Zigzag Journeys in Northern Lands. The Rhine to the Arctic. A Summer Trip of the Zig-Zag Club Through Holland, Germany, Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. Butterworth Hezekiah
by a mere scratch of his pen.
At eighty-six, the stalwart old kaiser cannot hope to dwell much longer among his people; but it will be very long before his fine qualities, soldierly courage, and affectionate nature will grow dim in the memory of the fatherland.
The stories related at this meeting were largely from Grimm and Fouqué, and are to be found in American books.
The most pleasing of the stories, told by Herman Reed, is not so well known, and we give it here.
Many, many years ago there lived in an old German town a good cobbler and his wife. They had one child, Jamie, a handsome boy of some eight years. They were poor people; and the good wife, to help her husband, had a stall in the great market, where she sold fruit and herbs.
One day the cobbler’s wife was at the market as usual, and her little boy was with her, when a strange old woman entered the stalls.
The woman hardly seemed human. She had red eyes, a wizened, pinched-up face, and her nose was sharp and hooked, and almost reached to her chin. Her dress was made up of rags and tatters. Never before had there entered the market such a repulsive-looking person.
“Are you Hannah the herb-woman?” she asked, bobbing her head to and fro. “Eh?”
“Yes.”
“Let me see, let me see; you may have some herbs I want.”
She thrust her skinny hands into the herbs, took them up and smelled of them, crushing them as she did so.
Having mauled them to her heart’s content, she shook her head, saying, —
“Bad stuff; rubbish; nothing I want; rubbish, rubbish, – eh?”
“You are an impudent old hag,” said the cobbler’s boy, Jamie; “you have crushed our herbs, held them under your ugly nose, and now condemn them.”
“Aha, my son, you do not like my nose, – eh? You shall have one, too, to pay for this, – eh?”
“If you want to buy anything, pray do so at once,” said the cobbler’s wife; “you are keeping other customers away.”
“I will buy something,” said the hag viciously; “I will buy. I will take these six cabbages. Six? That is more than I can carry, as I have to lean upon my stick. You must let your boy take them home for me.”
This was but a reasonable request, and the cobbler’s wife consented.
Jamie did as he was bid, and followed the hag to her home. It was a long distance there. At last the beldam stopped in an out-of-the-way part of the town, before a strange-looking house. She touched a rusty key to the door, which flew open, and, as the two entered, a most astonishing sight was revealed to Jamie’s eyes.
The interior of the house was like a throne-room in a palace, the ceilings were of marble and gold, and the furniture was jewelled ebony.
The old woman took a silver whistle and blew it. Little animals – guinea pigs and squirrels – answered the call. They were dressed like children, and walked on two legs; they could talk and understand what was said to them. Was the beldam an enchantress, and were these little animals children, whom she had stolen and made victims of her enchantments?
“Sit down, child,” said the old woman, in a soft voice, “sit down; you have had a heavy load to carry. Sit down, and I will make you a delicious soup; one that you will remember as long as you live. It will contain some of the herb for which I was looking in the market and did not find. Sit down.”
The beldam hurried hither and thither, and with the help of the guinea pigs and squirrels quickly made the soup.
“There, my child, eat that. It contains the magic herb I could not find in the market. Why did your mother not have it? Whoever eats that will become a magic cook.”
Jamie had never tasted such delicious soup. It seemed to intoxicate him. It produced a stupor. He felt a great change coming over him. He seemed to become one of the family of guinea pigs and squirrels, and, like them, to serve their mistress. Delightful little people they were, – he came to regard them as brothers; and time flew by.
Years flew by, and other years, when one day the dame took her crutch and went out. She left her herb-room open, and he went in. In one of the secret cupboards he discovered an herb that had the same scent as the soup he had eaten years before. He examined it. The leaves were blue and the blossoms crimson. He smelt of it.
He began to sneeze, – such a delightful sneeze! He smelt, and sneezed again. Suddenly he seemed to awake, as from a dream, – as though some strange enchantment had been broken.
“I must go home,” he said. “How mother will laugh when I tell her my dream! I ought not to have gone to sleep in a strange house.”
He went out into the street. The children and idlers began to follow him.
“Oho, oho! look, what a strange dwarf! Look at his nose! Never the like was seen before.”
Jamie tried to discover the dwarf, but could not see him.
He reached the market. His mother was there, a sad old woman, in the same place. She seemed altered; looked many years older than when he left her. She leaned her head wearily on her hand.
“What is the matter, mother dear?” he asked.
She started up.
“What do you want of me, you poor dwarf? Do not mock me. I have had sorrow, and cannot endure jokes.”
“But, mother, what has happened?”
He rushed towards her to embrace her, but she leaped into the air.
The market-women came to her and drove him away.
He went to his father’s cobbler’s shop. His father was there, but he looked like an old man.
“Good gracious! what is that?” said he wildly, as Jamie appeared.
“How are you getting on, master?” asked Jamie.
“Poorly enough. I’m getting old, and have no one to help me.”
“Have you no son?”
“I had one, years ago.”
“Where is he now?”
“Heaven only knows. He was kidnapped one market-day, seven years ago.”
“Seven years ago!”
Jamie turned away. The people on the street stared at him, and the ill-bred children followed him. He chanced to pass a barber’s shop, where was a looking-glass in the window. He stopped and saw himself.
The sight filled him with terror. He was a dwarf, with a nose like that of the strange old woman.
What should he do?
He remembered that the old woman had said that the eating of the magic soup that contained the magic herb would make him a magic cook.
He went to the palace of the duke and inquired for the major domo. He was kindly received, as dwarfs are in such places, and he asked to be employed in the kitchen, and allowed to show his skill in preparing some of the rare dishes for the table.
No one in the ducal palace was able to produce such food as he. He was made chief cook in a little time, and enjoyed the duke’s favor for two years. He grew fat, was honored at the great feasts, and became the wonder of the town.
Now happened the strangest thing of his strange life.
(Ye that have eyes, prepare to open them now.)
One morning he went to the goose market to buy some nice fat geese, such as he knew the duke would relish. He purchased a cage of three geese, but he noticed that one of the geese did not quack and gabble like the others.
“The poor thing must be sick,” he said; “I will make haste to kill her.”
To his great astonishment, the goose made answer: —
“Stop my breath,
And