All night long she tossed to and fro calling for Rags, and when morning came she had a high fever.
One afternoon when everything was so still in the room that you could hear Mary’s faint breathing, there was a pattering of feet and a little white poodle dashed into the room and jumped on the bed. It was Rags! But you would never have known him for he was thin and dirty, and his little feet were bleeding as if he had traveled a long way. He licked Mary’s face and tried to tell her how he got away from the man, but Mary could not understand dog language, and so she never knew.
From that day Mary grew better, and though she never could understand how Rags came back to her, she just smiled and said he found his way because he loved her so much.
THE MAGIC POT
In which a little girl gets into trouble by meddling.
There was once a little girl who lived alone with her mother. They were so poor that often they had nothing to eat. One day they had eaten the very last thing they had in the house, and were very hungry. So the mother went out to try to find some food for her little girl.
As she went along the road she met a very old woman. The old woman seemed very cold and so the mother said, “Take my cloak, for you need it more than I do.” The old woman took the cloak and then gave her a little iron pot, which she had been carrying under her apron.
“You must say to it, ‘Little pot, boil,’” said the old woman, “and it will boil for you, and when you say to it, ‘Little pot, stop,’ then it will stop boiling.” So the mother took the pot home with her and put it on the table.
Then she said to it, “Little pot, boil.” It began boiling at once, and they had all the beans they needed for many days.