Chapter 2

"Snows may fall and winds may blow, but I must go on," he said, "for I have a wife and a child and a little brown dog; and I have promised them to be at home by Christmas day to eat my share of the Christmas pudding and sing the Christmas songs by my own fireside."

Then the wind blew an icy blast. The snow froze on the ground and the water froze in the rivers. The harper's breath froze in the air, and icicles as long as the king's sword hung from the rocks on the king's highway. The harper shivered and the harper shook, but he would not turn back; and by and by he came to the forest that lay between him and his home.

The trees of the forest were creaking and bending in the wind, and every one of them seemed to say:

"Darkness gathers, night is near; Harper, stop! Don't venture here."

But the harper would not stop. "Snows may fall, winds may blow, and night may come, but I have promised to be at home by Christmas day to eat my share of the Christmas pudding and sing the Christmas songs by my own fireside. I must go on."

And on he went till the last glimmer of daylight faded, and there was darkness everywhere. But the harper was not afraid of the dark.

"If I cannot see I can sing," said he, and he sang in the forest joyously:

"Sing glory, glory, glory! And bless God's holy name; For 'twas on Christmas morning, The little Jesus came.

"He wore no robes; no crown of gold Was on His head that morn; But herald angels sang for joy, To tell a King was born."

The snow ceased its falling, the wind ceased its blowing, the trees of the forest bowed down to listen, and, lo! dear children, as he sang the darkness turned to wondrous light, and close at hand the harper saw the open doorway of his home.

The wife and the child and the little brown dog were watching and waiting, and they welcomed the harper with great joy. The holly berries were red in the Christmas wreaths; their Christmas tree was a young green pine; the Christmas pudding was full of plums; and the harper was happier than a king as he sat by his own fireside to sing:

"O glory, glory, glory! We praise God's holy name; For 'twas to bring His wondrous love, The little Jesus came.

"And in our hearts it shines anew, While at His throne we pray, God bless us all for Jesus' sake, This happy Christmas day."

THE HARPER'S SONG

Words, MAUD LINDSAY

Music, ELSIE A. MERRIMAN

1. Sing glo-ry, glo-ry, glo-ry! And bless God's ho-ly name; 2. O glo-ry, glo-ry, glo-ry! We praise God's ho-ly name;

For 'twas on Christmas morn-ing, The lit-tle Je-sus came. For 'twas to bring His wondrous love, The lit-tle Je-sus came.

He wore no robes; no crown of gold Was on His head that morn; But And in our hearts it shines a-new, While at His throne we pray, God

her-ald an-gels sang for joy, To tell a King was born. bless us all for Je-sus' sake, This hap-py Christ-mas day.

THE PLATE OF PANCAKES

Once upon a time a woman was frying some pancakes, and as she turned the last cake in the pan she said to her little boy:

"If you were a little older I should send you with some of these fine cakes for your father's dinner, but as it is, he must wait till supper for them."

"Oh, do let me take them," said the little boy, whose name was Karl. "Just see how tall I am. And only yesterday my grandmother said I was old enough to learn my letters. Do let me go!"

And he begged and begged till at last she selected the brownest and crispest cakes, and putting them in a plate with a white napkin over them she bade him take them.

Now the path that led from Karl's home to the saw-mill where his father worked was straight enough, and plain enough, but it ran through the wood that was called Enchanted. Fairies lived there, so some people thought, and goblins that liked to work mischief; and never before had the little boy been allowed to go there alone.

As he hurried along with the plate of pancakes in his hand he glanced into every green thicket that he passed, half hopeful, and half fearful that he might find a tiny creature hidden in the leaves. Not a glimpse of fairy or goblin did he see, but when he came to the blackberry bushes where the sweetest berries grow something seemed to whisper to him: "Stop, Karl, and eat."

"But I am taking a plate of pancakes for my father's dinner," said Karl speaking aloud.

"A moment or two will make no difference. You can run fast," came the whisper again.

