WHAT THE OLD MAN DOES IS ALWAYS RIGHT.txt

1872
FAIRY TALES OF HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN
WHAT THE OLD MAN DOES IS ALWAYS RIGHT
by Hans Christian Andersen
I WILL tell you a story that was told me when I was a little
boy. Every time I thought of this story, it seemed to me more and more
charming; for it is with stories as it is with many people- they
e better as they grow older.
I have no doubt that you have been in the country, and seen a very
old farmhouse, with a thatched roof, and mosses and small plants
growing wild upon it. There is a stork's nest on the ridge of the
gable, for we cannot do without the stork. The walls of the house
are sloping, and the windows are low, and only one of the latter is
made to open. The baking-oven sticks out of the wall like a great
knob. An elder-tree hangs over the palings; and beneath its
branches, at the foot of the paling, is a pool of water, in which a
few ducks are disporting themselves. There is a yard-dog too, who
barks at all corners. Just such a farmhouse as this stood in a country
lane; and in it dwelt an old couple, a peasant and his wife. Small
as their possessions were, they had one article they could not do
without, and that was a horse, which contrived to live upon the
grass which it found by the side of the high road. The old peasant
rode into the town upon this horse, and his neighbors often borrowed
it of him, and paid for the loan of it by rend