Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 8, 1897.djvu/430

 394 Miscellanea.

" Sally, I'm up five steps."

" Sally, I'm up six steps."

" Sally, I'm up seven steps."

" Sally, I'm up eight steps."

" Sally, I'm up nine steps."

"Sally, I'm up ten steps."

" Sally, I'm up eleven steps."

" Sally, I'm up twelve steps ! "

" Sally, I'm at thy bedroom door ! ! "

" Sally, I have hold of thee ! ! ! "

II.— The Satin Frock>

There was once a little girl called Mary who had a satin frock, and her mother told her that if she got a dirty mark on it she would kill her. One day as Mary was going a walk, some cows that were passing by splashed her frock with mud. Then Mary went and sat on a doorstep and began to cry. The woman in the house hearing her cry came out, and Mary told her that she dare not go home because she had got her frock dirty, and that her mother had threatened to kill her if she got it dirty. So the woman took her in and washed the mud from her frock, and then dried it. She then sent the little girl on her way, telling her to mind and not get it dirty again, and then her mother would not kill her. So Mary went on her way, but lower down the road a horse that was running by splashed her frock again. When she got home her mother took her in the cellar and cut her head off, and hung it on the wall. When her father came home he said : " Where is our Mary ? " Her mother told him she had gone to her grandmother's to stay all night. When bed-time came he said : "I will fetch the sticks up;" but his wife said : "No, I will ;" but he said: "No, I will fetch them up;" and she said : " No, I will ; " but he would not let her fetch them. When he had got down in the cellar he saw the head hung up, so when he had come out of the cellar he asked his wife what it was. She told him that it was a sheep's head that she was going to make some broth of for to-morrow's dinner. When he came home to dinner next day, he said : " This broth is nice, but it does taste like our

' Told to C. R. Hirst in Sheffield by a girl aged about 13, and repeated by him to me, June, 1S96.