`` Well , that is a jolly life , '' said Tom . `` You think so ? '' said the fairy . `` Do you see that great peaked mountain there behind , '' said the fairy , `` with smoke coming out of its top ? '' `` Yes . '' `` And do you see all those ashes , and slag , and cinders lying about ? '' `` Yes . '' `` Then turn over the next five hundred years , and you will see what happens next . '' And behold the mountain had blown up like a barrel of gunpowder , and then boiled over like a kettle ; whereby one-third of the Doasyoulikes were blown into the air , and another third were smothered in ashes ; so that there was only one-third left . `` You see , '' said the fairy , `` what comes of living on a burning mountain . '' `` Oh , why did you not warn them ? '' said little Ellie . `` I did warn them all that I could . I let the smoke come out of the mountain ; and wherever there is smoke there is fire . And I laid the ashes and cinders all about ; and wherever there are cinders , cinders may be again . But they did not like to face facts , my dears , as very few people do ; and so they invented a cock-and-bull story , which , I am sure , I never told them , that the smoke was the breath of a giant , whom some gods or other had buried under the mountain ; and that the cinders were what the dwarfs roasted the little pigs whole with ; and other nonsense of that kind . And , when folks are in that humour , I can not teach them , save by the good old birch-rod . '' And then she turned over the next five hundred years : and there were the remnant of the Doasyoulikes , doing as they liked , as before . They were too lazy to move away from the mountain ; so they said , If it has blown up once , that is all the more reason that it should not blow up again . And they were few in number : but they only said , The more the merrier , but the fewer the better fare .
However , that was not quite true ; for all the flapdoodle-trees were killed XXXXX the volcano , and they had eaten all the roast pigs , who , of course , could not be expected to have little ones .
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