Between the cow-house and the stable there was a broad, handsome carriage-gate; this too came within the light-radius.  As the night wore on, the old grandma saw a tiny creature, no bigger than a hand’s breadth, cautiously steal his way through the gate.  He was dressed in leather breeches and wooden shoes like any other working man.  The old grandma knew at once that it was the elf, and she was not the least bit frightened.  She had always heard that the elf kept himself somewhere about the place, although she had never seen him before; and an elf, to be sure, brought good luck wherever he appeared.

As soon as the elf came into the stone-paved yard, he ran right up to the squirrel cage.  And since it hung so high that he could not reach it, he went over to the store-house after a rod; placed it against the cage, and swung himself up—­in the same way that a sailor climbs a rope.  When he had reached the cage, he shook the door of the little green house as if he wanted to open it; but the old grandma didn’t move; for she knew that the children had put a padlock on the door, as they feared that the boys on the neighbouring farms would try to steal the squirrel.  The old woman saw that when the boy could not get the door open, the lady squirrel came out to the wire wheel.  There they held a long conference together.  And when the boy had listened to all that the imprisoned animal had to say to him, he slid down the rod to the ground, and ran out through the carriage-gate.

The old woman didn’t expect to see anything more of the elf that night, nevertheless, she remained at the window.  After a few moments had gone by, he returned.  He was in such a hurry that it seemed to her as though his feet hardly touched the ground; and he rushed right up to the squirrel cage.  The old woman, with her far-sighted eyes, saw him distinctly; and she also saw that he carried something in his hands; but what it was she couldn’t imagine.  The thing he carried in his left hand he laid down on the pavement; but that which he held in his right hand he took with him to the cage.  He kicked so hard with his wooden shoes on the little window that the glass was broken.  He poked in the thing which he held in his hand to the lady squirrel.  Then he slid down again, and took up that which he had laid upon the ground, and climbed up to the cage with that also.  The next instant he ran off again with such haste that the old woman could hardly follow him with her eyes.

But now it was the old grandma who could no longer sit still in the cottage; but who, very slowly, went out to the back yard and stationed herself in the shadow of the pump to await the elf’s return.  And there was one other who had also seen him and had become curious.  This was the house cat.  He crept along slyly and stopped close to the wall, just two steps away from the stream of light.  They both stood and waited, long and patiently, on that chilly March night, and the old woman was just