Page:Tales from the Fjeld.djvu/365

Rh for food; and when he had got it, he threw his wallet over his shoulder and set off from their farm. On the way he met an old man, who was so bent and wretched.

"Whither away?" said the man.

"Oh, I'm just going to the wood to make a pig trough for our little pig," said Paul.

"A pig trough it shall be," said the man.

"What have you got in your wallet?" asked the man.

"Muck," said Paul.

"Muck it shall be," said the man.

So Paul trudged off to the wood, and fell to hewing and carpentering as hard as he could; but however he hewed and however he carpentered, he could turn out nothing but pig troughs and pig tubs. Still he wouldn't give in, but worked till far on in the afternoon before he thought of taking a little snack; then he got so hungry all at once that he must take out his knapsack, but when he opened it there was not a morsel of food in it.

Then Paul got so cross that he rolled up the knapsack and dashed it against a stump, and then he shouldered his axe, and trudged away home from the wood as fast as he could.

So when Paul had come home, Boots was all for setting out in his turn, and begged his mother for food.

"Maybe I might be man enough to get the ship built, and win the princess and half the kingdom." That was what he said.

"Yes, yes, a likely thing," said his mother. "You