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THE CHRISTMAS CUCKOO
BY FRANCES BROWNE (ADAPTED)
Once upon a time there stood in the midst of a
bleak moor, in the North Country, a certain village.
All its inhabitants were poor, for their fields
were barren, and they had little trade; but the
poorest of them all were two brothers called Scrub
and Spare, who followed the cobbler's craft.
Their hut was built of clay and wattles. The door
was low and always open, for there was no
window. The roof did not entirely keep out the rain
and the only thing comfortable was a wide fireplace,
for which the brothers could never find
wood enough to make sufficient fire. There they
worked in most brotherly friendship, though with
little encouragement.
On one unlucky day a new cobbler arrived in
the village. He had lived in the capital city of the
kingdom and, by his own account, cobbled for the
queen and the princesses. His awls were sharp,
his lasts were new; he set up his stall in a neat
cottage with two windows. The villagers soon
found out that one patch of his would outwear
two of the brothers'. In short, all the mending
left Scrub and Spare, and went to the new cobbler.
The season had been wet and cold, their barley
did not ripen well, and the cabbages never half-
closed in the garden. So the brothers were poor
that winter, and when Christmas came they had
nothing to feast on but a barley loaf and a piece of
rusty bacon. Worse than that, the snow was very
deep and they could get no firewood.
Their hut stood at the end of the village;
beyond it spread the bleak moor, now all white and
silent. But that moor had once been a forest;
great roots of old trees were still to be found in it,
loosened from the soil and laid bare by the winds
and rains. One of these, a rough, gnarled log, lay
hard by their door, the half of it above the snow,
and Spare said to his brother:--
``Shall we sit here cold on Christmas while the
great root lies yonder? Let us chop it up for
firewood, the work will make us warm.''
``No,'' said Scrub, ``it's not right to chop wood
on Christmas; besides, that root is too hard to be
broken with any hatchet.''
``Hard or not, we must have a fire,'' replied
Spare. ``Come, brother, help me in with it. Poor
as we are there is nobody in the village will have
such a yule log as ours.''
Scrub liked a little grandeur, and, in hopes of
having a fine yule log, both brothers strained and
strove with all their might till, between pulling
and pushing, the great old root was safe on the
hearth, and beginning to crackle and blaze with
the red embers.
In high glee the cobblers sat down to their
bread and bacon. The door was shut, for there
was nothing but cold moonlight and snow outside;
but the hut, strewn with fir boughs and ornamented
with holly, looked cheerful as the ruddy
blaze flared up and rejoiced their hearts.
Then suddenly from out the blazing root they
heard: ``Cuckoo! cuckoo!'' as plain as ever the
spring-bird's voice came over the moor on a May
morning.
``What is that?'' said Scrub, terribly
frightened; ``it is something bad!''
``Maybe not,'' said Spare.
And out of the deep hole at the side of the root,
which the fire had not reached, flew a large, gray
cuckoo, and lit on the table before them. Much
as the cobblers had been surprised, they were still
more so when it said:--
``Good gentlemen, what season is this?''
``It's Christmas,'' said Spare.
``Then a merry Christmas to you!'' said the
cuckoo. ``I went to sleep in the hollow of that old
root one evening last summer, and never woke till
the heat of your fire made me think it was summer
again. But now since you have burned my
lodging, let me stay in your hut till the spring
comes round,--I only want a hole to sleep in,
and when I go on my travels next summer be
assured I will bring you some present for your
trouble.''
``Stay and welcome,'' said Spare, while Scrub
sat wondering if it were something bad or not.
``I'll make you a good warm hole in the
thatch,'' said Spare. ``But you must be hungry
after that long sleep,--here is a slice of barley
bread. Come help us to keep Christmas!''
The cuckoo ate up the slice, drank water from a
brown jug, and flew into a snug hole which Spare
scooped for it in the thatch of the hut.
Scrub said he was afraid it wouldn't be lucky;
but as it slept on and the days passed he forgot
his fears.
So the snow melted, the heavy rains came,
the cold grew less, the days lengthened, and one
sunny morning the brothers were awakened by
the cuckoo shouting its own cry to let them know
the spring had come.
``Now I'm going on my travels,'' said the
bird, ``over the world to tell men of the spring.
