Granny's Wonderful Chair

"Good Master Cobbler," cried the cuckoo, finishing the slice, "your words are more hasty than kind. If your brother is disappointed this time, I go on the same journey every year, and for your kind treatment will think it no trouble to bring each of you whichever leaf you wish."

"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 once again.

"This is the Feast of All Fools, and it ought to be your birthday," said Scrub. "Did ever man fling away such a chance of becoming rich! Much good your merry leaves will do when you are so poor!"

So he went on; but Spare laughed at him, and answered with many old proverbs about the cares that come with gold, till Scrub, at length growing angry, vowed his brother was not fit to live with a gentleman like himself. And taking his lasts, his awls, and his golden leaf, he left the wattle hut and went to tell the villagers.

They were surprised at the folly of Spare, and charmed with Scrub's good sense, more so when he showed them the golden leaf, and told that the cuckoo would bring him one every spring. The new cobbler at once made him a partner. The greatest people sent him their shoes to mend. Fairfeather smiled kindly on him, and in the course of the summer they were married, with a grand wedding feast, at which the whole village danced, except Spare, who was not invited, because the bride said he was low-minded, and his brother thought he was a disgrace to the family.

Indeed, all who heard the story thought that Spare must be mad, and nobody would take up with him but a lame tinker, a beggar boy, and a poor woman, who was looked upon as a witch because she was old and ugly. As for Scrub, he went with Fairfeather to a cottage close by that of the new cobbler, and quite as fine. There he mended shoes so as to please everyone, had a scarlet coat for holidays, and a fat goose for dinner every wedding-day. Fairfeather, too, had a crimson gown and fine blue ribbons. But neither she nor Scrub were content, for to buy all these grand things 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 the people remarked that he never looked sad nor sour. The wonder was, that from the time they began to keep his company, the tinker grew kinder to the ass with which he travelled the country, the beggar boy kept out of mischief, and the old woman was never cross to her cat or angry with the children.

Every first of April the cuckoo came tapping at their doors with the golden leaf to Scrub and the green to Spare. Fairfeather would have treated him nobly with wheaten bread and honey, for she had some notion of trying to make him bring two gold leaves instead of one. But the cuckoo flew away to eat barley bread with Spare, saying he was not fit company for fine people, and liked the old hut where he slept so snugly from Christmas to Spring.

Scrub spent the golden leaves, and Spare kept the merry ones; and I know not how many years passed in this manner, when a great lord, who owned that village, came to dwell near. His castle stood on the moor. It was old and strong, with high towers and a deep moat. All the country as far as one could see from the highest turret belonged to this lord; but he had not been there for twenty years, and would not have come then, only he was very sad.

The cause of his grief was that he had been Prime Minister at Court, and in high favour, till somebody told the Crown Prince that he had spoken with great disrespect about the turning out of His Royal Highness's toes, and the King that he did not lay on taxes enough; whereon the north-country lord was turned out of office and sent to his own estate. There he lived for some weeks in very bad temper. The servants said nothing would please him, and the people of the village 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 watercresses 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 sadness. He forgot his lost office and his Court enemies, the King's taxes and the Crown Prince's toes, and went about with a noble train, hunting, fishing, and making merry in his hall, where all travellers were well treated and all the poor were welcome.

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