The Orange Fairy Book (11 page)

Every inch of the way she trod the path which her stepsister had
trodden, and saw the things which she had seen; but there the likeness
ended. When the fence prayed her to do it no harm, she laughed rudely,
and tore up some of the stakes so that she might get over the more
easily; when the oven offered her bread, she scattered the loaves onto
the ground and stamped on them; and after she had milked the cow, and
drunk as much as she wanted, she threw the rest on the grass, and
kicked the pail to bits, and never heard them say, as they looked after
her: 'You shall not have done this to me for nothing!'

Towards evening she reached the spot where the old woman was leaning
against the gate- post, but she passed her by without a word.

'Have you no manners in your country?' asked the crone.

'I can't stop and talk; I am in a hurry,' answered the girl. 'It is
getting late, and I have to find a place.'

'Stop and comb my hair for a little,' said the old woman, 'and I will
help you to get a place.'

'Comb your hair, indeed! I have something better to do than that!' And
slamming the gate in the crone's face she went her way. And she never
heard the words that followed her: 'You shall not have done this to me
for nothing!'

By-and-by the girl arrived at the farm, and she was engaged to look
after the cows and sift the corn as her stepsister had been. But it
was only when someone was watching her that she did her work; at other
times the cow-house was dirty, and the cows ill-fed and beaten, so that
they kicked over the pail, and tried to butt her; and everyone said
they had never seen such thin cows or such poor milk. As for the cats,
she chased them away, and ill-treated them, so that they had not even
the spirit to chase the rats and mice, which nowadays ran about
everywhere. And when the sparrows came to beg for some corn, they
fared no better than the cows and the cats, for the girl threw her
shoes at them, till they flew in a fright to the woods, and took
shelter amongst the trees.

Months passed in this manner, when, one day, the mistress called the
girl to her.

'All that I have given you to do you have done ill,' said she, 'yet
will I give you another chance. For though you cannot tend cows, or
divide the grain from the chaff, there may be other things that you can
do better. Therefore take this sieve to the well, and fill it with
water, and see that you bring it back without spilling a drop.'

The girl took the sieve and carried it to the well as her sister had
done; but no little birds came to help her, and after dipping it in the
well two or three times she brought it back empty.

'I thought as much,' said the old woman angrily; 'she that is useless
in one thing is useless in another.'

Perhaps the mistress may have thought that the girl had learnt a
lesson, but, if she did, she was quite mistaken, as the work was no
better done than before. By-and-by she sent for her again, and gave
her maid the black and white yarn to wash in the river; but there was
no one to tell her the secret by which the black would turn white, and
the white black; so she brought them back as they were. This time the
old woman only looked at her grimly but the girl was too well pleased
with herself to care what anyone thought about her.

After some weeks her third trial came, and the yarn was given her to
spin, as it had been given to her stepsister before her.

But no procession of cats entered the room to weave a web of fine
cloth, and at sunset she only brought back to her mistress an armful of
dirty, tangled wool.

'There seems nothing in the world you can do,' said the old woman, and
left her to herself.

Soon after this the year was up, and the girl went to her mistress to
tell her that she wished to go home.

'Little desire have I to keep you,' answered the old woman, 'for no one
thing have you done as you ought. Still, I will give you some payment,
therefore go up into the loft, and choose for yourself one of the
caskets that lies there. But see that you do not open it till you
place it where you wish it to stay.'

This was what the girl had been hoping for, and so rejoiced was she,
that, without even stopping to thank the old woman, she ran as fast as
she could to the loft. There were the caskets, blue and red, green and
yellow, silver and gold; and there in the corner stood a little black
casket just like the one her stepsister had brought home.

'If there are so many jewels in that little black thing, this big red
one will hold twice the number,' she said to herself; and snatching it
up she set off on her road home without even going to bid farewell to
her mistress.

'See, mother, see what I have brought!' cried she, as she entered the
cottage holding the casket in both hands.

