The other brother was as different from this as chalk from cheese. He had nothing more in the world than a meagre little farm of a few fields and meadows, three cows, a sow, a horse in stable too old to work, an ass a few years older, and his chickens, ducks and geese. He worked hard from early morning to night to keep even these. Yet he always seemed to be cheerful and never sick or sorry.
The only time he had ever asked his rich brother for help he got nothing but sneers and insults; and after that the servants set the dogs on to him. Yet he himself would never have turned even a hungry cur from his door—not, at least, if he had a bone in his cupboard. And rather than kill a mouse in a trap he’d carry it off half a mile from the farm to set it free, and then give his old brown house-cat an extra saucer of milk to make up for it.
Now one April evening, as this brother was feeding his poultry in the stackyard, and had just emptied his wooden bowl, suddenly, and as if out of nowhere, an old cross-eyed man popped up his head over the rough wall and asked him for a drink of water.
“Water!” said the farmer. “As much as you like, my friend—to drink, wash or swim in! But if you’ll step inside, I can give you a taste of something with a little more flavour to it.”
He led the old man kindly into the kitchen, and having cut him off a plate of good fat bacon and a slice or two of bread, he drew him a jug of cider and put that on the table. It was the best he could give, and the cross-eyed old man, though he ate little, and seemed not to be much accustomed either to sitting within four walls or to the taste of meat, thanked him heartily. And as he was about to go on his way he gave a squint at the sun, now low in the west, then another very quick and sharp at the farmer, and asked him if he grew turnips.
The farmer laughed, and said, Ay, he did grow turnips. “There be some that grow turnips,” mumbled the old man—and he had such a queer way of speaking his English you might have supposed he wasn’t used to the tongue—“there be some,” he mumbled, “that wouldn’t spare even a blind man a cheese-rind; and there be some—” But here he stopped, and flinging up his hand into the air as if for a signal, he went on in a lingo which the farmer not only could not catch, but the like of which he had never heard before. Then the old man went away—out of the gate by the ash-tree and away. And the farmer thought no more of him.
One morning a month or two afterwards, the farmer went out to pull a turnip or two for his hot-pot, and noticed up in the north-west corner of his field what looked to be a green tufty bush growing where no sort of bush ought to be. He shaded his eyes with his hand and looked again—and was astonished. But as he drew nearer he saw his mistake, for what he had taken to be a bush was nothing else than what you would most expect in a turnip field—that is to say, a Turnip; but of a size and magnitude the like of which had never been seen in the world before, not even in the island where the people are all giants.
The farmer stood and marvelled. He couldn’t take his eyes off this Turnip. He could scarcely believe his own senses; and it was some little time before he realized that what he was looking at was not only a Turnip, but was his Turnip. After that, he went off at once and called his neighbours to come. It took them all that day until evening to dig the Turnip out. Early next morning they brought a farm-wagon, and, after scraping off the earth on the root, and washing it down with buckets of water, they managed at last to heave and hoist it into the wagon. Then they rested a bit, to recover their breath.
The farmer stood and marvelled.
The Turnip fitted the wagon as if it had been made for it. In colour it was like ivory shading off to a lively green at the crown, and to a deepening purple towards the base. Its huge tuft of leaves stood gently waving in the light of the morning sun like the feathers in the head-dress of a blackamoor. They were as wide as palm-leaves, but a pleasanter green and prickly to the touch.
The next thing was to decide what to do with the Turnip. There was flesh enough in it to feed an army, and as for “tops,” there were enough of them, as one of the farmer’s old friends said, to keep a widow and nine children in green-meat for a hundred years on end.
“Oy,” said another, “given they didn’t rot!”
“Oy,” said a third, “biled free!”
“Oy,” said a fourth, “and a pinch of salt in the water.”
And then they all said, “Oy.”
But while his neighbours were talking the farmer was thinking, and while he was thinking he gazed steadily at his Turnip.
