red, "wretched stuff, wretched herbs, nothing that I
want--were much better fifty years ago--wretched stuff! wretched stuff!"

Little James was vexed at these words. "Hark ye," he cried, boldly,
"you are an impudent old woman; first you thrust your nasty brown
fingers into these beautiful herbs and squeeze them together, then you
hold them up to your long nose, so that no one seeing this will buy
them after you, and you abuse our goods, calling them wretched stuff,
though nevertheless the duke's cook himself buys all his herbs of us."

The old woman leered at the bold boy, laughed disgustingly, and said in
a hoarse voice, "Little son, little son, you like my nose then, my
beautiful long nose? You shall have one too in the middle of your face
that shall reach down to your chin."

While she thus spoke she shuffled up to another basket containing
cabbages. She took the most beautiful white heads up in her hand,
squeezed them together till they squeaked, and then throwing them into
the basket again without regard to order, said as before, "Wretched
things! wretched cabbages!"

"Don't wriggle your head about in that ugly fashion," cried the little
boy, somewhat frightened; "why your neck is as thin as a cabbage-stalk
and might easily break, then your head would fall into the basket, and
who would buy of us?"

"You don't like such thin necks then, eh?" muttered the old woman with
a laugh. "You shall have none at all, your head shall be fixed between
your shoulders, that it may not fall down from the little body."

"Don't talk such nonsense to the little boy," at length said the
cobbler's wife, indignant at the long-looking, examining, and smelling
of the things; "if you wish to buy any thing be quick, for you scare
away all my other customers."

"Well, be it as you say," cried the old woman, with a furious look, "I
will buy these six heads of cabbages; but you see I must support myself
by my stick, and cannot carry any thing, therefore, allow your little
son to carry them home for me, I will reward him for it."

The little boy would not go with her, and began to cry, for he was
terrified at the ugly old woman, but his mother commanded him earnestly
to go, as she thought it a sin to load the feeble old soul with this
burden. Still sobbing, he did as he was ordered, and followed the old
woman over the market.

She proceeded but slowly, and was almost three-quarters of an hour
before she arrived at a very remote p