cession, she burst out laughing. But Hans was not satisfied with
that. "Just wait a bit, and she will laugh still louder very soon," he
said, and made a tour round the palace with his followers.

When they came past the kitchen, the door was open and the cook was just
boiling porridge, but when she saw Hans and his train after him, she
rushed out of the door with the porridge-stick in one hand and a big
ladle full of boiling porridge in the other, and she laughed till her
sides shook; but when she saw the smith there as well, she thought she
would have burst with laughter. When she had had a regular good laugh,
she looked at the golden goose again and thought it was so lovely that
she must stroke it.

"Hans, Hans!" she cried, and ran after him with the ladle in her hand;
"just let me stroke that lovely bird of yours."

"Rather let her stroke me!" said the smith.

"Very well," said Hans.

But when the cook heard this, she got very angry. "What is it you say!"
she cried, and gave the smith a smack with the ladle.

"If you'll come along, then hang on!" said Hans, and so she stuck fast
to the others too, and for all her scolding and all her tearing and
pulling, she had to limp along with them.

And when they came past the princess's window again, she was still there
waiting for them, but when she saw that they had got hold of the cook
too, with the ladle and porridge-stick, she laughed till the king had to
hold her up. So Hans got the princess and half the kingdom, and they had
a wedding which was heard of far and wide.

XIX

THE STORY OF TOM TIT TOT[8]

Well, once upon a time there were a woman, and she baked five pies. And
when they come out of the oven, they was that overbaked the crust were
too hard to eat. So she says to her darter:

"Darter," says she, "put you them there pies on the shelf an' leave 'em
there a little, an' they'll come agin--" She meant, you know, the crust
'ud get soft.

But the gal, she says to herself, "Well, if they'll come agin, I'll ate
'em now." And she set to work and ate 'em all, first and last.

Well, come supper time, the woman she said, "Goo you and git one o' them
there pies; I daresay they've come agin, now."

The gal, she went an' she looked, and there warn't nothin' but the
dishes. So back she come and says she, "Noo, they ain't come agin."

"Not none on 'em?" says the mother.

"Not none on 'em," says she.

"Well, come agin, or not come agin," says the woma