Dame Grumble waited, fearful lest perhaps he would return, but the North Wind returned no more that spring. The blossoms on the Apple Tree began to wither, and presently tiny fruit began to form on its branches. It seemed at last as though Dame Grumble would gather the harvest of golden apples for which she had so longed; but even so, this cross, fault-finding dame was not content.
"Alack!" she often mourned, "if I had had this strong, coarse netting years ago, I would have had many a golden harvest long ere this. Without doubt this covering hath a charm above the power of the North Wind. Had I a son to assist me, I daresay he would have thought about it long since."
"But, Mother, I cannot help it that I am lame and do not assist you," sighed Freyo.
"But you can help it when you are wicked and disobedient; and wicked and disobedient you were when you cut the two stout branches of the Apple Tree. For now, though I shall gather golden apples, there will not be nearly so many because of your rash act."
So the springtime passed and the summertime came. Day by day the fruit on the Apple Tree grew larger, and day by day Dame Grumble took pencil and paper to count the number of apples that hung upon each branch. She tried each day to reckon just how many more she would have had but for the branches Freyo had cut off, and every day she grew vexed afresh. Dame Grumble would not permit Freyo to go near the Apple Tree. She vowed he might take a notion to cut down the whole tree, for all she knew.
The summer grew older; the meadows turned brown, and the fields grew bare. Dame Grumble watched eagerly for a sign which would show that the apples were turning to gold; but no sign she saw. The apples turned bright red instead. The summer began to wane, and a sharp chill in the air warned Dame Grumble that winter was not far away. The maples on the hillsides flamed crimson and scarlet once again, and yellow leaves fell from the poplar trees like rain.
"Now can it be that you are going to disappoint me!" exclaimed Dame Grumble to the Apple Tree. "Why, pray, do not your apples turn to gold?"
"How you talk, Dame Grumble!" replied the Apple Tree. "You will be disappointed no matter what happens! Though I gave you a thousand golden apples, you would never cease to mourn that you might have had a hundred more had not Freyo cut off my two branches. Then you would make the poor lad's life more miserable than ever. I sometimes wonder that you are not ashamed to plague and torment him as you do. You do not deserve golden apples, and I will not give you golden apples. So you had best make haste and gather these red apples of mine before the frost will nip them."
But this Dame Grumble would not do. She was assured that the red apples would turn to gold, in spite of the Apple Tree. For if young and tender blossoms yielded bright new shining pennies, did it not follow that the ripened fruit would be of purest gold? Dame Grumble so believed. "The Apple Tree does not love me and never did," she thought within herself; "it is but a plan to make me angry."
By and by the leaves fell from the Apple Tree itself, until its branches were quite bare and brown. The apples shone tantalizingly red, and then Dame Grumble realized at last that they would never change to golden, as she hoped. Now this new disappointment, you may be sure, did not tend to sweeten her disposition. All day she sat gazing mournfully at her favorite tree and wept bitter tears at her new loss.