w
necklace."

"Little Stupid," says the second, "I will give you my new dress with
gold hems if you will give me your transparent apple and your silver
saucer."

"Oh, I couldn't do that," says the Little Stupid, and she goes on
spinning the apple in the saucer and seeing what was happening all
over the world.

So the bad ones put their wicked heads together and thought of a plan.
And they took their father's axe, and went into the deep forest and
hid it under a bush.

The next day they waited till afternoon, when work was done, and the
little pretty one was spinning her apple in the saucer. Then they
said,--

"Come along, Little Stupid; we are all going to gather berries in the
forest."

"Do you really want me to come too?" says the little one. She would
rather have played with her apple and saucer.

But they said, "Why, of course. You don't think we can carry all the
berries ourselves!"

So the little one jumped up, and found the baskets, and went with them
to the forest. But before she started she ran to her father, who was
counting his money, and was not too pleased to be interrupted, for
figures go quickly out of your head when you have a lot of them to
remember. She asked him to take care of the silver saucer and the
transparent apple for fear she would lose them in the forest.

"Very well, little bird," says the old man, and he put the things in a
box with a lock and key to it. He was a merchant, you know, and that
sort are always careful about things, and go clattering about with a
lot of keys at their belt. I've nothing to lock up, and never had, and
perhaps it is just as well, for I could never be bothered with keys.

So the little one picks up all three baskets and runs off after the
others, the bad ones, with black hearts under their necklaces and new
dresses.

They went deep into the forest, picking berries, and the little one
picked so fast that she soon had a basket full. She was picking and
picking, and did not see what the bad ones were doing. They were
fetching the axe.

The little one stood up to straighten her back, which ached after so
much stooping, and she saw her two sisters standing in front of her,
looking at her cruelly. Their baskets lay on the ground quite empty.
They had not picked a berry. The eldest had the axe in her hand.

The little one was frightened.

"What is it, sisters?" says she; "and why do you look at me with cruel
eyes? And what is the axe for? You are not