more she pulled off the stocking and put it on
the other foot, and appeared to be very much astonished because one
foot was still bare."

"She couldn't 'a' had much sense!" exclaimed Drusilla.

"Not about stockings and things like that," said Chickamy Crany Crow.
"Well, she sat there, pulling the stocking from one foot and putting
it on the other, until she seemed to forget about everything else. I
watched her until I got tired, and then I thought I would take her
missing stocking and throw it in the quagmire.

"The moment I did this, the quagmire began to bubble, and hiss, and
roll, and toss and tumble about, and soon it disappeared altogether. A
little fog arose when the quagmire sank out of sight, and when this
cleared away, there stood the carriage that had brought the beautiful
little girl with the golden hair, and the little girl herself was
sitting in it, ready to go to her father. But this wasn't all. All
around, there were numbers of horses and buggies, and all sorts of
bundles and money-purses, and everything that travelers carry along
with them.

"Well, I got in the carriage with the beautiful little girl, clucked
to the horses, and drove to my mother's house. All the horses with
saddles, and all the horses hitched to buggies, followed along after
us, and there was great rejoicing among the people as we went by."

"What became of the old witch?" asked Buster John.

"She stayed there, trying to make one stocking do for two feet, until
the well dried up, and after that I don't know what became of her."

"You ought to have been a young man," said Sweetest Susan, who had
been reading fairy stories, "so that you could have married the
beautiful girl with golden hair, after rescuing her. Besides, your
name would have been in the books."

"Oh," answered Chickamy Crany Crow, smiling for the first time, "there
are plenty of names in the books that you never hear of; but now,
wherever little children get together to play games, you will hear
them saying the rhyme that tells a part of my story,--

"'Chickamy, Chickamy Crany Crow,
Went to the well to wash her toe,
But when she got back her chicken was gone.'"

[Illustration: THE GOLDEN-HAIRED, BEAUTIFUL LITTLE GIRL]

XV.

THE BEWITCHED HUNTSMAN.

"There used to be a great many more witches than there are now,"
remarked Mr. Thimblefinger. "I reckon it's because folks have more
business of their own to attend to; or, it may be a change