"Nonsense!" cried Silly Catharine, with an air of contempt; "it is all your fancy. Don't tell me that water can taste of cabbages!" Her heart beat with affright, however, and as soon as the servant maid had left the room, she ran in great terror to the wine cellar. "What the servant said must have been true," thought she; "and Wise Peter will never forgive me when he finds out that I have spoilt the well. I will, therefore, pour some wine into the water, to take away the taste of the cabbages." So saying, she seized one of the wine barrels, and in the strength of terror she managed, with great difficulty, to push it up the cellar stairs, and roll it through the kitchen out to the well. Then she removed the spile and tilted the cask forward; when out streamed at least thirty gallons of the finest Tokay down the well!
Having done this, Silly Catharine hid the barrel away with great precipitation; and, determined to leave nothing else undone, she called the reapers and bid them go directly to the large field and reap the wheat. Then she went back, and began eating her dinner, saying, "Thank heaven, I have a good dinner to sit down to, at least; there are always cabbages enough!"
Meanwhile, the reapers made ready to go a-field; and before they went, one of them drew a bucket of water to carry with them. But no sooner had they tasted the water, than they cried out, "'Tis wine! the finest wine!" and scarcely able to believe their senses, they drew up bucket after bucket of this new liquor, drank till they became drunk, and then tumbled senseless among the wheat; for it happened that the well was very low, and what they drew was nearly all wine. While they lay there, a violent hail storm came on, and in an hour's time the whole of the wheat was beaten to the ground, drenched, crushed, and ruined.
Unconscious of this fresh misfortune, Silly Catharine prepared her soup for supper, and then, having finished her work, she sat down in the front porch and began to knit, feeling as if at last all her troubles were over. Presently the gate was opened, and a man entered the garden. It was he who was appointed to gather the tax, and knowing Wise Peter to be well off, it was to his house that he first came.