THE BLIND CHILD
"Mother," said the blind child, "what a pity it is that everybody in this village, except you, is so ugly!"
"Bless your heart, my darling," said the mother; "why do you say that?"
"I was sitting by the fountain," said the blind child, "listening to the falling water, and the neighbors came to fill their pitchers, and I heard them talking. It was terrible! it seems that every one in the whole village is either bald or cross-eyed, wrinkled or misshapen. All save you, mother!"
"Bless your heart," said the mother; and she looked at her gray, worn face in the little gla.s.s that hung on the wall.
"They did not like to praise your beauty before me!" cried the blind child. "They spoke your name, and then said, "Oh! hush, there is the child!" Was it not foolish of them, mother? as if I did not know!"
"Bless your heart!" said the mother.
THE CAKE
Once a Cake would go seek his fortune in the world, and he took his leave of the Pan he was baked in.
"I know my destiny," said the Cake. "I must be eaten, since to that end I was made; but I am a good cake, if I say it who should not, and I would fain choose the persons I am to benefit."
"I don"t see what difference it makes to you!" said the Pan.
"But imagination is hardly your strong point!" said the Cake.
"Huh!" said the Pan.
The Cake went on his way, and soon he pa.s.sed by a cottage door where sat a woman spinning, and her ten children playing about her.
"Oh!" said the woman, "what a beautiful cake!" and she put out her hand to take him.
"Be so good as to wait a moment!" said the Cake. "Will you kindly tell me what you would do with me if I should yield myself up to you?"
"I shall break you into ten pieces," said the woman, "and give one to each of my ten children. So you will give ten pleasures, and that is a good thing."
"Oh, that would be very nice, I am sure," said the Cake; "but if you will excuse me for mentioning it, your children seem rather dirty, especially their hands, and I confess I should like to keep my frosting unsullied, so I think I will go a little further."
"As you will!" said the woman. "After all, the brown loaf is better for the children."
So the Cake went further, and met a fair child, richly dressed, with coral lips and eyes like sunlit water. When the child saw the Cake, he said like the woman, "Oh, what a beautiful Cake!" and put out his hand to take it.
"I am sure I should be most happy!" said the Cake. "And you will not take it amiss, I am confident, if I ask with whom you will share me."
"I shall not share you with any one!" said the child. "I shall eat you myself, every crumb. What do you take me for?"
"Good gracious!" cried the Cake. "This will never do. Consider my size,--and yours! You would be very ill!"
"I don"t care!" said the child. "I"d rather be ill than give any away."
And he fixed greedy eyes on the Cake, and stretched forth his hand again.
"This is really terrible!" cried the Cake. "What is one"s frosting to this? I will go back to the woman with the ten children."
He turned and ran back, leaving the child screaming with rage and disappointed greed. But as he ran, a hungry Puppy met him, and swallowed him at a gulp, and went on licking his chops and wagging his tail.
"Huh!" said the Pan.
THE SERMON
The minister had just finished his great sermon. The air still quivered with his burning words, and the people sat erect, disturbed, embarra.s.sed; yet still he lingered a moment in his place.
"Is there," he asked, "one here in whose breast these words strike like a barbed arrow, for the truth that is in them?" and he sat down.
"That was hard on John," said old James; "but he deserves it, every word."
"A blow from the shoulder for James!" said old John; "time he got one too, if it is not too late."
"I wonder if either of those two old sinners will take his medicine and be helped by it," said old William.
But the little saint, the little saint, hurried home, and knelt by her little bed, and cried aloud in her anguish: "My G.o.d, my G.o.d, have mercy on me, and give me for this stone a heart of flesh!"
THE TANGLED SKEIN
"My dear child," said the Angel-who-attends-to-things, "why are you crying so very hard?"
"Oh dear! oh dear!" said the child. "No one ever had such a dreadful time before, I do believe, and it all comes of trying to be good. Oh dear! Oh dear! I wish I was bad; then I should not have all this trouble."
"Yes, you would," said the Angel; "a great deal worse. Now tell me what is the matter!"
"Look!" said the child. "Mother gave me this skein to wind, and I promised to do it. But then father sent me on an errand, and it was almost school-time, and I was studying my lesson and going on the errand and winding the skein, all at the same time, and now I have got all tangled up in the wool, and I cannot walk either forward or back, and oh! dear me, what ever _shall_ I do?"
"Sit down!" said the Angel.
"But it is school-time!" said the child.
"Sit down!" said the Angel.
"But father sent me on an errand!" said the child.