“Nay, but wait a bit, friend Barney,” went on the little man. “We have made two bargains, and now we ought to make the third, for there’s luck in odd numbers—or so people say.”
Barney would have walked on if he could, but when the little man said, “Wait a bit,” it seemed as though he were rooted to the ground, and he could not stir a step, however he tried.
Then the small one began to beg and plead with him to let him have the cow in exchange for the bumblebee, and for a long time Barney said no. At last, however, he could refuse no longer; the trade was made, and no sooner had the lad agreed and taken the bumblebee in his handkerchief, than—pouff! whisk! the small man and the cow both disappeared like the breath from a window-pane.
Barney stared and wondered, and then he turned home again, but the nearer he came to the house the slower he walked, for he had some notion as to what his mother would have to say about the bargain he had made.
Well, things turned out just about as he had thought they would. When he first put the bumblebee and the others on the kitchen table, when the cockchafer began to play and the others to dance, his mother laughed and laughed as she had never laughed before in all her life. But when they stopped and she had come to herself again, she was so angry she was not content with scolding. She caught up a broom, and if Barney had not run out and hidden in the cow byre he would have had a clubbing that would have dusted his coat for him.
However, what was done was done, and what they were to do now to get food and money was more than either of them could say. However, the next morning, Barney had a grand scheme in his head.
“Listen, mother; I have a scheme that may bring us in a few pennies,” he said. “I will take the cockchafer, the mouse and the bumblebee with me to the fair to-day. When we are there the cockchafer shall play the harp and the mouse and the bumblebee shall dance, and it may be that the people will be so pleased with their tricks that they will give me some pennies.”
There seemed nothing better to do than this, so the widow gave her consent, and off Barney set, and if his heart was light his stomach was lighter for he had had nothing to put in it that morning.
He trudged along and trudged along, and after a time he came to the stile, and there was the little green man sitting on it just as he had sat before.