

their pen for the water.

But the world is full of charity for them that follow Love’s way. And

the swallow found the gull, the gull found the north wind, and when he

heard the story of Rose-Marie and the Witch o’ Woods, he laughed long

and loud, until great icebergs splintered about him; and, wrapping his

glittering white mantle about him, he flew southward, cooling the air

as he went, until, for forty years afterward, all Germany talked of the

“cold summer.”

Down, down he flew, until it was nearly sunset when the forest on the

Harzberg came in sight. Down, down to the top of the chimney of the

witch’s den, and with one kind “Halloo” to Rose-Marie, he blew an icy

blast down the chimney, which froze the water on the witch’s floor,

and, cracking it with her broom handle, Rose-Marie soon had it all in

the pails again, and by the time the Witch o’ Woods came, the nice, hot

fire had melted the ice until the great pails stood brimming with water

and the floor was dry and clean.

And then there was a great ado! The Witch o’ Woods shrieked and raged.

She shook her enchanted staff at Rose-Marie, and in vain tried to utter

words of magic. Failing to do this, she turned, in turn, into a bear,

a wolf, and a great black eagle. But Rose-Marie stood firm by the

fireplace, and, having now learned that evil had no real power, she did

not feel afraid.

Finally, after some moments of such goings-on, the Witch o’ Woods began

slowly to change back into her own shape. And yet it was not she who

at last stood there, slender and straight, with shining golden hair

falling from a green, leafy crown, but a beautiful fairy, who smiled at

Rose-Marie as if she enjoyed her surprise.

For love and goodness can change even ugly witches into fairies, and

that is what they had done. And the Witch o’ Woods was gone forever,

and in her place was a lovely fairy of the woods, who loved and

cherished every woodland creature ever afterward.

Then the fairy, still smiling kindly, opened the door of the little

cage under the floor, and out trooped a lot of little children, among

them little Eldwald, whom you may be sure was clasped in Rose-Marie’s

arms.

Then said the wood fairy:

“Come, let us leave this dark place and go out into the greenwood and

sunshine. But before I go, you shall all be recompensed.” And, going to

the side of the cavern, she drew forth the great treasure of the Witch

o’ Woods--gold and jewels, diamonds, pearls, and rubies--and divided it

among them.

But to Rose-Marie she gave the most beautiful of all--a great

pink-hearted pearl, set round with blazing diamonds. “This,” said the

wood fairy, “is small pay for the service you have done me; but you

have love, the pearl of great price, in your heart, dear, and that no

money can buy, and nothing can take it away. But this jewel shall some

day crown the diadem of a princess, and Rose-Marie, the stone-cutter’s

daughter, shall wear it.”

Which proved all too true; for years afterward, when Rose was grown

up, a handsome prince came riding over the Harzberg--But that is

another story, for another time.

And the wood fairy, with Rose-Marie and the other children, danced out

of the black cavern into the bright sunshine. And how the birds sang

above them in the green boughs! And how the perfume of the flowers came

from the thickets! And the way opened broad and smooth before them as,

with filled hands and joyous hearts, Rose-Marie and the other children

went home.

V