“Tom, my lad,” he said with a grin, “I’ll tell ’ee summat, Tom.  True’s true I’ll never help thee again, and call as thou wilt, thou ’lt never see me after to-day; but I never said that I’d leave thee alone, Tom, and I never will, my lad!  I was nice and safe under the stone, Tom, and could do no harm; but thou let me out thyself, and thou can’t put me back again!  I would have been thy friend and worked for thee if thou had been wise; but since thou bee’st no more than a born fool I’ll give ’ee no more than a born fool’s luck; and when all goes vicey-varsy, and everything agee—­thou ’lt mind that it’s Yallery Brown’s doing though m’appen thou doesn’t see him.  Mark my words, will ’ee?”

And he began to sing, dancing round Tom, like a bairn with his yellow hair, but looking older than ever with his grinning wrinkled bit of a face: 

“Work as thou will
Thou ’lt never do well;
Work as thou mayst
Thou ’lt never gain grist;
For harm and mischance and Yallery Brown
Thou ’st let out thyself from under the stone.”

Tom could never rightly mind what he said next.  ’T was all cussing and calling down misfortune on him; but he was so mazed in fright that he could only stand there shaking all over, and staring down at the horrid thing; and if he’d gone on long, Tom would have tumbled down in a fit.  But by-and-by, his yaller shining hair rose up in the air, and wrapt itself round him till he looked for all the world like a great dandelion puff; and it floated away on the wind over the wall and out o’ sight, with a parting skirl of wicked voice and sneering laugh.

And did it come true, sayst thou?  My word! but it did, sure as death!  He worked here and he worked there, and turned his hand to this and to that, but it always went agee, and ’t was all Yallery Brown’s doing.  And the children died, and the crops rotted—­the beasts never fatted, and nothing ever did well with him; and till he was dead and buried, and m’appen even afterwards, there was no end to Yallery Brown’s spite at him; day in and day out he used to hear him saying—­

              “Work as thou wilt
               Thou ’lt never do well;
               Work as thou mayst
               Thou ’lt never gain grist;
     For harm and mischance and Yallery Brown
     Thou ’st let out thyself from under the stone.”

Three Feathers

Once upon a time there was a girl who was married to a husband that she never saw.  And the way this was, was that he was only at home at night, and would never have any light in the house.  The girl thought that was funny, and all her friends told her there must be something wrong with her husband, some great deformity that made him want not to be seen.