“Alas!” cried Wry-Face, “to-night I am so tired I could never find One-Eye; but if you will but wait till to-morrow, I will carry you home to the potato wife—I will, indeed.”
At first the potato would not agree to this at all, but after a while it said, “Very well, I will wait till to-morrow. But remember, my Wry-Face, if you do not carry me home to One-Eye to-morrow, I will creep into every pie you make; and you will die at last of starvation without a doubt.”
So Wry-Face stored the potato in the potato bin and went supperless to bed. And he knew nothing of the spell which Oh-I-Am had placed by his door.
Now he got into bed, and thought he would go to sleep; but oh, how hard the mattress was! Wry-Face lay this way, then that, but no matter which way he lay, he found a great hump just beneath him which was as hard as hard, and as nobbly as could be.
Wry-Face tossed and tossed till it was nearly morning; and his bones were so sore that he could lie no longer.
Then he pulled the mattress from the bed and cut a great hole in it, and when he had searched and searched he found in the middle of the mattress—a big brown potato!
“This,” cried Wry-Face, “is why I have not slept the whole night through!” And he wept like anything.
But the potato was as cool as cool.
“I belong,” it said, “to One-Eye, the potato wife; and let me tell you, my little gnome, unless you take me to her immediately, I shall climb into your mattress again, and there I shall remain.”
“Alas,” cried Wry-Face, “I have tossed about for hours and hours and am too tired to do anything. But if you will wait till to-morrow, dear potato, I will carry you to One-Eye, the potato wife—I will, indeed.”