Day after day her wish for these lettuces grew stronger, and the knowledge that she could not get them so worried her that at last she became so pale and thin that her husband was quite alarmed.
“What is the matter with you, dear wife?” he asked one day.
“Ah!” she said, “if I do not have some of that nice lettuce which grows in the garden behind our house, I feel that I shall die.”
The husband, who loved his wife dearly, said to himself: “Rather than my wife should die, I will get some of this lettuce for her, cost what it may.”
So in the evening twilight he climbed over the wall into the garden of the Witch, hastily gathered a handful of the lettuces, and brought them to his wife. She made a salad, and ate it with great eagerness.
the fair maiden with golden hair
from a drawing by edith w. yaffee
It pleased her so much and tasted so good that, after two or three days had passed, she gave her husband no rest till he promised to get her some more. So again in the evening twilight he climbed the wall, but as he slid down into the garden on the other side he was terribly alarmed at seeing the Witch standing near him.
“How came you here?” she said with a fierce look. “You have climbed over the wall into my garden like a thief and stolen my lettuces; you shall pay dearly for this!”
“Ah!” replied the poor man, “let me entreat for mercy; I have only taken it in a case of extreme need. My wife has seen your lettuces from her window, and she wished for them so much that she said she should die if she could not have some of them to eat.”