d a child. When
she had finished, the boy exclaimed, "What a clever Alice we have!" and
fell weeping and howling with the others.

Upstairs they were still waiting, and the husband said, when the boy
did not return, "Do you go down, wife, into the cellar and see why Alice
stays so long." So she went down, and finding all three sitting there
crying, asked the reason, and Alice told her about the hatchet which
must inevitably fall upon the head of her son. Then the mother likewise
exclaimed, "Oh, what a clever Alice we have!" and, sitting down, began
to weep as much as any of the rest.

Meanwhile the husband waited for his wife's return; but at last he felt
so very thirsty that he said, "I must go myself down into the cellar and
see what is keeping our Alice." As soon as he entered the cellar, there
he found the four sitting and crying together, and when he heard the
reason, he also exclaimed, "Oh, what a clever Alice we have!" and sat
down to cry with the whole strength of his lungs.

All this time the bridegroom above sat waiting, but when nobody
returned, he thought they must be waiting for him, and so he went down
to see what was the matter. When he entered, there sat the five crying
and groaning, each one in a louder key than his neighbor.

"What misfortune has happened?" he asked.

"Ah, dear Hans!" cried Alice, "if you and I should marry one another,
and have a child, and he grew up, and we, perhaps, send him down to
this cellar to tap the beer, the hatchet which has been left sticking up
there may fall on his head, and so kill him; and do you not think this
is enough to weep about?"

"Now," said Hans, "more prudence than this is not necessary for my
housekeeping; because you are such a clever Alice, I will have you for
my wife." And, taking her hand, he led her home, and celebrated the
wedding directly.

After they had been married a little while, Hans, said one morning,
"Wife, I will go out to work and earn some money; do you go into the
field and gather some corn wherewith to make bread."

"Yes," she answered, "I will do so, dear Hans." And when he was gone,
she cooked herself a nice mess of pottage to take with her. As she came
to the field, she said to herself, "What shall I do? Shall I cut first,
or eat first? Aye, I will eat first!" Then she ate up the contents of
her pot, and when it was finished, she thought to herself, "Now, shall I
reap first or sleep first? Well, I think I will have a nap!" and