Zigzag Journeys in Northern Lands by Hezekiah Butterworth (fiction books to read .txt) 📕
- Author: Hezekiah Butterworth
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Ran? What wonderful slippers those were! He had only to say to them, “Go!” and they would impel him forward with the rapidity of the wind. They seemed to him like wings.
“I will become a courier,” said Little Mook, “and so make my fortune, sure.”
So Little Mook went to the palace in order to apply to the king.
He first met the messenger-in-ordinary.
“What!” said he, “you want to be the king’s messenger,—you with your little feet and great slippers!”
“Will you allow me to make a trial of speed with your swiftest runner?” asked Little Mook.
The messenger-in-ordinary told the king about the little man and his application.
“We will have some fun with him,” said the king. “Let him run a race with my first messenger for the sport of the court.”
So it was arranged that Little Mook should try his speed with the swiftest messenger.
Now the king’s runner was a very tall man. His legs were very long and slender; he had little flesh on his body. He walked with wonderful swiftness, looking like a windmill as he strode forward. He was the telegraph of his times, and the king was very proud of him.
The next day the king, who loved a jest, summoned his court to a meadow to witness the race, and to see what the bumptious pygmy could do. Everybody was on tiptoe of expectation, being sure that something amusing would follow.
When Little Mook appeared he bowed to the spectators, who laughed at him. When the signal was given for the two to start, Little Mook allowed the runner to go ahead of him for a little time, but when the latter drew near the king’s seat he passed him, to the wonder of all the people, and easily won the race.
The king was delighted, the princess waved her veil, and the people all shouted, “Huzza for Little Mook!”
So Little Mook became the royal messenger, and surpassed all the runners in the world with his magic slippers.
But Little Mook’s great success with his magic slippers excited envy, and made him bitter enemies, and at last the king himself came to believe the stories of his enemies, and turned against him and banished him from his kingdom.
Little Mook wandered away, sore at heart, and as friendless as when he had left home and the house of the old woman. Just beyond the confines of the kingdom he came to a grove of fig-trees full of fruit.
He stopped to rest and refresh himself with the fruit. There were two trees that bore the finest figs he had ever seen. He gathered some figs from one of them, but as he was eating them his nose and ears began to grow, and when he looked down into a clear, pure stream near by, he saw that his head had been changed into a head like a donkey.
He sat down under the other fig-tree in despair. At last he took up a fig that had fallen from this tree, and ate it. Immediately his nose and ears became smaller and smaller and resumed their natural shape. Then he perceived that the trees bore magic fruit.
“Happy thought!” said Little Mook. “I will go back to the palace and sell the fruit of the first tree to the royal household, and then I will turn doctor, and give the donkeys the fruit of the second tree as medicine. But I will not give the old king any medicine.”
Little Mook gathered the two kinds of figs, and returned to the palace and sold that of the first tree to the butler.
Oh, then there was woe in the palace! The king’s family were seen wandering around with donkeys’ heads on their shoulders. Their noses and ears were as long as their arms. The physicians were sent for and they held a consultation. They decided on amputation; but as fast as they cut off the noses and ears of the afflicted household, these troublesome members grew out again, longer than before.
Then Little Mook appeared with the principles and remedies of homœopathy. He gave one by one of the sufferers the figs of the second tree, and they were cured. He collected his fees, and having relieved all but the king he fled, taking his homœopathic arts with him. The king wore the head of a donkey to his latest day.
THE QUEER OLD LADY WHO WENT TO COLLEGE.She bought her a new mirror,
And it told to her the truth.
Did she break the truthful mirror?
Oh, no, no; no, no, no, no.
But she bought some stays quite rare,
Some false teeth and wavy hair,
Some convex-concave glasses such as men of culture wear,
And then she looked again,
And she said, “I am not plain,—
I am not plain, ’tis plain,
Not very, very plain,
I did not think that primps and crimps
Would change a body so.
I’ll take a book on Art,
And press it to my heart,
And I’ll straightway go to college,
Where I think I’ll catch a beau.”
“And it told to her the truth.”
“Not very, very plain.”
And she asked for the Professor of the new philosophie;
He met her with a smile
And said, “Pray rest awhile,
And come into my parlor and take a cup of tea.
We will talk of themes celestial,—
Of the flowery nights in June
When blow the gentle zephyrs;
Of the circle round the moon;
Of the causes of the causes.”
