“Then I shall leave you,” said Wil-lie.

[Illustration:  The reaping.]

Rage made the face of the o-gress glow like a fur-nace, as she made a pounce at poor Wil-lie for his ill-ad-vis-ed speech; and she would have caught him in her gripe, had he not dod-ged round a large bun-dle of ve-ge-ta-bles which luck-i-ly lay on the floor.  Round and round she went af-ter him, un-til he felt that he must be caught; when a ve-ry large hand grasp-ed her round the waist, and hur-ri-ed her, yell-ing, out of the kit-chen; Wil-lie fol-low-ing, re-turn-ing thanks for his de-li-ver-ance.  They came to a large win-dow which o-pen-ed to the sea:  the hand thrust the o-gress out, and held her ex-ten-ded over the roll-ing waves.

“Mercy! mercy!” groan-ed, the o-gress, as she gaz-ed upon the aw-ful depth be-neath her.

The hand gra-du-al-ly re-lax-ed its hold; and the o-gress, with one des-pair-ing cry, whirl-ed o-ver and o-ver, and fell with such a plump in-to the sea, that the spray flew o-ver the high-est tow-er, and the fish-es swam a-way in ter-ror.  She went down, down, down:  but never came up, up, up.

Wil-lie ran out of the front door; and when he got to the mar-gin of the sea, he turn-ed his eye to the waves, ex-pect-ing every mo-ment to see the head of the dread-ful o-gress pop up a-gain; but it did not.  He saw the good hands fol-low-ing him:  they plun-ged into the sea close at his feet; he jump-ed in-to the palm of one, and seat-ed himself.  Be-tween the fin-ger and thumb of each hand was one of his cook-ing forks, stuck through two of the o-gress’s ve-ry best hand-ker-chiefs, which made ve-ry ad-mi-ra-ble sails, catch-ing the wind, and waft-ing him a-long o-ver the sea as well as the fi-nest ship e-ver built.

[Illustration:  The ploughing.]

As the moon rose, it found him safe-ly land-ed and snug under the roof of a good farm-er who had pro-mi-sed him work—­ay, e-ven as much as he could do:  but the farm-er did not know the trea-sure he pos-sess-ed, for the next morn-ing lit-tle Wil-lie was work-ing in his shirt-sleeves in the corn-field reap-ing and shear-ing as much as two men, and stout ones too, could do in a long day.  But there, un-der the shel-ter of the high corn, were the friend-ly hands work-ing mi-ra-cles; ga-ther-ing up the corn, and put-ting it in-to sheaves in a man-ner that could not be e-qual-led by mor-tal hands.

Wil-lie whistl-ed, and cut a-way, not-with-stand-ing the burn-ing heat of the sun:  his sic-kle glis-ten-ed, and the corn fell in such long sweeps that I do be-lieve it was as ma-gi-cal as the hands them-selves.

The long-est day will, how-e-ver, have an end:  but when Wil-lie’s first day wa-ned, the farm-er was struck with as-to-nish-ment at be-hold-ing the gold-en rows of hea-vy corn, stand-ing for his ad-mi-ra-tion in the well ti-ed sheaves.  He look-ed from the lit-tle man to the fruits of his la-bour, and pro-mi-sed to him-self to do his best to se-cure so va-lu-a-ble a ser-vant.