The ploughman rubbed his head, and wondered what he could do. He did not at all want to tell his wife about the little gnome, for he was sure she would not like it, but at the same time he did not want the gnome to leave his house and take away his luck. A few days after, his wife told him she was going to the shoemaker’s to buy herself some smart new shoes, and the ploughman thought of the gnome, and knew he must do as she had told him. So he said to his wife, “Wife, when you get those shoes for yourself, I wish you would get a pair just like them for my cousin who has written to me to ask me for a present. I should like to send her some nice boots and shoes as she is very poor, so I shall be very much obliged if you will get two pairs of whatever you may get for yourself that I may send her one.” The wife wondered very much, for she did not know the ploughman had any cousin; however, she went into the town, and brought home two pairs of smart red shoes with bows on the top. When she had gone to bed at night, the ploughman took one pair and laid it by the hole in the same place where he had put the food, and it disappeared just as the food did without his seeing where it went. “Now,” thought he, “when she sees I am quite honest, perhaps the ugly little gnome will be content, and let us go on in peace.” So time went on, and the ploughman and his wife lived very happily and quietly, till one evening a pedlar came round with a tray holding all sorts of pretty things to sell. The ploughman’s wife went to the door, and looked at the things: then she bought a pretty comb for her hair, but she would not show it to her husband, as she meant to wear it before him as a surprise next day. But that evening after his wife had gone to bed, as the ploughman sat finishing his pipe by the fire, he heard the voice from the hole calling as loudly as ever, “Stop! I am coming up.” Again the ploughman quaked with fear, and then he saw coming through the hole something no bigger than a black beetle, and again the voice said in a lower tone, “Now I will begin to grow a little,” and presently the tiny black thing had swelled into the ugly little black woman with the face like india-rubber. “Listen to me,” she said, “and know that I am beginning to feel very angry. You are beginning to cheat me. To-day your wife bought herself a brand-new comb from a pedlar at the door, and never got one for me. To-morrow evening I must have that comb. I don’t care how you get it, but have it I must.” The ploughman scratched his head and was sore perplexed. “What on earth am I to do?” he cried, “for my wife will think me very cruel if I take away all the pretty little things she buys for herself.”