G EGGS

A STORY FROM LOUISIANA

There was once a widow who had two daughters, one named Rose and the
other Blanche.

Blanche was good and beautiful and gentle, but the mother cared
nothing for her and gave her only hard words and harder blows; but she
loved Rose as she loved the apple of her eye, because Rose was exactly
like herself, coarse-looking, and with a bad temper and a sharp
tongue.

Blanche was obliged to work all day, but Rose sat in a chair with
folded hands as though she were a fine lady, with nothing in the world
to do.

One day the mother sent Blanche to the well for a bucket of water.
When she came to the well she saw an old woman sitting there. The
woman was so very old that her nose and her chin met, and her cheeks
were as wrinkled as a walnut.

"Good day to you, child," said the old woman.

"Good day, auntie," answered Blanche.

"Will you give me a drink of water?" asked the old woman.

"Gladly," said Blanche. She drew the bucket full of water, and tilted
it so the old woman could drink, but the crone lifted the bucket in
her two hands as though it were a feather and drank and drank till the
water was all gone. Blanche had never seen any one drink so much; not
a drop was left in the bucket.

"May heaven bless you!" said the old woman, and then she went on her
way.

And now Blanche had to fill the bucket again, and it seemed as though
her arms would break, she was so tired.

When she went home her mother struck her because she had tarried so
long at the well. Her blows made Blanche weep. Rose laughed when she
saw her crying.

The very next day the mother became angry over nothing and gave
Blanche such a beating that the girl ran away into the woods; she
would not stay in the house any longer. She ran on and on, deeper and
deeper into the forest, and there, in the deepest part, she met the
old woman she had seen beside the well.

"Where are you going, my child? And why are you weeping so bitterly?"
asked the crone.

"I am weeping because my mother beat me," answered Blanche; "and now I
have run away from her, and I do not know where to go."

"Then come with me," said the old woman. "I will give you a shelter
and a bite to eat, and in return there is many a task you can do for
me. Only, whatever you may see as we journey along together you must
not laugh nor say anything about it."

Blanche promised she would not, and then she trudged away at the old
wom