Bluebeard Part 2

IV--A SCHOLAR'S FORTUNE

After parting from the goblin, the young man went back to his father, who asked:

"Where have you been roaming so long? You have neglected your work. I was quite certain you would do nothing of this kind well."

"Be contented," was the son's response, "I will make up the lost time.

Watch me while I cut down this tree at one blow."

He rubbed his ax with the magic rag, and gave the tree a powerful blow, but because the ax-head had been changed into silver the edge turned over.

"Ah, Father!" the son exclaimed, "do you see how poor an ax you have given me?"

"What have you done?" the father cried. "That ax was borrowed, and you have ruined it. I must pay for it, but I know not how I shall do so."

"Don't be troubled," the son said. "I will soon pay for the ax."

"Why, you simpleton! how will you do that?" his father retorted. "You have nothing but what I give you. Some student nonsense is stuck in your head. Of wood-cutting you know nothing."

"Well, Father," the son said, "I can work no more today now that my ax is spoiled. Let us make a holiday of the few hours that remain before sunset."

"Eh, what?" his father cried, "do you think I can keep my hands in my pockets as you do? You can go home, but I must keep on with the chopping."

"No," the son objected, "you must come, too, for this is the first time I have been in the forest, and I do not know the way out."

At last he persuaded his father to accompany him. After they reached home the son took the damaged ax to a goldsmith in a neighboring town.

"This ax-head is silver," the scholar told him. "I want to sell it."

The goldsmith tested it to make sure of the quality of the metal, weighed it, and said, "Your ax is worth one hundred dollars, but I have not so much money in the shop."

"Give me what you have," the scholar requested, "and I will trust you for the rest."

So the goldsmith gave him eighty dollars, and the scholar tramped back home. "Father," he said, "I have some money now. Do you know what we will have to pay our neighbor to make good the loss of his ax?"

"Yes," the father answered, "the ax was nearly new, and it cost him a dollar."

"Then give him two dollars," the son said. "He will have no regrets when he gets double payment. Here are fifty dollars. Pay our neighbor and keep the rest for yourself. You shall live at your ease in future and never want again."

"My goodness!" the man exclaimed, "where did you get this money?"

The son told everything that had happened. He now could easily procure all the money he pleased, and the first use he made of his wealth was to return to school and learn as much as he could. Afterward, because he could heal all wounds with his rag, he became the most celebrated surgeon in the world.

V--YALLERY BROWN

Once upon a time there was a lad about eighteen years old named Tom Tiver who had hired out to work for a farmer. One beautiful Sunday night in July he was walking across a field. The weather was warm and still, and the air was full of little sounds as if the trees and gra.s.ses were softly chattering to themselves.

But all at once there came from on ahead the most pitiful wailings that ever he had heard--a sobbing as of a child spent with fear and nearly heartbroken. Soon the sound changed to a moan, and then rose again in a long whimpering wailing that made Tom sick to hark to it. He began to look everywhere for the poor creature.

"It must be Sally Barton's child," he thought. "She was always a flighty thing and never looks after it properly. Like as not she's flaunting about the lanes, and has clean forgot the baby."

He looked and looked, yet he could see nought. Meanwhile the whimpering got louder and stronger and there seemed to be words of some sort mingled with the sobs. Tom harkened with all his ears, and heard the unhappy creature saying: "Oh! the stone, the great big stone! Oh! the stone on top!"

He wondered where the stone might be, and he looked until he found, close to a hedge, a great flat stone almost buried in the earth and hidden in the matted gra.s.s and weeds. Down he fell on his knees and listened again. Clearer than ever, but tired with crying came the little sobbing voice, "Oh! oh! the stone, the stone on top!"

Tom was scared, and he disliked to meddle with the thing, but he could not withstand the whimpering baby, and he tore like mad at the earth around the stone till he got his fingers under it and felt it loosening.

Then a puff of warm air came out of the damp earth and the tangle of gra.s.s and growing things, and he tipped the stone back out of the way.

Underneath where it had been was a cavity, and there lay a tiny thing on its back blinking up at the moon and at him. It was no bigger than a year old baby, but it had a great ma.s.s of hair and a heavy beard, and the hair and the beard were so long and so twisted round and round the creature's body that Tom could not see its clothes. The hair was yellow and silky like a child's, but the face of the thing was as old as if it had not been young and smooth for hundreds of years. There were just wrinkles and two bright black eyes set in a lot of s.h.i.+ning yellow hair; and the skin was the color of fresh-turned earth in the spring--brown as brown could be--and its bare hands and feet were as brown as its face.

The crying had stopped, but the tears were standing on its cheeks, and the tiny creature looked dazed in the moons.h.i.+ne and the night air.

When its eyes got used to the moonlight it looked boldly up in Tom's face and said: "Tom, you are a good lad."

The coolness with which it spoke was astonis.h.i.+ng, and its voice was high and piping like the twittering of a little bird. Tom touched his hat, and tried to think what he ought to say.

"Hoots!" the thing exclaimed, "you needn't be afraid of me. You have done me a good turn, and I'll do as much for you."

Tom couldn't speak yet, but he thought, "Lord! for sure it's a bogle!"

The creature seemed to know what pa.s.sed in Tom's mind, for it instantly said: "I'm no bogle, but you'd better not ask what I am. Anyhow, I am a good friend of yours."

Tom's knees smote together with terror. Certainly an ordinary body couldn't have known what he had been thinking, but the thing looked so kind and spoke so fair, that he made bold to say in a quavering voice, "Might I be asking to know your honor's name?"

"H'm!" the creature said, pulling its beard, "as for that, you may call me Yallery Brown. That's the way I look as you plainly see, and 'twill do for a name as well as any other. I am your friend, Yallery Brown, my lad."

"Thank you, master," Tom responded meekly.

"And now," it said, "I'm in a hurry to-night. So tell me without delay what I can do for you. Would you like a wife? I can give you the finest la.s.s in the town. Would you like riches? I can give you as much gold as you can carry. Or would you have me help you with your work? Only say the word."

Tom scratched his head. "I have no hankering for a wife," he said.

"Wives are bothersome bodies, and I have women folk at home who will mend my clothes. Gold is worth having, but if you could lighten my work that would suit me best of all. I can't abide work, and I'll thank--"

"Stop!" Yallery Brown cried, as quick as lightning, "I'll help you and welcome, but if ever you thank me you'll never see me more. Remember that! I'll have no thanks"; and it stamped its tiny feet on the ground and looked as wicked as a raging bull. "Harken! you great lump!" it went on, calming down a bit. "If ever you need help, or get into trouble, call on me. Just say, 'Yallery Brown, come from the earth, I want you!'

and I'll be with you at once; and now, good night."

So saying, it picked a dandelion puff and blew the winged seeds all up into Tom's eyes and ears. When Tom could see again Yallery Brown was gone, and he would have thought he had been dreaming, were it not for the stone on end and the hole at his feet.

VI--A TROUBLESOME HELPER

Tom went home and to bed, and by morning he had nearly forgotten all about what had happened the previous evening. But when he went to start the day's work, there was none to do. The horses had been fed, the stables cleaned, and everything put in its proper place, and he had nothing to do but stand around with his hands in his pockets.

So it was from morn till night, and so it was on the days that followed.