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“I nearly lost my hat to-day,” said the second beggar so soon as he had come into the house.

“Did you?” said the first beggar. “How was that?”

“Oh! The wind blew it off into the water, but I got it again.”

“How did you get it?” said the first beggar.

“I just broke a dead branch off of the willow-tree and drew my hat ashore,” said the second beggar.

“A dead branch!!”

“A dead branch.”

“Off of the willow tree!!”

“Off of the willow tree.”

The first beggar could hardly breathe.

“And what did you do with the dead branch after that?”

“I threw it away into the water, and it floated down the river.”

The beggar to whom the money had been given ran out of the house howling, and down to the river-side, thumping his head with his knuckles like one possessed. For he knew that the branch his brother had broken off of the tree and had thrown into the water, was the very one in which he had hidden the bag of money.

Yes; and so it was.

The next morning, as the rich man took a walk down by the river, he saw a dead branch that had been washed up by the tide. “Halloo!” says he, “this will do to kindle the fire with.”

So he brought it to the house, and, taking down his axe, began to split it up for kindling. The very first blow he gave, out tumbled the bag of money.

But the beggar–well, by-and-by his grieving got better of its first smart, and then he started off down the river to see if he could not find his money again. He hunted up and he hunted down, but never a whit of it did he see, and at last he stopped at the rich man’s house and begged for a bite to eat and lodgings for the night. There he told all his story–how he had hidden the money that had been given him from his brother, how his brother had broken off the branch and had thrown it away, and how he had spent the whole live-long day searching for it. And to all the rich man listened and said never a word. But though he said nothing, he thought to himself, “Maybe, after all, it is not the will of Heaven that this man shall have the money. Nevertheless, I will give him another trial.”

So he told the poor beggar to come in and stay for the night; and, whilst the beggar was snoring away in his bed in the garret, the rich man had his wife make two great pies, each with a fine brown crust. In the first pie he put the little bag of money; the second he filled full of rusty nails and scraps of iron.

The next morning he called the beggar to him. “My friend,” said he, “I grieve sadly for the story you told me last night. But maybe, after all, your luck is not all gone. And now, if you will choose as you should choose, you shall not go away from here comfortless. In the pantry yonder are two great pies–one is for you and one for me. Go in and take whichever one you please.”

“A pie!” thought the beggar to himself; “does the man think that a big pie will comfort me for the loss of three hundred pieces of money?” Nevertheless, as it was the best thing to be had, into the pantry the beggar went and there began to feel and weigh the pies, and the one filled with the rusty nails and scraps of iron was ever so much the fatter and the heavier.

“This is the one that I shall take,” said he to the rich man, “and you may have the other.” And, tucking it under his arm, off he tramped.

Well, before he got back to the town he grew hungry, and sat down by the roadside to eat his pie; and if there was ever an angry man in the world before, he was one that day–for there was his pie full of nothing but rusty nails and bits of iron. “This is the way the rich always treat the poor,” said he.