ked my brother's head off!" and cried and
screamed, and would not cease.

"O Marjory!" said her mother, "what have you done? but keep quiet, that
no one may see there is anything the matter; it can't be helped now; we
will put him out of the way safely."

When the father came home and sat down to table, he said,

"Where is my son?"

But the mother was filling a great dish full of black broth, and Marjory
was crying bitterly, for she could not refrain. Then the father said
again,

"Where is my son?"

"Oh," said the mother, "he is gone into the country to his great-uncle's
to stay for a little while."

"What should he go for?" said the father, "and without bidding me
good-bye, too!"

"Oh, he wanted to go so much, and he asked me to let him stay there six
weeks; he will be well taken care of."

"Dear me," said the father, "I am quite sad about it; it was not right
of him to go without bidding me good-bye."

With that he began to eat, saying,

"Marjory, what are you crying for? Your brother will come back some
time."

After a while he said,

"Well, wife, the food is very good; give me some more."

And the more he ate the more he wanted, until he had eaten it all up,
and he threw the bones under the table. Then Marjory went to her chest
of drawers, and took one of her best handkerchiefs from the bottom
drawer, and picked up all the bones from under the table and tied them
up in her handkerchief, and went out at the door crying bitterly. She
laid them in the green grass under the almond tree, and immediately her
heart grew light again, and she wept no more. Then the almond tree began
to wave to and fro, and the boughs drew together and then parted, just
like a clapping of hands for joy; then a cloud rose from the tree, and
in the midst of the cloud there burned a fire, and out of the fire a
beautiful bird arose, and, singing most sweetly, soared high into the
air; and when he had flown away, the almond tree remained as it was
before, but the handkerchief full of bones was gone. Marjory felt quite
glad and light-hearted, just as if her brother were still alive. So she
went back merrily into the house and had her dinner.

The bird, when it flew away, perched on the roof of a goldsmith's house,
and began to sing,

"It was my mother who murdered me;
It was my father who ate of me;
It was my sister Marjory
Who all my bones in pieces found;
Them in a handkerchief she bound,
And laid