“What’s in my mind, neighbours,” he began at last, taking off his hat and scratching his head, “is that turnips is turnips, and of turnips as such I’ve got enough and to spare, which is nought but what anybody can see as looks around him. But that there monster is, as you might say, not the same thing nohow. That there is a Turnip which for folk like you and me is beyond all boiling, buttering, mashing, ingogitating and consummeration. And what’s in my mind, friends—what’s in my mind is whether you agree with me that maybe His Majesty the King would like to have a look at it?”
The question was not what the farmer’s friends had expected. They looked at him, they looked at one another, and last they looked again at the Turnip—the fresh, rain-scented wind now blowing freely in its fronds.
Then altogether, and as if at a signal, they said, “Oy.” The next thing was to get the Turnip to the Palace. It took two strapping cart-horses, as well as the farmer’s ass harnessed up in front with a length of rope. But even at that, it needed a long pull and a strong pull and a pull altogether, with his neighbours one and all shoving hard on the spokes of the wheels, to get the wagon out of the field.
Once on the high-road, however, it rode easy, and away they went.
Long before the farmer neared the gates of the Palace the streets of the city were buzzing like a beehive. As, cart-whip in hand and leading his ass by the bridle, he slowly paced on his way, it was as if a White Man had come at morning into a village of savages. Everyone marvelled. But the people at the windows and on the housetops saw the Turnip best, for a good deal of the root was hidden by the sides and tailpiece of the wagon, and by the sacks laid over it.
When the wagon actually reached the Palace gates, it was surrounded by such a throng and press of people there was scarcely room to sneeze, but there the sentries on guard kept them all back, and the farmer led his ass and two horses into the quiet beyond, alone.
Not only did the King himself come out into the courtyard to see the Turnip, but he ordered that the tailpiece of the wagon should be let down, and a stool be brought out so that he could see it better. And much he marvelled at the Turnip. Well he might, for no mortal eye had ever seen the like of it before. He sent word to the Queen, too, and she herself with her ladies and all the royal family, down to the youngest, came out of the Palace to view and admire it, and the two small princes who were nine and seven were hoisted up by the farmer into the wagon itself beside the huge root, and the elder of them scrambled up and sat among the stalks and tops.
Everyone marvelled.
Not only was the King exceedingly amused at the sight of him (and not less so because the Queen was afraid the young rascal might have a fall); not only did he speak very graciously to the farmer, and himself from the bottom of his heart thank him for his gift; but he commanded that when the Turnip had been safely lifted down into one of his barns, the empty wagon should be loaded up with barrels of beer, a hogshead of wine and other dainties, and that this should be done while the farmer was taking refreshment, after his journey, in the royal pantry.
Nor was he in the least degree offended when the farmer begged that he might leave this awhile, so that he might himself help to remove the Turnip from the wagon, being very anxious that it should not come to the least harm.
Long after the farmer had gone home rejoicing, the King laughed out loud every time he thought of the Turnip and of his small son sitting up among its tops. Nor did he forget the farmer, but sent to enquire about him and to discover what kind of man he truly was. Nothi
ng but good was told of him. So the King remembered him with special favour, and of his grace bestowed upon him the place and quality of “Turnip Provider in Chief to the Whole of the Royal Family.”
After that the farmer prospered indeed. The rich and wealthy for miles around (as they couldn’t get his turnips) would eat no other radishes or carrots than his. He soon had the finest long-maned cart-horses in the kingdom, with cows and sheep in abundance, while his old mare and ass had a meadow all to themselves, with plenty of shade and a pond of fresh water fed by a brook. Nothing pleased him better than to give a great feast in his kitchen—and everybody welcome who cared to come. But search as he might among the company, he never again saw the squint-eyed old man who had spoken to him over the stackyard wall.
Now when his rich, covetous brother first heard of the Turnip and of the King’s favours and graciousness to a creature he had always hated and despised, he was black with rage and envy for days together, and could neither eat nor sleep. It was not until he came to his senses again that he began to think.
