"No," said she, "I see it cannot be me. It must be some strange bird."
So she crept up to the top of the barn, and began to flap her arms as if they had been wings, and tried to fly. Her husband saw her, so he came out with his gun and took aim.
"Don't shoot, don't shoot," called his wife. "It is me."
"Is it you?" said the man. "Then don't stand there like a goat. Come down and tell me what account you can give of yourself."
She crept down again; but she had not a shilling, for she had lost the mark the butcher had given her while she was drunk.
When the man heard that he was very angry, and declared he would leave her, and never come back again until he had found three women as big fools as his wife.
So he set off, and when he had gone a little way he saw a woman who ran in and out of a newly built wood hut with an empty sieve. Every time she ran in she threw her apron over the sieve, as if she had something in it.
"Why do you do that, mother?" asked he.
"Why, I am only carrying in a little sun," said she, "but I don't understand how it is, when I am outside I get the sunshine in the sieve, but when I get in I have somehow lost it. When I was in my old hut I had plenty of sunshine, though I never carried it in. I wish I knew some one who would give me sunshine. I would give him three hundred dollars."
"Have you an axe?" asked the man. "If so I will get you sunshine."