“It was a frog,” he said. Then: “We are going to have to wash the front steps.”
“Did someone knock on our front door and leave a frog there,” his father asked, “or did the frog knock and expect to be let in?”
“Well,” his youngest daughter said. “I think it wanted to be let in.”
“I did not ask what the frog wanted,” his father said. “I asked if the frog expected to be let in.” All the other daughters had stopped pretending to eat at this point and stared in open excitement at the prospect of watching one of their number get into trouble.
“Well,” his daughter said. “Only—yesterday, when I was sitting near the well in the forest, my golden ball fell into the water.”
“Sitting near the well, or on it?”
“On it, Father. Sitting on it, and my golden ball fell into the water, and I was crying over it, and I was crying so much that the frog brought it back to me, and because it insisted on repayment, I promised him that he could be my companion, but I did not think it would be possible for the frog to leave the well, because—don’t frogs have to live in the water? And now it is sitting outside the door and wants to come in.”
“If you were sitting on the well and not just near it,” his father said, “then you must keep your promise.” Just then there came another knock at the door.
“But I did not really promise it,” the youngest daughter said. “It made the promise for me, and to itself, and I did not really ask it to get the ball. It volunteered.” He scrunched down low in his seat, too late to escape notice. He really was a very unlucky daughter.
His father said only: “You should not have sat on a well that was not yours. Go and open the door, and let the frog in.”
He went back to the door and opened it, and the frog hopped inside, then followed him back to his chair. It sat at his feet a moment and then said, “Lift me up next to you.” He did not move until his father insisted. Then he did it.
The frog sat next to his hand on the table, and said, “Now push your plate closer to me, so we can eat together.” Its breath smelled like old coins, and the youngest daughter shuddered but brought the plate closer. The frog did not mind that he shuddered, only that he did as instructed. Everyone else could see that he did not want to eat, but no one said anything, as they were not the ones in trouble. The frog ate everything with a hearty appetite.
“Eat,” his father said, and he ate, too.
Finally the frog said: “I have eaten everything I wanted to eat. Now I am tired. Carry me to your room and put me in your bed, so that we can go to sleep.”
The man’s youngest daughter began to cry. This time no one said anything about his being too beautiful for tears. “Maybe you would prefer a little bed of your own,” he said. “Mine is—starched, and dry, and you might not be comfortable in something so clean. I could make you a little nest, or put some water in a bucket nearby, or—”
“Put me in between your knees,” the frog said. “I will be warm there, and the only thing that will get dirty is you, and you can wash.”
At this the youngest daughter shook his head and shrank back in his seat. His father grew angry and said, “You took help when it was offered, and you flinch now at repayment; do not make use of someone else’s property, and do not offer someone your beauty, if you do not intend to repay them in kind.”
Now the youngest daughter wished that he could throw his ball back in the well and never see it again. “I would rather have a punishment than receive a favor like this again,” he said.
“Rather all you like,” his father said, “only, stop making me tell you to do what you already know. I have other daughters to manage, not only you.”
So the youngest daughter picked up the frog with two fingers and held it out before him. His skin puckered wherever it touched him. “What about my chores?” he asked, knowing full well he was stalling.
“You have your chore before you,” his father said. “Everything else can wait.”
He carried the frog upstairs and set it in a corner of his room, where it sat and stared at him. Next he got into bed without looking at it, but as he was lying under the blankets, it came creeping up to the foot of the bed. The frog said, “I am tired, and I want to sleep, too. Pick me up, and put me in bed with you, or I’ll tell your father.”
This was one request too many, and the youngest daughter became violently angry and shook all over. He threw back the blankets, picked up the frog, and flung it against the wall as hard as he could. “Here is your payment, and here is your thanks—now keep your peace!” The frog slid down to the floor and began to croak. It croaked louder and louder until his father filled the doorway, and picked the frog up himself, and placed it in bed with his daughter. Then he left, closing the door behind him without saying a word.
The frog was all the softer for having been thrown against the wall. It crawled underneath his legs, cold and close, and pressed a lipless kiss against the back of his knees. The daughter wished that all his skin was dead and gone. By and by the frog fell asleep, and the boy lay awake and staring all night, and for many nights afterward. He was very unlucky.
ELEVEN
Good Fences Make Good Neighbors
Once there was a fisherman who lived with his friend, and they lived quite happily together in a little house by the sea. Every day he went out and fished, and every night he came home to his friend and they had dinner together. One day the fisherman went out and cast his hook as far as it would go. It sank down and down and when he pulled it back out, he saw that he had caught a large flounder.
The flounder said, “Fisherman, let me go. I am not an ordinary flounder; I am something else.”
“Could you be more specific?” the fisherman said. “‘Something else’ could mean anything.”
“That’s a very personal question,” said the flounder.
“More personal than being eaten?”
