Though much astonished, the miller quickly replied in a cross tone, "How! dance upon my meadow! tread down my grass!"
The voice answered "We will not do thy grass any harm; we and our friends dance so lightly that we hardly touch the tips, of thy long grass."
The miller replied sharply, "Why then ask me? If you do not trample my grass, you may dance all the year round for all me."
"Thank you," replied the airy creature; "we only beg, for thy own good, that thou wilt not mow thy grass until a shower of rain has wet it after our dance. Remember this."
They then vanished like a thin vapor.
"Foolish people!" cried the miller; "did I ever hear such nonsense? Must I put off my hay-making till it rains? We may not have such fine dry weather again during the summer. I shall send my men to cut it down to-morrow." He went back to the mill and gave his orders, but said not a word to anybody about what he had heard and seen. When Tony, the miller's son, was going to bed that night, he looked out of the window, and cried to his father—
"There is a strange man with a lantern in the meadow, full of pale lights, dancing about, sometimes forming a wide circle, now dispersing in all directions, then mingling confusedly together."
And the latter said, "These can be nothing but jack-o-lanterns, or wandering Willies. They come out of the boggy ground, and are driven about by the winds. Wo to the unlucky traveller who takes them for a guide!" After looking at the meadow awhile, they all went to bed.
Next day the men obeyed the master's orders, and mowed the grass. The weather was so fine that the hay was made in a few days, and brought safely into the barn. No sooner, however, had the cattle begun to eat of it, than they were all seized with a mortal sickness. In a few weeks the stalls were empty; and even the sheep and pigs, which had been turned out to graze in the meadow, shared the same fate. The miller stormed and raved, and accused his servants of neglect, and was so ill-humored that his wife and son dared not say a word to him. He set out for the city to find the old miller, to complain to him of his losses. The good old man told him at once that he must have forgotten the warning he gave him at parting, and have disobliged or have been unfriendly in some way towards his little neighbors; advised him to burn his hay, and to beware in future of showing ill-nature or a disobliging spirit towards the little shadowy people.
The miller went home and followed this advice, and burned his hay. Then he borrowed money to buy more cattle, which thrived well and were very profitable; he worked diligently at the mill, and bade his wife be more economical in the kitchen; but to no poor man or child who ventured to knock at his gate did he open his hand or heart in charity.