"Oh, yes, I can run fast," said Karl; and he put the plate down under the bushes and began to pick the berries. They were as ripe and sweet as they had looked and every one that the little boy put into his mouth made him wish for another; and if he turned away from the bushes the whisper was sure to come: "One more and then go."

The pancakes grew cold in the plate, and the sun which had been high in the sky when Karl started from home slipped farther and farther into the west; but still he lingered, till suddenly the evening whistle of the mill sounded sharp and shrill in his ears.

"Why, it is time for my father to come home," he cried. "Dear me, dear me, what shall I do?"

There was nothing for him to do but to go home, so home he went with the plate of cold pancakes in his hand and the tears rolling down his cheeks.

When he told his mother and grandmother what had happened they looked at each other wisely as if they thought more about it than they would say; but they bade him dry his tears.

"You will be more careful another time," they said; and so the matter ended.

But Karl did not forget it. It was many a month before his mother fried pancakes again, but no sooner did he see her turning the cakes in the pan than he said:

"I wish my father had some of these fine cakes for his dinner, don't you, mother?"

"Indeed I do," said she, smiling at his grandmother as she spoke; and as soon as the cakes were done she selected the brownest and crispest, and putting them in a plate with a white napkin over them, she bade him take them.

"I'll get there in time for my father's dinner to-day," he said as he started out; but in a very short while he was back with an empty plate in his hand, and the tears rolling down his cheeks.

"I only put the plate down for a minute while I chased a rabbit that said, 'If you catch me you may have me;' and when I came back every pancake was gone," he sobbed.

His mother and grandmother looked at each other wisely when they heard this.

"It is just as I thought the first time," said his mother. "The goblins are at work in the wood. He must never go there again."

But to this the grandmother would not agree.

"Leave it to me," she said, and the very next day she fried pancakes, and selecting the brownest and crispest she put them in a plate with a white napkin over them and bade Karl take them to his father.

"And if any bid you stop or stay, or turn your feet from out your way, say but the word that is spelled with the fourteenth and fifteenth letters of the alphabet three times in a loud voice, and all will go well with you," she said.

"All right," said Karl, nodding his head proudly, for he knew all his letters by this time and could spell hard words like c-a-t, cat, m-a-t, mat. "All right," but he did not stop to count the letters then for he was in a great hurry to be off.

"I guess my father will be glad to get such fine pancakes for his dinner," he said; and he ran so fast that he was half-way to the mill before he knew it.

There was no whispering voice in the wood that day and no talking rabbit to tempt him to a chase; but as he came to a place where another path crossed his own, a bird called out from the heart of the wood:

"Quick, quick, come here, here, here----"

"Where, where?" cried Karl; and he was just about to start in search of the bird when he remembered what his grandmother had said:

"If any bid you stop or stay, or turn your feet from out your way, say but the word that is spelled with the fourteenth and fifteenth letters of the alphabet three times in a loud voice, and all will go well with you."

"A, B, C, D, E, F, G," he chanted, counting the letters on his fingers as he said them, "H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O:" N was the fourteenth letter and O was the fifteenth. N-O; that was easy.

"No! No! No!" he shouted; and--do you believe it?--in less time than it takes to tell it he was at the mill door with every pancake safe and hot.

And the story goes that though he came and went through the Enchanted Wood all the days of his life he was never hindered by anything there again; and he never saw a goblin though he lived to be as old as his grandmother had been when he was a little boy.

LITTLE MAID HILDEGARDE

One evening Little Maid Hildegarde's father came home with wonderful news; the knights were coming to town. He had heard it as he came from the forest where he cut wood all day and he hurried every step of the way home to tell Hildegarde and her mother.

"They are on the king's business and will be at the Church Square to-morrow morning at the hour of ten. Everybody in town will be there to see them. Old Grandmother Grey is going to ask them to ride in search of her little lamb that has gone astray; and the mayor will tell them of the wolves that come in the winter. The good knights are always glad to help," he said.

