When Loony John was born, his mother leaned her head sadly on her hand and murmured:

"What will become of this boy later? Will he be wicked or innocent, rich or poor, intelligent or a simpleton?"

"He will be rich," answered a little fairy. Her voice seemed to come from the rafters.

"He will be poor," said a second one.

"Intelligent," said a third.

Then a fourth voice made itself heard—"Your child will never be anything but a simpleton."

The unhappy mother recognized that voice. She had heard it one day when she refused to take pity on an old beggar-woman, and now she knew that the woman was no other than the Queen of the Fairies in disguise.

The child grew and thrived, and when he was sixteen, his mother said:

"My son, I have many trials. We are poor and I want you to learn a trade. What do you want to do?"

"Nothing."

"You do not want to work?"

"Oh, no," answered Loony John; "work is tiresome."

"Ah!" thought the poor mother, "the Queen of the Fairies is taking her revenge."

Some days afterward the good woman needed a trivet, and sent her son to buy it.

Loony John ran to the city and bought a splendid one, and was returning home contentedly, when he found that the trivet was too heavy. So he sat it down and addressed it:

"There is the road that leads to our home. You have three feet and I have but two. Run on ahead and be sure not to stop on the way, for my mother needs your services."

Loony John put his hands in his pockets and went whistling along the road.

"Where is the trivet?" demanded his mother when he reached home.

"Well, well!" exclaimed Loony John, "is it not already here? The lazy thing must have lagged on the way. With its three feet it should have been here a good quarter of an hour ago."

"Alas!" said the mother, "the trivet is lost. What a simpleton you are to talk to a piece of iron as if it had life. You should have put it in your sack and carried it on your shoulders."

"Well, mother," answered Loony John, "another time I shall know what to do."

One day Loony John's mother concluded to celebrate the birthday of her oldest daughter, and some wine was needed for the invited guests, and Loony John was sent after it to a neighboring village. As he was returning, he remembered what his mother said about putting the trivet in a sack.

"Oh—ho!" he cried. "I was about to make a serious blunder. If I carry this wine to the house in a jug they will scold me. If a trivet should be put in a sack why not the wine!"

So he poured it into his sack.

"Where is the wine?" he was asked when he returned home.

"I had no sooner put it in the sack than it ran away on all sides."

"Did you not have a jug?"

"Certainly."

"What a misfortune!" his mother said. "You should have carried it on your head."

Loony John said he would do better next time.

Not long after this, he was sent for a servant who had been engaged to watch the young turkeys.

"This time," said Loony John, "I shall be careful to make no mistake."

He soon found the servant, who was a young girl, and said to her:

"We have no time to lose. Let us be off. Come! get on my head and let's go."

"Oh, I thank you, sir," the young girl answered, laughingly. "You are too good. I can walk very well on my feet."

But Loony John was not to be put off in this way. He remembered that he had been told to carry the wine on his head, and as the new servant showed no inclination to obey him he gave her a terrible beating. She fell almost lifeless by the roadside.

"Oh—ho!" cried Loony John, "you think you will have me scolded again to-day; but I am not so fond of a scolding, I can assure you."

Without delay he placed the poor girl on his head and carried her home, where he arrived well-nigh exhausted.

"What is it you have there?" his mother cried.

"It is our new servant I bring you."

"Oh, what an unhappy creature I am!" exclaimed the mother. She hastened to put the servant to bed. The poor girl's arms were broken and her shoulders bruised.

During the fortnight that followed, Loony John was sent on no errands. But the servant girl grew steadily worse, and one morning the doctor had to be sent for. There was no one to go but Loony John, and accordingly he was sent.

"Ask for only one," his mother cautioned him.

"Have no fear," answered Loony John, and he went on his way yelling as loud as he could:

"Let only one come! Let only one come!"

The road led by a river, and as Loony John was going along, he saw a fisherman who, since early morning, had been throwing out his line without success. Loony John's song did not please him.

