e gnashes her teeth,
and they make a noise like clattering tongs. "Hold your tongue," she
says. "Didn't I tell you you are to go to-day to your dear little aunt
to ask for a needle and thread to mend a shirt?"

"How shall I find her?" says the little girl, nearly ready to cry, for
she knew that her aunt was Baba Yaga, the bony-legged, the witch.

The stepmother took hold of the little girl's nose and pinched it.

"That is your nose," she says. "Can you feel it?"

"Yes," says the poor little girl.

"You must go along the road into the forest till you come to a fallen
tree; then you must turn to your left, and then follow your nose and
you will find her," says the stepmother. "Now, be off with you, lazy
one. Here is some food for you to eat by the way." She gave the little
girl a bundle wrapped up in a towel.

The little girl wanted to go into the shed to tell the mouseykin she
was going to Baba Yaga, and to ask what she should do. But she looked
back, and there was the stepmother at the door watching her. So she
had to go straight on.

She walked along the road through the forest till she came to the
fallen tree. Then she turned to the left. Her nose was still hurting
where the stepmother had pinched it, so she knew she had to go
straight ahead. She was just setting out when she heard a little noise
under the fallen tree. "Scratch--scratch."

And out jumped the little mouse, and sat up in the road in front of
her.

"O mouseykin, mouseykin," says the little girl, "my stepmother has
sent me to her sister. And that is Baba Yaga, the bony-legged, the
witch, and I do not know what to do."

"It will not be difficult," says the little mouse, "because of your
kind heart. Take all the things you find in the road, and do with them
what you like. Then you will escape from Baba Yaga, and everything
will be well."

"Are you hungry, mouseykin?" said the little girl

"I could nibble, I think," says the little mouse.

The little girl unfastened the towel, and there was nothing in it but
stones. That was what the stepmother had given the little girl to eat
by the way.

"Oh, I'm so sorry," says the little girl. "There's nothing for you to
eat."

"Isn't there?" said mouseykin, and as she looked at them the little
girl saw the stones turn to bread and jam. The little girl sat down on
the fallen tree, and the little mouse sat beside her, and they ate
bread and jam until they were not hungry any more.

"Keep the towel,"