Journeys Through Bookland Volume Ii Part 10

"Very miserable, indeed!" exclaimed the stranger. "And how happens that?

Have I not faithfully kept my promise with you? Have you not everything that your heart desired?"

"Gold is not everything," answered Midas, "and I have lost all that my heart really cared for."

"Ah! so you have made a discovery since yesterday?" observed the stranger. "Let us see, then. Which of these two things do you think is, really worth the most--the gift of the Golden Touch, or one cup of clear, cold water?"

"Oh, blessed water!" exclaimed Midas. "It will never moisten my parched throat again."

"The Golden Touch," continued the stranger, "or a crust of bread?"

"A piece of bread," answered Midas, "is worth all the gold on earth."

"The Golden Touch," asked the stranger, "or your own little Marygold, warm, soft, and loving, as she was an hour ago?"

[Ill.u.s.tration: MARYGOLD WAS A GOLDEN STATUE!]

"Oh, my child, my dear child!" cried poor Midas, wringing his hands. "I would not have given that one small dimple in her chin for the power of changing this whole big earth into a solid lump of gold!"

"You are wiser than you were, King Midas," said the stranger, looking seriously at him. "Your own heart, I perceive, has not been entirely changed from flesh to gold. Were it so, your case would indeed be desperate. But you appear to be still capable of understanding that the commonest things, such as lie within everybody's grasp, are more valuable than the riches which so many mortals sigh and struggle after.

Tell me now, do you sincerely desire to rid yourself of this Golden Touch?"

"It is hateful to me!" replied Midas.

A fly settled on his nose, but immediately fell to the floor, for it, too, had become gold. Midas shuddered.

"Go, then," said the stranger, "and plunge into the river that glides past the bottom of your garden. Take likewise a vase of the same water, and sprinkle it over any object that you may desire to change back again from gold into its former substance. If you do this in earnestness and sincerity, it may possibly repair the mischief which your avarice has occasioned."

King Midas bowed low, and when he lifted his head the l.u.s.trous stranger had vanished.

You will easily believe that Midas lost no time in s.n.a.t.c.hing up a great earthen pitcher (but alas me! it was no longer earthen after he touched it) and hastening to the riverside. As he scampered along and forced his way through the shrubbery, it was positively marvelous to see how the foliage turned yellow behind him, as if the autumn had been there and nowhere else.

On reaching the river's brink he plunged headlong in, without waiting so much as to pull off his shoes.

"Poof! poof! poof!" snorted King Midas, as his head emerged out of the water. "Well, this is really a refres.h.i.+ng bath, and I think it must have washed away the Golden Touch. And now for filling my pitcher."

As he dipped the pitcher into the water it gladdened his very heart to see it change from gold into the same good, honest earthen vessel which it had been before he touched it. He was conscious also of a change within himself. A cold, hard, and heavy weight seemed to have gone out of his bosom. No doubt his heart had been gradually losing its human substance and trans.m.u.ting itself into insensible metal, but had now softened back again into flesh. Perceiving a violet that grew on the bank of the river, Midas touched it with his finger, and was overjoyed to find that the delicate flower retained its purple hue, instead of undergoing a yellow blight. The curse of the Golden Touch had therefore really been removed from him.

King Midas hastened back to the palace, and I suppose the servants knew not what to make of it when they saw their royal master so carefully bringing home an earthen pitcher of water. But that water, which was to undo all the mischief that his folly had wrought, was more precious to Midas than an ocean of molten gold could have been. The first thing he did, as you need hardly be told, was to sprinkle it by handfuls over the golden figure of little Marygold.

No sooner did it fall on her than you would have laughed to see how the rosy color came back to the dear child's cheek, and how she began to sneeze and sputter, and how astonished she was to find herself dripping wet and her father still throwing more water over her.

"Pray do not, dear father!" cried she. "See how you have wet my nice frock, which I put on only this morning."

