“I wonder now if they would sell me the boy; then I’d soon put him out of the way?”
“I daresay they would,” said his wife; “you know they’re very poor.”
So Peter went down to the mill, and asked the miller’s wife whether she would sell him her son; she should get a heap of money for him.
“Well!” said Peter, “I’m sure I can’t see why you shouldn’t; you’ve hard work enough as it is to keep hunger out of the house, and the boy won’t make it easier, I think.”
But the mother was so proud of the boy, she couldn’t part with him. So when the miller came home, Peter said the same thing to him, and gave his word to pay six hundred dollars for the boy, so that they might buy themselves a farm of their own, and not have to grind other folks’ corn, and to starve when they ran short of water. The miller thought it was a good bargain, and he talked over his wife; and the end was, that Rich Peter got the boy. The mother cried and sobbed, but Peter comforted her by saying, the boy should be well cared for; only they had to promise never to ask after him, for he said he meant to send him far away to other lands, so that he might learn foreign tongues.
So when Peter the Pedlar got home with the boy, he sent for a carpenter, and had a little chest made, which was so tidy and neat, ’twas a joy to see. This he made water-tight with pitch, put the miller’s boy into it, locked it up, and threw it into the river, where the stream carried it away.
“Now, I’m rid of him,” thought Peter the Pedlar.
But when the chest had floated ever so far down the stream, it came into the mill-head of another mill, and ran down and hampered the shaft of the wheel, and stopped it. Out came the miller to see what stopped the mill, found the chest, and took it up. So when he came home to dinner to his wife, he said,—
“I wonder now whatever there can be inside this chest which came floating down the mill-head, and stopped our mill to-day?”
“That we’ll soon know,” said his wife; “see there’s the key in the lock, just turn it.”
So they turned the key and opened the chest, and lo! there lay the prettiest child you ever set eyes on. So they were both glad, and were ready to keep the child, for they had no children of their own, and were so old, they could now hope for none.