"Your step-mother," said he, "sends you this bundle of wool and she bids you spin it that there may be cloth for new clothes for me." "I will spin it," said Bloom-of-Youth. But the next day when her husband went away she did what she had always done before. She went to the well and she looked for long at her image; she put a wreath of flowers on her head and she looked at her image again; she picked berries and ate them; she went along the path without hurrying, singing to herself.-- 'Said when he saw Me all in blue "Who is the maid The sky must woo?" 'Said when he saw Me all in green "Who is the maid The grass calls queen?"' She had to light the fire again when she came in and sweep away the ashes that had gathered on the floor and after she had done all that it was time to prepare the meal for the evening. But before her husband came home she took the spinning wheel out of the corner and put it near the light of the doorway. "I see," said her husband, "that you are going to spin the wool for my clothes." "I am when to-morrow comes," said Bloom-of-Youth. But the next day she did as she done every day and no wool was spun. The day after she put wool on the wheel and gave it a few turns. In a week from that evening she had one ball of thread spun. "Your step-mother bids me ask you how much of the wool have you spun?" said her husband to her one evening. Bloom-of-Youth was so much afraid that her husband would send her to her step-mother through the dark, dark wood, that she said "I have spun many balls." "Your step-mother bade me count the balls you have spun," said her husband. "I will go up to the loft and throw them down to you and then you will throw them back to me and we will count them that way," said Bloom-of-Youth. She went up to the loft and she flung down the ball she had spun. "One," said her husband, and he threw it back to her. She flung him the ball again. "Two," said her husband, and he flung it back to her. Then he said "three," and then "four," and then "five," and so on until he had counted twelve. "You have done well," said he, "and now before the week is out take the twelve balls to your step-mother's house and she will weave the thread into cloth for clothes for me." [Illustration] Bloom-of-Youth was greatly frightened. To her step-mother's house she would have to go with a dozen balls of thread in a few days. The next day she hurried back from the well and she sat at her wheel before the door spinning and spinning. But, do her best, she could not get a good thread spun in the long length of the day. And while she was spinning and spinning and getting her thread knotted and broken a black and crooked woman came and stood before the door. "You're spinning hard I see," said she to Bloom-of-Youth. Bloom-of-Youth gave her no answer but put her head against the wheel and cried and cried.