One morning as she was baking cakes, a tired, hungry man came to her door.
“My good woman,” said he, “will you give me one of your cakes? I am very hungry. I have no money to pay for it, but whatever you first wish for you shall have.”
The old woman looked at her cakes and thought that they were too large to give away. She broke off a small bit of dough and put it into the oven to bake.
When it was done she thought this one was too nice and brown for a beggar.
She baked a smaller one and then a smaller one, but each one was as nice and brown as the first.
At last she took a piece of dough only as big as the head of a pin; yet even this, when it was baked, looked as fine and large as the others.
So the old woman put all the cakes on the shelf and offered the stranger a dry crust of bread.
The poor man only looked at her and before she could wink her eye he was gone.
She had done wrong and of course she was unhappy.
“Oh, I wish I were a bird!” said she, “I would fly to him with the largest cake on the shelf.”