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768 WHAT THE OLD MAN DOES IS RIGHT
something to give me pleasure. How charming that is ! We can let the goose walk about with a string to her leg, and she'll grow fatter still before Martinmas.'
But I gave away the goose for a fowl,' said the man.
' A fowl % That was a good exchange ! ' replied the woman. ' The fowl will lay eggs and hatch them, and we shall have chickens : we shall have a whole poultry-yard ! Oh, that 's just what I was wishing for.'
1 Yes, but I exchanged the fowl for a sack of rotten apples.'
' What!—I must positively kiss you for that,' exclaimed the wife. ' My dear, good husband ! Now I'll tell you something. Do you know, you had hardly left me this morning before I began thinking how I could give you something very nice this evening. I thought it should be pancakes with savoury herbs. I had the eggs ; but I wanted herbs. So I went over to the schoolmaster's— they have herbs there, I know—but the schoolmistress is a mean woman. I begged her to lend me a handful of herbs. " Lend ! " she answered me; "nothing at all grows in our garden, not even a rotten apple. I could not even lend you that." But now i" can lend her ten, or a whole sackful; that makes me laugh ! ' And with that she gave him a sounding kiss.
* 1 like that!' exclaimed both the Englishmen together. ' Always going down-hill, and always merry; that 's worth the money.'
So they paid a hundredweight of gold to the peasant, who was not scolded, but kissed.
Yes, it always pays, when the wife sees and always asserts that her husband knows best, and that whatever he docs is right.
You see. that is my story. I heard it when I was a child ; and now you have heard it too, and know that 'What the old man does is always right'. |
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