"If I am no nearer the dumpling than when I left home, I am at least no farther from it; and that feathers are lighter to carry than plums nobody can deny."
Trudge, trudge, up hill and down she went, and presently she came to a garden of sweet flowers; lilies, lilacs, violets, roses—oh, never was there a lovelier garden!
The old woman stopped at the gate to look at the flowers; and as she looked she heard a man and a woman, who sat on the door-step of a house that stood in the garden, quarreling.
"Straw," said the man.
"'Tis not—"
"It is," they cried, and so it went between them, till they spied the old woman at the gate.
"Here is one who will settle the matter," said the woman then; and she called to the old woman:
"Good mother, answer me this: If you were making a cushion for your grandfather's chair would you not stuff it with cotton?"
"No," said the old woman.