"Silly scamp!" he exclaimed, "say 'Let a thousand come!' if you want to save your bones."

Immediately Loony John cried out:

"Let a thousand come! Let a thousand come!"

He went on and came to a wood where a shepherd was struggling with a fierce-looking wolf. The contest seemed to interest him. He sat down quietly on a stone and awaited results.

The struggle was long and furious, but the man at last overpowered the beast, and the wolf fell mortally wounded. While the shepherd was recovering from his exertions he heard a strange refrain. Loony John was yelling:

"Let a thousand come! Let a thousand come!"

The shepherd rose to his feet, furious.

"You young rascal! Say, rather, 'May the Imp seize him!'"

At once Loony John took up the new refrain and went on his way crying:

"May the Imp seize him! May the Imp seize him!"

Presently he met a funeral procession, but he still continued his cry.

"Will you hush?" said one in the procession. "If you must go yelling along the road, cry out, 'May the Lord protect him!'"

Loony John was willing—none more so—and very soon the echoes were repeating:

"May the Lord protect him! May the Lord protect him!"

At the entrance of the village where the doctor lived, a house was on fire, and a crowd of people were trying to put it out. Some wicked person had set it on fire and he had been caught. He was safely tied, and those who were not helping to put out the fire were engaged in jeering and insulting the wicked incendiary.

Loony John also wanted to see the culprit, but for fear he would forget what he had been told to say, he kept on repeating:

"May the Lord protect him! May the Lord protect him!"

The crowd was indignant, and on all sides were heard cries of "Here is his accomplice!" Immediately Loony John was seized and beaten, and, in spite of his tears and entreaties, was thrown into prison.

How he escaped need not be told. There is an old saying, "A fool for luck!" and it is a true one. Loony John got back home somehow.

Some time afterward Easter Sunday came, and when Loony John's mother started to church she said:

"Above all things, don't forget to put the hen in the stew-pan."

"I will certainly do that," he answered.

The good woman went off, leaving Loony John very much perplexed. He did not know which hen his mother wanted. So, after thinking the matter over, he went into the hen-house and said:

"Which one of you is to be cooked for dinner?"

"Cluck—cluck—cluck!" answered a setting hen.

"Pshaw! don't talk Dutch!" protested Loony John; "I can't understand you."

"Cluck—cluck—cluck!" said the setting hen.

Loony John was more puzzled than ever, but he repeated the question:

"Answer! Which one of you is to be eaten for dinner to-day?"

By this time the frightened chickens had all run out of the house into the garden, leaving only the old setting hen who had been answering Loony John in Dutch.

"Oh! you are the one! Very well!"

Loony John seized her and put her in the stew-pan alive. Then he began to think, and he remembered that the eggs were not hatched and that the nest was without a hen.

"My mother did not think of that," said Loony John, and at once he went and sat on the nest in the hen's place.

When his mother returned home she called for her son.

"John! Oh, John! where are you?"

"Here, in a corner of the hen-house!"

"Where?" exclaimed the mother. "I do not see you."

"Cluck—cluck—cluck!" said Loony John.

"Why don't you answer?" cried his mother.

"Cluck—cluck—cluck!" said Loony John.

His mother at last found him quietly sitting on the eggs.

"What are you doing there?" she asked, angrily.

"Sh—h!" replied Loony John. "Don't make any noise. I am setting."

"Did you put the hen in the stew-pan?"

"Cluck—cluck—cluck!"

"What do you mean by that?" inquired the good woman. "Speak!"

"I say that I am setting!" said Loony John, "and I will fly off the nest and scratch in the garden if you continue to disturb me in this manner."

"Why do you set?" his mother asked.

"Because the hen that sat on these eggs is about to boil."

"Why, that is not the hen that was to be cooked for dinner to-day, but the one that I picked yesterday and put in the cupboard!" The good woman shook her head in despair and went away.

How long Loony John sat on the nest cannot be told, but one day, some time afterward, he was passing by a farm where he saw a woman picking a chicken and carefully placing the feathers to one side. Loony John was very much interested in this, and so he said to her:

"Please, ma'am, tell me what you are doing with those feathers?"

