her baskets.

"Are you Hannah, the vegetable dealer?" asked the old woman, in a harsh
cracked voice, her head shaking from side to side.

"Yes, I am she," replied the shoemaker's wife. "Can I do any thing for
you?"

"We'll see, we'll see! Look at the herbs, look at the herbs, and see
whether you have any thing I want," answered the old woman as she bent
down over the baskets, and, pushing her dark skinny hands down among
the herbs, seized the bundles that were so tastefully spread out, and
raised them one after another to her long nose, snuffing at every part
of them. It pressed heavily on the heart of the shoemaker's wife to see
her rare herbs handled in such a way, but she did not dare to offer any
objections, as purchasers were privileged to examine her goods; and,
besides this, she experienced a singular fear of the old woman. When
she had rummaged through the basket, the old woman muttered: "Miserable
stuff! poor herbs! nothing there that I want; much better fifty years
ago; bad stuff--bad stuff!"

These remarks displeased little Jacob. "You are a shameless old woman!"
cried he, angrily. "First you put your dirty brown fingers into the
beautiful herbs and rumple them, then you put them up to your long
nose, so that any one who saw it done will never buy them, and then you
abuse our wares by calling them poor stuff, when, let me tell you, the
duke's cook buys every thing of us!"

The old woman squinted at the spirited boy, laughed derisively, and
said in a husky voice: "Sonny--sonny! So my nose, my beautiful long
nose, pleases you? You shall also have one in the middle of your face
to hang down to your chin." While speaking, she slid along to another
basket containing cabbages. She took the finest white head up in her
hands, squeezed them together till they creaked, flung them down again
into the basket in disorder, and repeated once more: "Bad wares! poor
cabbages!"

"Don't wabble your head about so horribly!" exclaimed the boy,
uneasily. "Your neck is as thin as a cabbage-Stem; it might break and
let your head fall into the basket; who then would buy of us?"

"Don't you like my thin neck?" muttered the old woman, laughing. "You
shall have none at all, but your head shall stick into your shoulders,
so as not to fall from your little body."

"Don't talk such stuff to the child!" said the shoemaker's wife,
indignant at the continued inspection, fingering and smelling of her
wares. "If you want to buy any t