These college men are quite and very much polite,
And when you call upon them they you straightway in invite.
“They you straightway in invite.”
And she said, “You me confuse;
I have come, O man of wisdom,
To get a bit of news.
There’s a problem of life’s problems
That often puzzles me:
Tell me true, O man of Science,
When my wedding-day will be.”
He of the philosophie,
And his answer greatly pleased her
When they had taken tea:
“’Twill be, my fair young lady,
When you are twenty-three!”
Then she waited happy hours,
Scanned the byways and the highways
To see what she could see.
If the postman brought a letter,
It was sure to greatly fret her,—
Fret her so her maid she’d frighten,
If a dun it proved to be.
If it came not from a lover,
Sadly she her face would cover,
Hide her face and say in sorrow,
“Truly he will come to-morrow,
For he knew, that man of science,
And I’m almost twenty-three.”
Oh, that too kind man deceived her,—
He of compasses and lenses,
He of new-found influences,
He of the philosophie.
Oh the chatterer, oh the flatterer,
Oh the smatterer in science,
To whom all things clear should be!
Had he taken the old almanac,
That true guide to worldly wisdom,
He would have seen that there was something—
Some stray figure, some lost factor,
Something added the extractor—
Wrong in his chronologie,
In his learned chronologie.
In the earth, the air, and sea,
That the schoolmen do not know.
When you’re going to catch a beau,
And a few like occultations,
In a few things here below,
Men of wisdom do not know;
And to them for these few items
It is never wise to go.
“HE OF THE PHILOSOPHIE.”
CHAPTER IX. FIFTH MEETING FOR RHINE STORIES.Seven Nights on the Rhine:—Worms.—Luther’s Monument.—The Story of Siegfried and the Dragon.—Mayence.—Boat Journey.—Stories of the Castles on the Middle Rhine.—The Wonderful Story of the Lorelei.—Kerner.
MR. BEAL continued the narrative of travel at the fifth meeting of the Club for the rehearsal of Rhine stories.
“We passed over a road along the right bank of the Rhine towards Worms. We journeyed amid green forests, and past fields which had heaped up harvests for a thousand years. Spires gleamed on the opposite bank, and in the flat landscape Worms came to view, the Rhine flowing calmly by.
“We stopped at Worms to see the cathedral and the Luther Monument. It is a dull town. We recalled that it was here great Cæsar stood, and Attila drove his cavalry of devastation over the Rhine. Here lived the hero of German classic song,—Siegfried. The cathedral has a monumental history. In 772 war was declared in it against the Saxons. Here was held the famous Diet of Worms at which Luther appeared, and said,—
“‘Here I stand; I cannot do otherwise. God help me.’
“The cathedral is of the style called Romanesque. It is lofty and gloomy. Worms itself is a shadowy and silent city as compared with the past.
“The Luther Monument is a history of Protestantism in stone and bronze. It is one of the noblest works of art of modern times, and its majesty and unity are a surprise to the traveller. Luther is of course the central figure. He stands with his Bible in his hands, and his face upturned to heaven. Around him are the figures of the great reformers before the Reformation: Wycliffe, of England; Waldo, of France; Huss, of Bohemia; and Savonarola, of Italy. The German princes who befriended and sustained the Reformer occupy conspicuous places, and the immense group presents a most impressive scene, associated with lofty character and commanding talent.
A BATTLE BETWEEN FRANKS AND SAXONS.
“We went to the place where Luther sat beneath a tree, when his companions sought to dissuade him from entering Worms.
“‘I would go to Worms,’ he said, ‘were there as many devils as there are tiles upon the roofs.’
“The high pitched roofs and innumerable tiles on them everywhere met our eyes, and recalled the famous declaration.
LUTHER’S HOUSE.
“I should here tell you the
STORY OF SIEGFRIED AND THE NIBELUNG HEROES.The early nations of Europe seem to have come out of the northwest of Asia. The Celts or Gauls came first; other tribes followed them. These latter tribes called themselves Deutsch, or the people. They settled between the Alps and the Baltic Sea. In time they came to be called Ger-men, or war-men. They lived in rude huts and held the lands in common. They were strong and brave and prosperous.
A TRIBE OF GERMANS ON AN EXPEDITION.
They worshipped the great god Woden. His day of worship was the fourth of the week; hence Woden’s-day, or Wednesday.
Woden was an all-wise god. Ravens carried to him the news from earth. His temples
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