only find some one that she would consent to have."

At last one came from a distance, and his name was Hans, and when he
proposed to her, he made it a condition that Clever Else should be very
careful as well.

"Oh," said the father, "she does not want for brains."

"No, indeed," said the mother, "she can see the wind coming up the
street and hear the flies cough."

"Well," said Hans, "if she does not turn out to be careful too, I will
not have her."

Now when they were all seated at table, and had well eaten, the mother
said,

"Else, go into the cellar and draw some beer."

Then Clever Else took down the jug from the hook in the wall, and as she
was on her way to the cellar she rattled the lid up and down so as to
pass away the time. When she got there, she took a stool and stood it in
front of the cask, so that she need not stoop and make her back ache
with needless trouble. Then she put the jug under the tap and turned it,
and while the beer was running, in order that her eyes should not be
idle, she glanced hither and thither, and finally caught sight of a
pickaxe that the workmen had left sticking in the ceiling just above
her head. Then Clever Else began to cry, for she thought,

"If I marry Hans, and we have a child, and it grows big, and we send it
into the cellar to draw beer, that pickaxe might fall on his head and
kill him."

So there she sat and cried with all her might, lamenting the anticipated
misfortune. All the while they were waiting upstairs for something to
drink, and they waited in vain. At last the mistress said to the maid,

"Go down to the cellar and see why Else does not come."

So the maid went, and found her sitting in front of the cask crying with
all her might.

"What are you crying for?" said the maid.

"Oh dear me," answered she, "how can I help crying? if I marry Hans, and
we have a child, and it grows big, and we send it here to draw beer,
perhaps the pickaxe may fall on its head and kill it."

"Our Else is clever indeed!" said the maid, and directly sat down to
bewail the anticipated misfortune. After a while, when the people
upstairs found that the maid did not return, and they were becoming more
and more thirsty, the master said to the boy,

"You go down into the cellar, and see what Else and the maid are doing."

The boy did so, and there he found both Clever Else and the maid sitting
crying together. Then he asked what was the matter.

"Oh dear me," said Else,