“Maybe it would have been better if I had gone to rest in the good man’s stomach,” said the oat cake, “but here we go, and I have no mind to be eaten by the first stranger who takes a fancy to me,—no, nor by the second either.”
In the next house the oat cake entered, the good wife was cooking supper, and her husband sat plaiting straw rope.
“Look at that!” cried the woman. “You’re always asking me for oat cake, and there is one ready to your hand. Quick! Quick! Shut the door and catch it.”
The man jumped up to shut the door, but he caught his foot in the rope he was plaiting and fell flat on the floor. The woman threw her porridge stick at the cake, but away it went and off down the road.
“Now I’ll have to find some place to sleep,” said it to itself. “No knowing what will happen if I lay me down by the roadside.”
It saw an open door, and in it rolled. The good man of the house had just taken off his breeches, and the woman was tucking the children into bed.
“Look! Look!” cried the woman. “There is an oat cake rolling in at the door, and no one coming after to claim it. Catch it before it can get away again.”
The good man jumped up and threw his breeches at it. They fell on the oat cake and almost smothered it, but it managed to roll out from under them and away it went, with the man and his wife in full chase after it, and the children crying after them.
But the oat cake was too quick, even for the two of them. It outran them both, and
