Twilight Land by Howard Pyle (black authors fiction txt) 📕

his hand upon was the one in which the money was hidden, and off he marched with it under his arm, without so much as saying thank you.

“I wonder,” said he to himself, after he had jogged along awhile—“I wonder whether the rich man is up to another trick such as he played upon me yesterday?” He put the loaf of bread to his ear and shook it and shook it, and what should he hear but the chink of the money within. “Ah ha!” said he, “he has filled it with rusty nails and bits of iron again, but I will get the better of him this time.”

By-and-by he met a poor woman coming home from market. “Would you like to buy a fine fresh loaf of bread?” said the beggar.

“Yes, I would,” said the woman.

“Well, here is one you may have for two pennies,” said the beggar.

That was cheap enough, so the woman paid him his price and off she went with the loaf of bread under her arm, and never stopped until she had come to her home.

Now it happened that the day before this very woman had borrowed just such a loaf of bread from the rich man’s wife; and so, as there was plenty in the house without it, she wrapped this loaf up in a napkin, and sent her husband back with it to where it had started from first of all.

“Well,” said the rich man to his wife, “the way of Heaven is not to be changed.” And so he laid the money on the shelf until he who had given it to him should come again, and thought no more of giving it to the beggar.

At the end of seven days the king called upon the rich man again, and this time he came in his own guise as a real king. “Well,” said he, “is the poor man the richer for his money?”

“No,” said the rich man, “he is not;” and then he told the whole story from beginning to end just as I have told it.

“Your father was right,” said the king; “and what he said was very true—Much shall have more and little shall have less.’ Keep the bag of money for yourself, for there Heaven means it to stay.”

And maybe there is as much truth as poetry in this story.

And now it was the turn of the Blacksmith who had made Death sit in his pear-tree until the cold wind whistled through the ribs of man’s enemy. He was a big, burly man, with a bullet head, and a great thick neck, and a voice like a bull’s.

“Do you mind,” said he, “about how I clapped a man in the fire and cooked him to a crisp that day that St. Peter came travelling my way?”

There was a little space of silence, and then the Soldier who had cheated the Devil spoke up. “Why yes, friend,” said he, “I know your story very well.”

“I am not so fortunate,” said old Bidpai. “I do not know your story. Tell me, friend, did you really bake a man to a crisp? And how was it then?”

“Why,” said the Blacksmith, “I was trying to do what a better man than I did, and where he hit the mark I missed it by an ell. Twas a pretty scrape I was in that day.”

“But how did it happen?” said Bidpai.

“It happened,” said the Blacksmith, “just as it is going to happen in the story I am about to tell.”

“And what is your story about?” said Fortunatus.

“It is,” said the Blacksmith, “about—”