gether once more we shall never part
again.'

Mohammed with the Magic Finger

Once upon a time, there lived a woman who had a son and a daughter. One
morning she said to them: 'I have heard of a town where there is no such
thing as death: let us go and dwell there.' So she broke up her house,
and went away with her son and daughter.

When she reached the city, the first thing she did was to look about and
see if there was any churchyard, and when she found none, she exclaimed,
'This is a delightful spot. We will stay here for ever.'

By-and-by, her son grew to be a man, and he took for a wife a girl who
had been born in the town. But after a little while he grew restless,
and went away on his travels, leaving his mother, his wife, and his
sister behind him.

He had not been gone many weeks when one evening his mother said, 'I am
not well, my head aches dreadfully.'

'What did you say?' inquired her daughter-in-law.

'My head feels ready to split,' replied the old woman.

The daughter-in-law asked no more questions, but left the house, and
went in haste to some butchers in the next street.

'I have got a woman to sell; what will you give me for her?' said she.

The butchers answered that they must see the woman first, and they all
returned together.

Then the butchers took the woman and told her they must kill her.

'But why?' she asked.

'Because,' they said, 'it is always our custom that when persons are ill
and complain of their head they should be killed at once. It is a much
better way than leaving them to die a natural death.'

'Very well,' replied the woman. 'But leave, I pray you, my lungs and my
liver untouched, till my son comes back. Then give both to him.'

But the men took them out at once, and gave them to the daughter-in-law,
saying: 'Put away these things till your husband returns.' And the
daughter-in-law took them, and hid them in a secret place.

When the old woman's daughter, who had been in the woods, heard that her
mother had been killed while she was out, she was filled with fright,
and ran away as fast as she could. At last she reached a lonely spot far
from the town, where she thought she was safe, and sat down on a stone,
and wept bitterly. As she was sitting, sobbing, a man passed by.

'What is the matter, little girl? Answer me! I will be your friend.'

'Ah, sir, they have killed my mother; my brother is far away, and I have
nobody.'

'Will you come with me?' ask