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 hell; but you must not sell it, unless you get the hand-mill that stands back of the door for it. When you come out again I will show you how to regulate it. You will find it useful in more than one respect."

The man with the ham thanked the old man for this valuable information, and rapped at the devil's door.

When he came in it happened as the old man had said. All the devils, both the large ones and the small ones, crowded around him like ants around a worm, and the one bid higher than the other for the ham.

"It is true my wife and I were to have it for our Christmas dinner, but, seeing that you are so eager for it, I suppose I will have to let you have it," said the man. "But if I am to sell it, I want that handmill that stands behind the door there for it."

The devil did not like to spare it, and kept dickering and bantering with the man, but he insisted, and so the devil had to give him the hand-mill. When the man came out in the yard he asked the old woodchopper how he should regulate the mill; and when he had learned how to do it, he said "thank you," and made for home as fast as he could. But still he did not reach home before twelve o'clock in the night Christmas eve.

"Why, where in the world have you been? " said the woman. "Here I have been sitting hour after hour waiting and waiting, and I haven't as much as two sticks to put on the fire so as to cook the Christmas porridge."

" Oh, I could not come any sooner. I had several errands to do, and I had a long way to go too. But