Fables for Children, Stories for Children, Natural Science Stories Part 75

"How can we fools know? We labour mostly with our hands and with our backs."

"That is so, because you are fools. I will teach you," he said, "how to work with your heads. You will see that with your heads you can work faster than with your hands."

Ivan marvelled.

"Indeed," he said, "we are called fools for good reason."

And the old devil said:

"But it is not easy to work with the head. You do not give me anything to eat because I have no calluses on my hands, and you do not know that it is a hundred times harder to work with the head. At times it just makes the head burst."

Ivan fell to musing.

"But why do you torture yourself so much, my dear? It is no small matter to have your head burst. You had better do some easy work,--with your hands and back."

And the devil said:

"The reason I torture myself is because I pity you fools. If I did not torture myself, you would remain fools to the end of your days. I have worked with my head, and now I will teach you, too."

Ivan marvelled.

"Teach us," he said, "for now and then the hands get tired, and it would be nice to use the head instead."

The devil promised to teach him.

And Ivan proclaimed throughout his kingdom that a clean-looking man had appeared who would teach people how to work with their heads, that they could work more with their heads than with their hands, and that they should come and learn.

In Ivan's kingdom there was a high tower, and a straight staircase led up to it, and at the top there was a spy-room. Ivan took the gentleman there so that he might see better.

The gentleman stood up on the tower and began to speak from it. The fools gathered around to look at him. The fools thought that he would show them in fact how to work with the head instead of the hands. But the old devil taught them only in words how to live without working.

The fools did not understand a word. They looked and looked and went away, each to his work.

The old devil stood on the tower a day, and a second day, and kept talking. He wanted to eat; but the fools did not have enough sense to send some bread up to the tower. They thought that if he could work better with his head than with his hands, he would somehow earn bread for himself with his head. The old devil stood another day in the tower-room, and kept talking all the time. And the people came up and looked, and looked and went away.

Then Ivan asked:

"Well, has the gentleman begun to work with his head?"

"Not yet," people said, "he is still babbling."

The old devil stood another day on the tower and began to weaken; he tottered and struck his head against a post. One of the fools saw that, and told Ivan's wife about it, and she ran to her husband in the field.

"Come, let us go and see," she said. "The gentleman is beginning to work with his head."

Ivan was surprised.

"Indeed?" he said. He turned in the horse, and went to the tower. When he came up to it, the old devil was weakened from hunger and tottering from side to side and knocking his head against the posts. Just as Ivan came up, the devil stumbled and fell and rattled down the stairs, head foremost: he counted all the steps.

"Well," said Ivan, "the clean-looking gentleman told the truth when he said that at times the head bursts. This is worse than calluses: such works will leave b.u.mps on the head."

The old devil came down the whole staircase and struck his head against the ground. Ivan wanted to go and see how much work he had done, but suddenly the earth gave way, and the old devil went through the earth, and nothing but a hole was left.

Ivan scratched himself.

"I declare," he said, "it is a nasty thing! It is again he. He must be the father of those others. What a big fellow he is!"

Ivan is still living, and people are all the time rus.h.i.+ng to his kingdom, and his brothers, too, came to him, and he is feeding them all.

If any one comes and says: "Feed me!" he replies:

"All right, stay here, we have plenty of everything."

They have but one custom in his country, and that is, if one has calluses on his hands, he may sit down at the table, and if he has not, he gets the remnants.