“Then kill the pig,” advised his mother, “for certainly it will be a strange and good thing for you if you can buy a bottle of brains and be able to take care of yourself.”
So he killed the pig, and the next day he again visited the wise woman at her cottage on the hill. There she sat by the hearth, reading in a great book.
“Good evening, missis,” said he, “I’ve brought you the heart of the thing I like best of all. It is the heart of our pig.”
“Is that so?” said she, and looked at him through her spectacles. “Then tell me this—what runs without feet?”
He thought and thought and thought, but he could not tell.
“Go your way,” said she. “You have not fetched me the right thing yet, and I have no brains for you today.”
So saying, she clapped her book together, and turned her back, and the lad went to tell his mother.
As he drew near to the house, out ran some of the neighbors to inform him that his mother was dying. When he went in, she smiled at him feebly, and soon, without speaking a word, breathed her last. He left the room and sat down on a bench just outside of the house door, and the more he thought about his mother’s death, the worse he felt. He remembered how she had taken care of him ever since he was a tiny child, helping him with his lessons, cooking his food, mending his clothes, and bearing with his foolishness.
“Oh, mother, mother!” he sighed, “who will take care of me? You have left me all alone, and what shall I do now to get that bottle of brains?”
After the funeral was over he went once more to consult the wise woman, and he told her of his mother’s sudden death, and how he had now more need than ever of the bottle of brains.