"Take as much as thou canst carry," said the farmer.
So Tom laid down his rope and began to make his bottle.
"Your rope is too short," said the farmer by way of a joke; but the joke
was on Tom's side, for when he had made up his load there was some
twenty hundred-weight of straw, and though they called him a fool for
thinking he could carry the tithe of it, he flung it over his shoulder
as if it had been a hundred-weight, to the great admiration of master
and men.
Tom's strength being thus made known there was no longer any basking by
the fire for him; every one would be hiring him to work, and telling
him 't was a shame to live such a lazy life. So Tom seeing them wait on
him as they did, went to work first with one, then with another. And one
day a woodman desired his help to bring home a tree. Off went Tom and
four men besides, and when they came to the tree they began to draw it
into the cart with pulleys. At last Tom, seeing them unable to lift it,
"Stand away, you fools," said he, and taking the tree, set it on one end
and laid it in the cart.
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