"Not one of 'em," says she.

"Well, come again or not come again," said the woman, "I'll have one for
supper."

"But you can't if they ain't come," said the girl.

"But I can," says she. "Go you and bring the best of 'em."

"Best or worst," says the girl, "I've ate 'em all, and you can't have
one till that's come again."

Well, the woman she was done, and she took her spinning to the door to
spin, and as she span she sang:

"My darter ha' ate five, five pies to-day.
My darter ha' ate five, five pies to-day."

The king was coming down the street, and he heard her sing, but what she
sang he couldn't hear, so he stopped and said, "What was that you were
singing, my good woman?"

The woman was ashamed to let him hear what her daughter had been doing,
so she sang, instead of that:

"My darter ha' spun five, five skeins to-day.
My darter ha' spun five, five skeins to-day."

"Stars o' mine!" said the king, "I never heard tell of any one that
could do that."

Then he said, "Look you here, I want a wife, and I'll marry your
daughter. But look you here," says he, "eleven months out of the year
she shall have all she likes to eat, and all the gowns she likes to get,
and all the company she likes to keep; but the last month of the year
she'll have to spin five skeins every day, and if she don't I shall kill
her."

"All right," says the woman; for she thought what a grand marriage that
was. And as for the five skeins, when the time came, there'd be plenty
of ways of getting out of it, and likeliest, he'd have forgotten all
about it.

Well, so they were married. And for eleven months the girl had all she
liked to eat and all the gowns she liked to get and all the company she
liked to keep.

But when the time was getting over, she began to think about the skeins
and to wonder if he had 'em in mind. But not one word did he say about
'em, and she thought he'd wholly forgotten 'em.

However, the first day of the last month he takes her to a room she'd
never set eyes on before. There was nothing in it but a spinning-wheel
and a stool. And says he, "Now, my dear, here you'll be shut in
to-morrow with some victuals and some flax, and if you haven't spun
five skeins by the night, your head'll go off." And away he went about
his business.

Well, she was that frightened, she'd always been such a gatless girl,
that she didn't so much as know how to spin, and what was she to do
to-morrow