"Naughty, naughty children to break up my house like that. Why didn't you knock at the door and ask to have something, and I would gladly give it to you?"
"Please ma'am," said Johnnie, "I will ask for something; I am so, so hungry, or else I wouldn't have hurt your pretty roof."
"Come inside my house," said the old woman, and let them come into her parlour. And that was made all of candies, the chairs and table of maple-sugar, and the couch of cocoanut. But as soon as the old woman got them inside her door she seized hold of Johnnie and took him through the kitchen and put him in a dark cubby-hole, and left him there with the door locked.
Now this old woman was a witch, who looked out for little children, whom she fattened up and ate. So she went back to Grizzle, and said,
"You shall be my little servant and do my work for me, and, as for that brother of yours, he'll make a fine meal when he's fattened up."
So this witch kept Johnnie and Grizzle with her, making Grizzle do all the housework, and every morning she went to the cubby-hole in which she kept Johnnie and gave him a good breakfast, and later in the day a good dinner, and at night a good supper; but after she gave him his supper she would say to him,
"Put out your forefinger," and when he put it out the old witch, who was nearly blind, felt it and muttered,
"Not fat enough yet!"
After a while Johnnie felt he was getting real fat and was afraid the witch would eat him up. So he searched about till he found a stick about the size of his finger, and when the old witch asked him to put out his finger he put out the stick, and she said,
"Goodness gracious me, the boy is as thin as a lath! I must feed him up more."