" Then she did as she was told, but when all was done she could
not help crying, for she thought to herself, she would have liked to go
to the dance too, and at last she begged her mother very hard to let her
go, "You! Cinderella?" said she; "you who have nothing to wear, no
clothes at all, and who cannot even dance--you want to go to the ball?"
And when she kept on begging, to get rid of her, she said at last, "I
will throw this basinful of peas into the ash heap, and if you have
picked them all out in two hours' time you shall go to the feast too."
Then she threw the peas into the ashes; but the little maiden ran out at
the back door into the garden, and cried out--
"Hither, thither, through the sky, turtle-doves and linnets, fly!
Blackbird, thrush, and chaffinch gay, hither, thither, haste away!
One and all, come, help me quick! haste ye, haste ye--pick, pick,
pick!"
Then first came two white doves; and next two turtle-doves; and after
them all the little birds under heaven came, and the little doves
stooped their heads down and set to work, pick, pick, pick; and then the
others began to pick, pick, pick, and picked out all the good grain and
put it into a dish, and left the ashes. At the end of one hour the work
was done, and all flew out again at the windows. Then she brought the
dish to her mother.
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