Household Tales by Jacob Grimm (classic books for 12 year olds .txt) 📕

are devouring it.” Then he went upstairs, and thousands and thousands of birds were sitting in the loft and had eaten up all the corn, and the sparrow was sitting in the midst of them.

Then the driver cried, “Oh, what an unfortunate man I am?”

“Not unfortunate enough yet!” answered the sparrow; “wagoner, it shall cost thee thy life as well,” and flew out.

Then the wagoner had lost all his property, and he went downstairs into the room, sat down behind the stove and was quite furious and bitter. But the sparrow sat outside in front of the window, and cried, “Wagoner, it shall cost thee thy life.” Then the wagoner snatched the axe and threw it at the sparrow, but it only broke the window, and did not hit the bird. The sparrow now hopped in, placed itself on the stove and cried, “Wagoner, it shall cost thee thy life.” The latter, quite mad and blind with rage, smote the stove in twain, and as the sparrow flew from one place to another so it fared with all his household furniture, looking-glass, benches, table, and at last the walls of his house, and yet he could not hit the bird. At length, however, he caught it with his hand.

Then his wife said, “Shall I kill it?”

“No,” cried he, “that would be too merciful. It shall die much more cruelly,” and he took it and swallowed it whole.

The sparrow, however, began to flutter about in his body, and fluttered up again into the man’s mouth; then it stretched out its head, and cried, “Wagoner, it shall still cost thee thy life.”

The driver gave the axe to his wife, and said, “Wife, kill the bird in my mouth for me.” The woman struck, but missed her blow, and hit the wagoner right on his head, so that he fell dead. But the sparrow flew up and away.

Frederick and Catherine

There was once on a time a man who was called Frederick and a woman called Catherine, who had married each other and lived together as young married folks. One day Frederick said, “I will now go and plough, Catherine; when I come back, there must be some roast meat on the table for hunger, and a fresh draught for thirst.”

“Just go, Frederick,” answered Kate, “just go, I will have all ready for you.” Therefore when dinnertime drew near she got a sausage out of the chimney, put it in the frying-pan, put some butter to it, and set it on the fire. The sausage began to fry and to hiss, Catherine stood beside it and held the handle of the pan, and had her own thoughts as she was doing it. Then it occurred to her, “While the sausage is getting done thou couldst go into the cellar and draw beer.” So she set the frying-pan safely on the fire, took a can, and went down into the cellar to draw beer. The beer ran into the can and Kate watched it, and then she thought, “Oh, dear! The dog upstairs is not fastened up, it might get the sausage out of the pan. Well thought of.” And in a trice she was up the cellar-steps again, but the Spitz had the sausage in its mouth already, and trailed it away on the ground. But Catherine, who was not idle, set out after it, and chased it a long way into the field; the dog, however, was swifter than Catherine and did not let the sausage journey easily, but skipped over the furrows with it. “What’s gone is gone!” said Kate, and turned round, and as she had run till she was weary, she walked quietly and comfortably, and cooled herself. During this time the beer was still running out of the cask, for Kate had not turned the tap. And when the can was full and there was no other place for it, it ran into the cellar and did not stop until the whole cask was empty. As soon as Kate was on the steps she saw the mischance. “Good gracious!” she cried. “What shall I do now to stop Frederick knowing it!” She thought for a while, and at last she remembered that up in the garret was still standing a sack of the finest wheat flour from the last fair, and she would fetch that down and strew it over the beer. “Yes,” said she, “he who saves a thing when he ought, has it afterwards when he needs it,” and she climbed up to the garret and carried the sack below, and threw it straight down on the can of beer, which she knocked over, and Frederick’s draught swam also in the cellar. “It is all right,” said Kate, “where the one is the other ought to be also,” and she strewed the meal over the whole cellar. When it was done she was heartily delighted with her work, and said, “How clean and wholesome it does look here!”

At midday home came Frederick: “Now, wife, what have you ready for me?”

“Ah, Freddy,” she answered, “I was frying a sausage for you, but whilst I was drawing the beer to drink with it, the dog took it away out of the pan, and whilst I was running after the dog, all the beer ran out, and whilst I was drying up the beer with the flour, I knocked over the can as well, but be easy, the cellar is quite dry again.”

Said Frederick, “Kate, Kate, you should not have done that! to let the sausage be carried off and the beer run out of the cask, and throw out all our flour into the bargain!”

“Indeed, Frederick, I did not know that, you should have told me.”

The man thought, “If my wife is like this, I must look after things more.” Now he had got together a good number of thalers which he changed into gold, and said to Catherine, “Look, these are counters for