“That is a fair point,” the flounder said. “I am not a fish at all, but the son of someone very powerful. I have fallen under an enchantment through no fault of my own. It will do you no good to eat me; I would turn to ashes in your mouth.”
“A fish might say that,” the fisherman said.
“A fish might,” the flounder agreed, “but a man might say it, too. Put me back in the water. Let me go, and I promise I’ll do something for you that no one else can do.”
“I’ll have to speak with my friend first,” the fisherman said. “I cannot think of anything I want at present.”
“That is your right,” the flounder said, and the fisherman slid the hook out from its mouth and let it sink back into the water, trailing blood behind it.
* * *
The fisherman went home to his friend, who was lying in bed with the lights turned off. His friend said, “What did you catch today?”
“Nothing,” the fisherman said. “Well, I caught a flounder, but it told me that it was not a flounder at all, but the son of someone very powerful and important, so I put him back.”
“Did he promise you anything?” his friend asked.
“He said he would give me something no one else could grant,” the fisherman said, “but I couldn’t think of anything I wanted at present, so I didn’t ask.”
His friend said nothing, and the fisherman knew that he had said the wrong thing.
“My friend,” the fisherman said, “are you feeling quite well?”
His friend said: “This is why people don’t like helping you.”
“People don’t like helping me?” the fisherman said.
“They do not,” his friend said. “This is why you are lucky to have me.”
“I didn’t know that,” the fisherman said.
“You are lucky,” his friend said again, “that I am here to tell you these things. You should have asked for a better house; I am ashamed to let people see how we live here together.”
“You are?” the fisherman said.
“I have always been ashamed of it,�
� said his friend.
“I am sorry,” the fisherman said.
“Do not be sorry,” his friend said. “Go and do something about it.”
“Now?” the fisherman said. “It is dark out.”
“In the morning, then,” his friend said, turning over to face the wall. “We might as well go to sleep now, since you have brought home nothing for us to eat.” So they went to sleep, and in the morning the fisherman went back out to the sea, and baited his hook, and waited for the flounder to come back.
The flounder swam up to his boat and poked its head out of the water. “What did your friend say, then?”
“Oh,” said the fisherman, a little embarrassed. “My friend thinks that we should have a better house to live in. My friend is ashamed of how we live together now.”
“How much better?” said the flounder.
“How much better what?”
“How much better would you like your house to be?”
“I don’t know,” the fisherman said. “I didn’t think to ask. Maybe my friend would like another room, to put guests in. And a window in the kitchen over the sink, and wood floors. And a bigger bed.”
“Oil-modified urethane finish,” asked the flounder, “or water-based polyurethane finish?”
“What?”
“For the floor,” the flounder said.
“Oh,” the fisherman said. “Well, I guess the oil-based finish would be better, because sometimes I track in water, when I come home from the sea and bring my catch in with me.”
“It is done,” said the flounder. “Go home.”
“I can’t go home yet,” the fisherman said. “I haven’t caught anything yet.” But the flounder was already gone, so the fisherman stayed and fished a while longer, and then he went home. When he got there, there was a neat little garden out in front of the house full of red chickens scratching for grubs among the cabbages, and he opened the front door to find a sitting room with two fat armchairs in it. There was a window over the sink in the kitchen, and new copper pots hanging just above the stove. There was a new wireless in the dining room (they now had a dining room), and two very big beds in the master bedroom. His friend was in one of them. The wood floors had an oil-modified urethane finish.
“Oh,” the fisherman said. “This is a much better house.”
His friend said, “Then why do you look so cross?”
“I’m sorry,” the fisherman said. “I don’t mean to look cross. I like it very much, and I hope you will not be ashamed to have our friends visit any longer.”
“Perhaps you do not look cross,” his friend said. “Perhaps you are just sick. You do look sick.”
“Perhaps I am sick,” the fisherman said. “It has been a long day, and I have been out in the sun for longer than I should.”
His friend said, “Why don’t you get into my bed and rest? I don’t mind if you use it.”
“How lucky I am to have you for a friend,” the fisherman said. His friend climbed out of bed, and the fisherman climbed in, and his friend went to the kitchen and brought him back a cup of hot tea.
The fisherman said, “Thank you, but I don’t want any tea,” and his friend sighed a long, low sigh.
“This is why people don’t like helping you. Do you want people to like helping you?”
And the fisherman, who forgot he had not asked for his friend to help him, said, “Of course I do.”
“Then drink your tea, please,” his friend said. “Why do you make me regret doing nice things for you?”
That night the fisherman did not sleep very well at all. He had burned his tongue, and his new bed was too big.
“Do you think you will be happy to live here?” he asked his friend in the morning. “And not ashamed? I think we can live here very well,” he added.
“We will think about it,” his friend said. They had a quiet breakfast together.
