ther contest for that bag of money. This time
let's try whistling."

"Very well," the farmer said. "We'll have a whistling match."

They went off into the forest and the farmer told the devil to whistle
first.

The devil whistled and all the leaves on the trees shook and trembled.
He whistled again and the twigs began to crackle and break. He whistled
a third time and big branches snapped off and fell to the ground.

"There!" the devil exclaimed, "Can you beat that?"

"My poor boy," the farmer said. (Oh, but that farmer was a tricky one!)
"Is that the best you can do? Why, when I whistle, if you don't cover up
your ears you'll be deafened! And as likely as not a tree will fall on
you and kill you! Now shall I begin?"

"Wait a minute!" the devil begged. "Won't you please tie up my ears
before you begin because I don't want to be deafened."

This was just what the farmer was hoping the devil would say. So he took
out a big kerchief and put it over the devil's ears and also over his
eyes and tied it behind in a hard knot.

"Now then!" he shouted. "Take care!"

With that he began to whistle and as he whistled he picked up a big
branch off the ground and gave the devil an awful crack over the head.

"My head! My head!" the devil cried.

"My poor fellow!" the farmer said, pretending to be very sympathetic. "I
hope that tree as it fell down didn't hurt you! Now I'm going to whistle
again and you must be more careful."

This time when he whistled the farmer struck the devil over the head
harder than before.

"That's enough!" the devil shouted. "Another tree has fallen on me!
Stop! Stop!"

"No," the farmer insisted. "You whistled three times and I'm going to
whistle three times. Are you ready?"

The poor devil had to say: "Yes," and thereupon the farmer began to
whistle and at the same time to beat the devil over his head and
shoulders until the devil supposed that the whole forest was falling on
him.

"Stop whistling!" he shouted. "Stop or I'll be killed!"

But the farmer wouldn't stop until he was too exhausted to beat the
devil any longer.

Then he paused and asked:

"Shall I whistle some more?"

"No! No! No!" the devil roared. "Undo the kerchief and let me go and I
swear I'll never come back!"

So the farmer undid the kerchief and the devil fled, too terrified to
stop even long enough to look around for all those fallen trees.

He never came back and the farmer was left in undisputed possession o