The sun was shining and there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. The dusty road was filled with folk on their way to market; some in wagons, others on horses, and many on their own poor legs. It was terribly hot and there was not a scrap of shade along the road.
The farmer noticed a man who was leading a cow that was as beautiful as any cow could be; and he thought, “I’ll bet that cow gives a lot of good milk.” Then he called to the man, “Listen—you with the cow—I’d like to talk with you!” And when the other man turned around, he continued: “I know that a horse is worth more than a cow. But a cow would be more useful to me. Shall we trade?”
“Why not?” said the man.
Now here is where the story should have ended but then it wouldn’t have been worth telling. The farmer had done what he had set out to do, and so he should have turned around and gone back home with his new cow. But he thought that, since he had meant to go to the market, it was a pity to miss seeing it.
He walked quickly and the cow walked quickly, and pretty soon they had caught up with a man who was leading a sheep. It was a fine animal with a heavy coat of wool. “A sheep like that I wouldn’t mind owning,” he thought. “In the winter when it gets too cold you can always take a sheep inside with you. Besides, I don’t have enough grazing for a cow, and a sheep is satisfied with what it can find on the side of the road.” And the more he looked at the sheep, the better he liked it.
“How would you like to trade your sheep for my cow?” he finally asked. And that bargain was made.
He hadn’t gone far with his sheep when he spied a man who was sitting and resting on a big stone. He had good reason for wanting to rest: he was carrying a goose that was bigger than most ganders.
“A fine fat goose!” the farmer cried as he lifted his hat. “How pretty it would look in our pond and then Mother would have someone to give the potato peelings to. How often has she said that we ought to have a goose. And now she can have one! What about trading? I’ll give you a sheep for a goose and throw a thank you into the bargain.”
“A sheep for my goose?” said the stranger. “Why not? And you can keep your thank you, for I don’t like to drive too hard a bargain.”
The farmer tucked the goose under his arm and walked on. As he came nearer the town the traffic became greater and greater. All about him were people and animals. There wasn’t space for them all on the road; they walked in the gutters and the embankments, and even on the fields. The town’s gatekeeper had tethered his hen in his potato patch for fear that she might get frightened by all the confusion and run away. The hen’s tail was as finely feathered as a cock’s, and as she said, “Cluck! Cluck …” she winked. What that meant I cannot tell you, but I do know what the farmer thought: “That hen is as good as the minister’s best hen, the one that won the prize at the fair. I wish it were mine. A hen can always find a grain of corn by itself; besides, it can lay eggs. I think I will strike a bargain.”
From thought to action is no further than the tongue can travel in a few seconds. The gatekeeper got the goose and the farmer the white hen.
The farmer had done a lot that morning and traveled far. He was thirsty and hungry. The sun was baking hot, as if it had been hired by the innkeeper.
As he was entering the inn, the farmer collided with one of the servants, who was carrying a sack over his shoulder. “What have you got in the sack?” the farmer asked.
“Rotten apples,” the other man replied, “and I am on my way to the pigpen with them.”
“A whole sackful, what an awful lot that is! I wish Mother could see it. Last year, on our old apple tree next to the woodshed, there was only one single apple. Mother put it in the cupboard and there it lay till it was all dried up and no bigger than a walnut. ‘It makes me feel rich just to look at it,’ she used to say. Think how she would feel if she had a sackful.”
“What will you give me for it?” asked the servant.
“My hen,” the farmer replied; and the words were no sooner said than he found he had a sack of rotten apples in his hands instead of a hen.
He went into the taproom, which was crowded with people. There were butchers, farmers, merchants, horse dealers, and even a couple of Englishmen, who were so rich that their pockets were bursting with gold coins. All Englishmen like to gamble, that’s a tradition in their country. Now just listen to what happened.
The taproom was next to the kitchen, and the stove that was used for cooking extended right through the kitchen wall into the taproom. Innkeepers are economical and this kind of stove is a great saving in winter. The farmer, without giving it a thought, put his sack of apples down on the stove, and soon they began to simmer and sputter.
“Suss! Suss!” the apples said, and aroused the curiosity of one of the Englishmen.
“What’s that?” he asked.
And the farmer told him the whole story of how he had traded his horse for a cow, his cow for a sheep, his sheep for a goose, his goose for a hen, and finally the hen for a sack of rotten apples.
“Your wife will beat you with a rolling pin when you get home. She’ll raise the roof,” the Englishman commented.
“Beat me?” exclaimed the farmer. “She’ll kiss me and say that what Father does is always right.”
“I’ll make you a wager,” said the two Englishmen both at once. “A barrel of gold and a sackful of silver.”
“The barrel of gold is enough and, if I lose, I’ll fill a barrel with rotten apples and you can have Mother and me for good measure.”
“Done! Done!” cried the Englishmen, for betting is in their blood.
They hired the innkeeper’s horses and his carriage, and off they went, rotten apples and all. When they came to the farmer’s house they drove right up to the door; the old dog barked, and the farmer’s wife came out to greet them.
“Good evening, Mother,” said the farmer.
“Thank God you arrived home safely,” his wife replied.
