Old Pat was in the house when I arrived, and he told a long story
after supper:--
There was once a widow living among the woods, and her only son
living along with her. He went out every morning through the trees
to get sticks, and one day as he was lying on the ground he saw a
swarm of flies flying over what the cow leaves behind her. He took
up his sickle and hit one blow at them, and hit that hard he left no
single one of them living.
That evening he said to his mother that it was time he was going out
into the world to seek his fortune, for he was able to destroy a
whole swarm of flies at one blow, and he asked her to make him three
cakes the way he might take them with him in the morning.
He started the next day a while after the dawn, with his three cakes
in his wallet, and he ate one of them near ten o'clock.
He got hungry again by midday and ate the second, and when night was
coming on him he ate the third. After that he met a man on the road
who asked him where he was going.
'I'm looking for some place where I can work for my living,' said
the young man.
'Come with me,' said the other man, 'and sleep to-night in the barn,
and I'll give you work to-morrow to see what you're able for.'
The next morning the farmer brought him out and showed him his cows
and told him to take them out to graze on the hills, and to keep
good watch that no one should come near them to milk them.
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