III

Now it happened at this time, when all Dame Grumble's troubles seemed too many to be borne, that the good dame and her son enjoyed a visitor.

Visitors in that country quite close to the top of the earth were very rare, you may be sure. This visitor was not an ordinary sort of person; far from that was he, indeed. Because he journeyed ceaselessly about the earth and was well known to folk of many lands, he was called the Traveler. But though he roamed thus everywhere, the Traveler seemed never bound for any certain land or country but went his ways just as the winds of heaven went theirs. The Traveler never remained long in any city or village, nevertheless he stayed long enough to do a kindness for some sad one, or to help some poor one on his way. Few people ever could agree about his age; the old thought him young, and the young thought him old. However, young and old alike agreed that the Traveler seemed possessed of magic powers to banish cares and troubles. Wherever he found quarrels and spites, he left love and kindliness; where he found envy, he left content; where he went once, the Traveler always found a warm welcome awaiting him on his return.

What was the secret source of the Traveler's n.o.ble qualities was a mystery to all folk. Some said the Traveler kept his cheerful spirit because of a certain great cloak that he always wore. This cloak, they said, was made of wool woven from the fleece of fairy sheep and had great powers of happiness. Others said that in a far-off country the Traveler had drunk deeply of a certain magic well, the waters of which were said to bless one with a kindly heart forevermore. Still others thought the Traveler's power over cares and sorrow lay in the plain wood staff he always carried. But though the secret of his soothing charm was thus uncertain, certain it was that the Traveler paid a visit to Dame Grumble and her son one chill autumn evening, and the story of it all is this:

It happened one day, as the Traveler was walking along the road that led up to the country quite close to the top of the earth, he chanced to meet the North Wind. Now the North Wind loved to tease and play his tricks on every one, and so he seized the Traveler's hat and blew it five fields off; he swept stinging dust into his eyes and wrapped his cloak so tightly around him that but for his staff the Traveler would have stumbled. Though he was so bothered and annoyed, the Traveler did not complain. He loosed his cloak and wiped his eyes of the dust, then once again he set upon his way.

"Ah," said the Traveler, "it is a strong wind that blows here; but how clean the road is swept in consequence! It is also a good wind."

The North Wind had expected blame instead of praise and was abashed. So straightway he brought back the hat, and then he blew gently in the direction which would best suit the Traveler's footsteps. So it was that this visitor knocked at Dame Grumble's cottage one evening just at candlelight. The Traveler begged her hospitality, and Dame Grumble bade him enter. She placed a chair before the hearth and began to prepare a supper for him. All the while she complained most bitterly that she should thus receive a guest in her kitchen. When she set forth the supper, Dame Grumble sighed because the bread was brown instead of white.

"Never sigh, Dame Grumble!" urged the Traveler with his kindly smile.

"Seldom have I seen a pleasanter kitchen, and never have I eaten better fare. Your brown bread is fit for a king, and your broth would give courage to a weary army!"

"That is all very well for you to say, good sir," replied Dame Grumble sulkily, "but you do not know all my troubles." She did not often find one to give ear to her tale of sorrow, and if the Traveler would, Dame Grumble meant that he should hear her. Above all else in the world, Dame Grumble loved to talk about her woes.

"Then perhaps after supper, when you sit before the fire, you will tell me of your troubles, good dame," said the Traveler. You may be sure Dame Grumble agreed. Indeed, so eager was she to begin that she hummed a lively tune to hasten her work. At the unusual sound of his mother's singing, Freyo left his bench to learn the cause of it. When he saw the Traveler, he greeted him with warmth.

"We do not often have a visitor, good sir," said he, "so I shall leave my work and join you by the fireside."

"But first," exclaimed the Traveler, "you must let me see this work of yours; you must dearly love it, thus to be about it after darkness has fallen and all men sit to take their ease."

"Good sir," replied Freyo, "my work is wood carving, and I do love it better than the whole world!"

The Traveler regarded the great chests and clock-cases with deep admiration and begged Freyo to tell him of his work; of whom he had learned his skill; and whence his designs had come. To these questions Freyo replied that he did not know, he supposed he had taught himself.

