ONCE upon a time there was a farmer and his wife who had a handsome daughter named Alice, and she was loved by an honest young man named John. This John was a careful fellow, and he wanted a clever wife. "If she is not that," said he, "I do not care to marry her."

"Oh," said her father, "you need have no fear. She has a head full of brains, I assure you," and the mother added, "Yes, yes, she can see the wind blow up the street and can hear the flies cough."

For a long time John courted her, until at last a day was set for the wedding, and it was arranged that after the two were married John should come and live at the home of his bride.

On the morning of the wedding day the girl's father was working in the garden. Presently he sat down to rest by the well, and while he rested he was thinking about his daughter's future. As he was preparing to rise he happened to look into the well.

"I never observed before how deep and dangerous this well seems," he said to himself. "Now supposing John and Alice marry, and supposing by and by they have a little son   who knows but that some day the child might be playing about this well and fall in and be drowned! What a dreadful thing that would be!"

The thought of such an accident filled him with sorrow, and laying down his hoe, he kneeled to look again into the well, and his tears began to fall thick and fast into the water below.

Soon afterward his wife came out to help him with his garden work, and she found him weeping into the well. "What troubles you?" she asked. "What are you crying for?"

Then the man told her his fears. "If Alice marries," said he, "and sometime has a little son the boy might be playing around this well and fall in and be drowned. What a dreadful thing that would be!"

"Alack!" cried the woman, "I never thought of that before. It is indeed possible."

So she knelt beside her husband and looked into the well, and her tears fell with his into the water.

In a little time the daughter came to the well with a pail she intended to fill. "Why, whatever is the matter?" she said.

Her father told her of the thought that had struck him. "Dear, dear, dear!" she exclaimed, "that might easily happen!"

So she joined the other two in weeping into the well.

After a while John arrived, all dressed for the wedding. "What are you three doing there?" he asked. "Why are you so sad?"

"Oh!" replied the father, "look at this horrid well. Suppose when you and our daughter are married you should sometime have a little son, and supposing he was playing about this well   he might fall in and be drowned!"

Then all three burst out crying harder than ever, and the young man could hear their tear-drops pattering into the water of the well. "You are three sillies," said he, "and are not a family I care to marry into. There will be no wedding this day. I am going to travel. Do you see these new boots I have on? I will walk till I wear them out, and if I find any people more foolish than you three before the boots are gone and I am barefoot, I will come back and marry Alice. Otherwise I shall never return."

So bidding them good-by, he started off on his travels and left them all crying, only now they wept because the girl had lost her sweetheart.

      After John had walked a long way he came to a woman's cottage that had some tufts of grass growing on the thatched roof. The woman who lived in the cottage had set up a ladder against the roof and was trying to get her cow to go up it to eat the grass.  But do what she would, the woman could not force  the cow to climb the ladder. John stopped and spoke with her. "What is it you are trying to do?" he asked.

"Why, look ye!" she responded, "don't you see that beautiful grass on my roof? I'm going to drive the cow up there to eat it. I have this stout cord tied about her neck, and I shall pass it down the chimney. Then I will go in to continue my housework, but I shall fasten the cord to my wrist so that the cow cannot fall off the roof without my knowing it."

"Why," said John, "if the cow were to fall off, her weight pulling on the cord might drag you up the chimney. Wouldn't your easiest plan be to go up yourself on the roof and cut the grass and throw it down to the cow?"

"I never thought of that," said the woman. "I will do as you say, and many thanks."

"She is silly number one," remarked John, and went on.

In the course of time he came to an inn where he stopped for the night. He occupied a room in which there were two beds, and he had to share the apartment with a fellow traveller. In the morning, when they were getting up, John was surprised to see the other man hang his trousers to one of the posts of his bed and run across the room and try to jump into them. He made the attempt again and again without succeeding. John wondered what he was doing this for, but watched him and made no comment. At last the man stopped and wiped his face with his handkerchief.. "Oh, dear!" he sighed, "I do think trousers are the most awkward kind of clothes that ever were. I can't imagine who could have invented such things. It takes me the best part of an hour every morning to jump into mine, and I get so hot! How do you manage yours?"

John burst out laughing. "Why don't you take the trousers and draw them on?" said he.

"Good!" exclaimed the man. "I never thought of that. Many thanks. I only wish I had met you before, for your advice will save me a great deal of time."

"He is silly number two," said John to himself.

John went on for many days, and at last he came to a house whence he heard the voice of a woman wailing and lamenting. He stepped to the door and peeped in. There sat the weeping woman beside a cradle in which a baby lay. "Why do you cry?" inquired John.

"Alas!" said she, "do you not see that hatchet sticking in the beam directly over the cradle. If it should fall I greatly fear it would kill my child. Alas! alas!"

"I think I can easily save the baby from so sad a fate," responded John.         

"Then come to its rescue at once," begged the woman.

So John went in, pulled out the hatchet and laid it down on the hearth. "There, my good woman," said he, "now don't cry any more."

The woman dried her eyes and was greatly rejoiced at the child's escape from danger.

"She is a third silly," said John as he resumed his journey.

Several days later he came to a barn at the door of which stood a man with a shovel in his hands. The man seemed to be working very hard shovelling the air in at the door. "What are you doing?" asked John.  .

"I am shovelling in the sunbeams to dry some corn I have spread on the floor," replied the man.

"Why don't you bring the corn out where the sun can shine on it?" said John.

"That plan never occurred to me," replied the man. "Good luck to you for suggesting such an idea. I shall be saved many a weary day's work."

"There is a fourth silly," said John.

He continued his travels until he came to a place where he saw a crowd collected and heard a great hubbub of shouting and disputing. He ran to learn the cause of the commotion and found himself in the midst of a wedding party which had collected before the house of the bride. But the man who was to be married was unusually tall, and the doorway was nearly a foot too low for him. The crowd were discussing how he could get in, and half the company argued that, to allow him to enter, they must cut off his feet, and the others declared it would be better to cut off his head.

"Stop!" cried John, when he understood what the trouble was. "I'll get him in for you."

      Then he conducted the bridegroom to the doorway and looked up to his head. "Stoop a bit, my friend," he commanded, "a little more, a little —!" he repeated, and when the man's head was low enough he gave him a push and in he went.

"There," said John, "whenever you want to enter such a doorway, only bend your head sufficiently and you'll have no further difficulty. Do you under-stand?"

"Yes," replied the man, "and I am greatly obliged to you. How much better this is than to have my feet or my head cut off!"

"He is another silly," said John, "and all the rest of this crowd are sillies too."

John now began to think there were so many foolish persons in the world that he might as well return and marry the farmer's daughter. But as his boots were not yet worn out he kept on, and one quiet evening he came to a village where he found the inhabitants gathered around a pond. Every person had a rake, or a pitchfork, or a broom, or a pole, and they were all reaching with these articles out into the water of the pond and drawing them in to the shore again and again.

"Hello!" cried John, "what are you about? What is the matter?"

"Matter enough!" they replied. "The moon has tumbled into the pond, and we are trying to rake it out."

"Why, there is the moon shining up in the sky,"   said John. "What you see in the pond is only the reflection."

But they would not listen to him, and scoffed at his assertions, and some threw clods of mud at him so that he got away with all speed. "Well," said he, "those people were a whole lot of sillies, and they were far worse than the three sillies at home. I will hasten back and marry Alice without waiting for my boots to wear out."

So he went home as quickly as he could, and he married the farmer's daughter. At length they had a little son, but the boy did not perish in the well, for John put a stout railing around it, and there was no chance for anyone to fall in.