age for you, but
while I was drawing the beer the dog got it out of the pan, and while I
was running after the dog the beer all ran away, and as I was going to
stop up the beer with the wheat-meal I knocked over the can: but it is
all right now; the cellar is quite dry again." But said Fred,

"O Kate, Kate! what have you been about, letting the sausage be carried
off, and the beer run out of the cask, and then to waste all our good
meal into the bargain?"

"Well, Fred, I did not know; you should have told me," said Kate. So the
husband thought to himself,

"If my wife is like this, I must look after things a little better."

Now he had saved a very pretty sum of money, and he changed it all to
gold, and said to Kate,

"Do you see these yellow counters? I am going to make a hole in the
stable underneath the cows' manger and bury them; see that you do not
meddle with them, or it will be the worse for you."

And she said, "Oh no, Fred, certainly I won't."

Now, one day when Fred was away, there came some pedlars to the village,
with earthen pots and basins to sell, and they asked the young wife if
she had nothing to give in exchange for them.

"O my good men," said Kate, "I have no money to buy anything with, but
if you had any use for yellow counters, I might do some business with
you."

"Yellow counters! why not? we might as well see them," said they.

"Then go into the stable and dig under the cows' manger, and you will
find them; but I dare not go near the place."

So those rogues went and dug, and found the gold accordingly. And they
seized it quickly, and ran off with it, leaving the pots and pans behind
them in the house. Kate thought she must make some use of her new
possessions, so, as she had no need of them in the kitchen, she spread
them out on the ground, and then stuck them, one after another, for
ornament, on the fence which ran round the house. When Fred came home
and saw the new decorations, he said, "Kate, what have you been doing?"

"I bought them every one, Fred, with those yellow counters that were
buried under the manger, and I did not go there myself; the pedlars had
to dig them up for themselves."

"O wife!" cried Fred, "what have you done? they were not counters, but
pure gold, and all our capital; you should not have done so."

"Well, Fred, I did not know; you should have told me that before,"
answered Kate.

Then Kate stood still a little while to consider, and at last she said,