The next day, after he had come home from the sea, the fisherman’s friend said to him, “Our new house is lovely—too lovely for the kind of friends you have insisted on bringing around in the past. Go see the flounder tomorrow, and tell him that we need a better class of people to associate with us, to go with the house.”
“What kind of people?” the fisherman asked.
“People of consequence,” his friend said. “Interesting people. Attractive people. People I would not be ashamed to have here.”
And the fisherman, who did not know his friend had been ashamed, did just that.
* * *
“Well, you’re back again awfully soon,” the flounder said.
“I did not know enough to be ashamed before I met you, flounder,” said the fisherman. “But my friend, who is very helpful and who I am very lucky to have, is teaching me.”
“What does your friend want, then?” the flounder asked.
“The people we associated with in our old house are no longer fit for us,” the fisherman said. “We would like a new class of people to be our friends.”
The flounder said, “It’s done,” and disappeared. The fisherman sat in his boat for a long time. He forgot to put his hook in the water.
When he got home that night, his friend said, “Now you really do look sick. You should get into bed; a party would wear you out entirely.”
“Are we having a party?” the fisherman said.
“I’m having some people over later,” said his friend. “We’ll be quiet, and I’ll make sure no one disturbs you.”
“Are you sure you don’t want me to greet them?” the fisherman said. “I could rest first.”
“Why would you want me to host a party and look after you at the same time?” his friend asked. “Could you please try just a little to make things easier for me, and get into bed, and rest?”
So the fisherman did. He said, “Talk to me, while I am resting?” What he was trying to say, of course, was, I am sorry; please don’t stop helping me.
“All right,” his friend said. “Let me think of a story to tell you.” He sat back and thought. He thought and he thought. “I cannot think of a story to tell you.”
“It’s not important,” the fisherman said.
His friend shook his head. “Obviously it is. It was important enough for you to ask me to stop and think of one while I am trying to get ready for our party, and now I won’t be able to concentrate until I tell you a story, because you are sick and I want you to get better. I am not going to be able to get any of the things done that I wanted to, because of this.”
“I’m sorry,” the fisherman said. “I didn’t mean it.”
“Please don’t lie to me on top of everything else,” his friend said.
“I’m sorry,” the fisherman said again. “I didn’t mean it.”
“Tomorrow you should go and ask the flounder for another house,” said his friend, “because I do not think you like me to live with you. Then you could have all the peace and quiet you needed, and I would not bother you so much, if I had someone over.”
“No,” the fisherman said. “No, I do not want my own house; please do not ask me to do that, please don’t.”
“It’s not for my own pleasure that I said it,” his friend said. “I am only thinking of you.”
“I am so sorry,” the fisherman said, “only please do not ask me to leave you.”
“I am going out to the front porch,” his friend said, “and there I will walk up and down until I have thought of a story for you, even though it is very cold outside, and I have no coat. I will do this for you.”
“Please don’t,” the fisherman said.
“Why are you making me feel guilty for trying to do something nice for you?” his friend said.
“I do not know how to stop hurting you,” the fisherman cried. “I must be doing something very wrong.” His friend went out to walk up and down the front porch, and the fisherman stole out of bed and left the house by the back entrance. He walked down to his little boat in the dark and pushed out to sea.
“Flounder,”
he called when he had sailed out a ways. “Flounder.” The water was black and boiling. “Flounder.”
The flounder appeared. “Fisherman,” it said, “this was not exactly what I intended, when I told you I could give you something no one else could.”
“What did you mean, then?” the fisherman said, and if he was crying, he could not help it.
“I could help you,” the flounder said, “if you would ask me for something else, and not what you came out here to ask me.”
“My friend wants me to wish for my own house,” the fisherman said, “which makes me miserable, because I want to live with no one but my friend.”
“You do not live with a friend,” the flounder said. “I have seen your home and the one who lives there with you, he is no friend to you.”
The fisherman snatched the flounder out of the sea with his right hand. It flashed and flopped all over the bottom of the boat. Next he tore out its gills with his thumbs and ran his fingers through its belly, from throat to tail, until its insides were quite clean. He threw the flounder’s guts back into the sea, and then he went home. The party was over, and all of the guests had left. His friend was still walking up and down the porch, shivering and stamping. “Where have you been?”
“I have been to see the flounder for you,” the fisherman said. “It died.” Then he went inside the house and took a shower.
After he went to bed, he heard a loud banging sound through the wall, and he got up.
“Why are you banging your head against the wall?” asked the fisherman.
“I hope that if I bang my head against the wall hard enough, it will help me to think of a story for you, because you are sick and I want you to feel better,” said his friend.
“I am feeling much better now,” said the fisherman. “I do not think I need a story anymore. I do not need anything now, I promise.”
“Then get out of your bed and let me get into it,” said his friend, “because now I feel terrible. Helping you has made me sick.”
The Merry Spinster Page 14