One Eye, Two Eyes, Three Eyes |
HEN TWO EYES saw this, she knew that One Eye could not betray her, so she said:
"Little goat, if you are able,
Come and deck my pretty table."
She seated herself when it appeared, and ate and drank very quickly, and when she had finished she said:
"Little goat, when you are able,
Come and clear away my table."
It vanished in the twinkling of an eye; and then Two Eyes woke up One Eye, and said, "Little One Eye, you are a clever one to watch goats; for, while you are asleep, they might be running all over the world. Come, let us go home!"
So they went to the house, and little Two Eyes again left the scraps on the dish untouched, and One Eye could not tell her mother whether little Two Eyes had eaten anything in the field; for she said to excuse herself, "I was asleep."
The next day the mother said to Three Eyes, "You must go to the field this time, and find out whether there is anyone who brings food to little Two Eyes; for she must eat and drink secretly."
So when little Two Eyes started with her goat, Three Eyes followed, and said, "I am going with you to-day, to see if the goats are properly fed and watched."
But Two Eyes knew her thoughts; so she led the goat through the long grass to tire Three Eyes, and at last she said, "Let us sit down here and rest, and I will sing to you, Three Eyes."
She was glad to sit down, for the walk and the heat of the sun had really tired her; and, as her sister continued her song, she was obliged to close two of her eyes, and they slept, but not the third. In fact, Three Eyes was wide awake with one eye, and heard and saw all that Two Eyes did; for poor little Two Eyes, thinking she was asleep, said her speech to the goat, and the table came with all the good things on it, and was carried away when Two Eyes had eaten enough; and the cunning Three Eyes saw it all with her one eye. But she pretended to be asleep when her sister came to wake her and told her she was going home.
That evening, when little Two Eyes again left the supper they placed aside for her, Three Eyes said to her mother, "I know where the proud thing gets her good eating and drinking;" and then she described all she had seen in the field. "I saw it all with one eye," she said; "for she had made my other two eyes close with her fine singing, but luckily the one in my forehead remained open."
Then the envious mother cried out to poor little Two Eyes, "You wish to have better food than we, do you? You shall lose your wish!" She took up a butcher's knife, went out, and stuck the good little goat in the heart, and it fell dead.
When little Two Eyes saw this, she went out into the field, seated herself on a mound, and wept most bitter tears.
Presently the wise woman stood again before her, and said, "Little Two Eyes, why do you weep?"
"Ah!" she replied, "I must weep. The goat, who every day spread my table so beautifully, has been killed by my mother, and I shall have again to suffer from hunger and sorrow."
"Little Two Eyes," said the wise woman, "I will give you some good advice. Go home, and ask your sister to give you the inside of the slaughtered goat, and then go and bury it in the ground in front of the house-door."
On saying this the wise woman vanished.
Little Two Eyes went home quickly, and said to her sister, "Dear sister, give me some part of my poor goat. I don't want anything valuable; only give me the inside."
Her sister laughed, and said, "Of course you can have that, if you don't want anything else."
So little Two Eyes took the inside; and in the evening, when all was quiet, buried it in the ground outside the house-door, as the wise woman had told her to do.
The next morning, when they all rose and looked out of the window, there stood a most wonderful tree, with leaves of silver and apples of gold hanging between them. Nothing in the wide world could be more beautiful or more costly. They none of them knew how the tree could come there in one night, excepting little Two Eyes. She supposed it had grown up from the inside of the goat; for it stood over where she had buried it in the earth.
Then said the mother to little One Eye, "Climb up, my child, and break off some of the fruit from the tree."
One Eye climbed up, but when she tried to catch a branch and pluck one of the apples, it escaped from her hand, and so it happened every time she made the attempt, and, do what she would, she could not reach one.
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