The cruel stepmother determined that Maria should be deprived of a friend who enabled her to set all her hard treatment at defiance, and next morning told her that she was going to kill the cow. Maria was broken-hearted at the announcement, but she knew it was useless to remonstrate; so she only used her greatest speed to reach her ‘dear little cow,’ and warn her of what was going to happen in time to make her escape.
‘There is no need for me to escape,’ replied Vaccarella; ‘killing will not hurt me. So dry your tears, and don’t be distressed. Only, after they have killed me, put your hand under my heart, and there you will find a golden ball. This ball is yours, so take it out, and whenever you are tired of your present kind of life, you have only to say to it on some fitting occasion—“Golden ball, golden ball, dress me in gold and give me a lover,”[7] and you shall see what shall happen.’
Vaccarella had no time to say more, for the stepmother arrived just then with a man who slaughtered the cow at her order.
Under Vaccarella’s heart Maria found the promised golden ball, which she hid away carefully against some fitting occasion for using it arose.
Not long after there was a novena[8] of a great festival, during which Maria’s stepmother, with all her disposition to overwork her, durst not keep her from church, lest the neighbours should cry ‘Shame!’ on her.
Maria accordingly went to church with all the rest of the people, and when she had made her way through the crowd to a little distance from her stepmother, she took her golden ball out of her pocket and whispered to it—‘Golden ball, golden ball, dress me in gold and give me a lover.’
Instantly the golden ball burst gently open and enveloped her, and she came out of it all radiant with beautiful clothing, like a princess. Everybody made way for her in her astonishing brightness.
The eyes of the king’s son were turned upon her, no less than the eyes of all the people; and the prayers were no sooner over than he sent some of his attendants to call her and bring her to him. Before they could reach her, however, Maria had restored her beautiful raiment to the golden ball, and, in the sordid attire in which her stepmother dressed her, she could easily pass through the crowd unperceived.
At home, her stepmother could not forbear talking, like everyone else in the town, about the maiden in glittering raiment who had appeared in the midst of the church; but, of course, without the remotest suspicion that it was Maria herself. But Maria sat still and said nothing.
So it happened each day of the Novena; for, though Maria was not at all displeased with the appearance and fame of the husband whom her ‘dear little cow’ seemed to have appointed for her, she did not wish to be too easy a prize, and thought it but right to make him take a little trouble to win her. Thus she every day restored all her bright clothing to the golden ball before the prince’s men could overtake her. Only on the last day of the Novena, when the prince, fearful lest it might also be the last on which he would have an opportunity of seeing her, had told them to use extra diligence, they were so near overtaking her that, in the hurry of the moment, she dropped a slipper.[9] This the prince’s men eagerly seized, feeling no compunction in wresting it from the mean-looking wench (so Maria now looked) who disputed possession of it with them, not in the least imagining that she could be the radiant being of whom they were in search.