standing in the doorway.

'Good greeting, beardless one!' cried he.

'Good greeting, sonny,' replied the man.

'Could I grind something here?'

'Yes, certainly! I will finish what I am doing and then you can
grind as long as you like.'

But suddenly the boy remembered what his father had told him, and
bade farewell to the man, and went further down the river, till
he came to another mill, not knowing that as soon as his back was
turned the beardless man had picked up a bag of corn and run
hastily to the same mill before him. When the boy reached the
second mill, and saw a second beardless man sitting there, he did
not stop, and walked on till he came to a third mill. But this
time also the beardless man had been too clever for him, and had
arrived first by another road. When it happened a fourth time
the boy grew cross, and said to himself, 'It is no good going on;
there seems to be a beardless man in every mill'; and he took his
sack from his back, and made up his mind to grind his corn where
he was.

The beardless man finished grinding his own corn, and when he had
done he said to the boy, who was beginning to grind his,
'Suppose, sonny, we make a cake of what you have there.'

Now the boy had been rather uneasy when he recollected his