Gentle Dora: The Story of a Devil Who Married a Scold.

Which will you have: that which grows above the ground, or that which grows below the ground?"

This sounded fair enough and the devil said:

"Give me the part that grows above the ground."

Thereupon Gentle Dora had the whole farm planted in potatoes and beets and carrots. When the harvest came she gave the devil the tops and herself took all the tubers.

That winter the poor devil would have starved if the neighbors hadn't taken pity on him and fed him.

In the spring Gentle Dora asked him what part of the new crop he wanted.

"This time," he said, "give me the part that grows under the ground."

Gentle Dora agreed and then planted the entire farm in millet and rye and poppy seed. At the harvest she took all the grain as her share and told the devil that the worthless roots belonged to him.

"What chance has a poor devil with such a woman?" he thought to himself bitterly.

Discouraged and unhappy he went out to the roadside where he sat down. The troubles of domestic life pressed upon him so heavily that soon he began to cry.

Presently a journeyman shoemaker came by and said to him:

"Comrade, what ails you?"

The devil looked at the shoemaker and, when he saw that the shoemaker was a friendly sort of person, he told him his story.

"Why do you stand such treatment?" the shoemaker asked.

The devil snuffled.

"How can I help it? I'm married to her."

"How can you help it?" the shoemaker repeated. "Comrade, look at me. At home I have just such a wife as your Gentle Dora. There was no living with her in peace, so one morning bright and early I ups and puts my tool kit on my shoulder and leaves her. Now I wander about from place to place, mending a shoe here and a slipper there, and life is much pleasanter than it used to be. Why don't you leave your Gentle Dora and come along with me? We'll make out somehow."

The devil was overjoyed at the suggestion and without a moment's hesitation he tramped off with the shoemaker.

"You won't regret the kindness you've done me," the devil said.