Chapter VII

The morning sun shining into his eyes awakened him; and after looking about carefully to assure himself that there was nothing to be had to eat in that place, Vance shouldered his box and trudged along the river's bank. It was a beautiful bright morning; the birds were singing, the flowers were opening to the light, and had it not been for a constantly growing hunger, the young traveller might have enjoyed his walk greatly. As it was, he soon became so hungry that he could think of nothing but eating. He went on, however, until about noon, before he found any food; then to his great joy he came upon a fine tree hanging full of ripe peaches, rosy and plump as a baby's cheek.

"Now for a feast!" he said eagerly to himself, as he put down his box and prepared to gather a hatful of the delicious fruit.

Just then he stumbled over something, and looking down saw a man lying on the grass with his eyes shut and his mouth open.

"Hallo!" exclaimed the Prince. "Who are you? Are you awake or asleep?"

"Awake," answered the man, without stirring.

"Why don't you get up then?" asked Vance. "Are you ill?"

"No," replied the man, briefly.

And indeed he was as stout a fellow as one would meet in a summer's day.

"Then what are you doing?" demanded the Prince, who had lost all patience and who thought that the other might at least take the trouble to open his eyes to see who was talking to him.

"Waiting," the man said, opening his eyes at last.

"Waiting for what?"

"For a peach to drop into my mouth."

"One has fallen beside your cheek," said Vance, "and another right in your hand."

"But I want it in my mouth," sighed the man on the ground. "I am so dreadfully hungry."

"So dreadfully lazy, you mean," exclaimed Vance, quite out of patience; and he began to eat the luscious fruit. "You must certainly be the laziest man in the world."

"If you think that," was the drawling answer, "you ought to see my cousin Loto, who lives down the river a mile as the crow flies."

"He'll have to be lazy, indeed, to beat you," the Prince said, as he once more shouldered his box. "Do you know where the Crushed Strawberry Wizard lives?"

"I know," returned the man, "but I'm too lazy to tell."

"It wouldn't take you any longer to tell than to say you can't tell," cried Vance, hotly.

"Perhaps not," was the cool retort; "but if I told it would be doing something, and I never do anything."

The Prince started on his way without another word. He did not even stop to put a peach into the lazy man's open mouth, as he at first had some thought of doing. He kept along beside the river for some time, and had nearly forgotten the words of the lazy man about his cousin, when suddenly he came upon what to his horror he at first supposed to be the body of some thief hanging from a tree. As he got closer, however, he found that the man was alive and suspended by a belt which went under his arms. The man did not seem in the least to mind being hung, but looked quite calm and peaceful. A second man stood upon an overturned bucket and blew into the mouth of the first with a pair of bellows.

"What are you doing?" asked Vance curiously, as he stopped beside them.

"Why," replied the man with the bellows, "this fellow is too lazy to stand, so we have to hang him up; and he is too lazy to breathe for himself, so he pays me a groat a day to do it for him with the bellows."

"I saw a man up the river who was too lazy to eat," observed Vance. "I thought he was bad enough, but this is surely the laziest man alive."

"If you think that," the blower answered, "you should see his cousin Gobbo, who lives a mile farther down the river as the crow flies."

At this Vance was reminded that nightfall was not very far off, and once more he started on his way. The man with the bellows jumped down from his bucket and ran eagerly after him. He was a simple-looking man, with a large and frog-like mouth.

"It creeps in the family," he whispered hoarsely to the Prince.

"What does?"

"Laziness. If it were anything else, you know, you'd say it _ran_ in the family. But wait till you see Gobbo!"

Just then he noticed that Loto was growing quite limp and purple in the face for want of breath; so he hastily scrambled back to his bucket, and once more began to blow for dear life and a groat a day.

"By the way," asked Vance, halting, "do you know where the Crushed Strawberry Wizard lives?"

"He knows," replied the blower, "but you can't get it out of him. He's too lazy to speak; so it's no manner of use fretting about it."

With a sigh of weariness and disgust the royal wayfarer turned away and went on his journey. Just at dusk he reached a small village, or rather a group of poor little houses; and as he was about to knock at the door of one to ask for shelter, he saw a procession coming over the fields. There were a number of men with flaring torches, one or two with picks and spades, while in the midst was carried a bier upon which lay a man with his eyes wide open, staring straight ahead.

"What's all this?" the Prince asked of one who seemed of some authority in the company.

"We are going to bury Gobbo," replied the man.

"But he isn't dead yet," exclaimed Vance, quite horrified.

"True," the man returned, in a matter-of-fact tone, "but he does not care about living. I know, for he's hired me to think for him these ten years. Now I'm tired of it, and so I think it's best to bury him; and of course it's all the same as if he thought so himself."

"Well," said Vance, who was beginning to grow badly confused by the odd people he encountered, "if he doesn't mind I'm sure I don't know why I should. But perhaps before he is buried he can tell me where to find the Crushed Strawberry Wizard."

"He won't take the trouble to remember," answered the man, "and I'm sure I'll do no more thinking for him."

"Well," was the thought with which the unlucky Vance consoled himself, "it is something to have seen the laziest man on earth."