ht not to say, and
when any one went by he would call out, "Gee-up, my fine horses."

"I must really beg you not to say that again," said Great Claus as he
passed; "for if you do, I shall hit your horse on the head so that he
will drop down dead on the spot, and then it will be all over with him."

"I will certainly not say it again, I promise you," said Little Claus.
But as soon as any one came by, nodding good day to him, he was so
pleased, and felt so grand at having five horses plowing his field, that
again he cried out, "Gee-up, all my horses."

"I'll gee-up your horses for you," said Great Claus, and he caught up
the tethering mallet and struck Little Claus's one horse on the head, so
that it fell down dead.

"Oh, now I haven't any horse at all!" cried Little Claus, and he began
to weep. But after a while he flayed the horse and hung up the skin to
dry in the wind.

Then he put the dried skin into a bag, and hanging it over his shoulder,
went off to the next town to sell it. He had a very long way to go and
was obliged to pass through a great, gloomy wood. A dreadful storm came
up. He lost his way, and before he found it again, evening was drawing
on. It was too late to get to the town, and too late to get home before
nightfall.

Near the road stood a large farmhouse. The shutters outside the windows
were closed, but lights shone through the crevices and at the top. "They
might let me stay here for the night," thought Little Claus. So he went
up to the door and knocked. The door was opened by the farmer's wife,
but when he explained what it was that he wanted, she told him to go
away; her husband, she said, was not at home, and she could not let any
strangers in.

"Then I shall have to lie out here," said Little Claus to himself, as
the farmer's wife shut the door in his face.

Close to the farmhouse stood a tall haystack, and between it and the
house was a small shed with a thatched roof. "I can lie up there," said
Little Claus, when he saw the roof. "It will make a capital bed, but I
hope the stork won't fly down and bite my legs." A stork was just then
standing near his nest on the house roof.

So Little Claus climbed onto the roof of the shed and proceeded to make
himself comfortable. As he turned round to settle himself, he discovered
that the wooden shutters did not reach to the tops of the windows. He
could look over them straight into the room, in which a large table was
laid with wine, roast me