“Well, I was pretty well paid for that horse,” Little Claus said to himself when he got back to his own house and dumped all the money in a big pile on the floor. “Big Claus will be annoyed when he finds out how rich I’ve become from my one horse, but I’ll be darned if I tell him about it right away.”
Then he sent a boy over to Big Claus’ place to borrow a bushel scale.
“I wonder what he wants that for?” Big Claus thought and spread some tar under the bottom so something would remain of whatever was measured. And it did too because when he got the scale back, there were three new silver coins stuck on it.
“What’s this?” said Big Claus and ran right over to Little Claus’ house. “Where have you gotten all that money from?”
“Oh, it’s from my horse-hide. I sold it last night.”
“That was really a good deal!” Big Claus said, ran right home, took an axe, struck all four of his horses in the head, skinned them, and drove off with them to town.
“Hides! Hides! Who wants hides?!” he shouted through the streets.
All the shoemakers and tanners came running and asked what he wanted for them.
“A bushel full of money each,” Big Claus said.
“Are you nuts?” they all asked him, “Do you think we have bushels of money?”
“Hides! Hides! Who wants hides?!” he shouted again, but to everyone who asked how much they cost, he answered, “A bushel full of money.”
“He’s making fun of us,” they all agreed. Then the shoemakers took their straps, and the tanners took their leather aprons, and they started to beat Big Claus.
“Hides! Hides!” they mimicked him. “We’ll give you a hide that’ll be both black and blue! Out of town with you!” they shouted, and Big Claus had to ski-daddle out of there as fast as he could, for he had never been thrashed so much in his life.
“Little Claus is going to get it!” he said when he got home. “I’m going to kill him for this.”
But back at Little Claus’ house, his old grandmother was dead. Even though she had been cross and mean to him, he was pretty sad anyway, and he took the dead woman and laid her in his warm bed to see if she would come back to life. She could lie there the whole night, and he himself would sit on a stool in the corner and sleep. He had done that before.
As he sat there during the night, the door opened, and Big Claus came in with his axe. He must have known exactly where Little Claus’ bed was because he went right over to it and hit the dead grandmother on the head, thinking it was Little Claus.
“So there!” he said. “You won’t fool me again!” and then he went home.
“That is really a bad and mean man,” said Little Claus, “He wanted to kill me. It’s a good thing for the old lady that she was already dead, or he would have killed her.”
Then he dressed the old grandmother in her best Sunday clothes, borrowed a horse from his neighbor, hitched it to the carriage, and set the grandmother up in the backseat, so that she couldn’t fall out while he was driving, and away they went through the forest. When the sun came up, they were outside a large inn. Little Claus stopped there and went inside to get something to eat.
The innkeeper had lots of money and was also a very kind man, but he was quick-tempered, as if he were full of pepper and tobacco.
“Good morning,” he said to Little Claus, “You’re out early in your fancy clothes today.”
“Yes,” Little Claus said, “I’m on my way to town with my old grandmother. She’s sitting out there in the carriage, and I can’t get her into the inn. Would you please take her a glass of mulled wine? But you have to speak loudly because she’s very hard of hearing.”
“Yes, I’ll do that,” said the innkeeper and poured a large glass of wine that he took out to the dead grandmother, who was propped up in the carriage.
“Here’s a glass of wine from your son,” said the innkeeper, but the dead woman didn’t say a word, just sat completely still.
“Can’t you hear?” shouted the innkeeper as loudly as he could. “Here’s a glass of wine from your son.”
He shouted it again and again, but when she didn’t budge an inch, he got mad and threw the glass right into her face so the wine ran down over her nose, and she fell over backwards in the carriage since she was just propped up, not tied.
“What’s this!” yelled Little Claus. He ran out of the door and grabbed the innkeeper, “You’ve killed my grandmother! Look here—she has a big hole in her forehead!”
“Oh, it was an accident!” cried the innkeeper and clasped his hands together. “It’s all because of my quick temper. Oh, sweet Little Claus, I’ll give you a whole bushel of money and have your grandmother buried as if she were my own, but just don’t say anything about it, or they’ll chop my head off, and that’s so unpleasant.”
Then Little Claus got a whole bushel of money, and the innkeeper buried the old grandmother as if she had been his own.
When Little Claus got home with all the money, he immediately sent his boy over to Big Claus to ask whether he could borrow his scale.
“What?!” said Big Claus. “Didn’t I kill him? This I have to see for myself,” and so he took the scale over to Little Claus in person.
“Now where did you get all that money from?” he asked, his eyes open wide at the sight of all the additional money.
