"I wonder now what it is that is hewing away up yonder," said Boots.

"You're always so clever with your wondering," laughed Peter and Paul
both at once. "What wonder is it, pray, that a wood cutter should stand
and hack up on a hillside?"

"Still, I'd like to see what it is, after all," said Boots, and up he
went.

"Oh, if you're such a child, 'twill do you good to go and take a
lesson," called out his brothers after him.

But Boots didn't care for what they said; he climbed the steep hillside
towards the spot whence the noise came, and when he reached the place,
what do you think he saw? Why, an axe that stood there hacking and
hewing, all of itself, at the trunk of a fir tree.

"Good-day," said Boots. "So you stand here all alone and hew, do you?"

"Yes, here I've stood and hewed and hacked for hundreds of years,
waiting for you," said the axe.

"Well, here I am at last," said Boots, as he took the axe, pulled it off
its haft, and stuffed both head and haft into his wallet.

When he got down again to his brothers, they began to jeer and laugh at
him.

"And now, what strange thing was it you saw up yonder on the hillside?"
they asked.