But the brother would not take it until the other paid him three hundred dollars , and that he was obliged to do . Now the poor brother had both the money and the mill again . So it was not long before he had a farmhouse much finer than that in which his brother lived , but the mill ground him so much money that he covered it with plates of gold ; and the farmhouse lay close by the sea-shore , so it shone and glittered far out to sea . Everyone who sailed by there now had to be put in to visit the rich man in the gold farmhouse , and everyone wanted to see the wonderful mill , for the report of it spread far and wide , and there was no one who had not heard tell of it . After a long , long time came also a skipper who wished to see the mill . He asked if it could make salt . `` Yes , it could make salt , '' said he who owned it , and when the skipper heard that , he wished with all his might and main to have the mill , let it cost what it might , for , he thought , if he had it , he would get off having to sail far away over the perilous sea for freights of salt . At first the man would not hear of parting with it , but the skipper begged and prayed , and at last the man sold it to him , and got many , many thousand dollars for it . When the skipper had got the mill on his back he did not stay there long , for he was so afraid that the man would change his mind , and he had no time to ask how he was to stop it grinding , but got on board his ship as fast as he could . When he had gone a little way out to sea he took the mill on deck . `` Grind salt , and grind both quickly and well , '' said the skipper . So the mill began to grind salt , till it spouted out like water , and when the skipper had got the ship filled he wanted to stop the mill , but whichsoever way he turned it , and how much soever he tried , it went on grinding , and the heap of salt grew higher and higher , until at last the ship sank . There lies the mill at the bottom of the sea , and still , day by day , it grinds on ; and that is why the sea is salt . -LRB- 1 -RRB- -LRB- 1 -RRB- Asbjornsen and Moe . THE MASTER CAT ; OR , PUSS IN BOOTS There was a miller who left no more estate to the three sons he had than his mill , his ass , and his cat . The partition was soon made . Neither scrivener nor attorney was sent for . They would soon have eaten up all the poor patrimony . The eldest had the mill , the second the ass , and the youngest nothing but the cat . The poor young fellow was quite comfortless at having so poor a lot .
`` My brothers , '' said he , `` may get their living handsomely enough XXXXX joining their stocks together ; but for my part , when I have eaten up my cat , and made me a muff of his skin , I must die of hunger . ''
After at by for in over till to until with