and where did you get him?" asked the apothecary.

"It is my grandmother, and I have killed her so as to sell her for a
bushel of money."

"Heaven preserve us!" cried the apothecary. "You talk like a madman.
Pray don't say such things, you may lose your head." And he told him
earnestly what a horribly wicked thing he had done, and that he deserved
punishment. Great Claus was so frightened that he rushed out of the
shop, jumped into his cart, whipped up his horse, and galloped home
through the wood. The apothecary and all the people who saw him thought
he was mad, and so they let him drive away.

"You shall be paid for this!" said Great Claus, when he got out on the
highroad. "You shall be paid for this, Little Claus!"

Directly after he got home, Great Claus took the biggest sack he could
find and went over to Little Claus.

"You have deceived me again," he said. "First I killed my horses, and
then my old grandmother. That is all your fault; but you shall never
have the chance to trick me again." And he seized Little Claus around
the body and thrust him into the sack; then he threw the sack over his
back, calling out to Little Claus, "Now I'm going to the river to drown
you."

It was a long way that he had to travel before he came to the river, and
Little Claus was not light to carry. The road came close to the church,
and the people within were singing beautifully. Great Claus put down his
sack, with Little Claus in it, at the church door. He thought it would
be a very good thing to go in and hear a psalm before he went further,
for Little Claus could not get out. So he went in.

"O dear! O dear!" moaned Little Claus in the sack, and he turned and
twisted, but found it impossible to loosen the cord. Then there came by
an old drover with snow-white hair and a great staff in his hand. He was
driving a whole herd of cows and oxen before him, and they jostled
against the sack in which Little Claus was confined, so that it was
upset.

"O dear," again sighed Little Claus, "I'm so young to be going directly
to the kingdom of heaven!"

"And I, poor fellow," said the drover, "am so old already, and cannot
get there yet."

"Open the sack," cried Little Claus, "and creep into it in my place, and
you'll be there directly."

"With all my heart," said the drover, and he untied the sack for Little
Claus, who crept out at once. "You must look out for the cattle now,"
said the old man, as he crept in. Then Little Claus t