The Greedy Youngster. 99 had to make one out of fifteen oxhides, and they filled it with food, and away he went down the hill with the bag on his back and the club on his shoulder. When he came so far that the enemy saw him, they sent a soldier to ask him if he was going to light them. "Yes; but wait a little till I have had something to eat," said the youngster. He threw himself down on the grass and began to eat with the big bag of food in front of him. But the enemy would not wait, and commenced to fire at him at once, till it rained and hailed around him with bullets. " I don't mmd these crowberries a bit," said the youngster, and went on eating harder than ever. Neither lead nor iron took any effect upon him, and his bag with food in front of him guarded him against the bullets as if it were a rampart. So they commenced throwing bomb-shells and firing cannons at him. He only grinned a little every time he felt them. " They don't hurt me a bit," he said. But just then he got a bomb-shell right down his windpipe. "Fy ! " he shouted, and spat it out again ; but then a chain-shot made its way into his butter-can, and another carried away the piece of food he held between his fingers. That made him angry ; he got up and took his big club and struck the ground with it, asking them if they wanted to take the food out of his mouth, and what they meant by blowing crow berries at him with those pea-shooters of theirs. He then struck the ground again till the hills and rocks rattled and shook, and sent the enemy flying in the air like chaff. This finished the war. When he came home again, and asked for more work, the king was tåken quite åback, for he thought he should have got rid of him in the war. He knew of nothing else but to send him on a message to the devil. " You had better go to the devil and ask him for my ground~ rent," he said. The youngster took his bag on his back, and started at once. He was not long in getting there, but the devil was gone to court, and there was no one at home but his mother, and slie H2
