He went with her to her chamber where she had the golden spinning wheel and she took it out and showed it to him. Dobromil admired it greatly.

"Sit down, Dobrunka," he said, "and spin. I should like to see you again at the distaff."

Zloboha at once sat down behind the wheel. She put her foot to the treadle and started the wheel. Instantly the wheel sang out and this is what it sang:

"_Master, master, don't believe her!

She's a cruel and base deceiver!

She is not your own sweet wife!

She destroyed Dobrunka's life!_"

Zloboha sat stunned and motionless while the king looked wildly about to see where the song came from.

When he could see nothing, he told her to spin some more. Trembling, she obeyed. Hardly had she put her foot to the treadle when the voice again sang out:

"_Master, master, don't believe her!

She's a cruel and base deceiver!

She has killed her sister good And hid her body in the wood!_"

Beside herself with fright, Zloboha wanted to flee the spinning wheel, but Dobromil restrained her. Suddenly her face grew so hideous with fear that Dobromil saw she was not his own gentle Dobrunka. With a rough hand he forced her back to the stool and in a stern voice ordered her to spin.

Again she turned the fatal wheel and then for the third time the voice sang out:

"_Master, master, haste away!

To the wood without delay!

In a cave your wife, restored, Yearns for you, her own true lord!_"

At those words Dobromil released Zloboha and ran like mad out of the chamber and down into the courtyard where he ordered his swiftest horse to be saddled instantly. The attendants, frightened by his appearance, lost no time and almost at once Dobromil was on his horse and flying over hill and dale so fast that the horse's hoofs scarcely touched the earth.

When he reached the forest he did not know where to look for the cave.

He rode straight into the wood until a white doe crossed his path.

Then the horse in fright plunged to one side and pushed through bushes and undergrowth to the base of a big rock. Dobromil dismounted and tied the horse to a tree.

He climbed the rock and there he saw something white gleaming among the trees. He crept forward cautiously and suddenly found himself in front of a cave. Imagine then his joy, when he enters and finds his own dear wife Dobrunka.

As he kisses her and looks into her sweet gentle face he says: "Where were my eyes that I was deceived for an instant by your wicked sister?"

"What have you heard about my sister?" asked Dobrunka, who as yet knew nothing of the magic spinning wheel.

So the king told her all that had happened and she in turn told him what had befallen her.

"And from the time the hermit disappeared," she said in conclusion, "the little boy has brought me food every day."

They sat down on the gra.s.s and together they ate some fruit from the wooden plate. When they rose to go they took the wooden plate and the cup away with them as keepsakes.

Dobromil seated his wife in front of him on the horse and sped homewards with her. All his people were at the palace gate waiting to tell him what had happened in his absence.

It seems that the devil himself had come and before their very eyes had carried off his wife and mother-in-law. They looked at each other in amazement as Dobromil rode up with what seemed to be the same wife whom the devil had so recently carried off.

Dobromil explained to them what had happened and with one voice they called down punishment on the head of the wicked sister.

The golden spinning wheel had vanished. So Dobrunka hunted out her old one and set to work at once to spin for her husband's shirts. No one in the kingdom had such fine shirts as Dobromil and no one was happier.

THE GOLDEN G.o.dMOTHER

THE STORY OF POOR LUKAS

[Ill.u.s.tration: {A baby in a crib}]

THE GOLDEN G.o.dMOTHER

There was once a wealthy farmer named Lukas who was so careless in the management of his affairs that there came a time when all his property was gone and he had nothing left but one old tumble-down cottage. Then when it was too late he realized how foolish he had been.

He had always prayed for a child but during the years of his prosperity G.o.d had never heard him. Now when he was so poor that he had nothing to eat, his wife gave birth to a little daughter. He looked at the poor unwelcome little stranger and sighed, for he didn't know how he was going to take care of it.

The first thing to be thought about was the christening. Lukas went to the wife of a laborer who lived nearby and asked her to be G.o.dmother.

She refused because she didn't see that it would do her any good to be G.o.dmother to a child of a man as poor as Lukas.

"You see, Lukas, what happens to a man who has wasted his property,"

his wife said. "While we were rich the burgomaster himself was our friend, but now even that poverty-stricken woman won't raise a finger to help us.... See how the poor infant shivers, for I haven't even any old rags in which to wrap it! And it has to lie on the bare straw! G.o.d have mercy on us, how poor we are!" So she wept over the baby, covering it with tears and kisses.

Suddenly a happy thought came to her. She wiped away her tears and said to her husband:

"I beg you, Lukas, go to our old neighbor, the burgomaster's wife. She is wealthy. I'm sure she hasn't forgotten that I was G.o.dmother to her child. Go and ask her if she will be G.o.dmother to mine."

"I don't think she will," Lukas answered, "but I'll ask her."

With a heavy heart he went by the fields and the barns that had once been his own and entered the house of his old friend, the burgomaster.

"G.o.d bless you, neighbor," he said to the burgomaster's wife. "My wife sends her greeting and bids me tell you that G.o.d has given us a little daughter whom she wants you to hold at the christening."

The burgomaster's wife looked at him and laughed in his face.

"My dear Lukas, of course I should like to do this for you, but times are hard. Nowadays a person needs every penny and it would take a good deal to help such poor beggars as you. Why don't you ask some one else? Why have you picked me out?"

"Because my wife was G.o.dmother to your child."

"Oh, that's it, is it? What you did for me at that time was a loan, was it? And now you want me to give you back as much as you gave me, eh? I'll do no such thing! If I were as generous as you used to be, I'd soon go the way you have gone. No! I shall not walk one step toward that christening!"

Without answering her, Lukas turned and went home in tears.

"You see, dear wife," he said when he got there, "it turned out as I knew it would. But don't be discouraged, for G.o.d never entirely forsakes any one. Give me the child and I myself will carry it to the christening and the first person I meet I shall take for G.o.dmother."

Weeping all the while, the wife wrapped the baby in a piece of old skirt and placed it in her husband's arms.

On the way to the chapel, Lukas came to a crossroads where he met an old woman.