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218 Just then Elijah and St. Nicholas were once more passing by. Elijah looked blithely at the field and said: "Just look, Nicholas, what a blessing I have wrought! This is my reward to the pope, and he'll never forget it all his life."

"The pope! No, brother; it is a great boon, but then this is the peasant's field; the pope hasn't a rod of it!"

"Wha-at?"

"It is true. After the meadow had been battered by hail, the peasant went up to the pope and bought it back at half price."

"Stop a bit," said the Prophet Elijah, "I'll take all the good out of it; out of all the peasant's ricks he shall not thresh more than six gallons at a time."

"Here, this looks bad," thought St. Nicholas, and instantly went to see the peasant, and said: "See to it; when you start threshing, never take more than a sheaf at a time on the threshing-floor."

So the peasant set to threshing, and he got six gallons out of every sheaf; all his granaries and lofts were full up with rye, and still there was much left over; he built new storehouses, and filled them full to the flush.

But one day Elijah the Prophet and St. Nicholas were passing by his courtyard, and Elijah glanced up and said: "Why has he built these new granaries? How can he stock them all?"

"They're full up," St. Nicholas replied.

"How did he get so much grain?"

"Oho! Every sheaf yielded him six gallons, and, as soon as he started threshing, he brought them in sheaf by sheaf."

"Oh, my brother Nicholas!" Elijah guessed: "you must have told him what to do!"

"Well, I thought it all out, and was going to say . . ." "What are you after? It's all your work. Never mind; your peasant shall still have a reminder of me."