Then the envious mother cried out, "Shall she be better off than we are?" fetched a butcher's knife and stuck it into the goat's heart, so that it fell down dead.
When Little Two Eyes saw that, she went out full of grief, seated herself on a hillock, and wept bitter tears. All at once the wise woman stood near her again, and said, "Little Two Eyes, why do you cry?"
"Shall I not cry?" answered she. "The goat who every day, when I said your little verse, laid the table so beautifully, has been killed by my mother; now I must suffer hunger and thirst again."
The wise woman said, "Little Two Eyes, I will give you some good advice; beg your sisters to give you the heart of the murdered goat, and bury it in the ground before the house-door, and it will turn out lucky for you." Then she disappeared, and Little Two Eyes went home and said to her sisters, "Dear sisters, give me some part of my goat; I don't ask for anything good, only give me the heart."
Then they laughed and said, "You can have that, if you do not want anything else." Little Two Eyes took the heart, and buried it quietly in the evening before the house-door, after the advice of the wise woman.
Next morning, when the sisters woke, and went to the house-door together, there stood a most wonderful splendid tree, with leaves of silver, and fruit of gold hanging between them. Nothing more beautiful or charming could be seen in the wide world. But they did not know how the tree had come there in the night. Little Two Eyes alone noticed that it had grown out of the heart of the goat, for it stood just where she had buried it in the ground.
Then the mother said to Little One Eye, "Climb up, my child, and gather us some fruit from the tree."
Little One Eye climbed up, but when she wanted to seize a golden apple, the branch sprang out of her hand; this happened every time, so that she could not gather a single apple, though she tried as much as she could.
Then the mother said, "Little Three Eyes, do you climb up; you can see better about you with your three eyes than Little One Eye can."
Little One Eye scrambled down, and Little Three Eyes climbed up. But Little Three Eyes was no cleverer, and might look about her as much as she liked—the golden apples always sprang back from her grasp. At last the mother became impatient, and climbed up herself, but could touch the fruit just as little as Little One Eye or Little Three Eyes; she always grasped the empty air.