Page:Hans Andersen's Fairy Tales (1888).djvu/455

 “What can he want it for?” thought Great Claus; so he smeared the bottom of the measure with tar, that some of whatever was put into it might stick there and remain. And so it happened; for when the measure returned, three new silver florins were sticking to it.

“What does this mean?” said Great Claus; so he ran off directly to Little Claus, and asked, “Where did you get so much money?”

“Oh, for my horse’s skin, I sold it yesterday.”

“It was certainly well paid for then,” said Great Claus; and he ran home to his house, seized a hatchet, and knocked all his four horses on the head, flayed off their skins, and took them to the town to sell. “Skins, skins, who’ll buy skins?” he cried, as he went through the streets. All the shoemakers and tanners came running, and asked how much he wanted for them.

“A bushel of money, for each,” replied Great Claus.

“Are you mad?” they all cried; “do you think we have money to spend by the bushel?”

“Skins, skins,” he cried again, “who’ll buy skins?” but to all who inquired the price, his answer was, “a bushel of money.”

“He is making fools of us,” said they all; then the shoemakers took their straps, and the tanners their leather aprons, and began to beat Great Claus.

“Skins, skins!” they cried, mocking him; “yes, we’ll mark your skin for you, till it is black and blue.”

“Out of the town with him,” said they. And Great Claus was obliged to run as fast as he could, he had never before been so thoroughly beaten.

“Ah,” said he, as he came to his house; “Little Claus shall pay me for this; I will beat him to death.”

Meanwhile the old grandmother of Little Claus died. She had been cross, unkind, and really spiteful to him; but he was very sorry, and took the dead woman and laid her in his warm bed to see if he could bring her to life again. There he determined that she should lie the whole night, while he seated himself in a chair in a corner of the room as he had often done before. During the night, as he sat there, the door opened, and in came Great Claus with a hatchet. He knew well where Little Claus’s bed stood; so he went right up to it, and struck the old grandmother on the head. thinking it must be Little Claus.

“There,” cried he, “now you cannot make a fool of me again;” and then he went home.

“That is a very wicked man,” thought Little Claus; “he meant to kill me. It is a good thing for my old grandmother that she was already dead, or he would have taken her life.” Then he dressed his old grandmother in her best clothes, borrowed a horse of his neighbor, and harnessed it to a cart. Then he placed the old woman on the back seat, so that she might not fall out as he drove, and rode away through the wood. By sunrise they reached a large inn, where Little Claus stopped and went to get something to eat. The landlord was a rich man, and a good man too; but as passionate as if he had been made of pepper and snuff.