The Novena over, Maria once more returned to her ceaseless toil; but the stepmother’s hatred had grown so great that she determined to rid herself of her altogether and in the most cruel way.
Down in the cellar there stood a large barrel,[10] which had grown dirty and mouldy from neglect, and wanted scalding out. ‘Get into the barrel, Maria girl,’ she bid her next morning for her task, ‘and scrape it and rub it well before we scald it.’
Maria did as she was bid, and the stepmother went away to boil the water.
Meantime, the prince’s men had taken Maria’s slipper to him, and he, delighted to have any token of his fair one, appointed an officer to go into every house, and proclaim that the maiden whom the slipper might fit should be his bride. The officer went round from house to house, trying the slipper on everybody’s foot. But it fitted no one, for it was under a spell.
But the stepmother’s own daughter[11] had gone down to the cellar to help Maria, unbeknown to her mother; and it so happened that, just as she was inside the barrel and Maria outside, the king’s officer happened to come by that way. He opened the door,[12] and, seeing a damsel standing within, tried on the sandal without waiting to ask leave. As the sandal fitted Maria to perfection, the officer was all impatience to carry her off to the prince, and placed her in the carriage which was waiting outside, and drove off with her before anyone had even observed his entrance.
Scarcely had all this passed than the stepmother came back, with her servants, each carrying a can of boiling water. They placed themselves in a ring round the barrel, and each emptied her charge into it. As it was the stepmother’s daughter who was inside at the time, instead of Maria, it was she who got scalded to death in her place.
By-and-by, when the house was quiet, the bad stepmother went to the barrel, intending to take out the body of Maria and hide it. What was her dismay when she found, instead of Maria’s body, that of her own daughter! As soon as her distress and grief subsided sufficiently to enable her to consider what she had to do, the idea suggested itself to conceal the murder by putting the blame of it on some one else. For this purpose she took the body of her daughter, and, dressing it in dry clothes, seated it on the top of the stairs against her husband’s return.[13]
Presently, home he came with his ass-load of wood, and called to her daughter to come and help him unload it, as usual. But the daughter continued sitting on the top of the stairs, and moved not. Again and again he called, louder and louder, but still she moved not; till at last, irritated beyond all endurance, he hurled one of his logs of wood at her, which brought the badly-balanced corpse rolling and tumbling all the way down the stairs, just as the stepmother had designed.
The husband, however, was far from being deceived by the device. He could see the body presented no appearance of dying from a recent fall.
‘Where’s Maria?’ he asked, as soon as he got up into the room.