English Fairy Tales

by Flora Annie Webster Steel

"Stock!" sang the bird.

And the second miller put aside his tool and listened.

"Stone," sang the bird.

Then the third miller put aside his tool and listened.

"Dead!" sang the bird so sweetly that with one accord the millers looked up and cried with one voice:

"Oh, what a beautiful song! Sing it again, dear bird, it is sweeter than a nightingale's."

"That will I gladly," answered the bird, "if you will hang the millstone you are picking round my neck."

So the millers hung it as they were asked; and when the song was finished, the bird spread its wide white wings and, with the millstone round its neck and the little rose-red shoes in one foot, the golden chain in the other, it flew back to the rose tree. But the little playmate was not there; he was inside the house eating his dinner.

Then the bird flew to the house, and rattled the millstone about the eaves until the stepmother cried, "Hearken! How it thunders!"

So the little boy ran out to see, and down dropped the dainty rose-red shoes at his feet.