Now Silly Catharine, who was as witless as she could well be, was fonder of cabbages than anything else in the world. She ate sauerkraut for breakfast, cabbage soup for dinner, fried cabbage for supper, and boiled cabbage for a noonday treat. Not even the constant scoldings of her husband, or the jeers of the neighbors at her folly, could distress her in any great degree, if she had only plenty of cabbages.
One morning, Wise Peter loaded his wagon with grain and started off to sell it at the distant market town, a good day's journey to and from the village. "Now, Catharine," he said to his wife as he departed, "I want you to keep your wits about you, such as you possess, while I am gone; therefore attend to me. You must give orders that the men reap the wheat in the large field, take care that the young turkeys do not get among the brambles, and, above all, see that no one enters the little storeroom. They are going to tax every one who is worth five hundred guilders and over; and as I don't choose to give my hard earnings for the support of a parcel of lazy nobles and a useless court, I have hidden all the money bags there; therefore, be careful that nobody knows of it but yourself." So saying, Peter mounted his wagon and drove off. Silly Catharine looked after him as long as he could be seen, and then went back to the kitchen, determined to show her husband how clever she had become.
"Shall I go and tell the goose girl to hunt the turkeys into the coop first?" thought she; "or shall I put on the cabbage to boil? I think I will set my cabbage on first; it will take but a moment, the turkeys are safe till then."
So she went to the larder, got out a fine large cabbage, and hung the pot over the fire, that it might boil quickly. The steam of the cabbage cooking ascended to her nose with a delicious perfume, and at last, what with hanging over the pot enveloped in steam, and the heat of the fire, she felt very drowsy, and falling into her chair, was soon soundly asleep. She had not slept long before in came the goose girl, whose business it was to take charge of the fowls of all sorts, crying out, "Oh, mistress! mistress: the turkeys have got among the brambles, and cannot get out!"
"Mercy upon us!" exclaimed Catharine, springing up and wringing her hands; "what will Peter say to me! He will, doubtless, break his stick over my shoulders. If it were not for the cabbage on the fire, I should certainly throw myself from the window!" So saying, she ran out into the field, but too late; the little turkeys were all in the very middle of a bramble bush, which had tangled in their feathers, until it was impossible to get them out; beside which, a fox had entered the barn yard in the goose girl's absence, by the gate, which she had carelessly left swinging open, and carried off the biggest and handsomest Poland rooster, that Wise Peter valued even more than the turkeys. About this last loss, however, she said nothing, hoping that her mistress wouldn't remark it. This, indeed, proved to be the case; for, without noticing the absence of poor Chanticleer, Catharine burst into tears, exclaiming, "What is to be done? The only way is to cut the bush down."
THE FATE OF POOR CHANTICLEER.
As she spoke, she seized an axe, and with one blow felled the bush to the ground. But what was her horror to find, as she let fall the axe, that she had also struck off the heads of every one of the turkeys!
"Oh heavens! what a misfortune!" cried Catharine; "I am the most unlucky woman in the world! Now Wise Peter will not leave a whole bone in my body! Alas, the turkeys would have sold for eight skillings apiece when they had grown fat and big! The only thing that consoles me is, that I shall have such a famous supper ready for him. When he tastes my fine cabbage soup, I am sure he must forget to be vexed!" There were still, however, the bodies of the turkeys to see after; so she took out her needle and thread, sewed the heads of the turkeys on their necks, and set them upright in the coop, that they might look as though they were still alive.
After this precious piece of cleverness, Silly Catharine returned to the house to see how her cabbage came on. But she had been gone so long that the water in the pot had all boiled away, and the cabbage was burning on hard and fast to the bottom of the pot. "Why, bless me! where can the water have gone to?" cried Silly Catharine. "It must have all drawn up chimney! Nevertheless, it would be a pity to lose it; full of the cabbage juice as it was, it might well have been made into soup; and Wise Peter has told me a hundred times never to waste anything. I will get something to let down the chimney and see if I can dip it up."