But, Hansli, do you think to find one, then, who will help you to draw the cart, and will be clever enough to do all that? asked the mother, searchingly. Oh, mother, there’s one who has helped me already often with the cart, said Hansli, and who would be good for a great deal besides; but as to whether she would marry me or not, I don’t know, for I haven’t asked her. I thought that I would tell you first. You rogue of a boy, what’s that you tell me there? I don’t understand a word of it, cried the mother. You too!—are you also like that? The good God Himself might have told me, and I wouldn’t have believed Him. What’s that you say?—you’ve got a girl to help you to pull the cart! A pretty business to engage her for! Ah well,—trust men after this! Thereupon Hansli put himself to recount the history; and how that had happened quite by chance; and how that girl was just expressly made for him: a girl as neat as a clock,—not showy, not extravagant,—and who would draw the cart better even than a cow could. But I haven’t spoken to her of anything, however. All the same, I think I’m not disagreeable to her. Indeed, she has said to me once or twice that she wasn’t in a hurry to marry; but if she could manage it, so as not to be worse off than she was now, she wouldn’t be long making up her mind. She knows, for that matter, very well also why she is in the world. Her little brothers and sisters are growing up after her; and she knows well how things go, and how the youngest are always made the most of, for one never thinks of thanking the elder ones for the trouble they’ve had in bringing them up. All that didn’t much displease the mother; and the more she ruminated over these unexpected matters, the more it all seemed to her very proper. Then she put herself to make inquiries, and learned that nobody knew the least harm of the girl. They told her she did all she could to help her parents; but that with the best they could do, there wouldn’t be much to fish for. Ah, well: it’s all the better, thought she; for then neither of them can have much to say to the other. The next Tuesday, while Hansli was getting his cart ready, his mother said to him, Well, speak to that girl: if she consents, so will I; but I can’t run after her. Tell her to come here on Sunday, that I may see her, and at least we can talk a little. If she is willing to be nice, it will all go very well. Aussi, it must happen some time or other, I suppose. But, mother, it isn’t written anywhere that it must happen, whether or no; and if it doesn’t suit you, nothing hinders me from leaving it all alone. Nonsense, child; don’t be a goose. Hasten thee to set out; and say to that girl, that if she likes to be my daughter-in-law, I’ll take her, and be very well pleased. Hansli set out, and found the young girl. Once that they were pulling together, he at his pole, and she at her cord, Hansli put himself to say,