the kitchen. Then off
he ran up the cellar steps, with the tap in his hand, as fast as he
could, to look after the pig lest it should upset the churn; but when he
got up, and saw the pig had already knocked the churn over, and stood
there, rooting and grunting amongst the cream which was running all over
the floor, he got so wild with rage that he quite forgot the ale-barrel,
and ran at the pig as hard as he could. He caught it, too, just as it
ran out of doors, and gave it such a kick that piggy lay for dead on the
spot. Then all at once he remembered he had the tap in his hand; but
when he got down to the cellar, every drop of ale had run out of the
cask.

Then he went into the dairy and found enough cream left to fill the
churn again, and so he began to churn, for butter they must have at
dinner. When he had churned a bit, he remembered that their milking cow
was still shut up in the byre, and hadn't had a bit to eat or a drop to
drink all the morning, though the sun was high. Then all at once he
thought 'twas too far to take her down to the meadow, so he'd just get
her up on the house-top--for the house, you must know, was thatched with
sods, and a fine crop of grass was growing there. Now their house lay
close up against a steep down, and he thought if he laid a plank across
to the thatch at the back he'd easily get the cow up.

But still he couldn't leave the churn, for there was his little babe
crawling about on the floor, and "if I leave it," he thought, "the
child is safe to upset it." So he took the churn on his back, and went
out with it; but then he thought he'd better first water the cow before
he turned her out on the thatch; so he took up a bucket to draw water
out of the well; but, as he stooped down at the well's brink, all the
cream ran out of the churn over his shoulders, and so down into the
well.

Now it was near dinner-time, and he hadn't even got the butter yet; so
he thought he'd best boil the porridge, and filled the pot with water
and hung it over the fire. When he had done that, he thought the cow
might perhaps fall off the thatch and break her legs or her neck. So he
got up on the house to tie her up. One end of the rope he made fast to
the cow's neck, and the other he slipped down the chimney and tied round
his own thigh; and he had to make haste, for the water now began to boil
in the pot, and he had still to grind the oatmeal.

So he began to grind away; but while he was hard at it, d