eful to me. If you like, we'll exchange."

"To be sure I will," said the man; and they exchanged accordingly.

So that was settled, and the peasant might have turned back, for he
had done the business he came to do; but as he had once made up his
mind to go to the fair, he determined to proceed, merely to have a
look at it; and so he went on to the town with his cow.

Leading the animal, he strode sturdily on; and after a short time, he
overtook a man who was driving a sheep. It was a good fat sheep, with
a fine fleece on its back.

"I should like to have that fellow," said our peasant to himself. "He
would find plenty of grass by our palings, and in the winter we could
keep him in the room with us. Perhaps it would be more practical to
have a sheep instead of a cow. Shall we exchange?"

The man with the sheep was quite ready, and the bargain was struck. So
our peasant went on in the high-road with his sheep.

Soon he overtook another man, who came into the road from a field,
carrying a great goose under his arm.

"That's a heavy thing you have there. It has plenty of feathers and
plenty of fat, and would look well tied to a string, and paddling in
the water at our place. That would be something for my old woman; she
could make all kinds of profit out of it. How often she has said, 'If
we only had a goose!' Now, perhaps, she can have one; and, if
possible, it shall be hers. Shall we exchange? I'll give you my sheep
for your goose, and thank you into the bargain."

The other man had not the least objection; and accordingly they
exchanged, and our peasant became proprietor of the goose.

By this time he was very near the town. The crowd on the high-road
became greater and greater; there was quite a crush of men and cattle.
They walked in the road, and close by the palings; and at the barrier
they even walked into the toll-man's potato-field, where his one fowl
was strutting about, with a string to its leg, lest it should take
fright at the crowd, and stray away, and so be lost. This fowl had
short tail-feathers, and winked with both its eyes, and looked very
cunning. "Cluck, cluck!" said the fowl. What it thought when it said
this I cannot tell you; but directly our good man saw it, he thought,
"That's the finest fowl I've ever seen in my life! Why, it's finer
than our parson's brood hen. On my word, I should like to have that
fowl. A fowl can always find a grain or two, and can almost keep
itself. I think it wo