Let’s Change about (An English Tale)

4.9

Once there was a man who was always angry with his wife. He was sure she did not do as much work as he did. He was also sure that the things which she did she didn’t do in the right way.

One day he was at work in the field. Nothing went right that day. He did not cut enough hay. And when evening came, he broke his sickle. As he went home, he talked to himself in an angry voice, and when he came home, he was still angry.

“You can do nothing right,” he said to his wife. “Why, I can do as much work in one day as you do in three.”

“Don’t be so angry,” said his wife. “In the morning we shall change about. You will do my work in the house, and I shall go to the field and cut the hay.”

“Very well,” he said. “You can go to the field in the morning. You will see what it is like to do a man’s work.”

“Yes,” said his wife, “and you will see what it is like to stay at home and take care of the baby and do all the work about the house.”

So the next morning the wife took a sickle and went to the field to cut the hay. The man stayed at home to take care of the baby and to do the work about the house.

First the man cleaned the floor. Then he had to churn the cream. He took the cream from the top of the big bowls of milk and put it into the churn, and sat down to churn.

“This is not work,” he said to himself. “It is just play when you can sit down and work. I’ll have the butter in a moment.”

But just then the baby almost fell into the fire. As the man went up to the baby to pick her up, the pig came into the house and upset the churn. So the cream ran all over the clean floor.

The man looked around and saw the pig with his feet in the cream. He ran after the pig, but the pig ran around the room until there was cream all over the floor. At last the man put the baby down. Then he caught the pig and threw it out into the yard.

By this time the baby was in the cream too. The man had to stop his work and change all her clothes.

“There is more to do now than when I started this morning,” the man said to himself.

He cleaned the floor and put the cream from the other two bowls into the churn. Then he sat down again and began to churn butter.

He said to himself, “I must watch the baby, or she will fall into the fire again.”

Suddenly he thought of the cow.

“She is still in the barn,” he said. “But she must eat grass in the field.”

So he went to the barn, but suddenly he remembered the cream.

“This is all the cream that we have,” he said, “and we must have butter for dinner. The baby may upset the churn. I’d better take it with me.”

He tied the churn on his back and went out to the barn to take the cow to the field.

“The cow has had no water this morning,” he remembered. So he went to the well to get some water for the cow. He had to bend to pull the pail out of the water. As he did so, half the cream ran out of the churn over his head and into the well.

By this time the morning was almost over, and the man thought: “I must put the porridge on the fire. It will soon be time for dinner.”

Just as he started to pour water into a pot, there was a pull on his foot, and the next moment he was pulled up the chimney. The cow had fallen off the house, and the rope had pulled the man up the chimney.

At that time his wife was coming home from the field. When she came near the house, she saw the cow half-way between the roof and the ground — with a rope round her neck. The woman ran to the house as fast as she could and cut the rope with her sickle. Down came the cow, and it is a wonder that the cow was not dead.

Then the woman ran into the house.

“Where is my baby?” she cried. The churn was again upset and the baby was playing in the cream on the floor. When the woman had cut the rope, the man fell into the big pot. And there he was, in the pot, with his feet up in the chimney!

She pulled him out of the pot and asked,

“What were you doing here?”

“I was doing everything,” he answered, “but still nothing is done.”

“It is a wonder that the cow is not dead,” said the woman. “And it is a wonder that you are not dead. Just look at the baby’s clothes! And where is my dinner? I have worked hard all morning, and you have done nothing.”

“My dear wife,” said the man, “I ask you not to say a word. I shall do my work in the field, and you may do your work in the house. I shall never again say that I can do as much work in one day as you do in three.”

So after that he did his own work, and his wife did her own work. He was never angry with her again. And he never told her again that she did not do anything right.