Loony John put his hands in his pockets and went whistling along the road.
"Where is the trivet?" demanded his mother when he reached home.
"Well, well!" exclaimed Loony John, "is it not already here? The lazy thing must have lagged on the way. With its three feet it should have been here a good quarter of an hour ago."
"Alas!" said the mother, "the trivet is lost. What a simpleton you are to talk to a piece of iron as if it had life. You should have put it in your sack and carried it on your shoulders."
"Well, mother," answered Loony John, "another time I shall know what to do."
One day Loony John's mother concluded to celebrate the birthday of her oldest daughter, and some wine was needed for the invited guests, and Loony John was sent after it to a neighboring village. As he was returning, he remembered what his mother said about putting the trivet in a sack.
"Oh—ho!" he cried. "I was about to make a serious blunder. If I carry this wine to the house in a jug they will scold me. If a trivet should be put in a sack why not the wine!"
"Where is the wine?" he was asked when he returned home.
"I had no sooner put it in the sack than it ran away on all sides."
"What a misfortune!" his mother said. "You should have carried it on your head."
Loony John said he would do better next time.
Not long after this, he was sent for a servant who had been engaged to watch the young turkeys.
"This time," said Loony John, "I shall be careful to make no mistake."
He soon found the servant, who was a young girl, and said to her:
"We have no time to lose. Let us be off. Come! get on my head and let's go."
"Oh, I thank you, sir," the young girl answered, laughingly. "You are too good. I can walk very well on my feet."
But Loony John was not to be put off in this way. He remembered that he had been told to carry the wine on his head, and as the new servant showed no inclination to obey him he gave her a terrible beating. She fell almost lifeless by the roadside.
"Oh—ho!" cried Loony John, "you think you will have me scolded again to-day; but I am not so fond of a scolding, I can assure you."
Without delay he placed the poor girl on his head and carried her home, where he arrived well-nigh exhausted.
"What is it you have there?" his mother cried.