“Well, I traded the horse.”
“Trading is a man’s business,” she said and, in spite of the strangers, she threw her arms around him.
“I traded it for a cow.”
“Thank God for the milk,” she exclaimed. “Now we’ll have both butter and cheese. That was a good bargain.”
“But I traded the cow for a sheep.”
“How clever of you,” she said happily. “We have just enough grass for a sheep; and sheep’s milk is good and the cheese is good, too. I can knit socks and a nightshirt from the wool; and I wouldn’t have been able to do anything with cow’s hair. A cow just sheds her hair and that’s all. What a wise and thoughtful husband you are!”
“But I traded the sheep for a fat goose.”
“Oh, my good husband, are we really going to have goose on St. Martin’s Eve? You are always thinking of ways to please me. We will tether the goose in the ditch and by November she’ll be even fatter.”
“I traded the goose for a hen,” he said proudly, for now he realized how very well he had done that day.
“That was a good exchange,” said the wife. “Hens lay eggs and from eggs come little chicks. Soon we shall have a real henyard and that is something I have always wanted.”
“I traded the hen for a sackful of rotten apples.”
“Now I must kiss you, my dear husband! While you were away I thought that I should like to make a fine supper for you to eat when you got home; and I decided to make an omelet with chives. I had eggs but no chives. Our neighbor, the schoolmaster, has chives; but, as all the world knows, his wife is a stingy old crow, and when I asked her whether I could borrow some chives, ‘Borrow!’ she squawked. ‘Nothing grows in your garden, not even a rotten apple.’ Now I can lend her ten rotten apples, or even a whole sackful, if she wants them. That was the best bargain of all; and now I must give you a kiss.” And she kissed him full on the mouth.
“I like that!” cried one of the Englishmen, while the other laughed. “From bad to worse, and they do not even know it! Always happy
, always contented. That was worth the money!” And they gave a barrel full of gold coins to the farmer whose wife gave him kisses instead of blows.
Yes, it pays for a wife to admit that her husband is cleverer than she is.
Well, that was that story. I heard it when I was a boy and now you have heard it too; and now you know that what Father does is always right.
107
The Snowman
“It crackles and creaks inside of me. It is so cold that it is a pleasure,” said the snowman. “When the wind bites you, then you know you’re alive. Look how the burning one gapes and stares.” By “the burning one” he meant the sun, which was just about to set. “But she can’t make me blink; I’ll stare right back at her.”
The snowman had two triangular pieces of tile for eyes, and a children’s rake for a mouth, which meant that he had teeth. His birth had been greeted by the boys with shouts of joy, to the sound of sleigh bells and the cracking of whips.
The sun set and the moon rose, full and round, beautiful in the blue evening sky.
“There she is again, just in another place. She couldn’t stay away.” The snowman thought that the sun had returned. “I guess that I have cooled her off. But now she’s welcome to stay up there, for it is pleasant with a bit of light, so that I can see. If only I knew how to move and get about, then I would go down to the lake and slide on the ice as the boys do. But I don’t know how to run.”
“Out! Out! Out!” barked the old watchdog, who was chained to his doghouse. He was hoarse and had been so ever since he had been refused entrance to the house. That was a long time ago now; but when the dog lived inside, it had lain next to the stove. “The sun will teach you to run. I saw what happened to last year’s snowman and to the one the year before last … Out! Out! Out! … They are all gone.”
“What do you mean by that, comrade?” asked the snowman. “How can that round one up there teach me to run?” By “that round one,” he meant the moon. “She ran when I looked straight into her eyes. Now she is trying to sneak back from another direction.”
“You are ignorant,” said the watchdog. “But you have only just been put together. The round one up there is called the moon. The other one is the sun and she will be back tomorrow. She will teach you how to run, right down to the lake. I’ve got a pain in my left hind leg and that means the weather is about to change.”
“I don’t understand him,” thought the snowman, “but I have a feeling that he was saying something unpleasant. The hot one—the one that was here a moment ago and then went away, the one he called the sun—is no friend of mine. Not that she’s done me any harm; it’s just a feeling I have.”
The weather did change. In the morning there was a heavy fog. During the day it lifted, the wind started to blow, and there was frost. The sun came out and what a beautiful sight it was! The hoarfrost made the forest appear like a coral reef; every tree and bush looked as if it were decked with white flowers. In the summer when they have leaves, you cannot see what intricate and lovely patterns the branches make. But now they looked like lace and were so brilliantly white that they seemed to radiate light. The weeping birch tree swayed in the wind as it did in summer. Oh, it was marvelous to see. As the sun rose higher in the sky its light grew sharper and its rays made everything appear as if it were covered with diamond dust. In the blanket of snow that lay upon the ground were large diamonds, blinking like a thousand small candles, whose light was whiter than snow.
“Isn’t it unbelievably beautiful?” said a young girl who was taking a walk in the garden with a young man. “I think it’s even lovelier now than it is in summer.” And her eyes shone, as if the beauty of the garden were reflected in them.
They stopped near the snowman to admire the forest. “And a handsome fellow like that you won’t see in the summer either,” remarked the young man, pointing to the snowman.