The woman was not without humor, and she replied:

"Why do you ask such a simple question? I am going to plant the feathers, of course. Doesn't your mother plant the feathers she picks from chickens?"

"My gracious! No!"

"Well, then, it is because she doesn't own any Catchmeddler hens."

"Why do you plant the feathers?" inquired Loony John.

"Well, well! your country must be a very poor place, young man. Is it possible you don't know that one of these feathers, carefully cultivated, will yield each month a fat, frying-size chicken?"

"If that is so," said Loony John, "sell me two hundred dollars' worth of your largest and finest feathers."

The woman laughed in her sleeve. She had never dreamed that an old hen could bring her so much money. She hastened to close the trade with Loony John, and, to show that she was not at all picayunish, she threw in the two feet of the old hen for good measure.

Loony John went on his way happy. When he reached home he got the hoe, went out into the garden, and began to plant his fine feathers.

"How everybody will admire my fine square of feathers!" he said to himself. "I will call to every passer-by and say, 'Behold the beautiful hen-patch! Has ever such a wonder been seen before?'"

The next week, however, Loony John went all in tears to find the farm-woman.

"Well, well! my good young man!" exclaimed the woman when she saw him, "what do you cry for? Has your house been burnt?"

"That would be but a trifle," replied Loony John.

"Alas! is your mother dead?"

"That would be an irreparable misfortune, but after awhile we should become reconciled."

"What plague has fallen upon you?"

"The hail!" cried Loony John; "the hail that uprooted my beautiful chicken feathers. The wind also came among them and scattered them over the country. Do not scold me! I have hunted for them, but I cannot find a single one."

"We should have thought about the possibility of a storm," said the shrewd woman. "It was not hens you should have cultivated, my young friend, but sausages—for sausages will withstand the wind and hail."

"But how would the sausages grow?" asked Loony John, drying his tears.

"Why, like apples and cherries; but the trees, instead of producing these fruits, bear beautiful sausages. People who are not educated think that sausages are only made by those who deal in meat. But surely you know better," said the shrewd woman.

Loony John tried to hide his astonishment.

"Who would be so simple-minded as not to know that?" he replied. "For how much, ma'am, will you sell the sausages you speak of?"

"Twenty dollars apiece, if they are for yourself," answered the woman.

"I'll take a dozen," said Loony John, with the air of a fine trader. "I shall need no more to-day."

The shrewd woman brought Loony John a dozen old sausages and carefully wrapped them up. He paid for them on the spot, and then, forgetting his first misfortune—the wind and the hail—he returned home singing.

Loony John grew older as the days went by. A beard appeared on his face. He even took to himself a wife; but he still remained Loony John.

One day, when the sun was shining brightly, he dressed himself in his new suit of clothes, put on his best hat and gloves, and went to the fair in the neighboring village. He enjoyed himself, and created a great deal of amusement for others by his queer blunders. In the afternoon the thought occurred to him that his wife would be expecting him at home, and so he started to return.

Unfortunately, a shower came up, just as he was crossing a bridge. Big drops of rain were falling on all sides. In a little while his fine hat, his new clothes, and his gloves that he was so proud of would be ruined.

"Goodness gracious!" cried Loony John, "if I suffer myself to get wet like this I shall be called a simpleton indeed, and my friends will have good cause to laugh at me. What shall I do?"

Suddenly he shouted for joy. A wonderful idea had struck him.

"I will throw myself in the river!" he exclaimed. "Once in the water, it will be impossible for the rain to wet my clothes."

No sooner said than done. Into the water jumped Loony John. He couldn't swim and so he was drowned. The next day the miller found the body in the water. He drew it out, and Loony John was buried with great pomp. On his tombstone was an inscription in Latin, which, being interpreted, reads:

Here Lies
loony john
who
Jumped Into the Water
to keep
From Getting Wet.