There is no country where trees bud, or flowers
bloom, that I will not cry in before the year goes
round. Give me another slice of barley bread to
help me on my journey, and tell me what present
I shall bring you at the twelvemonth's end.''
Scrub would have been angry with his brother
for cutting so large a slice, their store of barley
being low, but his mind was occupied with what
present it would be most prudent to ask for.
``There are two trees hard by the well that lies
at the world's end,'' said the cuckoo; ``one of
them is called the golden tree, for its leaves are all
of beaten gold. Every winter they fall into the
well with a sound like scattered coin, and I know
not what becomes of them. As for the other, it is
always green like a laurel. Some call it the wise,
and some the merry, tree. Its leaves never fall,
but they that get one of them keep a blithe heart
in spite of all misfortunes, and can make themselves
as merry in a hut as in a palace.''
``Good master cuckoo, bring me a leaf off that
tree!'' cried Spare.
``Now, brother, don't be a fool!'' said Scrub;
``think of the leaves of beaten gold! Dear master
cuckoo, bring me one of them!''
Before another word could be spoken the
cuckoo had flown out of the open door, and was
shouting its spring cry over moor and meadow.
The brothers were poorer than ever that year.
Nobody would send them a single shoe to mend,
and Scrub and Spare would have left the village
but for their barley-field and their cabbage-
garden. They sowed their barley, planted their
cabbage, and, now that their trade was gone,
worked in the rich villagers' fields to make out a
scanty living.
So the seasons came and passed; spring,
summer, harvest, and winter followed each other as
they have done from the beginning. At the end of
the latter Scrub and Spare had grown so poor and
ragged that their old neighbors forgot to invite
them to wedding feasts or merrymakings, and the
brothers thought the cuckoo had forgotten them,
too, when at daybreak on the first of April they
heard a hard beak knocking at their door, and a
voice crying:--
``Cuckoo! cuckoo! Let me in with my presents!''
Spare ran to open the door, and in came the
cuckoo, carrying on one side of its bill a golden
leaf larger than that of any tree in the North
Country; and in the other side of its bill, one like
that of the common laurel, only it had a fresher
green.
``Here,'' it said, giving the gold to Scrub and
the green to Spare, ``it is a long carriage from the
world's end. Give me a slice of barley bread, for I
must tell the North Country that the spring has
come.''
Scrub did not grudge the thickness of that slice,
though it was cut from their last loaf. So much
gold had never been in the cobbler's hands before,
and he could not help exulting over his brother.
``See the wisdom of my choice,'' he said,
holding up the large leaf of gold. ``As for yours, as
good might be plucked from any hedge, I wonder
a sensible bird would carry the like so far.''
``Good master cobbler,'' cried the cuckoo,
finishing its slice, ``your conclusions are more
hasty than courteous. If your brother is
disappointed this time, I go on the same journey every
year, and for your hospitable entertainment will
think it no trouble to bring each of you whichever
leaf you desire.''
``Darling cuckoo,'' cried Scrub, ``bring me a
golden one.''
And Spare, looking up from the green leaf on
which he gazed as though it were a crown-jewel,
said:--
``Be sure to bring me one from the merry tree.''
And away flew the cuckoo.
``This is the feast of All Fools, and it ought to
be your birthday,'' said Scrub. ``Did ever man
fling away such an opportunity of getting rich?
Much good your merry leaves will do in the
midst of rags and poverty!''
But Spare laughed at him, and answered with
quaint old proverbs concerning the cares that
come with gold, till Scrub, at length getting
angry, vowed his brother was not fit to live with a
respectable man; and taking his lasts, his awls,
and his golden leaf, he left the wattle hut, and
went to tell the villagers.
They were astonished at the folly of Spare, and
charmed with Scrub's good sense, particularly
when he showed them the golden leaf, and told
that the cuckoo would bring him one every spring.
The new cobbler immediately took him into
partnership; the greatest people sent him their
shoes to mend. Fairfeather, a beautiful village
maiden, smiled graciously upon him; and in the
course of that summer they were married, with a
grand wedding feast, at which the whole village
danced except Spare, who was not invited, because
the bride could not bear his low-mindedness,
and his brother thought him a disgrace to the
family.
