Once upon a time there was a girl, very young and beautiful, who had lost her mother when she was still a child, and her stepmother tried to torment her in every possible way, making her life very miserable. Whenever her stepmother asked her to do something, she did it without complaining and did everything in her power. But this did not move the heart of the wicked woman, whose greed was never satisfied. The more the girl worked, the more work her stepmother gave her. The woman was trying to make her life harder by making her mope around with more work.
One day the woman said to the girl, "There are twelve pounds of feathers here, and you're going to have to pluck them, and if you haven't done it by the end of the day, you're going to get a beating. Do you think you can hang around all day?" The poor girl began to work, tears streaming down her cheeks, for she realized that she could not possibly do all this work in one day. Whenever she had a small pile of feathers in front of her, she always sighed or rubbed her hands together in anguish, and the feathers flew away and had to be picked up and then continued. After a while, she heard a low voice say, "Don't worry, my child, I've come to help you."
The girl looked up and saw an old woman standing beside her, kindly taking the girl's hand and saying, "Tell me what is troubling you." As she spoke so kindly, Speed told the old woman about her agonizing life, how one burden after another weighed on her, and how she could never finish the work her stepmother had given her." If I don't finish this pile of feathers by tonight, my stepmother will beat me. She's threatened me, and I know she'll keep her word." She began to weep again, but the kind old woman said, "Don't be afraid, my child, rest a while, and now let me do your work." The girl lay down on the bed and soon fell asleep.
The old woman sat down at the table where the feathers were piled up, and her old hands barely touched them before they flew magically off the stalks. The twelve pounds of feathers were picked up in no time. When the little girl awoke, she found a pile of snow-white feathers in front of her, the house was clean, and the old woman was gone. The girl thanked God and sat there quietly until nightfall.
When her stepmother walked in and saw that the work was all done, she was shocked." Look at you, you stupid thing," she said harshly, "people can do anything when they work hard, and you just sit there, can't you do anything else?" The woman came out thinking: "This guy can do more, I must make her do harder work."