“A Turnip! A Turnip!” he would keep on muttering. “To think all that came of a Turnip! Now if it had been a Peach, or a Nectarine, or a bunch of Muscatel Grapes! But a Turnip!”
Then suddenly a notion came into his head. He could scarcely breathe or see for a whole minute, it made him so giddy. Then he hastened out, got into his coach and went off to a certain rich city that was beyond the borders of his own country. There he sold nearly everything he possessed: his land, his jewels and gold plate, and most of his furniture. He even borrowed money on his fine house. Having by this means got all the cash he could, he went off to another street in the city where was the shop of a Jew who was a dealer in gems, and one celebrated in every country of the world.
There he bought the very largest ruby this Jew had to sell. It was clear and lustrous as crystal, red as pigeon’s blood, and of the size of an Evesham plum, but round as a marble. The Jew, poising it in a sunbeam between his finger and thumb, said there had never been a ruby to compare with it. This is a ruby, he said, fit only for a King.
Nothing could have pleased his customer better, though when the Jew went on to tell him the price of the gem his very heart seemed to turn inside out. Indeed, there was only just enough money in the three moneybags which the Jew’s two shopmen had carried in for him from the coach into the shop to pay for it. But he thanked the Jew, put the little square box carefully into an inside pocket, stepped briskly into his coach and returned home.
Next day, in his best clothes, he went to the Palace and asked the Officer at the entry if the King would of his grace spare him but one, or, at most, two moments of his inestimable time. The Chamberlain returned and replied politely that his royal master desired to know who his visitor was. The rich man was made very hot and uncomfortable by this question. For the first time in his life he discovered that he didn’t know. He knew what he had (most of it was now packed into the ruby in his pocket). He knew what he thought of himself; but he didn’t know what he was. It was no use telling the King’s Chamberlain his name, since he felt sure the King had never heard of it; he might just as well say “Uzzywuzzybub,” or “Oogoowoogy.”
The only thing he could think to say—and it tasted as horrid as a black draught when he said it—was that when he was a child he had been allowed by his father to play with the boy who was now the farmer who had brought the King the Turnip—which was just as much the whole truth as the piggy of an orange is a whole orange.
When the King heard this he was so much amused that, sitting there in his Presence Chamber, he almost laughed aloud. He had guessed at once who his visitor was, for after enquiring about his beloved farmer (for beloved by everybody who knew him he truly was) he had heard much of this rich man—his half-brother. He knew what a mean skinflint he was, how he had robbed the poor and cheated the rich, and what kind of help he had given the farmer when he grievously needed it. And last, the King guessed well what he had now come for—to curry favour, and in hope of a reward. So he determined to teach this bad man a lesson.
When with his ruby he appeared trembling, bowing, cringing and ducking before him, the King smiled on him, saying that if he had known his visitor was a friend of the farmer who grew the Turnip, he would have been at once admitted into his presence.
The rich man, having swallowed this bitter pill as best he could, bowed low once more, his fat cheeks like mulberries.
The King then asked him his business. So, without more ado, the rich man fetched out of a secret pocket of his gown the casket which contained the Jew’s ruby, and with an obeisance to the very ground presented it to the King.
Now, though the farmer’s Turnip, as turnips go, was such as no monarch in the world’s history had ever seen before; this ruby, as Kings and rubies go, was not. But even if it had been, it would have made no difference to the King. To him it was not the gift that mattered, but the giver. Besides, he knew exactly why this rich man had come with his gem, and what he hoped to get out of it.
He smiled, he glanced graciously at the ruby, and said it was indeed a pretty thing. He then went on to tell his visitor that the prince, his small son, was not only fond of sitting on a farm-wagon among the green tops of the biggest turnip there ever was, but also delighted in all kinds of coloured beads, stones, glass, marbles, crystals, and quartz, and that his young eyes in particular would be overjoyed at sight of this new bauble. Then he raised his face, looked steadily at his visitor, and asked him what favour he could confer on him in return and as a mark of his bounty.