'Ah! you have got something very different from that little black box,'
answered the old woman with delight. But the girl was so busy finding
a place for it to stand that she took little notice of her mother.

'It will look best here—no, here,' she said, setting it first on one
piece of furniture and then on another. 'No, after all it is to fine
to live in a kitchen, let us place it in the guest chamber.'

So mother and daughter carried it proudly upstairs and put it on a
shelf over the fireplace; then, untying the key from the handle, they
opened the box. As before, a bright light leapt out directly the lid
was raised, but it did not spring from the lustre of jewels, but from
hot flames, which darted along the walls and burnt up the cottage and
all that was in it and the mother and daughter as well.

As they had done when the stepdaughter came home, the neighbours all
hurried to see what was the matter; but they were too late. Only the
hen-house was left standing; and, in spite of her riches, there the
stepdaughter lived happily to the end of her days.

(From Thorpe's Yule-Tide Stories.)

Once upon a time there was a goldsmith who lived in a certain village
where the people were as bad and greedy, and covetous, as they could
possibly be; however, in spite of his surroundings, he was fat and
prosperous. He had only one friend whom he liked, and that was a
cowherd, who looked after cattle for one of the farmers in the village.
Every evening the goldsmith would walk across to the cowherd's house
and say: 'Come, let's go out for a walk!'

Now the cowherd didn't like walking in the evening, because, he said,
he had been out grazing the cattle all day, and was glad to sit down
when night came; but the goldsmith always worried him so that the poor
man had to go against his will. This at last so annoyed him that he
tried to think how he could pick a quarrel with the goldsmith, so that
he should not beg him to walk with him any more. He asked another
cowherd for advice, and he said the best thing he could do was to go
across and kill the goldsmith's wife, for then the goldsmith would be
sure to regard him as an enemy; so, being a foolish person, and there
being no laws in that country by which a man would be certainly
punished for such a crime, the cowherd one evening took a big stick and
went across to the goldsmith's house when only Mrs. Goldsmith was at
home, and banged her on the head so hard that she died then and there.

When the goldsmith came back and found his wife dead he said nothing,
but just took her outside into the dark lane and propped her up against
the wall of his house, and then went into the courtyard and waited.
Presently a rich stranger came along the lane, and seeing someone
there, as he supposed, he said:

'Good-evening, friend! a fine night to- night!' But the goldsmith's
wife said nothing. The man then repeated his words louder; but still
there was no reply. A third time he shouted:

'Good-evening, friend! are you deaf?' but the figure never replied.
Then the stranger, being angry at what he thought very rude behaviour,
picked up a big stone and threw it at Mrs. Goldsmith, crying:

'Let that teach you manners!'

Instantly poor Mrs. Goldsmith tumbled over; and the stranger,
horrified at seeing what he had done, was immediately seized by the
goldsmith, who ran out screaming:

'Wretch! you have killed my wife! Oh, miserable one; we will have
justice done to thee!'

With many protestations and reproaches they wrangled together, the
stranger entreating the goldsmith to say nothing and he would pay him
handsomely to atone for the sad accident. At last the goldsmith
quieted down, and agreed to accept one thousand gold pieces from the
stranger, who immediately helped him to bury his poor wife, and then
rushed off to the guest house, packed up his things and was off by
daylight, lest the goldsmith should repent and accuse him as the
murderer of his wife. Now it very soon appeared that the goldsmith had
a lot of extra money, so that people began to ask questions, and
finally demanded of him the reason for his sudden wealth.

'Oh,' said he, 'my wife died, and I sold her.'

'You sold your dead wife?' cried the people.

'Yes,' said the goldsmith.

'For how much?'

'A thousand gold pieces,' replied the goldsmith.

