believing the fox's words, took her on his back, and carried her all the way; while the artful fox went laughing and singing thus:—
The fox knows how to shift,
When too full to make tracks;
She's deep enough to get a lift
On other people's backs.
The wolf, astonished to hear his friend singing like a bird, asked her several times what she was saying; but her only answer was, "Oh, I am so ill, so very ill."
And so they went along till the wolf began to see the trick that was played upon him, and perceiving that there was a well near them, he said to her, "Ah, you have been deceiving me, have you? telling me you could not walk because you felt so ill and so weak, and yet you can manage to sing so merrily—
The fox knows how to shift,
When too full to make tracks;
She's deep enough to get a lift
On other people's backs.
Very well, you shall soon find yourself deep enough!" and at the same time he threw her off his back and into the well. The fox, however, managed to scramble into one of the buckets that was standing on the edge of the well, ready for any one who might come for water; her weight of course lowered the bucket into the well, and sent the empty bucket up. She then looked up at the wolf who was watching her and said,
