"I will help you," said a sweet voice. He turned, and there stood beside him the very little girl he saw looking out of the window in the tower. How she got there nobody knows; and what Mr. Nobody knows he never tells; but the dear little maiden said, "I am called 'Little Goody.' The old cat shall have the fish, and you shall have the plant of life; but she shan't stay here to tease you."
So she clapped her hands and cried, scat!! so suddenly, that the cat, catching up the table cloth, shot up in the air like a sky rocket, screaming like forty steam whistles.
Then Goody stamped her little foot on the ground, and up started a bull frog, who said right away, "How do you do, Mr. Mark? I don't forget that you have saved my life, and I am not an ungrateful frog. I will catch the fish for you."
It took three times twenty-one days to catch all the fish, and twice twenty-one days to cook them. Then Mark called the cat, saying, "Come, Mrs. Cat, come and look at your dinner." Down came the cat, with the table cloth still on her shoulders, tasted the first and last fish, smacked her lips, flourished her whiskers and tail, and cried, "Catipal! How many kinds you have caught! I must make a catalogue of them;" and then, to Mark's great amazement, she took the carving knife and cut off one of her paws, and handed it to him, saying, "Take this cat's paw: when you feel ill, weary, or are growing old, touch this paw to the end of your nose with the claws spread out, and all illness and weariness will disappear over your left shoulder."
Mark took it, and thanked the cat heartily. He thought he would try it then, and sure enough, he felt the fatigue walking over his left shoulder, just as he had been told. The little girl stood looking on with an amiable expression, and then the cat said, "Get on my tail."
Mark did not like to step on the cat's tail. He knew by experience that a cat is apt to claw anybody well who ventures on such a caper; but the little Goody laughed out, and stepping on it herself, invited Mark to her side.
Thus encouraged, the boy got on; and then the tail began to grow, till the top of it reached the garden gate, to which it fastened itself; and Mark and his pretty companion walked merrily over this new-fashioned bridge.
At the entrance, Goody took an affectionate leave of him, first pointing to a little clump of bushes with emerald green leaves, saying, "Never mind asking my father, the doctor. There is the plant of life, Mark; pluck it quickly, and off for home and your mother."
Oh, what joy he felt! He gathered several sprigs of the precious talisman, mounted the stick which the wolf had given him, and presto! in an instant was at the door of his mother's cottage.