ou and one for me;
take whichever one you choose."

So in went the beggar, and the first loaf of bread he laid his hand upon
was the one in which the money was hidden, and off he marched with it
under his arm, without so much as saying thank you.

"I wonder," said he to himself, after he had jogged along awhile--"I
wonder whether the rich man is up to another trick such as he played
upon me yesterday?" He put the loaf of bread to his ear and shook it and
shook it, and what should he hear but the chink of the money within. "Ah
ha!" said he, "he has filled it with rusty nails and bits of iron again,
but I will get the better of him this time."

By-and-by he met a poor woman coming home from market. "Would you like
to buy a fine fresh loaf of bread?" said the beggar.

"Yes, I would," said the woman.

"Well, here is one you may have for two pennies," said the beggar.

That was cheap enough, so the woman paid him his price and off she went
with the loaf of bread under her arm, and never stopped until she had
come to her home.

Now it happened that the day before this very woman had borrowed just
such a loaf of bread from the rich man's wife; and so, as there was
plenty in the house without it, she wrapped this loaf up in a napkin,
and sent her husband back with it to where it had started from first of
all.

"Well," said the rich man to his wife, "the way of Heaven is not to be
changed." And so he laid the money on the shelf until he who had given
it to him should come again, and thought no more of giving it to the
beggar.

At the end of seven days the king called upon the rich man again, and
this time he came in his own guise as a real king. "Well," said he, "is
the poor man the richer for his money?"

"No," said the rich man, "he is not;" and then he told the whole story
from beginning to end just as I have told it.

"Your father was right," said the king; "and what he said was very
true--Much shall have more and little shall have less.' Keep the bag of
money for yourself, for there Heaven means it to stay."

And maybe there is as much truth as poetry in this story.

And now it was the turn of the Blacksmith who had made Death sit in his
pear-tree until the cold wind whistled through the ribs of man's enemy.
He was a big, burly man, with a bullet head, and a great thick neck, and
a voice like a bull's.

"Do you mind," said he, "about how I clapped a man in the fire and
cooked him to a crisp that day that