Instantly the villagers went away and each caught hold of his own wife
and throttled her, and the next day they all went off to sell their
dead wives. Many a weary mile did they tramp, but got nothing but hard
words or laughter, or directions to the nearest cemetery, from people
to whom they offered dead wives for sale. At last they perceived that
they had been cheated somehow by that goldsmith. So off they rushed
home, seized the unhappy man, and, without listening to his cries and
entreaties, hurried him down to the river bank and flung
him—plop!—into the deepest, weediest, and nastiest place they could
find.

'That will teach him to play tricks on us,' said they. 'For as he
can't swim he'll drown, and we sha'n't have any more trouble with him!'

Now the goldsmith really could not swim, and as soon as he was thrown
into the deep river he sank below the surface; so his enemies went away
believing that they had seen the last of him. But, in reality, he was
carried down, half drowned, below the next bend in the river, where he
fortunately came across a 'snag' floating in the water (a snag is, you
know, a part of a tree or bush which floats very nearly under the
surface of the water); and he held on to this snag, and by great good
luck eventually came ashore some two or three miles down the river. At
the place where he landed he came across a fine fat cow buffalo, and
immediately he jumped on her back and rode home. When the village
people saw him, they ran out in surprise, and said:

'Where on earth do you come from, and where did you get that buffalo?'

'Ah!' said the goldsmith, 'you little know what delightful adventures I
have had! Why, down in that place in the river where you threw me in I
found meadows, and trees, and fine pastures, and buffaloes, and all
kinds of cattle. In fact, I could hardly tear myself away; but I
thought that I must really let you all know about it.'

'Oh, oh!' thought the greedy village people; 'if there are buffaloes to
be had for the taking we'll go after some too.' Encouraged by the
goldsmith they nearly all ran off the very next morning to the river;
and, in order that they might get down quickly to the beautiful place
the goldsmith told them of, they tied great stones on to their feet and
their necks, and one after another they jumped into the water as fast
as the could, and were drowned. And whenever any one of them waved his
hands about and struggled the goldsmith would cry out:

'Look! he's beckoning the rest of you to come; he's got a fine
buffalo!' And others who were doubtful would jump in, until not one was
left. Then the cunning goldsmith went back and took all the village
for himself, and became very rich indeed. But do you think he was
happy? Not a bit. Lies never made a man happy yet. Truly, he got the
better of a set of wicked and greedy people, but only by being wicked
and greedy himself; and, as it turned out, when he got so rich he got
very fat; and at last was so fat that he couldn't move, and one day he
got the apoplexy and died, and no one in the world cared the least bit.

(Told by a Pathan to Major Campbell.)

Once upon a time there lived near a forest a man and his wife and two
girls; one girl was the daughter of the man, and the other the daughter
of his wife; and the man's daughter was good and beautiful, but the
woman's daughter was cross and ugly. However, her mother did not know
that, but thought her the most bewitching maiden that ever was seen.

One day the man called to his daughter and bade her come with him into
the forest to cut wood. They worked hard all day, but in spite of the
chopping they were very cold, for it rained heavily, and when they
returned home, they were wet through. Then, to his vexation, the man
found that he had left his axe behind him, and he knew that if it lay
all night in the mud it would become rusty and useless. So he said to
his wife:

'I have dropped my axe in the forest, bid your daughter go and fetch
it, for mine has worked hard all day and is both wet and weary.'

But the wife answered:

'If your daughter is wet already, it is all the more reason that she
should go and get the axe. Besides, she is a great strong girl, and a
little rain will not hurt her, while my daughter would be sure to catch
a bad cold.'

By long experience the man knew there was no good saying any more, and
with a sigh he told the poor girl she must return to the forest for the
axe.

The walk took some time, for it was very dark, and her shoes often
stuck in the mud, but she was brave as well as beautiful and never
thought of turning back merely because the path was both difficult and
unpleasant. At last, with her dress torn by brambles that she could
not see, and her fact scratched by the twigs on the trees, she reached
the spot where she and her father had been cutting in the morning, and
found the axe in the place he had left it. To her surprise, three
little doves were sitting on the handle, all of them looking very sad.