Ann made a box for him and kept him in the kitchen. For three days she stayed alone in the castle, alternately crying, making sure the snake was all right, and tending to the animals.Cook had disappeared, and so had Bob. In their places were a shy brown goat and a lop-eared dog of no particular breed. The dog followed Ann about, and the goat wandered around the kitchen and surveyed everything with a mournful air.On the morning of the third day Ann ran out of tears. She did her chores, and then turned the cow and the goat out to the orchard where the goat, who seemed to have forgotten ever being a cook, nibbled on the scarlet rose-hips growing along the fence.Bob, for a little while, still dug with his paws in the garden and pulled the weeds out with his teeth. But after two or three days he too started to forget, and after a while he reverted to a dog, although he would often look at Ann with the strangest expression, as if he almost wanted to speak.She still called the little snake Father, although he couldn't speak or give any sign he understood her.
