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Authors: Lloyd Alexander

BOOK: The Foundling
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For now the book told him of other ways of the world; of cruelty, suffering, and death. He read of greed, hatred, and war; of men striving against one another with fire and sword; of the blossoming earth trampled underfoot, of harvests lost and lives cut short. And the book told that even in the same village he had passed, a day would come when no house would stand; when women would weep for their men, and children for their parents; and where they had
offered him meat and drink, they would starve for lack of a crust of bread.
Each page he read pierced his heart. The book, which had seemed to weigh so little, now grew so heavy that his pace faltered and he staggered under the burden. Tears blinded his eyes, and he stumbled to the ground.
All night he lay shattered by despair. At dawn he stirred and found it took all his efforts even to lift his head. Bones aching, throat parched, he crept on hands and knees to quench his thirst from a puddle of water. There, at the sight of his reflection, he drew back and cried out in anguish.
His fair, bright curls had gone frost-white and fell below his brittle shoulders. His cheeks, once full and flushed with youth, were now hollow and wrinkled, half hidden by a long, gray beard. His brow, smooth yesterday, was scarred and furrowed, his hands gnarled and knotted, his eyes pale as if their color had been wept away.
Dallben bowed his head. “Yes, Orddu,” he whispered, “I should have heeded you. Nothing is given without cost. But is the cost of wisdom so high? I thought knowledge was joy. Instead, it is grief beyond bearing.”
The book lay nearby. Its last pages were still unread and, for a moment, Dallben thought to tear them to shreds and scatter them to the wind. Then he said:
“I have begun it, and I will finish it, whatever else it may foretell.”
Fearfully and reluctantly, he began to read once more. But now his heart lifted. These pages told not only of death, but of birth as well; how the earth turns in its own time and in its own way gives back what is given to it; how things lost may be found again; and
how one day ends for another to begin. He learned that the lives of men are short and filled with pain, yet each one a priceless treasure, whether it be that of a prince or a pig-keeper. And, at the last, the book taught him that while nothing was certain, all was possible.
“At the end of knowledge, wisdom begins,” Dallben murmured. “And at the end of wisdom there is not grief, but hope.”
He climbed to his withered legs and hobbled along his way, clasping the heavy book. After a time a farmer drove by in a horse-drawn cart, and called out to him:
“Come, Grandfather, ride with me if you like. That book must be a terrible load for an old man like you.”
“Thank you just the same,” Dallben answered, “but I have strength enough now to go to the end of my road.”
“And where might that be?”
“I do not know,” Dallben said. “I go seeking it.”
“Well, then,” said the farmer, “may you be lucky enough to find it.”
“Luck?” Dallben answered. He smiled and shook his head. “Not luck, but hope. Indeed, hope.”
 
 
 
 
T
here was a cottager named Maibon, and one day he was driving down the road in his horse and cart when he saw an old man hobbling along, so frail and feeble he doubted the poor soul could go many more steps. Though Maibon offered to take him in the cart, the old man refused; and Maibon went his way home, shaking his head over such a pitiful sight, and said to his wife, Modrona:
“Ah, ah, what a sorry thing it is to have your bones creaking and cracking, and dim eyes, and dull wits. When I think this might come to me, too! A fine, strong-armed, sturdy-legged fellow like me? One day to go tottering, and have his teeth rattling in his head, and live on porridge, like a baby? There's no fate worse in all the world.”
“There is,” answered Modrona, “and that would be to have neither teeth nor porridge. Get on with you, Maibon, and stop borrowing trouble. Hoe your field or you'll have no crop to harvest, and no food for you, nor me, nor the little ones.”
Sighing and grumbling, Maibon did as his wife bade him. Although the day was fair and cloudless, he took no pleasure in it. His axe-blade was notched, the wooden handle splintery; his saw had lost its edge; and his hoe, once shining new, had begun to rust. None of his tools, it seemed to him, cut or chopped or delved as well as they once had done.
“They're as worn out as that old codger I saw on the road,” Maibon said to himself. He squinted up at the sky. “Even the sun isn't as bright as it used to be, and doesn't warm me half as well. It's gone threadbare as my cloak. And no wonder, for it's been there longer than I can remember. Come to think of it, the moon's been looking a little wilted around the edges, too.
“As for me,” went on Maibon, in dismay, “I'm in even a worse state. My appetite's faded, especially after meals. Mornings, when I wake, I can hardly keep myself from yawning. And at night, when I go to bed, my eyes are so heavy I can't hold them open. If that's the way things are now, the older I grow, the worse it will be!”
In the midst of his complaining, Maibon glimpsed something bouncing and tossing back and forth beside a fallen tree in a corner of the field. Wondering if one of his piglets had squeezed out of the sty and gone rooting for acorns, Maibon hurried across the turf. Then he dropped his axe and gaped in astonishment.
