The old woman was not pretty to look at. Her face was as brown as leather and covered with wrinkles, and her hair hung about it in ragged grey locks. It was no wonder that her hair was rough and ragged, for it had never been combed her whole life long, and she was quite old—oh, as old as forty, maybe! But she really couldn’t help her hair being like that any more than she could help being forty, because there was not a single comb yet made in the whole world!
It was a mystery how she cracked the nuts so well, because she had only a few teeth left in her mouth. For clothing she had nothing but the skin of a deer fastened over her left shoulder by a thorn, and tied around her waist with a leather thong.
Although she seemed to be thinking of nothing but her nuts, the little bright eyes of the old woman kept close watch in every direction, and her ears were quick to hear every unusual sound. If a twig snapped, or there was a rustling noise in the underbrush, she was ready in an instant to fling fresh dry sticks on the fire and make it glow red against the black opening of the cave.
She knew that no wild animal, however fierce and hungry, would dare come near the leaping flames. Yet watchful as she was, she did not see two children who were creeping stealthily toward her, over the great rocks which sheltered the mouth of the cave.
They were a boy and a girl, and from their size they must have been about eight years old. They both had bright twinkling eyes and flaming red hair, and were dressed alike in skins of red foxes of almost the same colour. You could tell at a glance that they were twins, but it would have puzzled any one to tell whether they were both boys or both girls, or one of each kind. They came down over the rocks so quietly that not even the quick ears of the old woman heard the faintest sound.
When they had almost reached the ground, they stopped, and at the same instant opened their mouths and howled exactly like two young wolves!
The noise was so sudden and so near
that the old woman never thought of her fire at all. She simply screamed and fell right over backwards into the cave. Then she rolled over and scuttled on all fours out of sight in the darkness as fast as she could go.
The acorns from her lap flew in every direction and rolled down the hillside. The