The Green Frog was angry enough when she saw that Eva had chosen rightly. But there was nothing to be done, only she grumbled to herself and said,—she did not know that Eva heard her:
“The coat is useless without the piece.”
However, she hired Eva on the same terms for another week. For she thought that if the new servant failed this time she would not only change her into a frog, but get the little coat back. And the work Eva had to do this week was to empty, and then refill with fresh water every morning, the pool in which the Frog slept, and they gave her a pail with no bottom to do it with.
And Eva would have been in a sad way if she had not heard the jackdaw say, as he stood by the pool:
“Our new servant is caught at last; for, if she did take me for a broom last week, she will never have sense enough to know that if she shakes her pail over the pool and says ‘Water, go,’ it will empty itself, and then ‘Water, come,’ and she will have no more trouble.”
And then out hopped the jackdaw, and never knew that Eva heard him. And she found he was right; and she noticed, too, that this week they only pulled out the little green bird’s wing-feathers, and never touched his tail.
She did her work this time without any trouble. At the end of the week it was the same thing over again about the wages, and again Eva went to the Toad-Woman, and was told what she should do.
So she said to the Green Frog, “My coat is useless as long as it has a hole in it. You can give me the jackdaw’s best cravat to mend it with.”
The Frog laughed at this, and told Eva to go and get it. She did not know that the jackdaw, being fond of dress, and a thief, had stolen the piece of Aster’s coat for that purpose. However, she found it out soon enough, and when Eva went to look for it,—behold! a great spider had spun a web around it,—a web so strong that she could not break it. And after trying a long time, she was nearly in despair, when she saw a little gray mouse come out of a hole, and, climbing up to the web, gnaw and bite at it with its sharp teeth till it cut it all through; and then it brought and laid in her hand the same piece of velvet which had been torn out of Aster’s coat. Then the little mouse said to her:
“You saved me from being drowned, and I am not ungrateful.” And then it crept back into its hole.