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

"Our Else is clever indeed!" said the boy, and sitting down beside her,
he began howling with a good will. Upstairs they were all waiting for
him to come back, but as he did not come, the master said to the
mistress,

"You go down to the cellar and see what Else is doing."

So the mistress went down and found all three in great lamentations, and
when she asked the cause, then Else told her how the future possible
child might be killed as soon as it was big enough to be sent to draw
beer, by the pickaxe falling on it. Then the mother at once exclaimed,

"Our Else is clever indeed!" and, sitting down, she wept with the rest.

Upstairs the husband waited a little while, but as his wife did not
return, and as his thirst constantly increased, he said,

"I must go down to the cellar myself, and see what has become of Else."
And when he came into the cellar, and found them all sitting and weeping
together, he was told that it was all owing to the child that Else might
possibly have, and the possibility of its being killed by the pickaxe so
happening to fall just at the time the child might be sitting underneath
it drawing beer; and when he heard all this, he cried,

"How clever is our Else!" and sitting down, he joined his tears to
theirs.

The intended bridegroom stayed upstairs by himself a long time, but as
nobody came back to him, he thought he would go himself and see what
they were all about. And there he found all five lamenting and crying
most pitifully, each one louder than the other.

"What misfortune has happened?" cried he.

"O my dear Hans," said Else, "if we marry and have a child, and it grows
big, and we send it down here to draw beer, perhaps that pickaxe which
has been left sticking up there might fall down on the child's head and
kill it; and how can we help crying at that!"

"Now," said Hans, "I cannot think that greater sense than that could be
wanted in my household; so as you are so clever, Else, I will have you
for my wife," and taking her by the hand he led her upstairs, and they
had the wedding at once.

A little while after they were married, Hans said to his wife,

"I am going out to work, in order to get money; you go into the field
and cut the corn, so that we may have bread."

"Very well, I will do so, dear Hans," said