gone. Indeed, quite a lot of them have been stolen away."

"Stolen away!" screamed the old woman. "How dare you stand there and
tell me that? Didn't you find the thieves yesterday? Go and find
those children again, and take a stick with you, and don't show
yourself here till you can tell me that they won't steal again in a
hurry."

"Let me have a bite to eat," begs the old man. "It's a long way to go
on an empty stomach."

"Not a mouthful!" yells the old woman. "Off with you. Letting my
turnips be stolen every night, and then talking to me about bites of
food!"

So the old man went off again without his dinner, and hobbled away
into the forest as quickly as he could to get out of earshot of the
old woman's scolding tongue.

As soon as he was out of sight the old woman stopped screaming after
him, and went into the house and opened the iron chest and took out
the tablecloth the children had given the old man, and laid it on the
table instead of her own. She told it to turn inside out, and up it
flew and whirled about and flopped down flat again, all covered with
good things. She ate as much as she could hold. Then she told the
tablecloth to turn outside in, and folded it up and hid it away again
in the iron chest.

Meanwhile the old man tightened his belt, because he was so hungry. He
hobbled along through the green forest till he came to the little hut