Little Maid Hildegarde knew all about the knights. Her father was never tired of telling, or she of hearing, how they fought and killed the fierce dragon that had troubled the people of the border; and put out the forest fires in the time of the great drought and fed the hungry when the famine was in the land. And yet with all of their great deeds they were merry men, not too proud to sing at a feast or play with a child.

And many an evening, though Hildegarde was growing to be a great girl, her mother sat by her bed to sing a song that she had sung to her when she was a babe in the cradle:

"Hush, my baby, do not cry, Five brave knights go riding by. One is dressed in bonny blue; He's the leader, strong and true. One is clad from head to toe In an armor white as snow.

"One in crimson bright is drest, With a star upon his breast. One in gold and one in green, Cloth of gold and satin sheen. Hush, my baby, do not cry, Five brave knights go riding by."

Oh, how Hildegarde had longed to see those splendid riders! And now at last she was to have her heart's desire. It seemed almost too good to be true.

"Shall we start to town as soon as the new day comes?" she asked.

"Just as soon as the cows are taken to the pasture, and the little chicks are fed," said her mother; and the little maid went to bed well satisfied.

But alas, for Hildegarde and her hopes! The morning sun had scarcely shone when her mother awoke with a terrible pain in her head, and her father slipped on his way to the barn and sprained his foot so he could not walk. And there was no one to take the child to the Church Square. No, not even a neighbor, for Hildegarde and her mother and father lived apart from every one else, and the wood that is called Enchanted lay between them and the town.

There was no help for it. Hildegarde knew herself, without a word from any one, that she could not go; but as she ran about the house to wait on them, she heard her mother and father talking.

"It is not for the pain in my face that I grieve," said the good mother; "but for the disappointment of our little maid."

"Aye," said the father, "I would bear my hurt, and more too, willingly, if only she might see the gallant knights."

And when Hildegarde heard what they said she made haste to wipe away the tears that threatened to roll down her cheeks, and went about her work with a pleasant face.

All day long she was busy for there were the cows to take to the pasture, and the little chicks to feed, and the eggs to gather; but at sunset her tasks were done, and with her doll in her arms she sat in the doorway of the house and looked away toward the town, the towers of which just showed above the Enchanted Wood.

Highest of all was the spire of the church that stood in the square where the knights had been; and as Hildegarde watched it change from grey to gold in the sunset glow, she thought of them and wondered where they had gone when their business was done.

Some day they would come again and then she should surely see them, her father said; and already she had begun to look forward to that time.

"Perhaps they will come when the wolves do in the winter," she said to herself; but scarcely had she spoken when through an opening in the wood she spied a horseman riding at a stately pace. Behind him came another, and another till she had counted five--five brave knights! Yes, there they came with prancing steeds and shining shields, and splendid clothes!

One bore a banner blue as the sky on a summer's day, and the next held a wee lamb close within his arms. A dragon's head hung from another's saddle, and two had bugles by their sides.

Not a word was spoken. As silently as the stars shine out at evening they passed the door where the child sat wonder-struck; and as quietly as the sun goes down at the day's end they vanished into the wood again before she could move or call. But just as the green of the last one's coat faded away into the green of the trees, Hildegarde thought she heard a strain of sweetest music!

Now there were those, and Hildegarde's mother and father were among them, who believed that the little maid, tired from her long busy day, had fallen asleep, and dreamed a beautiful dream.

But as for Hildegarde, she kept the vision in her heart alway; and when as the years went by she had little ones of her own to rock to sleep, she told them of it, and sang to them as her mother had sung to her:

FIVE BRAVE KNIGHTS

Words, MAUD LINDSAY

Air, Old Song

Hush, my ba-by, do not cry, Five brave knights go rid-ing by.

One is dressed in bon-ny blue; He's the lead-er, strong and true.

One is clad from head to toe In an ar-mor white as snow.

One in crim-son bright is drest, With a star up-on his breast.

