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rawHead and Bloody Bones A little girl once lived with her daddy. Her mama had died. Not far away another little girl lived with her mama. Her daddy had died. These two little girls knew each other and got along well. Over time their parents fell in love and married each other. For a while all was well, but then the mother began to make a difference between the two girls. She noticed that her husband’s girl was prettier than her daughter, so she began to dress her husband’s daughter in old worn-out clothes and dress her daughter in new pretty clothes. Whenever her husband asked why the girls’ clothing looked so different, she said, “Oh, that girl of yours is just hard on her clothes. They start the same, but hers look ragged in no time.” But even dressed in rags, the pretty girl was still prettier than her daughter. So the mama began to give the pretty girl harder chores than her daughter, but even the hard work did not keep her from looking prettier than her own daughter. At first her daughter noticed her mama’s meanness and tried to make it up to her stepsister by being nice to her. But then the daughter began to enjoy her new clothes, and she liked being assigned only the easiest jobs, so it became easier and easier for her to be just as mean to her sister as her mother was. And the meaner she was to her stepsister, the more her mama praised her. The pretty girl couldn’t imagine what she had done to cause such meanness to come her way, but she understood how bad it felt to be treated so mean, so she promised herself she would always treat others with kindness. Because she was so kind to everyone, people liked her better than her sister too. When the mother saw that her stepdaughter was not only prettier but also better liked than her daughter, she grew determined to get rid of the girl. She went off to visit a friend of hers who knew how to cast spells, saying, “Tell me what I can do to get rid of her.” By the time she left for home, she had a plan. When she reached home, she told her daughter, “I want you to get in the bed and pretend Rawhead and Bloody Bones 123 you are sick, even near dying.” The daughter did. Then the mama began wailing and crying like her heart was near breaking. The kind girl heard her cries and came running. When she learned her sister was sick, she immediately asked, “Is there anything I can do to help her?” This was just what her stepmother had known she would say. “Oh,” said the woman, “I’ve been to see a friend of mine who’s real good at healing, and she says can’t anything cure her but a bottle of water from the well at the end of the world.” “Give me a bottle,” said the girl, “and I’ll go fetch the water.” So, the stepmother gave the girl a small bottle and sent her off with a few dried crusts of bread to eat on her journey. Now, the stepmother never expected to see the girl again, for her friend had promised to cast spells that would send wild animals out to trample the girl to death along the way. Of course, the girl knew nothing of this. She walked through the nearby village and kept walking right into the woods, where wild animals lived. She hadn’t gone far into the woods when she stopped to eat. Then she saw an old man walking along. He seemed to be leaning heavy on his walking stick, and the girl thought he looked hungry too. “Hello,” she said, “would you like to share my food? It’s not much, just some dried crusts of bread, but I’d be happy to share it.” The old man sat down beside the girl and shared her food. Then he said, “I know you are going on a long journey, and I want to give you my walking stick to help you along your way. Whenever you have trouble, just strike the ground with the stick and say—Stop! Stop!—and you’ll be safe.” The girl took the stick, thanked the old man, and went on her way. She hadn’t gone far when she...

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