By-and-by the second son came and told his mother that he was going to take a wife. The mother made the same conditions, and the wife submitted to them with equally good grace.
Then the third son came and said he too must take a wife. To him the old woman made the same terms; but he could not find a wife who would submit to them for his sake. The girl he wanted to marry, however, was very lively and spirited, and she said at last—
‘Never mind the conditions; let’s marry, and we’ll get through the future somehow.’
Then they married. When her son brought home this wife, and the old woman found she had no dowry, she was in a great fury; but it was too late to help it.
The first morning, when she knocked at their door to wake her, she called out—
‘Who’s there?’ though she knew well enough.
The mother-in-law answered, ‘Time to get up!’
‘Oibo!’ exclaimed the young wife. ‘Don’t imagine I’m going to get up in the middle of the night like this! I shall get up when I please, and not before.’ Then she turned to her husband, and said, ‘Just for her bothering me like this I shan’t get up till twelve o’clock.’ Neither did she.
The house was now filled with the old woman’s lamentations. ‘This woman upsets everything! This woman will be the ruin of us all!’ she kept exclaiming. But the third wife paid no heed, and dressed herself up smart, and amused herself, and did no work at all.
When supper-time came the old woman took out her apple and her halfpenny loaf, and cut them in four quarters, serving a bit all round.