PISKEY FINE! AND PISKEY GAY!
From Cornwall
’Tistold in the west country, how the Piskey threshed the corn, and did other odd jobs for Farmer Boslow as long as the old man lived. And after his death the Piskey worked for his widow. And this is how she lost the little fellow.
One night, when the hills were covered with snow, and the wind was blowing hard, the Widow Boslow left in the barn, for the Piskey, a larger bowl than usual full of milk thickened with oatmeal. It was clear moonlight, and she stopped outside the door, and peeped in to see if the Piskey would come to eat his supper while it was hot.
The moonlight shone through a little window on to the barn floor; and there, sitting on a sheaf of oats, she saw the Piskey greedily eating his thickened milk. He soon emptied the bowl and scraped it as clean with the wooden spoon as if it had been washed. Then he placed them both in a corner, and stood up and patted and stroked his stomach, and smacked his lips, as if to say: “That’s good of the old dear! See if I don’t thresh well for her to-night!”
But when the Piskey turned around, the widowsaw that he had nothing on but rags, and very few of them.
“How the poor Piskey must suffer!” thought she. “He has to pass most of his time out among the rushes in the boggy moor, and his legs are naked, and his breeches are full of holes. I’ll make the poor fellow a good warm suit of home-spun, at once!”
No sooner thought than she went home and began the suit. In a day or two she had made a coat and breeches, and knitted a long pair of sheep’s wool stockings, with garters and a nightcap all nicely knitted, too.
When night came, the widow placed the Piskey’s new clothes and a big bowl of thickened milk on the barn floor, just where the moonlight fell brightest. Then she went outside, and peeped through the door.
Soon she saw the Piskey eating his supper, and squinting at the new clothes. Laying down his empty bowl, he took the things, and put them on over his rags. Then he began capering and jumping around the barn, singing:—
“Piskey fine! and Piskey gay!Piskey now will run away!”
“Piskey fine! and Piskey gay!Piskey now will run away!”
“Piskey fine! and Piskey gay!
Piskey now will run away!”
And sure enough, he bolted out of the door, and passed the widow, without so much as “I wish you well till I see you again!” And he never came back to the farm.