ere crying, and
letting the beer run all over the floor?" "Oh!" says the father, "look
at that horrid mallet! Suppose you and our daughter was to be married,
and was to have a son, and he was to grow up, and was to come down
into the cellar to draw the beer, and the mallet was to fall on
his head and kill him!" And then they all started crying worse than
before. But the gentleman burst out laughing, and reached up and
pulled out the mallet, and then he said: "I've traveled many miles,
and I never met three such big sillies as you three before; and now I
shall start out on my travels again, and when I can find three bigger
sillies than you three, then I'll come back and marry your daughter."
So he wished them good-by, and started off on his travels, and left
them all crying because the girl had lost her sweetheart.

Well, he set out, and he traveled a long way, and at last he came to a
woman's cottage that had some grass growing on the roof. And the woman
was trying to get her cow to go up a ladder to the grass, and the
poor thing durst not go. So the gentleman asked the woman what she was
doing. "Why, lookye," she said, "look at all that beautiful grass. I'm
going to get the cow on to the roof to eat it. She'll be quite safe,
for I shall tie a string round her neck, and pass it down the chimney,
and tie it to my wrist as I go about the house, so she can't fall off
without my knowing it." "Oh, you poor silly!" said the gentleman,
"you should cut the grass and throw it down to the cow!" But the woman
thought it was easier to get the cow up the ladder than to get the
grass down, so she pushed her and coaxed her and got her up, and tied
a string round her neck, and passed it down the chimney, and fastened
it to her own wrist. And the gentleman went on his way, but he hadn't
gone far when the cow tumbled off the roof, and hung by the string
tied round her neck, and it strangled her. And the weight of the cow
tied to her wrist pulled the woman up the chimney, and she stuck fast
halfway and was smothered in the soot.

Well, that was one big silly.

And the gentleman went on and on, and he went to an inn to stop the
night, and they were so full at the inn that they had to put him in
a double-bedded room, and another traveler was to sleep in the other
bed. The other man was a very pleasant fellow, and they got very
friendly together; but in the morning, when they were both getting up,
the gentleman was surprised to see the ot