|
|
Once upon a time there was a man, and he had a wife. Now this couple wanted to sow their fields, but they had neither seed-corn nor money to buy it with. But they had a cow, and the man was to drive it into town and sell it to get money to buy corn for seed. But when it came to the pinch, the wife dared not let her husband start, for fear he should spend the money in drink, so she set off herself with the cow, and took besides a hen with her.
Close by the town she met a butcher, who asked, "Will you sell that cow, mother?"
"Yes, that I will," she answered.
"Well, what do you want for her?"
"Oh! I must have five shillings for the cow, but you shall have the hen for ten pounds."
"Very good!" said the man; "I don't want the hen, and you'll soon get it off your hands in the town; but I'll give you five shillings for the cow."
Well, she sold her cow for five shillings, but there was no one in the town who would give ten pound for a lean tough old hen, so she went back to the butcher, and said, "Do all I can, I can't get rid of this hen, master! You must take it too, as you took the cow."
"Well," said the butcher, "come along and we'll see about it." Then he treated her both with meat and drink, and gave her so much brandy that she lost her head, and didn't know what she was about, and fell fast asleep. But while she slept, the butcher took and dipped her into a tar barrel, and then laid her down on a heap of feathers; and when she woke up she was feathered all over, and began to wonder what had befallen her.
"Is it me, or is it not me? No, it can never be me. It must be some great strange bird. But what shall I do to find out whether it is me or not? Oh! I know how I shall be able to tell whether it is me. If the calves come and lick me, and our dog Tray doesn't bark at me when I get home, then it must be me and no one else."
Now, Tray, her dog, had scarce set his eyes on the strange monster which came through the gate, than he set up such a barking, one would have thought all the rogues and robbers in the world were in the yard.
"Ah! deary me!" said she, "I thought so. It can't be me surely."
So she went to the straw-yard, and the calves wouldn't lick her, when they snuffed in the strong smell of tar. "No, no!" she said. "It can't be me. It must be some strange outlandish bird."
So she crept up on the roof of the safe [storehouse] and began to flap her arms, as if they had been wings, and was just going to fly off.
When her husband saw all this, out he came with his rifle, and began to take aim at her.
"Oh!" cried his wife, "don't shoot, don't shoot! It is only me."
"If it's you," said her husband, "don't stand up there like a goat on a house-top, but come down and let me hear what you have to say for yourself."
So she crawled down again, but she hadn't a shilling to show, for the crown she had got from the butcher she had thrown away in her drunkenness.
When her husband heard her story, he said "You're only twice as silly as you were before," and he got so angry that he made up his mind to go away from her altogether, and never to come back till he had found three other goodies [women] as silly as his own.
So he toddled off, and when he had walked a little way he saw a goody, who was running in and out of a newly built wooden cottage with an empty sieve, and every time she ran in she threw her apron over the sieve, just as if she had something in it, and when she got in she turned it upside down on the floor.
"Why, goody!" he asked, "what are you doing?"
"Oh," she answered, "I'm only carrying in a little sun; but I don't know how it is, when I'm outside I have the sun in my sieve, but when I get inside, somehow or other I've thrown it away. But in my old cottage I had plenty of sun, though I never carried in the least bit. I only wish I knew some one who would bring the sun inside. I'd give him three hundred dollars and welcome."
"Have you got an ax?" asked the man. "If you have, I'll soon bring the sun inside."
So he got an ax and cut windows in the cottage, for the carpenters had forgotten them. Then the sun shone in, and he got his three hundred dollars.
"That was one of them," said the man to himself, as he went on his way.
After a while he passed by a house, out of which came an awful screaming and bellowing; so he turned in and saw a goody, who was hard at work banging her husband across the head with a beetle [wooden pestle], and over his head she had drawn a shirt without any slit for the neck.
"Why, goody!" he asked, "will you beat your husband to death?"
"No," she said, "I only must have a hole in this shirt for his neck to come through."
All the while the husband kept on screaming and calling out, "Heaven help and comfort all who try on new shirts! If anyone would teach my goody another way of making a slit for the neck in my new shirts I'd give him three hundred dollars down, and welcome."
"I'll do it in the twinkling of an eye," said the man, "if you'll only give me a pair of scissors."
|
Tags
You must be logged in to add tags.
|
Writer Profile
Amaka for Kids
This user has not written anything in his panorama profile yet.
|
Comments
You must be a TakingITGlobal member to post a comment. Sign up for free or login.
|
|