As for Scrub he established himself with
Fairfeather in a cottage close by that of the new
cobbler, and quite as fine. There he mended shoes to
everybody's satisfaction, had a scarlet coat and a
fat goose for dinner on holidays. Fairfeather, too,
had a crimson gown, and fine blue ribbons; but
neither she nor Scrub was content, for to buy this
grandeur the golden leaf had to be broken and
parted With piece by piece, so the last morsel was
gone before the cuckoo came with another.
Spare lived on in the old hut, and worked in the
cabbage-garden. (Scrub had got the barley-field
because he was the elder.) Every day his coat
grew more ragged, and the hut more weather-
beaten; but people remarked that he never
looked sad or sour. And the wonder was that,
from the time any one began to keep his company,
he or she grew kinder, happier, and content.
Every first of April the cuckoo came tapping at
their doors with the golden leaf for Scrub, and the
green for Spare. Fairfeather would have entertained
it nobly with wheaten bread and honey,
for she had some notion of persuading it to bring
two golden leaves instead of one; but the cuckoo
flew away to eat barley bread with Spare, saying
it was not fit company for fine people, and liked
the old hut where it slept so snugly from Christmas
till spring.
Scrub spent the golden leaves, and remained
always discontented; and Spare kept the merry
ones.
I do not know how many years passed in this
manner, when a certain great lord, who owned
that village, came to the neighborhood. His
castle stood on the moor. It was ancient and
strong, with high towers and a deep moat. All
the country as far as one could see from the highest
turret belonged to its lord; but he had not been
there for twenty years, and would not have come
then only he was melancholy. And there he lived
in a very bad temper. The servants said nothing
would please him, and the villagers put on their
worst clothes lest he should raise their rents.
But one day in the harvest-time His Lordship
chanced to meet Spare gathering water-cresses at
a meadow stream, and fell into talk with the
cobbler. How it was nobody could tell, but from that
hour the great lord cast away his melancholy. He
forgot all his woes, and went about with a noble
train, hunting, fishing, and making merry in his
hall, where all travelers were entertained, and all
the poor were welcome.
This strange story spread through the North
Country, and great company came to the cobbler's
hut,--rich men who had lost their money,
poor men who had lost their friends, beauties who
had grown old, wits who had gone out of fashion,
--all came to talk with Spare, and, whatever
their troubles had been, all went home merry.
The rich gave him presents, the poor gave him
thanks. Spare's coat ceased to be ragged, he had
bacon with his cabbage, and the villagers began
to think there was some sense in him.
By this time his fame had reached the capital
city, and even the court. There were a great
many discontented people there; and the king
had lately fallen into ill humor because a
neighboring princess, with seven islands for her dowry,
would not marry his eldest son.
So a royal messenger was sent to Spare, with a
velvet mantle, a diamond ring, and a command
that he should repair to court immediately.
``To-morrow is the first of April,'' said Spare,
``and I will go with you two hours after sunrise.''
The messenger lodged all night at the castle,
and the cuckoo came at sunrise with the merry
leaf.
``Court is a fine place,'' it said, when the
cobbler told it he was going, ``but I cannot come
there; they would lay snares and catch me; so be
careful of the leaves I have brought you, and give
me a farewell slice of barley bread.''
Spare was sorry to part with the cuckoo, little
as he had of its company, but he gave it a slice
which would have broken Scrub's heart in former
times, it was so thick and large. And having
sewed up the leaves in the lining of his leather
doublet, he set out with the messenger on his way
to court.
His coming caused great surprise there.
Everybody wondered what the king could see in such
a common-looking man; but scarcely had His
Majesty conversed with him half an hour, when
the princess and her seven islands were forgotten
and orders given that a feast for all comers should
be spread in the banquet hall.
The princes of the blood, the great lords and
ladies, the ministers of state, after that discoursed
with Spare, and the more they talked the lighter
grew their hearts, so that such changes had never
been seen at court.
The lords forgot their spites and the ladies their
envies, the princes and ministers made friends
among themselves, and the judges showed no
favor.
As for Spare, he had a chamber assigned him in
the palace, and a seat at the king's table. One
sent him rich robes, and another costly jewels; but
in the midst of all his grandeur he still wore the
leathern doublet, and continued to live at the
king's court, happy and honored, and making all
others merry and content. |
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