A Chapter that you can Skip

'It's a valuable bird, and then it's been my friend a long time, and I dunno what it would be thinking of me if I'd sell it.'

"'Maybe I'ld make it worth your while.' said the landlady.

"'I'm a poor man,' says Donald.

"'I'll fill your hat with silver,' says the landlady, 'if you'll leave me the bird.'

"'I couldn't refuse that,' says Donald; 'you may have the bird.'

"So she filled his hat with silver, and he left her the bird and went on his way home.

"It wasn't long after he got home till he met Hudden and Dudden. 'Aha!' says he to them, 'you thought it was the bad turn you was doing me, but you couldn't have done me a better. Look what I got for the hide of my ox, that you killed on me.' And he showed them the hatful of silver. 'You never saw such a demand for hides in your life,' says he, 'as there is in the town this present time.'

"No sooner had he said that than Hudden and Dudden went home and killed their own oxen and set off for the town to sell the hides. But when they got there they could get no more for them than the common price of hides, and they came home again vowing vengeance on Donald.

"This time they were bound there would be no mistake about it, so they went to his house and they seized him and put him into a sack and tied up the top of it. 'Now,' says one of them, 'you'll not be doing us any dirty turn this time, I'm thinking. We're going to take you to the river and throw you in and drown you; that's what we're going to do and I'm telling you of it now, so that you'll have the pleasure of thinking that all your sorrows are nearly over, as you go along.'

"Well, Donald said never a word, but he kept thinking, and those words 'all your sorrows are nearly over' gave him something particular to think about, and it wasn't long till he began to see his way, if he could only get a chance to do what he was thinking of.

"They took up the sack and they carried it by turns for a time, but both of them soon began to get mighty tired and thirsty. Then they came to a tavern, and they left the sack outside, and Donald in it, and went in to get a drink.