"Good sir," said he, "some folk make pictures on a canvas with bright colored oils and brilliant paints, and other folk make pictures with fair words, as they tell wonder tales. I have not skill like those, but I have dreamed bright dreams and have loved to sit and carve my dreams upon my chests of oak and walnut wood. Think you that my skill is fair or that my pictures would please aught beside myself, who carved them?"

"I have no words to tell you how high I hold your skill," declared the Traveler, "and as for the pictures you have carved in wood, they would delight a queen or please a king as well. They are truly lovely."

"Then, good sir," replied Freyo, "to the Apple Tree that stands before our door you must give all this praise. The summer before the summer that has just pa.s.sed, this good tree of her own accord did give me her two stoutest branches, from which I made a pair of crutches. Then I could wander in the woods from dawn till dark, and hear the birds sing songs the whole day long. 'T was then I learned to dream my finest dreams; it was like heaven, sir!" The poor lad sighed in memory of the happy time, and before he could say more, Dame Grumble interrupted. The good dame could no longer restrain her tongue or her impatience, it seemed.

"Now, good sir!" cried she, "you have heard my son; you must hear me.

The Apple Tree was not an ordinary tree, as my son knew very well! He did wrong to cut the smallest twig whilst I was gone.

"Each year, when the cuckoo came calling in the spring, there was no finer sight in all the world than the Apple Tree. So thick was it with blossoms that scarce a branch or twig could be seen. Its fragrance floated on the breeze, drawing every bee and b.u.t.terfly for leagues and leagues about. Surely with such a tree I might look for a bounteous harvest, one would think. But, alas! No sooner was the Apple Tree thus decked like a bride than my wicked enemy, the North Wind, would come and blow these blossoms far away. But mark you now the wonder of my tale: a few blossoms would sometimes fall beneath the tree, and when they fell they made a c.h.i.n.king sound like that of small coins in children's banks.

When they had withered, I always found bright, new shining pennies where they had lain.

"Now from this curious fact I have believed that when the Apple Tree would bear fruit, the apples would be of gold. If young and tender blossoms yield bright, new shining pennies, does it not follow that the ripened fruit should be of purest gold?"

"It would seem so, good dame," agreed the Traveler. "What then were the apples--silver, perhaps?"

"Indeed sir, no!" replied Dame Grumble with deep feeling. "For all I know, in cutting off the branches of my favorite tree, my wicked son bewitched it. For though the Apple Tree bore fruit this year, it bore naught but red apples of a common sort; I scorn to gather them!

"Oh, Oh!" wept Dame Grumble, bursting into tears once again at the memory of her loss. "Thus to have my own son so wicked and disobedient, whilst I, footsore and weary, was seeking for the fortune in pennies which the North Wind had stolen from me these many years! It is too much! I am sure, good sir, you will agree that I have many troubles, and that it is not right to call me Dame Grumble because I sometimes speak of them."

"I had rather agree that you have also many blessings, good dame,"

returned the Traveler, with his kindly smile. "Come, let us draw our chairs before the hearth, and perhaps you may learn to see them too.

There is nothing that does so help us see our blessings as the bright flames dancing up the chimney when all the world without is dark and cold."

But ere she sat down, Dame Grumble recollected yet another grievance.

"And added to my other troubles," she complained, "I have a son who is lame and must be always a burden instead of a staff."

The Traveler nodded gravely. "That is a sorrow, I agree," said he, "and I have no doubt, good dame, that your motherly heart must often ache with the pity of it all."

To this Dame Grumble made no reply; she began to think instead. For years her mind had been so busy with the plans for her blossoms and her golden harvest that it had quite forgotten how to think of aught else.

As for her heart, it ached only when she thought of the fortune in pennies that the North Wind had stolen from her, and that she had not found.

"Then too, Dame Grumble," continued the Traveler, "I must tell you that I think the North Wind no more than a rough playful fellow, and not wicked as you say. Only this afternoon he stole my hat and ran away with it, but before I had gone twenty yards, the amiable fellow had brought it back to me again. And since he blew me to your cottage door, I will henceforth claim the North Wind for my friend."

"Then since it was the North Wind that brought you to our door, I will no longer call him my enemy, but instead will call him my friend also,"

declared Dame Grumble with a smile. In the firelight her face suddenly looked so sweet and gentle that Freyo sighed deeply. Dame Grumble heard the sigh, and asked her son the cause of it.

