And when Gunner came home that night all was clean and bright to welcome him, and the smell of good things to eat filled the house.
And after that day Elsa rose early each morning, and went about her work sweet-tempered and happy. No one was more pleased and proud than she to see how the work of the farmhouse prospered under her hands. And health, wealth, and happiness came and stayed with Elsa and Gunner.
PISKEY FINE! AND PISKEY GAY!
From Cornwall
’Tis told in the west country, how the Piskey threshed the corn, and did other odd jobs for Farmer Boslow as long as the old man lived. And after his death the Piskey worked for his widow. And this is how she lost the little fellow.
One night, when the hills were covered with snow, and the wind was blowing hard, the Widow Boslow left in the barn, for the Piskey, a larger bowl than usual full of milk thickened with oatmeal. It was clear moonlight, and she stopped outside the door, and peeped in to see if the Piskey would come to eat his supper while it was hot.
The moonlight shone through a little window on to the barn floor; and there, sitting on a sheaf of oats, she saw the Piskey greedily eating his thickened milk. He soon emptied the bowl and scraped it as clean with the wooden spoon as if it had been washed. Then he placed them both in a corner, and stood up and patted and stroked his stomach, and smacked his lips, as if to say: “That’s good of the old dear! See if I don’t thresh well for her to-night!”
But when the Piskey turned around, the widow saw that he had nothing on but rags, and very few of them.