lay and wattles. The door was
low and always open, for there was no window. The roof did not entirely
keep out the rain, and the only thing with any look of comfort about it
was a wide hearth, for which the brothers could never find wood enough
to make a good fire. There they worked in most brotherly friendship,
though the people did not give them very many shoes to make or mend.

The people of that village did not need many shoes, and better cobblers
than Scrub and Spare might be found. Spiteful people said there were no
shoes so bad that they would not be worse for their mending.
Nevertheless Scrub and Spare managed to live by means of their own
trade, a small barley field, and a cottage garden, till a new cobbler
arrived in the village. He had lived in the chief city of the kingdom,
and, by his own account, cobbled for the Queen and the princesses. His
awls were sharp and his lasts were new. He set up his stall in a neat
cottage with two windows.

The villagers soon found out that one patch of his would outwear two of
the brothers'. In short, all the mending left Scrub and Spare, and went
to the new cobbler. The season had been wet and cold, their barley did
not ripen well, and the cabbages never half closed in the garden. So the
brothers were poor that winter; and when Christmas came, they had
nothing to feast on but a barley loaf, a piece of musty bacon, and some
small beer of their own brewing.

Worse than that, the snow was very deep, and they could get no firewood.
Their hut stood at the end of the village; beyond it spread the bleak
moor, now all white and silent. But that moor had once been a forest.
Great roots of old trees were still to be found in it, loosened from the
soil and laid bare by the winds and rains. One of these, a rough, heavy
log, lay close to their door, the half of it above the snow.

Spare said to his brother: "Shall we sit here cold on Christmas Day
while the great root lies yonder? Let us chop it up for firewood, the
work will make us warm."

"No," said Scrub; "it's not right to chop wood on Christmas. Besides,
that root is too hard to be cut with any axe."

"Hard or not, we must have a fire," replied Spare. "Come, brother, help
me in with it. Poor as we are, there is nobody in the village will have
such a Yule log as ours."

Scrub liked to be a little grand sometimes, and in hopes of having a
fine Yule log, both brothers strove with all their might till, between
pulling and pushi