Page:Tales from the Fjeld.djvu/391

Rh water up to the fifth plank all round the room, and wash it, and then you must take a little fat and a little lean, and the greenest thing you can find in the cabbage garden, and boil them all up together; and when you have done that you must put yourself into fine feather, and look sweet when your lassie comes, and then you may sit down on the dresser."

Yes, all that Matt thought he could do very well. He fetched water and dashed it about the room in floods; but he couldn't get it to stand above the fourth plank, for when it rose higher it ran out. So he had to leave off that work. But now you must know they had a dog whose name was "Fat," and a cat whose name was "Lean;" both these he took and put into the soup-kettle. As for the greenest thing in the garden, it was a green gown which the goody had meant for her daughter-in-law; that he cut up into little bits, and away it went into the pot; but their little pig, which was called "All," he cooked by himself in the brewing tub. And when Matt had done all this, he laid hands on a pot of treacle and a feather pillow. Then he first of all rubbed himself all over with the treacle, and then he tore open the pillow and rolled himself in the feathers, and then he sat down on the dresser out in the kitchen, till his mother and the lassie came.

Now the first thing the goody missed when she came to her house was the dog, for it always used to meet her out of doors. The next thing was the cat, for it always met her in the porch, and when the weather was right down good and the sun shone, she even came out into the yard, and met her at the garden