story I have done my best to tell you as faithfully as possible.

KINKACH MARTINKO

[Illustration]

KINKACH MARTINKO

Once upon a time there was a poor woman who had an only daughter,
named Helen, a very lazy girl. One day when she had refused to do a
single thing, her mother took her down to the banks of a stream and
began to strike her fingers with a flat stone, just as you do in
beating linen to wash it.

The girl cried a good deal. A prince, Lord of the Red Castle, happened
at that moment to pass by, and inquired as to the cause of such
treatment, for it horrified him that a mother should so ill-use her
child.

"Why should I not punish her?" answered the woman. "The idle girl can
do nothing but spin hemp into gold thread."

"Really?" cried he. "Does she really know how to spin gold thread out
of hemp? If that be so, sell her to me."

"Willingly; how much will you give me for her?"

"Half a measure of gold."

"Take her," said the mother; and she gave him her daughter as soon as
the money was paid.

The prince placed the girl behind him on the saddle, put spurs to his
horse, and took her home.

On reaching the Red Castle, the prince led Helen into a room filled
from floor to ceiling with hemp, and having supplied her with distaff
and spinning-wheel, said, "When you have spun all this hemp into gold
thread I will make you my wife."

Then he went out, locking the door after him.

On finding herself a prisoner, the poor girl wept as if her heart
would break. Suddenly she saw a very odd-looking little man seated on
the window-sill. He wore a red cap, and his boots were made of some
strange sort of material.

"Why do you weep so?" he asked.

"I cannot help it," she replied, "I am but a miserable slave. I have
been ordered to spin all this hemp into gold thread, but it is
impossible, I can never do it, and I know not what will become of me."

"I will do it for you in three days, on condition that at the end of
that time you guess my right name, and tell me what the boots I am
wearing now are made of."

Without for one moment reflecting as to whether she would be able to
guess aright she consented. The uncanny little man burst out laughing,
and taking her distaff set to work at once.

All day as the distaff moved the hemp grew visibly less, while the
skein of gold thread became larger and larger.

The little man spun all the time, and, without stopping an instant,
explained to Hele