Wise Peter, "how can I swallow a mouthful when I am so
overwhelmed with misfortune?"

"What! you also!" said Catharine; "alas! what has happened?"

[Illustration: PETER'S RETURN HOME.]

With accents that trembled with rage and grief, Wise Peter told how
he had been treated in the village; but he had scarcely made an end
before Catharine, bursting into tears, exclaimed, "Oh, what will become
of me! Have mercy, Peter, for it was I who poured the wine down the
well!"

"Poured wine down the well!" cried Peter, starting in astonishment;
"then, for heaven's sake, why did you do that?"

"Because," sobbed his wife, "the water tasted of cabbages!"

"Of cabbages!" repeated the peasant, in greater surprise than ever, "and
what made it taste of cabbages?"

"Because I dipped up water in the cabbage pot," cried Silly Catharine.

"And where was the bucket?" asked her husband.

"I burnt it, trying to dip the water out of the chimney, that had been
drawn up from the cabbage pot!" gasped Catharine, feeling that
everything must now be told, since she had begun.

Wise Peter took two or three strides across the room in silence; then,
making a violent effort to speak quietly, he said, "And why, Catharine,
since you supposed that water could be drawn up a chimney, did you leave
the pot unwatched?"

Almost in a scream, Silly Catharine broke out, "Because I was sewing on
the turkeys' heads that I struck off cutting down the bramble bush!!"

"Now, was ever any man tormented with such a fool of a wife!" shouted
Peter, almost beside himself with rage. "I could beat you with pleasure
for acting so witlessly, but that, alas! would not pay for what you have
lost for me this day. A hundred and five guilders of my precious money
have I been made to pay for your foolery, besides losing my Tokay wine,
my field of wheat, and all my fine young turkeys! at least a hundred
guilders more!"

"Oh, and that's not the worst!" cried Catharine.

"What! is there any more to come?" exclaimed Peter, almost out of his
senses.

"Yes," stammered Silly Catharine; "the man came here to gather the tax,
and I told him, as you said, that you were far too clever to pay it, and
that he would get nothing more out of me. Then he said you were a
beggarly fellow, not worth five kreutzers, and, of course, I couldn't
allow that; so I showed him the guilders in the store room, to prove
that he spoke falsely, and he took every one of them! I am so sorry, but
never mi