There, struggling to free his leg which had been caught under the log, lay a short, thickset figure: a dwarf with red hair bristling in all directions beneath his round, close-fitting leather cap. At the sight of Maibon, the dwarf squeezed shut his bright red eyes and began holding his breath. After a moment, the dwarf's face went redder than his hair; his cheeks puffed out and soon turned purple. Then he opened one eye and blinked rapidly at Maibon, who was staring at him, speechless.
“What,” snapped the dwarf, “you can still see me?”
“That I can,” replied Maibon, more than ever puzzled, “and I can see very well you've got yourself tight as a wedge under that log, and all your kicking only makes it worse.”
At this, the dwarf blew out his breath and shook his fists. “I can't
do it!” he shouted. “No matter how I try! I can't make myself invisible! Everyone in my family can disappear—Poof! Gone! Vanished! But not me! Not Doli! Believe me, if I could have done, you never would have found me in such a plight. Worse luck! Well, come on. Don't stand there goggling like an idiot. Help me get loose!”
At this sharp command, Maibon began tugging and heaving at the log. Then he stopped, wrinkled his brow, and scratched his head, saying:
“Well, now, just a moment, friend. The way you look, and all your talk about turning yourself invisible—I'm thinking you might be one of the Fair Folk.”
“Oh, clever!” Doli retorted. “Oh, brilliant! Great clodhopper! Giant beanpole! Of course I am! What else! Enough gabbling. Get a move on. My leg's going to sleep.”
“If a man does the Fair Folk a good turn,” cried Maibon, his excitement growing, “it's told they must do one for him.”
“I knew sooner or later you'd come round to that,” grumbled the dwarf. “That's the way of it with you ham-handed, heavy-footed oafs. Time was, you humans got along well with us. But nowadays, you no sooner see a Fair Folk than it's grab, grab, grab! Gobble, gobble, gobble! Grant my wish! Give me this, give me that! As if we had nothing better to do!
“Yes, I'll give you a favor,” Doli went on. “That's the rule, I'm obliged to. Now, get on with it.”
Hearing this, Maibon pulled and pried and chopped away at the log as fast as he could, and soon freed the dwarf.
Doli heaved a sigh of relief, rubbed his shin, and cocked a red eye at Maibon, saying:
“All right. You've done your work, you'll have your reward. What
do you want? Gold, I suppose. That's the usual. Jewels? Fine clothes? Take my advice, go for something practical. A hazelwood twig to help you find water if your well ever goes dry? An axe that never needs sharpening? A cook-pot always brimming with food?”
“None of those!” cried Maibon. He bent down to the dwarf and whispered eagerly, “But I've heard tell that you Fair Folk have magic stones that can keep a man young forever. That's what I want. I claim one for my reward.”
Doli snorted. “I might have known you'd pick something like that. As to be expected, you humans have it all muddled. There's nothing can make a man young again. That's even beyond the best of our skills. Those stones you're babbling about? Well, yes, there are such things. But greatly overrated. All they'll do is keep you from growing any older.”
“Just as good!” Maibon exclaimed. “I want no more than that!”
Doli hesitated and frowned. “Ah—between the two of us, take the cook-pot. Better all around. Those stones—we'd sooner not give them away. There's a difficulty—”
“Because you'd rather keep them for yourselves,” Maibon broke in. “No, no, you shan't cheat me of my due. Don't put me off with excuses. I told you what I want, and that's what I'll have. Come, hand it over and not another word.”
Doli shrugged and opened a leather pouch that hung from his belt. He spilled a number of brightly colored pebbles into his palm, picked out one of the larger stones, and handed it to Maibon. The dwarf then jumped up, took to his heels, raced across the field, and disappeared into a thicket.
Laughing and crowing over his good fortune and his cleverness, Maibon hurried back to the cottage. There, he told his wife what
had happened, and showed her the stone he had claimed from the Fair Folk.
“As I am now, so I'll always be!” Maibon declared, flexing his arms and thumping his chest. “A fine figure of a man! Oho, no gray beard and wrinkled brow for me!”
Instead of sharing her husband's jubilation, Modrona flung up her hands and burst out:
“Maibon, you're a greater fool than ever I supposed! And selfish into the bargain! You've turned down treasures! You didn't even ask that dwarf for so much as new jackets for the children! Nor a new apron for me! You could have had the roof mended. Or the walls plastered. No, a stone is what you ask for! A bit of rock no better than you'll dig up in the cow pasture!”
Crestfallen and sheepish, Maibon began thinking his wife was right, and the dwarf had indeed given him no more than a common field stone.
“Eh, well, it's true,” he stammered, “I feel no different than I did this morning, no better nor worse, but every way the same. That redheaded little wretch! He'll rue the day if I ever find him again!”
