The Smith and the Devil. 133 cannot read writing, so you had better wait lill some one comes by who can help you." Before the saint could answer hicn a man came with his horse, which he asked the smith to shoe for him. " Will you let me shoe it ? " asked the samt. " You may try," said the smith ; " you cannot do it so badly but I shall be able to put it right again." The samt went out and took one leg off the horse and put it in the fire on the forge and made the shoe red hot ; he then sharpened the points, clenched the nails, and put the leg back in its place again. When he had done with that leg, he took the other fore-leg, and did the same with it ; and when he had put that in its place, he took the hind-legs, first the right and then the left, put them in the fire, made the shoes red hot, sharpened the points and clenched the nails, and then he put them on the horse again. The smith stood and looked on all the while. " You are not such a bad smith after all," he said. " Ah, you think so," said the samt. Just then the smith's mother came across to the smithy and asked him to come home and eat his dinner ; she was very old, and had a crooked back and big wrinkles in her face, and she was scarcely able to walk. " Take notice of what you now will see," said the samt. He took the woman, put her in the fire, and forged a young, lovely maiden out of her. " I say what I said before," said the smith, " you are not at all a bad smith. You will find over mydoor: ' Here lives the master over all masters,' but for all that, I now see that one learns as long as he lives" — and with that he went home and ate his dinner. As soon as he came back to the smithy, a man came riding, who wanted to have his horse shod. " I shall soon do that for you," said the smith ; " I have just learned a new way to shoe horses, and averygoodone itiswhenthedays are short;" and sohe com menced cutting and breaking away at the horse's legs, till he got them all off— M for I don't see the use of going forwards and back wards with one at a time," he said — and put the legs in the fire as he had seen the samt do. He put plenty of coals on, and let his
