“See, I will lay myself down in this coffin, and will then tell you why I laughed, for as soon as I have told you I shall surely die.” So he lay down in the coffin, and while he took a last look around him, his old dog came out from the farm and sat down by him, and whined. When the master saw this, he called to his wife: “Bring a piece of bread to give to the dog.” The wife brought some bread and threw it to the dog, but he would not look at it. Then the farm cock came and pecked at the bread; but the dog said to it: “Wretched glutton, you can eat like that when you see that your master is dying?” The cock answered: “Let him die, if he is so stupid. I have a hundred wives, which I call together when I find a grain of corn, and as soon as they are there I swallow it myself; should one of them dare to be angry, I would give her a lesson with my beak. He has only one wife, and he cannot keep her in order.” As soon as the man understood this, he got up out of the coffin, seized a stick, and called his wife into the room, saying: “Come, and I will tell you what you so much want to know”; and then he began to beat her with the stick, saying with each blow: “It is that, wife, it is that!” And in this way he taught her never again to ask why he had laughed. The Boy Who Could Keep A Secret Once upon a time there lived a poor widow who had one little boy. At first sight you would not have thought that he was different from a thousand other little boys; but then you noticed that by his side hung the scabbard of a sword, and as the boy grew bigger the scabbard grew bigger too. The sword which belonged to the scabbard was found by the little boy sticking out of the ground in the garden, and every day he pulled it up to see if it would go into the scabbard. But though it was plainly becoming longer and longer, it was some time before the two would fit. However, there came a day at last when it slipped in quite easily. The child was so delighted that he could hardly believe his eyes, so he tried it seven times, and each time it slipped in more easily than before. But pleased though the boy was, he determined not to tell anyone about it, particularly not his mother, who never could keep anything from her neighbours. Still, in spite of his resolutions, he could not hide altogether that something had happened, and when he went in to breakfast his mother asked him what was the matter. “Oh, mother, I had such a nice dream last night,” said he; “but I can’t tell it to anybody.” “You can tell it to me,” she answered. “It must have been a nice dream, or you wouldn’t look so happy.” “No, mother; I can’t tell it to anybody,” returned the boy, “till it comes true.” “I want to know what it was, and know it I will,” cried she, “and I will beat you till you tell me.”