er, and when the old witch asked him to put
out his finger he put out the stick, and she said,

"Goodness gracious me, the boy is as thin as a lath! I must feed him
up more."

So she gave him more and more food, and every day he put out the stick
till at last one day he got careless, and when she took the stick it
fell out of his hand, and she felt what it was. So she flew into a
terrible rage and called out,

"Grizzle, Grizzle, make the oven hot. This lad is fat enough for
Christmas."

Poor Grizzle did not know what to do, but she had to obey the witch.
So she piled the wood on under the oven and set it alight. And after a
while the old witch said to her,

"Grizzle, Grizzle, is the oven hot?"

And Grizzle said, "I don't know, mum."

And when the witch asked her again whether it was hot enough, Grizzle
said,

"I do not know how hot an oven ought to be."

"Get away, get away," said the old witch; "I know, let me see." And
she poked her old head into the oven. Then Grizzle pushed her right
into the oven and closed the door and rushed out into the back yard
and let Johnnie out of the cubby-hole.

Then Johnnie and Grizzle ran away towards the setting sun where they
knew their own house was, till at last they came to a broad stream too
deep for them to wade. But just at that moment they looked back, and
what do you think they saw? The old witch, by some means or other, had
got out of the oven and was rushing after them. What were they to do?
What were they to do?

Suddenly Grizzle saw a fine big duck swimming towards them, and she
called out:

"Duck, duck, come to me,
Johnnie and Grizzle depend upon thee;
Take Johnnie and Grizzle on thy back,
Or else they'll be eaten--"

And the duck said,

"Quack! Quack!"

Then the duck came up to the bank, and Johnnie and Grizzle went into
the water and, by resting their hands on the duck's back, swam across
the stream just as the old witch came up.

At first she tried to make the duck come over and carry her, but the
duck said, "Quack! Quack!" and shook its head.

Then she lay down and commenced swallowing up the stream, so that it
should run dry and she could get across. She drank, and she drank, and
she drank, and she drank, till she drank so much that she burst!

So Johnnie and Grizzle ran back home, and when they got there they
found that their father the farmer had earned a lot of money and had
been searching and searching for them over