“What a big pile it is! It will annoy Big Claus to find out how rich I have become, all because of my horse. I won’t tell him but let him find out for himself.”

A few minutes later a boy banged on Big Claus’s door and asked him if he could borrow his grain measure for Little Claus.

“I wonder what he is going to use that for,” thought Big Claus; and in order to find out he dabbed a bit of tar in the bottom of the measuring pail, which was quite clever of him because when it was returned he found a silver coin stuck to the spot.

“Where did that come from?” shouted Big Claus, and ran as fast as he could to Little Claus’s house. When he saw Little Claus in the midst of his riches, he shouted even louder, “Where did you get all that money from?”

“Oh, that was for my horse hide, I sold it last night.”

“You were certainly well paid!” said Big Claus; and hurried home where he took an ax and killed all four of his horses; then he flayed them and set off for town with their hides.

“Hides for sale! Hides for sale! Who wants to buy hides?” Big Claus shouted from street to street.

All the shoemakers and tanners came out of their workshops to ask him the price of his wares.

“A bushel full of coins for each hide,” he replied.

“You must be mad!” they all shouted at once. “Do you think we count money by the bushel?”

“Hides for sale! Hides for sale!” Big Claus repeated. And every time that someone asked him the price he said again, “A bushel full of coins.”

“Are you trying to make fools of us?” the shoemakers and the tanners shouted. And while the crowd continued to gather around them, the tanners took their leather aprons and the shoemakers their straps and began to beat Big Claus.

“Hides …” screamed one of the tanners. “We’ll see to it that your hide spits red!”

“Out of town with him!” they shouted. And certainly Big Claus did his best to get out of town as fast as he could; never in his whole life had he gotten such a beating.

“Little Claus is going to pay for this!” he decided when he got home. “He is going to pay with his life.”

But while Big Claus was in town, something unfortunate had occurred: Little Claus’s grandmother had died. And although she had been a very mean and scolding hag, who had never been kind to Little Claus, he felt very sad. Thinking that it might bring her back to life, he put his old grandmother in his own warm bed and decided to let her stay there all night, even though this meant that he would have to sleep in a chair.

It was not the first time that Little Claus had tried sleeping in a chair, but he could not sleep anyway; so he was wide awake when Big Claus came and tiptoed across the room to the bed in which he thought Little Claus was sleeping.

With an ax Big Claus hit the old grandmother on top of the head as hard as he could. “That’s what you get for making a fool out of me,” he explained. “And now you won’t be able to do it again,” he added and went home.

“What a wicked man!” thought Little Claus. “If my grandmother hadn’t already been dead, he would have killed her.”

Very early the next morning he dressed his grandmother in her Sunday best; then he borrowed a horse from his neighbor and harnessed it to his cart. On the small seat in the back of the cart, he put the old woman in a sitting position with bundles on either side of her, so she wouldn’t fall out of the cart while he was driving. He went through the forest and just as the sun was rising he reached an inn. “I’d better stop to get something to keep me alive,” he said.

It was a large inn, and the innkeeper was very rich. He was also very kind, but he had a ferocious temper, as if he had nothing inside him but pepper and tobacco.

“Good morning,” he said to Little Claus. “You’re dressed very finely for so early in the morning.”

“I’m driving to town with my grandmother,” he replied. “She’s sitting out in the cart because I couldn’t persuade her to come in here with me. I wonder if you would be so kind as to take a glass of mead out to her; but speak a little loudly because she is a bit hard of hearing.”

“No sooner said than done,” answered the innkeeper; and he poured a large glass of mead which he carried out to the dead woman.

“Here is a glass of mead, which your son ordered for you,” said the innkeeper loudly but politely; but the dead woman sat perfectly still and said not a word.

“Can’t you hear me?” he shouted. “Here is mead from your son!”

He shouted the same words again as loud as he could, and still the old woman sat staring straight ahead. The more he shouted, the madder the innkeeper got, until finally he lost his temper and threw the mead, glass and all, right into the woman’s face. With the mead dripping down her nose, she fell over backward, for Little Claus had not tied her to the seat.

“What have you done?” shouted Little Claus as he flung open the door of the inn. “Why, you have killed my grandmother!” he cried, grabbing the innkeeper by the shirt. “Look at the wound she has on her head!”

“Oh, what a calamity!” the innkeeper exclaimed, and wrung his hands. “It is all because of that temper of mine! Sweet, good Little Claus, I will give you a bushel full of money and bury your grandmother as if she were my own, as long as you’ll keep quiet about what really happened, because if you don’t they’ll chop my head off; and that’s so nasty.”

And that was how Little Claus got another bushel full of coins; and the innkeeper, true to his word, buried the old woman as well as he would have had she been his own grandmother.

As soon as he got home Little Claus sent his boy to borrow Big Claus’s grain measure.

“What, haven’t I killed him?” Big Claus exclaimed. “I must find out what’s happened. I’ll take the measure over there myself.”

When he arrived at Little Claus’s and saw all the money, his eyes grew wide with wonder and greed. “Where did you get all that from?” he demanded.

“It was my grandmother and not me that you killed, and now I have sold her body for a bushel full of money.”

“You were certainly well paid,” said Big Claus, and hurried home.