Oh-I-Am looked stern and straight in his brown robe which trailed behind him. He said:
"One-Eye, have you got all your potatoes together?"
One-Eye still wept. She said, "No, I have not found all of them, for some have wandered far. And I must not seek farther, for this is market-day, and I must away to the town."
And she began to gather up the potatoes, and drop them into the cart, thud, thud, thud.
Oh-I-Am stooped then, and he, too, gathered up the potatoes; and he threw them into the cart splish-splash-splutter!
"Alas!" said One-Eye, "if you throw them into the cart, splish-splash-splutter, you will bruise and break them. You must throw them in gently, thud, thud, thud."
So Oh-I-Am held back his anger, and he threw the potatoes in gently, thud, thud, thud. But when the potato-wife had gone on her way, he flew off to his Brown House by the Brown Bramble; and he began to weave a spell.
He put into it a potato, and a grain of earth, and a down from a pillow, and a pearl, and an apple-pip from a pie. And when the spell was ready, he lay down, and fell asleep.
Wry-Face had gone round to all the neighbours to tell them the grand joke about One-Eye, the potato-wife. Sometimes he told it through the window, and sometimes he stood at the door. Sometimes he told it to a gnome who was fine and feathery, and sometimes to one who was making bread. But all the time he laughed, laughed, laughed, till he was scarcely fit to stand.
Now he did not call at Oh-I-Am's fine house to tell him, not he! And it was quite unnecessary, since Oh-I-Am knew the joke already, every bit.