“Be contented,” was the son’s response, “I will make up the lost time. Watch me while I cut down this tree at one blow.”
He rubbed his ax with the magic rag, and gave the tree a powerful blow, but because the ax-head had been changed into silver the edge turned over.
“Ah, Father!” the son exclaimed, “do you see how poor an ax you have given me?”
“What have you done?” the father cried. “That ax was borrowed, and you have ruined it. I must pay for it, but I know not how I shall do so.”
“Don’t be troubled,” the son said. “I will soon pay for the ax.”
“Why, you simpleton! how will you do that?” his father retorted. “You have nothing but what I give you. Some student nonsense is stuck in your head. Of wood-cutting you know nothing.”
“Well, Father,” the son said, “I can work no more today now that my ax is spoiled. Let us make a holiday of the few hours that remain before sunset.”
“Eh, what?” his father cried, “do you think I can keep my hands in my pockets as you do? You can go home, but I must keep on with the chopping.”
“No,” the son objected, “you must come, too, for this is the first time I have been in the forest, and I do not know the way out.”
At last he persuaded his father to accompany him. After they reached home the son took the damaged ax to a goldsmith in a neighboring town. “This ax-head is silver,” the scholar told him. “I want to sell it.”