r.'

'That is indeed a good price!' said Big Klaus; and, hurrying home, he
took an axe and killed his grandmother, laid her in the cart, and
drove off to the apothecary's, and asked whether he wanted to buy a
dead body.

'Who is it, and how did you get it?' asked the apothecary.

'It is my grandmother,' said Big Klaus. 'I killed her in order to get
a bushel of money.'

'You are mad!' said the apothecary. 'Don't mention such things, or you
will lose your head!' And he began to tell him what a dreadful thing
he had done, and what a wicked man he was, and that he ought to be
punished; till Big Klaus was so frightened that he jumped into the
cart and drove home as hard as he could. The apothecary and all the
people thought he must be mad, so they let him go.

'You shall pay for this!' said Big Klaus as he drove home. 'You shall
pay for this dearly, Little Klaus!'

So as soon as he got home he took the largest sack he could find, and
went to Little Klaus and said: 'You have fooled me again! First I
killed my horses, then my grandmother! It is all your fault; but you
sha'n't do it again!' And he seized Little Klaus, pushed him in the
sack, threw it over his shoulder, crying out 'Now I am going to drown
you!'

He had to go a long way before he came to the river, and Little Klaus
was not very light. The road passed by the church; the organ was
sounding, and the people were singing most beautifully. Big Klaus put
down the sack with Little Klaus in it by the church-door, and thought
that he might as well go in and hear a psalm before going on farther.
Little Klaus could not get out, and everybody was in church; so he
went in.

'Oh, dear! oh, dear!' groaned Little Klaus in the sack, twisting and
turning himself. But he could not undo the string.

There came by an old, old shepherd, with snow-white hair and a long
staff in his hand. He was driving a herd of cows and oxen, These
pushed against the sack so that it was overturned.

'Alas!' moaned Little Klaus, 'I am so young and yet I must die!'

'And I, poor man,' said the cattle-driver, 'I am so old and yet I
cannot die!'

'Open the sack,' called out Little Klaus; 'creep in here instead of
me, and you will die in a moment!'

'I will gladly do that,' said the cattle-driver; and he opened the
sack, and Little Klaus struggled out at once.

[Illustration: "Open the Sack" Said Little Klaus.]

'You will take care of the cattle, won't you?' asked the old man,
creeping