The girl laughed and curtsied before the snowman, then she took the young man’s hand in hers and the two of them danced across the snow, which crunched beneath their feet as if they were walking on grain.
“Who were they?” the snowman asked the dog. “You’ve been here on the farm longer than I have. Do you know them?”
“Certainly,” answered the old dog. “She has patted me and he has given me bones. I would never bite either of them.”
“Why do they walk hand in hand? I have never seen boys walk like that.”
“They are engaged,” the old dog sniffed. “Soon they will be moving into the same doghouse and will share each other’s bones.”
“Are they as important as you and I?” asked the snowman.
“They belong to the house and are our masters,” replied the dog. “You certainly know precious little, even if you were only born yesterday. I wouldn’t have believed such ignorance existed if I hadn’t heard it with my own ears. But I have both age and knowledge, and from them you acquire wisdom. I know everyone on the farm; and I have known better times, when I didn’t have to stand here, chained up and frozen to the bone.… Out! Out! Get out!”
“I love to freeze,” said the snowman. “Tell me about the time when you were young, but stop rattling your chain like that, it makes me shudder inside.”
“Out! Out!” barked the old dog. “I was a puppy once. ‘See that lovely little fellow,’ they used to say, and I slept on a velvet chair. I lay in the lap of the master of the house and had my paws wiped with embroidered handkerchiefs. They kissed me and called me a sweetheart, and their little doggy-woggy. When I grew too big to lie in a lap they gave me to the housekeeper. She had a room in the cellar.—You can look right into her window from where you are standing.—Down there I was the master. It wasn’t as nicely furnished as upstairs, but it was much more comfortable. I had my own pillow to lie on, and the housekeeper gave me just as good food and more of it. Besides, upstairs there were children and they are a plague, always picking you up, squeezing you, and hugging you, and carrying you about as if you had no legs of your own to walk on.… Then there was the stove. In winter there is nothing as lovely as a stove. When it was really cold I used to crawl all the way under it. I still dream of being there, though it’s a long time since I was there last … Out! Out! Out!”
“Is a stove a thing of beauty?” asked the snowman. “Does it look like me?”
“You’re as much alike as day and night. The stove’s as black as coal; it has a long black neck with a brass collar around it. The fire’s in the bottom. The stove lives on wood, which it eats so fast that it breathes fire out of its mouth. Ah! To lie near it or, better still, underneath it; until you have tried that you have no idea what comfort is.… You must be able to see it from where you are. That window, there, just look in.”
And the snowman did and he saw the stove: a black, polished metal figure with brass fixtures. The little door at the bottom, through which ashes could be removed, had a window in it; and the snowman could see the light from the fire. A strange feeling of sadness and joy came over him. A feeling he had never experienced before. A feeling that all human beings know, except those who are made of snow.
“Why did you leave her?” The snowman somehow felt certain that the stove was of the female sex. “How could you bear to go away from such a lovely place?”
“I had to,” answered the old watchdog. “They threw me out, put a chain around my neck, and here I am. And all I had done was to bite the youngest of the children from upstairs. I was gnawing on a bone and he took it away. A bone for a bone, I thought, and bit him in the leg. But the master and the mistress put all the blame on me. And ever since then I have been chained. The dampness has spoiled my voice. Can’t you hear how hoarse I am? … Out! Out! Get out! … And that is the end of my story.”
The snowman, who had stopped listening to the watchdog, was staring with longing through the cellar window into the housekeeper’s room, where the stove stood on its four black legs. “She is exactly the same height as I am,” he thought.
“It creaks so strangely
inside of me,” the snowman muttered. “Shall I never be able to go down into the cellar and be in the same room with her? Isn’t it an innocent wish, and shouldn’t innocent wishes be granted? It is my greatest, my most earnest, my only wish! And it would be a terrible injustice if it were never fulfilled! I shall get in, even if I have to break the window to do it.”
“You will never get down into the cellar,” the old dog said. “And if you did manage it, then the stove would make sure that you were out in a minute.… Out! Out!”
“I am almost out already!” cried the snowman. “I feel as if I were about to break in two.”
All day long the snowman gazed through the window. In the evening the housekeeper’s room seemed even more inviting. The light from the stove was so soft. It was not like the moonlight or the sunlight “Only a stove can glow like that,” he thought. Every so often, when the top door of the stove was opened to put more wood in, the bright flames would shoot out, and the blaze would reflect through the window and make the snowman blush from the neck up.
“It’s more than I can bear!” he exclaimed. “See how beautiful she is when she sticks out her tongue.”
The night was long, but not for the snowman, who was daydreaming happily. Besides, it was so cold that everything seemed to tingle.
In the morning the cellar window was frozen; the most beautiful white flowers decorated the glass, which the snowman did not appreciate because they hid the stove from his view. It was so cold that the windows couldn’t thaw and the running nose on the water pump in the yard grew an icicle. It was just the kind of weather to put a snowman in the best of moods, but it didn’t Why, it was almost a duty to be content with weather like that; but he wasn’t. He was miserable. He was suffering from “stove-yearning.”