"I sighed because I wished you would smile often, Mother," replied the lad. "You looked so sweet and pleasant."

"And now," began the Traveler, "since we are all so happy, let us begin to think about the good dame's difficulties,--the fortune in pennies which she sought and could not find, the precious blossoms which the North Wind blows away each spring, and the Apple Tree which should have borne apples of gold, but which bore red apples instead. For these three evils we must find a remedy without delay."

Now all the while she had been sitting with the Traveler by the fireside, because of his magic power, Dame Grumble had been thinking busily. Not of fortunes or of golden apples, or yet of red apples either; instead, quite to her own surprise, she was thinking of how wearied she had grown of all these things. She wished suddenly that she would never hear of them again. Judge then of her son's astonishment when she answered the Traveler in the following fashion:

"Good sir, although I sat me down to talk about my troubles, now that I have told them, they seem light and trifling; I am indeed amazed that I have heeded them at all! Though for years and years I have quarreled with the North Wind because he robbed me of a fortune, I seem suddenly to care no longer for fortunes or gold or riches, or any such.

"For as I peer into the flames, it comes to my mind that there are many in this world not so blessed as I. Many a one is hungry and has naught to eat, while my larder is filled; some are cold whilst I sit in comfort before a fire of pine knots that sputter and glow. I see now that I have many blessings." Dame Grumble did not know she had these thoughts because of the Traveler.

"Ah!" cried the Traveler, "did I not say the blazing logs helped one to see one's blessings, and was I not right?"

"I have often fancied that was so, good sir," agreed Freyo, "and now, since my mother no longer wishes to talk about her troubles, perhaps you will tell us tales of your journeys; you are a traveler and have seen far distant lands."

"Pray do, good sir!" begged Dame Grumble too. "It is long since my son and I have heard tales of any sort. Also from your great wisdom I have a notion that we shall be highly entertained."

So the Traveler told them tales of other lands. He told of strange birds with bright-hued feathers of such great length that they swept upon the ground like queens' trains. He told of burning mountains and of fiery lakes, of lovely flowers blooming in the snow, and gardens that grew underneath the sea. The wind without howled dismally; within, the flames leaped high and made queer elfin shadows to dance on the walls; the clock ticked off the minutes into hours, but still Dame Grumble and her son sat listening, wrapt in wonder. At last the candles snuffed out, and naught but the back log smoldered and glowed in the darkness.

"Now good sir," cried Dame Grumble, "I am sure you must be weary." She bade him take the best room, but the Traveler refused. The comfortable chair in which he sat was all he needed, he declared, and he bade the good dame and her son good night.

When they awakened next morning, he had gone; but on the chair they found his staff. Fastened to the staff there was a note which bade Freyo use it in place of the crutches, and said when he had no longer need for it to give it to some other one that had.

"Mother," said Freyo, when he had read the note over and over again, "would this not seem to say that I might one day walk without the aid of either crutch or staff? What think you of it?"

"It would seem so, my son," replied the dame, "and then how happy I would be!"

A knock at the door startled them both. Dame Grumble, thinking it was the Traveler returned, hastened to open; but it was not he. It was a king's herald dressed in scarlet satin and silver laces.

"I am the herald of King Silversword," said he. He bowed low to Dame Grumble as though she were a d.u.c.h.ess.

"And I am Dame Grumble, at His Majesty's service," answered Dame Grumble, with a bow equally fine.

"Then hearken to my message," began the herald. He unrolled a scroll of parchment, set thick with king's seals and written all in silver letters, and read the following proclamation:

"Know ye that the apple crop of the whole world has failed. From north to south, from east to west, there is not one apple to be found, nay not for a king's ransom. Now that of itself could be borne, none the less, for apples be great luxuries. However, the little Princess Silverstar, the only daughter of King Silversword and Queen Silverland, has fallen ill and craves constantly for red apples. The doctors and the medical men hold no hope for her recovery unless she has to eat the fruit she craves. Wherefore, if good Dame Grumble will sell a dozen or more red apples to His Majesty, King Silversword, she may name any sum of gold or portions of rich jewels in payment; nay, whether she demand both gold and jewels, or even His Majesty's entire fortune, it shall be hers in exchange for her red apples."