So he bought a fine young sapling, to set in his orchard,
for the children to play under and to keep his pantry full of the fine
red-cheeked fruit. At this his wife was delighted.
So happy enough--in fact, too merry to think of anything else, they,
both husband and wife, proceeded to set the sapling in the ground. She
held the tree, while he dug down to make the hole deep enough to make
sure of its growing.
But farmers are sometimes very superstitious. They even believe in
luck, though not in Puck. Some of them have faith in what the almanac,
and the patent medicine may say, and in planting potatoes according to
the moon, but they scout the idea of there being any fairies.
With the farmer, this had become a fixed state of mind and now it
brought him to grief, as we shall see. For though he remembered what
his wife liked and disliked, and recalled what her father had told
him, he had forgotten that she was a fairy.
With this farmer and other Welsh mortals, it had become a habit, when
planting a young tree, to throw the last shovelful of earth over the
left shoulder. This was for good luck. The farmer was afraid to break
such a good custom, as he thought it to be.
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