The rich man shivered all over with joy; he didn’t know where to look; he opened his mouth like a fish, then, like a fish, shut it again. At last he managed to blurt out that even the very smallest thing the King might be pleased to bestow on him would fill him with endless rapture. For so he hoped to get ten times more than he would have dared to ask.
The King smiled again, and said that, since the rich man could not choose for himself, the only thing possible would be to send him something which he himself greatly valued. “Ay,” said he, “beyond words.”
The rich man returned to his half-empty house overjoyed at the success of his plan. He was so proud of himself and so scornful of the mean people in the streets and the shopkeepers at their doors, that wherever he looked he squinted and saw double. For the next two days he could hardly eat or sleep. He had only one thought, “What will His Majesty send me?”
He fancied a hundred things and coveted all. Every hour of daylight he sat watching at his window, and the moment he drowsed off in his chair at night, he woke at what he thought was the sound of wheels. As for the only servant he now had left, the poor creature was worn to a skeleton, and hadn’t an instant’s peace.
On the third morning, as the rich man sat watching, his heart all but ceased to beat. A scarlet trumpeter on a milk-white charger came galloping down the street. The rich man hastened out to meet him, and was told that a gift from the King was even now on its way. Sure enough, a few minutes afterwards there turned the corner an immense dray or wagon drawn by six of the royal piebald horses, with an outrider in the royal livery to each pair, while a multitude of the townsfolk followed after it huzzaing it on. Yet it approached so slowly that the rich man thought he would die of suspense. But when at last it reached his gates he hadn’t long to linger. The great canvas covering of the wagon was drawn back, and there, on an enormous dish, lay the King’s present, something, as he had said, that he valued beyond words. It was a large handsome slice of the farmer’s Turnip.
At sight of it, at sight of the people, the rich man paused a moment—then ran. He simply took to his heels and ran, and if, poor soul, he had not been so much overfed and overfat, he might be running to this day.
The Wolf and the Fox
A foolish fox once made friends with a wolf. With his silky brush and pointed nose, he fancied himself a smart fellow, and hardly knew at first which way to look he was so vain of his new company. But he soon found out that
his fine friend was not in love with him for his own sweet sake, and that being a wolf, a wolf he was. For one thing, he was a villainous glutton and could never eat enough; and next, he had no manners.
“And what’s for supper to-night?” he would say, with his white teeth glinting in the moon. “Bones! Bones! Lor’, friend Fox, if you can’t get me anything really worth eating, I shall soon have to eat you.” It was an old joke now; and though he laughed as he said it, he did not look very pleasant when he laughed.
The fox grinned on one side of his face, but not on the other. “Well, friend Wolf,” he said, “keep up your spirits. There’s a farmyard over the hill where two plump young lambs are fattening. Softly now, and away we go!”
So off they went together. When they reached the farmyard the fox sneaked in through the gate, snatched up one of the lambs, leapt over the stone wall and carried it off to the wolf. After which, he trotted round to the henhouse to get his own supper in peace. But when the wolf had finished off his lamb—leaving not so much as a bone for his friend to pick—he felt hungrier than ever, and determined to slip away himself and get the other.
But he was so clumsy in scrabbling over the stone wall of the yard that the old mother sheep heard him, and began bleating aloud in the darkness. At this the farmer—who was sitting in his kitchen—ran out with his dog and a cudgel, and managed to give the wolf such a drubbing as he climbed back over the wall, that he came creeping back to the fox as wild with pain as he was with rage.
“A nice thing you’ve done,” he said to the fox. “I went to fetch the other lamb, and I’m beaten to a jelly.”
“Well,” said the fox, “one’s one and two’s two; but enough is as good as a feast”; and he thought of the tasty young pullet he had stolen for his own supper.
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