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Back he went to his home, and when he told his mother what he intended to do, she was quite pleased. “See,” she said to her husband, “how clever the boy is; this is what book-learning has done. No one else would think of such a clever trick.”

Next morning, at sunrise, there was a boy again sitting on the top of that distant hill, where the boy had breakfasted the day before. Indeed it was “the Boy,” although he looked quite different. He had dyed his fair hair and his eyebrows, making them look almost black, and he had rubbed the juice of a certain bark on his skin to make him seem dark. There he sat, a dark foreign-looking boy, eating his breakfast and impatiently waiting for the little old man to come again. He had not long to wait. How he came the boy never knew, but he suddenly knew he was not alone, and looking up saw the old man looking at him.

“Ah, a fair boy yesterday, and a dark one to-day. I hope there is more luck for me with the dark than there was with the fair. What are you doing here, boy?”