“I have my wife,” replied the baker. “She is so frightfully ill-tempered that whenever I am going to bake bread I am obliged to shut her up in this box, lest she push me into the oven and bake me with the bread, as she has often threatened to do. But to-day she has broken the lock of the box, and I know not how to keep her down.”
“That is easily managed,” said Hokey Pokey. “Do you but tell her, when she asks who I am, that I am a giant with three heads, and all will be well.” So saying, he took his wooden mallet and dealt three tremendous blows on the box, saying in a loud voice,—
“Hickory Hox!
I sit by the box,
Waiting to give you a few of my knocks.”
“Husband, husband! whom have you there?” cried the wife in terror.
“Alas!” said the baker; “it is a frightful giant with three heads. He is sitting by the box, and if you open it so much as the width of your little finger, he will pull you out and beat you to powder.”
When the wife heard that she crouched down in the box, and said never a word, for she was afraid of her life.
The baker then took Hokey Pokey into the other part of the shop, thanked him warmly, and gave him a good supper and a bed. The next morning he gave him for a present the finest loaf of bread in his shop, which was shaped like a large round ball; and Hokey Pokey, after knocking once more on the lid of the box, continued his travels.
He had not gone far before he came to another village, and wishing to inquire his way he entered the first shop he came to, which proved to be that of a confectioner. The shop was full of the most beautiful sweetmeats imaginable, and everything was bright and gay; but the confectioner himself sat upon a bench, weeping bitterly.