Everything prospered with them until one afternoon the little girl went for a walk in the fields outside of the village. She was gone so long that her mother became hungry, and said to the pot, “Boil, little pot, boil.”
At once the cooking began, but when the porridge in the pot had increased to enough for a meal, she could not think of the magic words to stop the boiling process. So the pot soon began to overflow, and it continued to boil and boil till the porridge filled the kitchen. In a little while the entire house was filled, and still the pot boiled. The porridge now commenced to stream out at the doors and windows and chimney. It filled the yard and the garden, it engulfed the next house, and the next, and soon the street was filled. The people fled before it, and it covered the whole village out of sight. It seemed likely to furnish food for all the world, and there is no knowing what might have happened if the little girl had not returned and called to the pot to stop.
Then it left off cooking; but for many a long day the people who wished to get into the village had to eat their way through a great mass of sweet porridge.
THE PRAYING GEESE
A FOX once came to a meadow where a flock of fine fat geese were feeding. “My dears,” said he, “I have come without ceremony, just as if I had been invited. You are very charming, and I desire nothing better than to keep you company and eat you one after another at my leisure.”
The geese cackled for terror and began to beg pitifully for their lives. But their appeals had no effect on the fox. His only response was: “I shall show you no mercy. You must die.”
Then one of them said: “If we poor geese must lose our lives, at least grant us one single grace. Permit us to say our prayers, that we may not die in our sins. After we finish praying we will all stand in a row, and you can pick out the fattest one to begin on, and feast as you please.”
“Well,” said the fox, “that is a just and pious request. Pray away, and I will wait for you.”