Wil-lie ran out of the front door; and when he got to the mar-gin of the sea, he turn-ed his eye to the waves, ex-pect-ing every mo-ment to see the head of the dread-ful o-gress pop up a-gain; but it did not. He saw the good hands fol-low-ing him: they plun-ged into the sea close at his feet; he jump-ed in-to the palm of one, and seat-ed himself. Be-tween the fin-ger and thumb of each hand was one of his cook-ing forks, stuck through two of the o-gress's ve-ry best hand-ker-chiefs, which made ve-ry ad-mi-ra-ble sails, catch-ing the wind, and waft-ing him a-long o-ver the sea as well as the fi-nest ship e-ver built.
As the moon rose, it found him safe-ly land-ed and snug under the roof of a good farm-er who had pro-mi-sed him work—ay, e-ven as much as he could do: but the farm-er did not know the trea-sure he pos-sess-ed, for the next morn-ing lit-tle Wil-lie was work-ing in his shirt-sleeves in the corn-field reap-ing and shear-ing as much as two men, and stout ones too, could do in a long day. But there, un-der the shel-ter of the high corn, were the friend-ly hands work-ing mi-ra-cles; ga-ther-ing up the corn, and put-ting it in-to sheaves in a man-ner that could not be e-qual-led by mor-tal hands.
Wil-lie whistl-ed, and cut a-way, not-with-stand-ing the burn-ing heat of the sun: his sic-kle glis-ten-ed, and the corn fell in such long sweeps that I do be-lieve it was as ma-gi-cal as the hands them-selves.
The long-est day will, how-e-ver, have an end: but when Wil-lie's first day wa-ned, the farm-er was struck with as-to-nish-ment at be-hold-ing the gold-en rows of hea-vy corn, stand-ing for his ad-mi-ra-tion in the well ti-ed sheaves. He look-ed from the lit-tle man to the fruits of his la-bour, and pro-mi-sed to him-self to do his best to se-cure so va-lu-a-ble a ser-vant.
"Oh, oh!" said the farm-er, "if he can reap so well, per-haps he can plough:" so ac-cord-ing-ly the next morn-ing found lit-tle Wil-lie as a plough-man. But how could he know how to do it? any one would say. Why, the hands guid-ed the plough; and the lands were plough-ed in fur-rows as straight as the flight of an ar-row sped by the strong-est arm.
The farm-er watch-ed from his win-dow, but the hands were in-vi-si-ble to his eyes: he saw the plough cut its way un-err-ing-ly in-to the bo-som of the earth, in a man-ner that sur-pri-sed e-ven his ex-pe-ri-ence, and he a-gain bless-ed his good for-tune that had giv-en him such a won-der-ful lit-tle la-bour-er.