were only too
eager to see the job done. The master bawled and roared, but there was
no help at hand. He was stripped to his hips, and laid on the floor
in the next room, and Jack had the carving-knife in his hand ready to
begin.

"Now you cruel old villain," said he, giving the knife a couple of
scrapes along the floor: "I'll make you an offer. Give me, along with
my double wages, two hundred guineas to support my poor brothers, and
I'll do without the strip."

"No!" said he, "I'd let you skin me from head to foot first."

"Here goes, then," said Jack with a grin; but the first little scar he
gave, Churl roared out, "Stop your hand; I'll give the money."

"Now, neighbors," said Jack, "you mustn't think worse of me than I
deserve. I wouldn't have the heart to take an eye out of a rat itself;
I got half a dozen of them from the butcher, and only used three of
them."

So all came again into the other room, and Jack was made to sit down,
and everybody drank his health, and he drank everybody's health at
one offer. And six stout fellows saw himself and the master home, and
waited in the parlor while he went up and brought down the two hundred
guineas, and double wages for Jack himself. When he got home, he
brought the summer along with him to the poor mother and the disabled
brothers; and he was no more Jack the Fool in the people's mouths, but
"Skin-Churl Jack."

* * * * *

HUDDEN AND DUDDEN AND DONALD O'NEARY

ADAPTED BY JOSEPH JACOBS

There was once upon a time two farmers, and their names were Hudden
and Dudden. They had poultry in their yards, sheep on the uplands, and
scores of cattle in the meadow land alongside the river. But for all
that they weren't happy, for just between their two farms there lived
a poor man by the name of Donald O'Neary. He had a hovel over his
head and a strip of grass that was barely enough to keep his one cow,
Daisy, from starving, and, though she did her best, it was but seldom
that Donald got a drink of milk or a roll of butter from Daisy. You
would think there was little here to make Hudden and Dudden jealous,
but so it is, the more one has the more one wants, and Donald's
neighbors lay awake of nights scheming how they might get hold of his
little strip of grass land.

One day Hudden met Dudden, and they were soon grumbling as usual,
and all to the tune of, "If only we could get that vagabond, Donald
O'Neary, out of the country."