So saying, Maibon threw the stone into the fireplace. That night he grumbled his way to bed, dreaming revenge on the dishonest dwarf.
Next morning, after a restless night, he yawned, rubbed his eyes, and scratched his chin. Then he sat bolt upright in bed, patting his cheeks in amazement.
“My beard!” he cried, tumbling out and hurrying to tell his wife. “It hasn't grown! Not by a hair! Can it be the dwarf didn't cheat me after all?”
“Don't talk to me about beards,” declared his wife as Maibon
went to the fireplace, picked out the stone, and clutched it safely in both hands. “There's trouble enough in the chicken roost. Those eggs should have hatched by now, but the hen is still brooding on her nest.”
“Let the chickens worry about that,” answered Maibon. “Wife, don't you see what a grand thing's happened to me? I'm not a minute older than I was yesterday. Bless that generous-hearted dwarf!”
“Let me lay hands on him and I'll bless him,” retorted Modrona. “That's all well and good for you. But what of me? You'll stay as you are, but I'll turn old and gray, and worn and wrinkled, and go doddering into my grave! And what of our little ones? They'll grow up and have children of their own. And grandchildren, and great-gradchildren. And you, younger than any of them. What a foolish sight you'll be!”
But Maibon, gleeful over his good luck, paid his wife no heed, and only tucked the stone deeper into his pocket. Next day, however, the eggs had still not hatched.
“And the cow!” Modrona cried. “She's long past due to calve, and no sign of a young one ready to be born!”
“Don't bother me with cows and chickens,” replied Maibon. “They'll all come right, in time. As for time, I've got all the time in the world!”
Having no appetite for breakfast, Maibon went out into his field. Of all the seeds he had sown there, however, he was surprised to see not one had sprouted. The field, which by now should have been covered with green shoots, lay bare and empty.
“Eh, things do seem a little late these days,” Maibon said to himself. “Well, no hurry. It's that much less for me to do. The wheat isn't growing, but neither are the weeds.”
Some days went by and still the eggs had not hatched, the cow had not calved, the wheat had not sprouted. And now Maibon saw that his apple tree showed no sign of even the smallest, greenest fruit.
“Maibon, it's the fault of that stone!” wailed his wife. “Get rid of the thing!”
“Nonsense,” replied Maibon. “The season's slow, that's all.”
Nevertheless, his wife kept at him and kept at him so much that Maibon at last, and very reluctantly, threw the stone out of the cottage window. Not too far, though, for he had it in the back of his mind to go later and find it again.
Next morning he had no need to go looking for it, for there was the stone sitting on the window ledge.
“You see?” said Maibon to his wife. “Here it is back again. So, it's a gift meant for me to keep.”
“Maibon!” cried his wife. “Will you get rid of it! We've had nothing but trouble since you brought it into the house. Now the baby's fretting and fuming. Teething, poor little thing. But not a tooth to be seen! Maibon, that stone's bad luck and I want no part of it!”
Protesting it was none of his doing that the stone had come back, Maibon carried it into the vegetable patch. He dug a hole, not a very deep one, and put the stone into it.
Next day, there was the stone above ground, winking and glittering.
“Maibon!” cried his wife. “Once and for all, if you care for your family, get rid of that cursed thing!”
Seeing no other way to keep peace in the household, Maibon regretfully and unwillingly took the stone and threw it down the well, where it splashed into the water and sank from sight.
But that night, while he was trying vainly to sleep, there came such a rattling and clattering that Maibon clapped his hands over his ears, jumped out of bed, and went stumbling into the yard. At the well, the bucket was jiggling back and forth and up and down at the end of the rope; and in the bottom of the bucket was the stone.
Now Maibon began to be truly distressed, not only for the toothless baby, the calfless cow, the fruitless tree, and the hen sitting desperately on her eggs, but for himself as well.
“Nothing's moving along as it should,” he groaned. “I can't tell one day from another. Nothing changes, there's nothing to look forward to, nothing to show for my work. Why sow if the seeds don't sprout? Why plant if there's never a harvest? Why eat if I don't get hungry? Why go to bed at night, or get up in the morning, or do anything at all? And the way it looks, so it will stay forever and ever! I'll shrivel from boredom if nothing else!”
“Maibon,” pleaded his wife, “for all our sakes, destroy the dreadful thing!”
Maibon tried now to pound the stone to dust with his heaviest mallet; but he could not so much as knock a chip from it. He put it against his grindstone without so much as scratching it. He set it on his anvil and belabored it with hammer and tongs, all to no avail.
At last he decided to bury the stone again, this time deeper than before. Picking up his shovel, he hurried to the field. But he suddenly halted and the shovel dropped from his hands. There, sitting cross-legged on a stump, was the dwarf.

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