For Marygold did not know that she had been a little golden statue, nor could she remember anything that had happened since the moment when she ran with outstretched arms to comfort poor King Midas.

Her father did not think it necessary to tell his beloved child how very foolish he had been, but contented himself with showing how much wiser he had now grown. For this purpose he led little Marygold into the garden, where he sprinkled all the remainder of the water over the rose- bushes, and with such good effect that above five thousand roses recovered their beautiful bloom. There were two circ.u.mstances, however, which, as long as he lived, used to put King Midas in mind of the Golden Touch.

One was that the sands of the river sparkled like gold; the other, that little Marygold's hair had now a golden tinge which he had never observed in it before she had been trans.m.u.ted by the effect of his kiss.

The change of hue was really an improvement, and made Marygold's hair richer than in her babyhood.

When King Midas had grown quite an old man and used to trot Marygold's children on his knee, he was fond of telling them this marvelous story, pretty much as I have told it to you. And then he would stroke their glossy ringlets and tell them that their hair likewise had a rich shade of gold, which they had inherited from their mother.

"And to tell you the truth, my precious little folks," quoth King Midas, diligently trotting the children all the while, "ever since that morning I have hated the very sight of all other gold save this."

Hawthorne was by no means the first man who ever told about King Midas, nor are the children who have lived since his time the first who ever heard this story; for hundreds and hundreds of years ago, in a country very different from ours, the little Greek children heard it told in a language that would seem very strange to us. However, Hawthorne has by no means told the story just as the Greek mothers or Greek nurses might have told it to their children; he has added much which makes the story seem more real and the characters more human.

For instance, as he says, the old myth told nothing about any daughter of Midas's, and yet I think we are all ready to admit that we should not love the story half so well without dear little Marygold.

Then too, the talk about Midas's spectacles and about his trotting his grandchildren on his knee is but a little pleasant fooling on the part of Hawthorne, for spectacles were not even thought of for centuries after the time of old King Midas, and it is much more than unlikely that any old Greek ever trotted children on his knee.

Hawthorne had a perfect right to make these changes in the story; for the old myths have come down to us from so long ago that they seem to belong to everybody, and every one forms his own ideas of them.

Thus you will see that while the author of this story thought of Marygold as a little child who climbed up onto her father's knee, the artists in dealing with the subject have thought of her as almost a young woman. Which of these two ideas do you like better?

THE CHILD'S WORLD

By W. B. Rands

Great, wide, beautiful, wonderful World, With the wonderful water round you curled, And the wonderful gra.s.s upon your breast-- World, you are beautifully dressed.

The wonderful air is over me, And the wonderful wind is shaking the tree; It walks on the water, and whirls the mills, And talks to itself on the tops of the hills.

You, friendly Earth! how far do you go With the wheat-fields that nod and the rivers that flow, With cities and gardens, and cliffs, and isles, And people upon you for thousands of miles?

Ah, you are so great, and I am so small, I tremble to think of you, World, at all; And yet, when I said my prayers to-day, A whisper inside me seemed to say:

"You are more than the Earth, though you are such a dot-- You can love and think, and the Earth cannot!"

THE FIR TREE

By Hans Christian Andersen

Out in the forest stood a pretty little Fir Tree. It had a good place; it could have sunlight, air there was in plenty, and all around grew many larger comrades--pines as well as firs. But the little Fir Tree wished ardently to become greater. It did not care for the warm sun and the fresh air; it took no notice of the peasant children, who went about talking together, when they had come out to look for strawberries and raspberries. The children often came with a whole basketful, or with a string of berries which they had strung on a straw. Then they would sit down by the little Fir Tree and say, "How pretty and small this one is!"

The Fir Tree did not like that at all.

Next year he had grown bigger, and the following year he was taller still.

"Oh, if I were only as tall as the others!" sighed the little Fir. "Then I would spread my branches far around and look out from my crown into the wide world. The birds would then build nests in my boughs, and when the wind blew I would nod grandly."