One in gold and one in green, Cloth of gold and sat-in sheen.

Hush, my ba-by, do not cry, Five brave knights go rid-ing by.

THE APPLE DUMPLING

There was once upon a time an old woman who wanted an apple dumpling for supper. She had plenty of flour and plenty of butter, plenty of sugar and plenty of spice for a dozen dumplings, but there was one thing she did not have; and that was an apple.

She had plums, a tree full of them, the roundest and reddest that you can imagine; but, though you can make butter from cream and raisins of grapes, you cannot make an apple dumpling with plums, and there is no use trying.

The more the old woman thought of the dumpling the more she wanted it, and at last she dressed herself in her Sunday best and started out to seek an apple.

Before she left home, however, she filled a basket with plums from her plum-tree and, covering it over with a white cloth, hung it on her arm, for she said to herself: "There may be those in the world who have apples, and need plums."

She had not gone very far when she came to a poultry yard filled with fine hens and geese and guineas. Ca-ca, quawk, quawk, poterack! What a noise they made; and in the midst of them stood a young woman who was feeding them with yellow corn. She nodded pleasantly to the old woman, and the old woman nodded to her; and soon the two were talking as if they had known each other always.

The young woman told the old woman about her fowls and the old woman told the young woman about the dumpling and the basket of plums for which she hoped to get apples.

"Dear me," said the young woman when she heard this, "there is nothing my husband likes better than plum jelly with goose for his Sunday dinner, but unless you will take a bag of feathers for your plums he must do without, for that is the best I can offer you."

"One pleased is better than two disappointed," said the old woman then; and she emptied the plums into the young woman's apron and putting the bag of feathers into her basket trudged on as merrily as before; for she said to herself:

"If I am no nearer the dumpling than when I left home, I am at least no farther from it; and that feathers are lighter to carry than plums nobody can deny."

Trudge, trudge, up hill and down she went, and presently she came to a garden of sweet flowers; lilies, lilacs, violets, roses--oh, never was there a lovelier garden!

The old woman stopped at the gate to look at the flowers; and as she looked she heard a man and a woman, who sat on the door-step of a house that stood in the garden, quarreling.

"Cotton," said the woman.

"Straw," said the man.

"'Tis not--"

"It is," they cried, and so it went between them, till they spied the old woman at the gate.

"Here is one who will settle the matter," said the woman then; and she called to the old woman:

"Good mother, answer me this: If you were making a cushion for your grandfather's chair would you not stuff it with cotton?"

"No," said the old woman.

"I told you so," cried the man. "Straw is the thing, and no need to go farther than the barn for it;" but the old woman shook her head.

"I would not stuff the cushion with straw," said she; and it would have been hard to tell which one was the more cast down by her answers, the man or the woman.

But the old woman made haste to take the bag of feathers out of her basket, and give it to them.

"A feather cushion is fit for a king," she said, "and as for me, an apple for a dumpling, or a nosegay from your garden will serve me as well as what I give."

The man and the woman had no apples, but they were glad to exchange a nosegay from their garden for a bag of fine feathers, you may be sure.

"There is nothing nicer for a cushion than feathers," said the woman.

"My mother had one made of them," said the man; and they laughed like children as they hurried into the garden to fill the old woman's basket with the loveliest posies; lilies, lilacs, violets, roses--oh! never was there a sweeter nosegay.

"A good bargain, and not all of it in the basket," said the old woman, for she was pleased to have stopped the quarrel, and when she had wished the two good fortune and a long life, she went upon her way again.

Now her way was the king's highway, and as she walked there she met a young lord who was dressed in his finest clothes, for he was going to see his lady love. He would have been as handsome a young man as ever the sun shone on had it not been that his forehead was wrinkled into a terrible frown, and the corners of his mouth drawn down as if he had not a friend left in the whole world.

"A fair day and a good road," said the old woman, stopping to drop him a courtesy.

