rose.

The old woman looked angrily at him, but said again that he had done
well, and gave the mares a still more terrible beating; for the year
consisted of three days, and if they did not hide successfully that
night the hero might demand his wages.

The Poor Boy knew this too. So he began to eat his meal-loaf as he
went with the drove to the pasture, and whenever he bit off a piece
his strength increased and his thirst was quenched. Yet, whenever he
saw the springs or heard the water rippling over the pebbles, he grew
thirsty again, and so devoured the whole of the meal-loaf. He ought
now to have taken the bran loaf, but did not venture to do so because
he still had a long journey before him, and was afraid of being
without food. Therefore he again relied on the aid of the wasps and
fishes, lay down by a spring, and as soon as he had drunk fell asleep.

When he awoke it was broad daylight, though the sun had not yet risen.
He shook the hair, but the wasps came with the tidings that the drove
was not on the surface of the earth, he rubbed the fish-scale, but the
fishes said the horses were not under the water either; so, in his
despair, he seized the mole's claw and scratched on the ground with
it.

Then you should have seen the wonder! The wasps buzzed, the fish
searched all the water in the world, and the moles began to rummage
the earth, furrowing it in every direction as if they meant to make it
into pap. When the first sunbeams touched the top of the poplar before
the hut, the drove dashed like hunted ghosts to the Poor Boy; if the
horses tried to go into the water the fish scared them back, if they
tried to hide themselves in the ground the claws of the moles drove
them out, and so they were forced to go wherever the wasps guided
them.

The Poor Boy thanked his friends for their help, and returned home
just as the sun shone upon the hut. The old woman looked angrily at
him, but said nothing.

But now trouble came. The year was over, and the Poor Boy began to
rack his brains because he did not know which horse in the drove he
ought to choose. That's the way with over-hasty people. The Wood Witch
could probably have told him this, too, if he had not left her so
quickly. Now he went to work hap-hazard. Still, he thought, whatever
he might hit upon he should not fare badly, for on a long journey it
was better at any rate to be on horseback than on foot. Besides, he
had seen the old witch's horses run and kn