Page:The Folk-Lore Journal Volume 1 1883.djvu/290

 282 'Oh! mammy,' answered the girl, 'me no see nothing.' 'Good child,' said again the old woman, 'and good will come to you.' Not far distant was a cocoa-tree, and here was another old woman without any more head than the former one. The same question was asked her, and she failed not to give the same answer which had already met with so good a reception. Still she travelled forward, and began to feel faint through want of food, when, under a mahogany-tree, she not only saw a third old woman but one who, to her great satisfaction, had got a head between her shoulders. She stopped, and made her best courtesy. 'How day, grannie.' 'How day, my piccaniny, what matter, you no look well?' 'Grannie, me lilly hungry.' 'My piccaniny, you see that hut, there's rice in the pot, take it, and yam-yamme; but if you see one black puss, mind you give him him share.' The child hastened to profit by the permission; the 'one black puss' failed not to make its appearance, and was served first to its portion of rice, after which it departed, and the child had but just finished the meal when the mistress of the hut entered, and told her that she might help herself to three eggs out of the fowl-house, but that she must not take any of the talking ones: perhaps, too, she might find the black puss there also, but if she did, she was to take no notice of her. Unluckily all the eggs seemed to be as fond of talking as if they had been so many old maids, and the moment that the child entered the fowl-house, there was a cry of 'Take me! Take me!' from all quarters. However, she was punctual in her obedience; and although the conversible eggs were remarkably fine and large, she searched about till at length she had collected three little dirty-looking eggs that had not a word to say for themselves. The old woman now dismissed her guest, bidding her to return home without fear, but not to forget to break one of the eggs under each of the three trees near which she had seen an old woman that morning. The first egg produced a water-jug exactly similar to that which she had broken; out of the second came a whole large sugar estate; and out of the third a splendid equipage, in which she returned to her aunt, delivered up the jug, related that an old woman in a red docker (i.e. petticoat) had made her a great lady, and then departed in triumph to her sugar estate. Stung by envy, the aunt lost no time in sending her own daughter to search for the same good fortune which had befallen her cousin. She found the cotton-tree and the headless old woman, and had the same question addressed to her; but instead of returning the same