Fred and Kate
RED and Kate were man and wife. They had not long been married.
One day Fred said, ‘I am going into the fields, Kate; I shall be hungry when I come in, so have something good ready for dinner, and a cool draught to quench my thirst.’
‘All right, Fred, I will have it ready for you when you come back.’
When dinner-time approached, she took down a sausage from the chimney, put it into a frying-pan with some butter, and placed it on the fire. The sausage began to frizzle and splutter, and Kate stood holding the pan lost in her thoughts.
Suddenly she said: ‘While the sausage is cooking, I might go down to the cellar to draw the beer.’ So she put the pan firmly on the fire, and took a jug down to the cellar to draw the beer.
Kate watched the beer running into the jug, and suddenly she said: ‘I don’t believe the dog is tied up; it might get the sausage out of the frying-pan and run off with it.’
She was up the cellar stairs in a twinkling, but the dog had already got the sausage in his jaws, and was just making off with it. Kate, who was very agile, ran after him, and chased him a good way over the fields. The dog, however, was quicker than she, and without letting go the sausage, he got right away.
‘What is gone, is gone!’ she said, and being tired out, she turned back and walked slowly home to cool herself.
In the meantime, the beer had been running out of the cask, because Kate had forgotten to turn the tap. As soon as