Martin Pippin in the Apple Orchard by Eleanor Farjeon (best new books to read txt) 📕

"A blessing on you!" said the King joyfully, and clapped his hand on the Lad's shoulder. "Pepper, you have solved the problem and led me to my destiny."

"Is Pepper your nag's name?" asked the blacksmith's Lad.

"It is," said the King; "her only one."

"Then she has one more name than she has shoes," said the Lad. "How came she to lose them?"

"I didn't notice," confessed the King.

"You must have been thinking very deeply," remarked the Lad. "Are you in love?"

"I am not quite twenty-one," said the King.

"I see. Do you want your nag shod?"

"I do. But I have spent my last penny."

"Earn another then," said the Lad.

"I did not even earn the last one," said the King shamefacedly. "I have never worked in my life."

"Why, where have you lived?" exclaimed the Lad.

"In a Barn."

"But one works in a Barn--"

"Stop!" cried the king, putting his fingers in his ears. "One prays in a Barn."

"Very likely," said the Lad, looking at him curiously. "Are you going to pray in one?"

"Yes," said the King. "When is the New Moon?"

"Next Saturday."

"Hurrah!" cried the King. "That settles it. But what's to-day?"

"Monday, sir."

"Alas!" sighed William, wondering how he should make shift to live for five days.

"I don't know what you mean, sir," said the Lad.

"I would tell you my meaning," said the King, "but am pledged not to."

Then the Lad said, "Let it pass. I have a proposal to make. My father is dead, and for two years I have worked the forge single-handed. Now I am willing to teach you to shoe your nag with four good shoes and strong, if you will meanwhile blow the bellows for whatever other jobs come to the forge; and if the shoes are not done by dinner-time you shall have a meal thrown in."

The King looked at the Lad kindly.

"I shall blow your bellows very badly," he said, "and shoe my nag still worse."

Said the Lad, "You'll learn in time."

"Not before dinner-time, I hope," said the King, "for I am very hungry."

"You look hungry," said the Lad. "It's a bargain then."

The King held out his hand, but the Lad suddenly whipped his behind his back. "It's so dirty, sir," he said.

"Give it me all the same," said the King; and they clasped hands.

The rest of that morning the King spent in blowing the bellows, and by dinner-time not so much as the first of Pepper's hoofs was shod. For a great deal of business came into the forge, and there was no time for a lesson. So the King and the Lad took their meal together, and the King was by this time nearly as black as his master. He would have washed himself, but the Lad said it was no matter, he himself having no time to wash from week's end to week's end. In the afternoon they changed places, and the King stood at the anvil and the Lad at the bellows. He was a good teacher, but the King made a poor job of it. By nightfall he had produced shoes resembling all the letters of the alphabet excepting U, and when at last he submitted to the Lad a shoe like nothing so much as a drunken S, his master shrugged and said:

"Zeal is praiseworthy within its limits, but the best of smiths does not attempt to make two shoes at once. Let us sup."

They supped; and afterwards the Lad showed the King a small bedroom as neat as a new pin.

"I shall sully the sheets," said William, "and you will excuse me if I fetch the kettle, which is on the boil."

"As you please," said the Lad, and took himself off.

In the morning the King came clean to breakfast, but the Lad was as black as he had been.

Tuesday passed as Monday had passed; now William took the bellows, marveling at his youthful master's deftness, and now the Lad blew, groaning at his pupil's clumsiness. By nightfall, however, he had achieved a shoe faintly recognizable as such. For a second time the King washed himself and slept again in the little trim chamber, but the Lad in the morning resembled midnight. In this way the week went by, the King's heart beating a little faster each morning as Saturday approached, and he wondered by what ruse he could explain his absence without creating suspicion or breaking his pledge.

On Saturday morning the Lad said to the King: "This is a half-day. You must make your shoe this morning or not at all. It is my custom at one o'clock to close the forge and go to visit my Great-Aunt. I will be work again on Monday, till when you must shift for yourself."

The King could hardly believe his luck in having matters so well settled, and he spent the morning so diligently that by noon he had produced a shoe which, if not that of a master-craftsman, was at least adaptable to the purpose for which it had been fashioned.

The Lad examined it and said reluctantly, "It will do," and proceeded to show the King how to fasten it to Pepper's hoof.

"Why," said the King, having the nag's off forefoot in his hand, "here's a stone in it. Small wonder she limped."

"It isn't a stone," said the Lad, extracting it, "it is a ruby."

And he exhibited to the King a ruby of such a glowing red that it was as though the souls of all the grapes of Burgundy had been pressed to create it.

"You are a rich man now," said the Lad quietly, "and can live as you will."

But William closed the Lad's fingers over the stone. "Keep it," he said, "for you have filled me for a week, and I have paid you with nothing but my breath."

"As you please," said the Lad carelessly, and, tossing the stone upon a shelf, locked up the forge. "Now I am going to my Great-Aunt. There's a cake in the larder."

So saying, he strolled away, and the King was left to his own devices. These consisted