in. And you know yourself that,
only last week, when I sent him to buy a cask of butter, he returned
driving a hundred and fifty ducks which someone had induced him to take,
and not one of them would lay.'

'Yes, I am afraid he IS trying,' replied the first; 'but let us put them
to the proof, and see which of them is the most foolish.'

So, about the time that she expected her husband home from work, she got
out her spinning-wheel, and sat busily turning it, taking care not even
to look up from her work when the man came in. For some minutes he stood
with his mouth open watching her, and as she still remained silent, he
said at last:

'Have you gone mad, wife, that you sit spinning without anything on the
wheel?'

'YOU may think that there is nothing on it,' answered she, 'but I can
assure you that there is a large skein of wool, so fine that nobody can
see it, which will be woven into a coat for you.'

'Dear me!' he replied, 'what a clever wife I have got! If you had not
told me I should never have known that there was any wool on the wheel
at all. But now I really do seem to see something.'

The woman smiled and was silent, and after spinning busily for an hour
more, she got up from her stoop, and began to weave as fast as she
could. At last she got up, and said to her husband: 'I am too tired to
finish it to-night, so I shall go to bed, and to-morrow I shall only
have the cutting and stitching to do.'

So the next morning she got up early, and after she had cleaned her
house, and fed her chickens, and put everything in its place again, she
bent over the kitchen table, and the sound of her big scissors might
be heard snip! snap! as far as the garden. Her husband could not see
anything to snip at; but then he was so stupid that was not surprising!

After the cutting came the sewing. The woman patted and pinned and fixed
and joined, and then, turning to the man, she said:

'Now it is ready for you to try on.' And she made him take off his coat,
and stand up in front of her, and once more she patted an pinned and
fixed and joined, and was very careful in smoothing out every wrinkle.

'It does not feel very warm,' observed the man at last, when he had
borne all this patiently for a long time.

'That is because it is so fine,' answered she; 'you do not want it to be
as thick as the rough clothes you wear every day.'

He DID, but was ashamed to say so, and only answered: 'Well, I am sure
it must be beautiful s