"Fair or foul, good or bad, 'tis all one to me," said he, "when the court jeweler has forgotten to send the ring he promised, and I must go to my lady with empty hands."

"Empty hands are better than an empty heart," said the old woman; "but then we are young only once; so you shall have a gift for your lady though I may never have an apple dumpling." And she took the nosegay from her basket and gave it to the young lord which pleased him so much that the frown smoothed away from his forehead, and his mouth spread itself in a smile, and he was as handsome a young man as ever the sun shone on.

"Fair exchange is no robbery,"[3] said he, and he unfastened a golden chain from round his neck and gave it to the old woman, and went away holding his nosegay with great care.

[Footnote 3: An old saying.]

The old woman was delighted.

"With this golden chain I might buy all the apples in the king's market, and then have something to spare," she said to herself, as she hurried away toward town as fast as her feet could carry her.

But she had gone no farther than the turn of the road when she came upon a mother and children, standing in a doorway, whose faces were as sorrowful as her own was happy.

"What is the matter?" she asked as soon as she reached them.

"Matter enough," answered the mother, "when the last crust of bread is eaten and not a farthing in the house to buy more."

"Well-a-day," cried the old woman when this was told her. "Never shall it be said of me that I eat apple dumpling for supper while my neighbors lack bread;" and she put the golden chain into the mother's hands and hurried on without waiting for thanks.

She was not out of sight of the house, though, when the mother and children, every one of them laughing and talking as if it were Christmas or Candlemas day, overtook her.

"Little have we to give you," said the mother who was the happiest of all, "for that you have done for us, but here is a little dog, whose barking will keep loneliness from your house, and a blessing goes with it."

The old woman did not have the heart to say them nay, so into the basket went the little dog, and very snugly he lay there.

"A bag of feathers for a basket of plums; a nosegay of flowers for a bag of feathers; a golden chain for a nosegay of flowers; a dog and a blessing for a golden chain; all the world is give and take, and who knows but that I may have my apple yet," said the old woman as she hurried on.

And sure enough she had not gone a half dozen yards when, right before her, she saw an apple-tree as full of apples as her plum-tree was full of plums. It grew in front of a house as much like her own as if the two were peas in the same pod; and on the porch of the house sat a little old man.

"A fine tree of apples!" called the old woman as soon as she was in speaking distance of him.

"Aye, but apple-trees and apples are poor company when a man is growing old," said the old man; "and I would give them all if I had even so much as a little dog to bark on my door-step."

"Bow-wow!" called the dog in the old woman's basket, and in less time than it takes to read this story he was barking on the old man's door-step, and the old woman was on her way home with a basket of apples on her arm.

She got there in plenty of time to make the dumpling for supper, and it was as sweet and brown a dumpling as heart could desire.

"If you try long enough and hard enough you can always have an apple dumpling for supper," said the old woman; and she ate the dumpling to the very last crumb; and enjoyed it, too.

THE KING'S SERVANT[4]

There was once upon a time a faithful servant whose name was Hans. He served the king his master so long and so well that one day the king said to him:

"Speak, Hans, and tell me what three things do you most desire that I may give them to you as a reward for your faithfulness."

[Footnote 4: Adapted with a free hand from Grimm's "White Snake."]

It did not take Hans long to answer the king.

"If you please, your majesty," he said, "I should like best in all the world to go to see my mother; to have a horse on which to ride upon my journey; and to taste the food that lies hidden in the silver dish that comes each day to your majesty's table."

And when the king heard this he made haste to send for the silver dish and lifting the lid with his own hand he bade Hans taste of the food inside. What this food was, neither I nor anybody else can tell you, but no sooner had Hans tasted it than he understood what everything in the world was saying, from the birds in the tree-tops to the hens in the king's poultry yard.

"Good-bye, Hans," they called as Hans mounted the horse which the king gave him and rode away through the gate.

"Good-bye," said Hans, and he cantered off in fine style down the king's highway.