Page:Grimm's household tales, volume 2 (1884).djvu/391

 opened itself out without getting smaller, and so she went on measuring until sunset, when the whole room was full of linen, and she had become a rich woman. Full of joy and gratitude, she told her neighbour of the luck which had fallen to her lot. The neighbour was covetous, and wanted to partake of it, so she who had never yet given anything to the poor, placed herself at the door of her house in order to invite the stranger to enter if he should pass by. Before long he came, and was received by her with open arms, daintily entertained, and in the morning, a fine shirt was offered to him instead of the coarse one which he was wearing. Fo thanked her, and left the house saying the same words as he had said to the first woman. She accompanied him a part of the way in a friendly manner, and was already counting up her never-ending wealth, when lost in thought, she stumbled against a pail which had been left standing. And as just at that moment her pig happened to grunt, she thought, "The animal won't gee any food to-day, for I shall be measuring, so I might at least pour out some water for him." But she poured and was not able to stop, the pail never grew empty, and she had to pour out water all day long until the sun set, when the whole district was flooded, and all the neighbours mocked her by requiring compensation for the injury she had done them. This Chinese story is beautifully amplified in Frau Naubert's Volksmärchen, 1. 201-209, and the beneficent measuring of linen is contrasted with the disastrous growth of a cobweb. Something of the same kind occurs in a story which we have heard in Hesse. A travelling apprentice is driven away by a rich woman of whom he has begged a gift, and in mockery sent to a poor neighbour. She takes him in, and is, on his departure, endowed by him with the gift, that the first thing she begins to do shall prosper so long as she is not disturbed in it. The poor woman measures some linen, and goes on measuring it until at last the rich one looks into the room and sees the large amount of linen, and the blessing comes to an end. She learns the cause of this, and begs the woman to point out the apprentice to her if he should come again. When a year has gone by, the traveller again comes to the village, and goes to the poor woman who is quite willing to take him in, but tells him that her rich neighbour wants to entertain him, and that he will be more comfortable with her. He goes to her, and is treated with even too great consideration. The woman looks out her finest linen in order to have it ready instantly. On the traveller's departure she is endowed with the same gift as the poor woman had received. Full of covetousness, and anxious to be able to measure undisturbed, she shuts the door of her house, but her greediness is soon punished, and she is glad to be delivered from the consequences of the traveller's gift by the arrival of her poor neighbour who is alarmed by her cries for help. An Æsopian