The Islands of Magic Part 10

"What luck to-day?" asked his friend.

The hunter proudly displayed the rabbits he had in his bag. "I have them, thanks to my dog," he said.

"I'd like to buy that dog of yours," said his friend. "What will you take for him?"

The father named an enormous price, and to his great surprise his friend accepted it. The money was pa.s.sed over at once, and the hunting dog went home with his new master.

The next day they went on a hunting expedition into the deep forest.

Suddenly the dog disappeared. His master called and whistled to him in vain. Finally he was obliged to return home without him. He had lost both the dog and the money he had paid for him.

"Have you seen my hunting dog?" were his words for many weeks to every one he met.

His hunting dog had fled into a deep forest and once more resumed his original form. He returned home and told his two brothers that in a single day he had earned for his father more than their combined efforts for many weeks. Indeed it was quite true.

The next day the young man said to his father: "Will you buy a saddle and bridle for me if I turn myself into a horse?"

His father made the purchase, and then the young man changed into a handsome black horse. His father rode him up and down the streets very proudly. The Great Magician noticed the beautiful beast.

He called the man to him and said: "That is a very good horse you are riding. What will you sell him for?"

The father named an enormous price, but he at once paid it cheerfully.

He ordered the horse placed in his stables.

Now this Great Magician had a beautiful daughter who was very fond of horses. She went out to inspect his new purchase as soon as it was brought home. She noticed that the horse ate nothing.

"What a beauty!" she cried as she stroked his glossy black coat. "You are the handsomest horse in the stable. Why don't you eat? I believe your bridle is hurting you. I'm going to take it off."

As soon as the bridle was removed it was changed into a bird and flew out the window. The Great Magician at that moment changed himself into a hawk and killed the bird, never dreaming that it was the bridle of the new horse he had purchased.

The next morning when the Great Magician went to mount his beautiful black steed there was no new horse to be found in the stable. The horse had changed into a kernel of corn.

[Ill.u.s.tration: The horse had changed into a kernel of corn]

The Great Magician transformed himself into a hen to eat up the corn, but the youth was too quick for him. He changed into a dog and seized the hen between his teeth and gave it a good shaking. Then he returned to his own form and explained the whole affair to the Great Magician.

"You are surely a master of magic," was the comment of the magician.

When the Great Magician had forgiven him for the shaking he had received when he was in the form of a hen, he gladly gave his consent to his daughter's marriage to the master of magic.

ST. ANTHONY'S G.o.dCHILD

_The Story of Antonia who became a King's Page_

Long ago there lived a man who had so many children that he could scarcely find G.o.dfathers for them all. He had requested so many of his friends to serve, that when his last baby was born, a little dark-eyed daughter, he vowed that he'd ask the first man he met upon the street.

As luck would have it, he happened to meet the good St. Anthony.

"Will you be G.o.dfather to my baby daughter?" he asked.

Kind St. Anthony gladly consented. He named the baby Antonia, and said to the father:

"Train up this child in the way she should go. Teach her all you can.

When she is thirteen years old I'll come to get her and I'll give her a good start in life."

The years flew by and soon little Antonia was thirteen years old. The father was afraid that St. Anthony had forgotten his promise, but one day the saint appeared.

"Is this my G.o.dchild?" he asked as he looked at Antonia. "Surely she has grown prettier each year of her life."

Antonia blushed shyly and looked even more attractive than before.

"Dress yourself in your brother's garments," he said to her. "I am going to take you to the king's court and you are entirely too pretty to go there in your own dresses."

Accordingly, Antonia put on her brother's clothes and went to serve as a page to the king. She was now called Anthony instead of Antonia.

Now the king had a sister who grew very fond of the little page. She became angry that the page did not love her in return and plotted against him.

One day she went to the king and said:

"Your little page says that he can separate all the chaff from the wheat in a single night."

"Let him try," responded the king.

When Anthony heard what the king required he was decidedly worried.

Then he remembered that he was the G.o.dchild of St. Anthony and that the saint was always ready to aid those in need. He called upon St.

Anthony to help him fulfill the king's command. In the morning the king's wheat was entirely free from chaff.

The king loved his little page more and more, and the king's sister was angrier than before that she could not win the affection of the youth.

She made a new plot against him.

"What do you suppose that page is saying now?" she asked her brother.

"He boasts that he can go to the palace of the king of the Moors and steal the purse of gold pieces from beneath his pillow."

The king sent Anthony to the palace of the king of the Moors. With St.

Anthony's help he climbed up the high wall of the palace and crept in through a window. The king of the Moors was so sound asleep that Anthony had no difficulty whatever in slipping his hand under the pillow and stealing the purse. Then he crept out again without awakening the king.

[Ill.u.s.tration: He climbed up the high wall of the palace]

"That young page, Anthony, has grown so very boastful," remarked the king's sister a few days after his return, "that he now claims that he can carry away the king of the Moors himself."

Then she added, "I'll marry him if he fulfills this boast."

"Bring home the king of the Moors as your captive," were the king's orders to Anthony.

The page was very much worried for he thought that it would be more difficult to capture the king of the Moors than it had been to capture his purse.