As for Jacob and Gretchen, they went back home together, very well pleased with each other and themselves.

And the meaning of all this is, that many another
  man beside Jacob Boehm would find himself
    in a pretty scrape only for his wife.

[Illustration:  Jacob and Gretchen get the best of the Red One and go home together happily.]

[Illustration:  Two opinions.  This is a full page illustrated poem depicting the magpie in the poem, with the poem weaving through the pictures.]

TWO OPINIONS

(Ye first opinion)

A noisy chattering Magpie once
A talking gabbling hairbrained dunce
  Came by where a sign-post stood. 
He nodded his head with a modish air
And said “good day” for he wasn’t aware
That the sign-post pointing its finger there
  Was only a block of wood.

Quoth he, “An exceedingly sultry day. 
T’is more like June than the first of May.” 
  The post said never a word. 
“I’ve just dropped over from Lincolnshire. 
My home is in the Cathedral Spire—­
The air is cooler and purer the higher
  You get—­as you’ve doubtless heard.”

So on he chattered with never a stop,
And on and on till you’d think he would drop. 
  (The post was dumb as your hat.)
But so as the pie could say his say
He didn’t care whether it spoke all day;
For thus he observed as he walked away—­
  “An intelligent creature that.”

(Ye second opinion)

  Now once when the sky was pouring rain,
The Magpie chanced to come by again—­
  And there stood the post in the wet. 
“Helloa.” said the Magpie.  “What you here
Pray tell me I beg is there sheltering near—­
A terrible day for this time of the year. 
  T’would make a Saint Anthony fret.”

“I beg your pardon—­I didn’t quite hear.” 
(Then louder) “I say is there sheltering near”
  But the post was as dumb as Death. 
“What can’t you answer a question pray
You will not—­No—­Then I’ll say good-day.” 
And flirting his tail he walked away. 
“You’r a fool.” (this under his breath.)

L’ENVOY

The moral that this story traces
Is—­Circumstances alter cases.

Howard Pyle

[Illustration:  Ye song of ye foolish old woman.  This is an illustrated poem, with the top half being an old woman going up then down a hill.  The bottom is the poem, with court jesters on either side, left side titled Hope in Adversity, right titled Fear in Prosperity.]

Ye song of ye foolish old woman.

I saw an old woman go up a steep hill,
And she chuckled and laughed, as she went, with a will. 
    And yet, as she went,
    Her body was bent,
With a load as heavy as sins in Lent.

“Oh! why do you chuckle, old woman;” says I,
“As you climb up the hill-side so steep and so high?”
    “Because, don’t you see,
     I’ll presently be,
At the top of the hill.  He! he!” says she.