This notion pleased the wife, and godfather joiner set to work to saw and plane, and soon turned out a calf complete, with its head down and neck stretched out as if it were grazing.
The next morning, as the cows were driven to pasture, the Little Farmer called out to the drover,
"Look here, I have got a little calf to go, but it is still young and must be carried."
"All right!" said the drover, and tucked it under his arm, carried it into the meadows, and stood it in the grass. So the calf stayed where it was put, and seemed to be eating all the time, and the drover thought to himself,
"It will soon be able to run alone, if it grazes at that rate!"
In the evening, when the herds had to be driven home, he said to the calf, "If you can stand there eating like that, you can just walk off on your own four legs; I am not going to lug you under my arm again!"
But the Little Farmer was standing by his house-door, and waiting for his calf; and when he saw the cow-herd coming through the village without it, he asked what it meant. The cow-herd answered, "It is still out there eating away, and never attended to the call, and would not come with the rest."
Then the Little Farmer said,
"I will tell you what, I must have my beast brought home."
And they went together through the fields in quest of it, but some one had stolen it, and it was gone. And the drover said,