The old man said, "Very wisely spoken, my sons! I will do exactly as you tell me."
Accordingly he mounted his horse, took a sack full of cakes on his shoulder and a long stick in his hand, and started off at once to beat up the neighborhood for girls to marry his sons.
The old man had travelled from village to village during a whole month, and whenever he had seen a girl he had cut a notch in his stick. But he was getting pretty well tired, and he began to count how many notches he had already made. When he had
counted them carefully over and over again, to be certain that he had counted all, he could only make out seventy-four, so that still twenty-six were wanting to complete the number required. He was, however, so weary with his month's ride that he determined to return home. As he rode along, he saw a priest driving oxen yoked to a plough, and seemingly very deep in anxious thought about something. Now the old man wondered a little to see the priest ploughing his own corn-fields without even a boy to help him; he therefore shouted to ask him why he drove his oxen himself. The priest, however, did not even turn his head to see who called him, so intent was he in urging on his oxen and in guiding his plough.
The old man thought he had not spoken loud enough, so he shouted out again as loud as he could, "Stop your oxen a little, and tell me why you are ploughing yourself without even a lad to help you, and this, too, on a holy-day!"
Now the priest—who was in a perspiration with his hard work—answered testily, "I conjure you by your old age leave me in peace! I cannot tell you my ill-luck."
At this answer, however, the old man was only the more curious, and persisted all the more earnestly in asking questions to find out why the priest ploughed on a saint's day. At last the priest, tired with his importunity, sighed deeply and said, "Well, if you will know: I am the only man in my household and God has blessed me with a hundred daughters!"
The old man was overjoyed at hearing this, and
exclaimed cheerfully, "That's very good! It is just what I want, for I have a hundred sons, and so, as you have a hundred daughters, we can be friends."
The moment the priest heard this he became pleasant and talkative, and invited the old man to pass the night in his house. Then, leaving his plough in the field, he drove the oxen back to the village. Just before reaching his house, however, he said to the old man, "Go yourself into the house whilst I tie up my oxen."