Page:The pink fairy book (IA pinkfairybooklan00lang).pdf/314

298 Next day the tailor’s wife said to her husband, ‘I have some girls coming to-day to help to card my wool; there is a great deal to do, and we must be very busy. I am so annoyed that our watchdog is dead, for in the evening the young fellows will come about to get fun with the girls, and they will get nothing done. If we had only had a fierce watchdog he would have kept them away.’

‘Yes,’ said the man, ‘that would have been a good thing.’

‘Listen, good man,’ said the wife, ‘you must just be the watchdog yourself, and scare the fellows away from the house.’

The husband was not very sure about this, although otherwise he was always ready to give in to her.

‘Oh yes, you will see it will work all right,’ said the wife.

And so towards evening she got the tailor dressed up in a shaggy fur coat, tied a black woollen cloth round his head, and chained him up beside the dog’s kennel.

There he stood and barked and growled at everyone that moved in his neighbourhood. The neighbour wives knew all about this, and were greatly amused at it.

On the day after this the carpenter had been out at work, and came home quite merry; but as soon as he entered the house his wife clapped her hands together and cried, ‘My dear, what makes you look like that? You are ill.’

The carpenter knew nothing about being ill; he only thought that he wanted something to eat, so he sat down at the table and began his dinner.

His wife sat straight in front of him, with her hands folded, and shook her head, and looked at him with an anxious air.

‘You are getting worse, my dear,’ she said; ‘you are quite pale now; you have a serious illness about you; I can see it by your looks.’