"Do you want your house to burn and your cows to get ill?" The little man asked the woman.

She had no answer but her tears.

The little man looked her up and down for a very long while.

Finally, when her tears ran out and her cheeks dried out, she said "I would have prepared your pudding with goat milk and butter. I would have left a saucer of berries for you on the windowsill, but we had grown poor, too poor even to eat ourselves."

The little man had been angry, thinking the woman had forgotten him. But it was him who had grown idle, forgotten his duty to the farm.

And, while it was not in his nature to accept his fault, he was not a cruel being either.

"This one time," he said, adjusting his long red hat, "I would f...

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