d each new
month was harder to live through than the one before.

"I can do a day's work with the best of them," the devil thought to
himself, "but there is no one, either man or devil, who can stand this
woman's everlasting nagging. Oh dear, oh dear, what shall I do?"

Now Gentle Dora was looking for a husband. She had already had five
husbands all of whom she had nagged to death. On account of this record
every bachelor and widower in the village was a little shy of proposing
himself as a sixth husband.

The devil, who as I have told you was a simple fellow, finally decided
that it would be a mighty clever thing for him to marry Gentle Dora. He
felt sure that once he was her husband she would give him less work and
more food. So he proposed to her.

The rich widow didn't much fancy his black face, but on the other hand
she wanted a husband and so, as there was no other prospect in sight,
she accepted him.

"At least," she thought to herself, "by making him my husband, I'll save
his wages."

It wasn't long before the devil found out that life as a husband was
even harder than life as a laborer. Now without wages he had ten times
more to do while Gentle Dora did nothing but spend her time hunting work
for him.

"Why do you think I've married," she would cry, "if it isn't to have
some one take care of me!"

So she would stand over him and scold and scold and scold while he, poor
devil, toiled and sweated, doing the work of six men.

Time went by and the devil grew thinner and thinner and paler and paler.
Gentle Dora begrudged him every mouthful he ate and was forever harping
on his enormous appetite.

At last one day she said to him:

"You're simply eating me out of house and home. From now on you will
have to board yourself. As I'm an honest woman I'll treat you justly.
This year we'll divide the harvest half and half. Which will you have:
that which grows above the ground, or that which grows below the
ground?"

This sounded fair enough and the devil said:

"Give me the part that grows above the ground."

Thereupon Gentle Dora had the whole farm planted in potatoes and beets
and carrots. When the harvest came she gave the devil the tops and
herself took all the tubers.

That winter the poor devil would have starved if the neighbors hadn't
taken pity on him and fed him.

In the spring Gentle Dora asked him what part of the new crop he wanted.

"This time," he said, "give me the part that grows und