PETER'S RETURN HOME.
With accents that trembled with rage and grief, Wise Peter told how he had been treated in the village; but he had scarcely made an end before Catharine, bursting into tears, exclaimed, "Oh, what will become of me! Have mercy, Peter, for it was I who poured the wine down the well!"
"Poured wine down the well!" cried Peter, starting in astonishment; "then, for heaven's sake, why did you do that?"
"Because," sobbed his wife, "the water tasted of cabbages!"
"Of cabbages!" repeated the peasant, in greater surprise than ever, "and what made it taste of cabbages?"
"Because I dipped up water in the cabbage pot," cried Silly Catharine.
"And where was the bucket?" asked her husband.
"I burnt it, trying to dip the water out of the chimney, that had been drawn up from the cabbage pot!" gasped Catharine, feeling that everything must now be told, since she had begun.
Wise Peter took two or three strides across the room in silence; then, making a violent effort to speak quietly, he said, "And why, Catharine, since you supposed that water could be drawn up a chimney, did you leave the pot unwatched?"
Almost in a scream, Silly Catharine broke out, "Because I was sewing on the turkeys' heads that I struck off cutting down the bramble bush!!"