‘Iss, if you please, ma’am,’ said Tuesday, forgetting her mother’s injunction.
The old crone came in, lighted her pipe, and took away Tuesday!
‘Mind the old Witch o’ the Well don’t come and take you away like she did Monday and Tuesday,’ the children were saying to each other when Betty came back from her fruitless search for Monday.
‘What! has the bad old witch come and taken away Tuesday?’ cried the Little Mother. ‘Dear! what ever shall I do now? I can’t find Monday, and now my poor little Tuesday is gone!’
She rushed across the road to the well where the old witch was sitting, as before, calmly smoking her pipe.
‘What have you done with Tuesday?’ she demanded.
‘I gave her a piece of saffron cake and sent her out to Lelizzick to ask Farmer Chapman to sell me a bag of sheep’s wool for spinning,’ the witch made answer.
‘I am going out to Lelizzick to look for Tuesday,’ said the Little Mother, rushing back to her children. ‘Be sure you don’t let the old witch come in. If you do, she will take you all away, and then what shall I do without my dear little maids?’
Betty was scarcely out of sight when a steeple-hat was seen at the window, and a pair of eerie eyes looked in.
Before the children could shut the door and its hatch, the old witch had come into the cottage.