Stories
Who is the Boss - The Husband or the Wife?
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Margaret D Jones
There were two farmers, one insisting that the wife was the boss everywhere, and the other insisting that the husband was the boss. However, they had a bet - one put up two horses and the other forty-two eggs in a basket. And a lad was put on the back of one of the horses, and the basket of eggs on his arm. And he was to go to every house and ask who was the boss there. And if the husband said that he was boss, he was to give him a horse. And if he said that the wife was the boss, he was to give him an egg. And he went to the first place; he met the husband.
'Is it you or the wife who is boss here?' he asked.
'Oh! I'm the boss', he said.
'Which of the horses will you take?' asked the lad.
'Oh, well! I'll take the black', he said.
'No, John', said the wife, 'we won't take the black, we'll take the brown.'
'Oh! all right, we'll take the brown', he said.
'Here's an egg', said the boy.
And so it was everywhere he went. He asked:
'Who's the boss here?'
'Oh, I am', said the husband everywhere.
But when he chose between the two horses, the wife would say that she wanted the other one. The husband would give in and obey her, and was given an egg. And the lad went all round the countryside, and he came home with the two horses, having distributed the eggs. It proved that the wife was the boss everywhere, didn't it.
