'No!' that she wouldn't.

'Well!' said Peter, 'I'm sure I can't see why you shouldn't; you've
hard work enough as it is to keep hunger out of the house, and the
boy won't make it easier, I think.'

But the mother was so proud of the boy, she couldn't part with him.
So when the miller came home, Peter said the same thing to him, and
gave his word to pay six hundred dollars for the boy, so that they
might buy themselves a farm of their own, and not have to grind other
folks' corn, and to starve when they ran short of water. The miller
thought it was a good bargain, and he talked over his wife; and the
end was, that Rich Peter got the boy. The mother cried and sobbed,
but Peter comforted her by saying the boy should be well cared for;
only they had to promise never to ask after him, for he said he meant
to send him far away to other lands, so that he might learn foreign
tongues.

So when Peter the Pedlar got home with the boy, he sent for a
carpenter, and had a little chest made, which was so tidy and neat,
'twas a joy to see. This he made water-tight with pitch, put the
miller's boy into it, locked it up, and threw it into the river,
where the stream carried it away.

'Now, I'm rid of him', thought Peter the Pedlar.

But when the chest had floated ever so far down the stream, it came
into the mill-head of another mill, and ran down and hampered the
shaft of the wheel, and stopped it. Out came the miller to see what
stopped the mill, found the chest and took it up. So when he came