Chapter VI: Fairy Tales, Allegories, Parables and Fables (3)

“‘Look down into the crevices at your feet,’ they said. ‘See what lies there,--white bones! As brave and strong a man as you climbed to these rocks. And he looked up. He saw there was no use in striving; he would never hold Truth, never see her, never find her. So he lay down here, for he was very tired. He went to sleep forever. He put himself to sleep. Sleep is very tranquil. You are not lonely when you are asleep, neither do your hands ache, nor your heart.’ And the hunter laughed between his teeth.

“‘Have I torn from my heart all that was dearest; have I wandered alone in the land of night; have I resisted temptation; have I dwelt where the voice of my kind is never heard, and labored alone, to lie down and be food for you, ye harpies?’

“He laughed fiercely; and the echoes of Despair slunk away, for the laugh of a brave, strong heart is as a death-blow to them.

“Nevertheless they crept out again, and looked at him.

“‘Do you know that your hair is white?’ they said, ‘that your hands begin to tremble like a child’s. Do you see that the point of your Shuttle is gone? It is cracked already. If you should ever climb this stair,’ they said, ‘it will be your last. You will never climb another.’

“And he answered, ‘I know it!’ and worked on.

“The old, thin hands cut the stones ill and jaggedly, for the fingers were stiff and bent. The beauty and the strength of the man was gone.

“At last an old, wizened, shrunken face looked out above the rocks. It saw the eternal mountains rise with walls to the white clouds; but its work was done.

“The old hunter folded his tired hands, and lay down by the precipice where he had worked away his life. It was the sleeping time at last. Below him over the valleys rolled the thick white mist. Once it broke; and through the gap the dying eyes looked down on the trees and fields of their childhood. From afar seemed born to him the cry of his own wild birds, and he heard the noise of people singing as they danced. And he thought he heard among them the voices of his old comrades; and he saw far off the sunlight shine on his early home. And great tears gathered in the hunter’s eyes.

“‘Ah! they who die there do not die alone,’ he cried.

“Then the mists rolled together again, and he turned his eyes away.

“‘I have sought,’ he said, ‘for long years I have labored; but I have not found her. I have not rested, I have not ripened, and I have not seen her; now my strength is gone. Where I lie down worn out, other men will stand, young and fresh. By the steps that I have cut they will climb; by the stairs that I have built they will mount. They will never know the name of the man who made them. At the clumsy work they will laugh; when the stones roll, they will curse me. But they will mount, and on _my_ work; they will climb, and by _my_ stair. They will find her, and through me. And no man liveth to himself, and no man dieth to himself.’

“The tears rolled from beneath the shrivelled eyelids. If Truth had appeared above him in the clouds now, he could not have seen her; the mist of death was in his eyes.

“‘My soul hears their glad step coming,’ he said; ‘and they shall mount! they shall mount!’ He raised his shrivelled hand to his eyes.

“Then slowly from the white sky above, through the still air, came something falling, falling, falling. Softly it fluttered down, and dropped on to the breast of the dying man. He felt it with his hands. It was a feather. He died holding it.”

Olive Schreiner, _The Story of an African Farm_.

A PARABLE FOR PHILANTHROPISTS

Christopher and I were motoring through the Adirondacks; and, on the morning in question, were traversing an unusually long stretch of unbroken wilderness. For ten or fifteen miles we had passed not a cottage, not a camp, not even a trail. Nothing but forest on both sides of the road--wild, tangled forest, beautiful, fragrant, and infinitely lonely. Its silence had fallen upon us. We felt as if we had escaped forever from the troubled haunts of men, and could never again be confronted with human problems. We drove slowly, with only a half apprehensive eye on the gray sky, which threatened rain.

I was just thinking that it was strange we saw so little evidence of the wild animal life with which the woods must abound, when suddenly, like an answer to my mental challenge, there came a little stir in the bushes ahead of us. A tiny, discreet stir. No suggestion of a bear or a deer. Perhaps a hedgehog, however. As we passed, I looked closely and, to my astonishment, saw, not a hedgehog, not even a rabbit or a squirrel, but--of all things, in that uninhabited wilderness--a shrinking, small gray kitten. I could hardly have been more surprised by the appearance of a woodchuck on Fifth Avenue.

Christopher saw it as soon as I did, and he slid into neutral and stopped the car. An indignant and disdainful look crept about his mouth. I knew what he was thinking. We live in a summer-resorted valley ourselves,--and we have had incredulously disgusting experience with people who abandon pet cats when they close their cottages. But not out in the wilderness like this, at the mercy of all kinds of dangers, and so little and helpless, its mother’s milk scarcely dry on its mouth. I was so angry that I could not speak, as I got out of the car and went back along the road.

“I don’t know what in the world we’ll do with it,” said Christopher.

The point was well taken. We were planning to spend the night in a hotel. Neither of us hesitated, however. Our duty seemed clear.

“I suppose we can leave it at some camp or farmhouse,” I suggested.

“And pay them for taking care of it!” Christopher added, ironically.

The kitten remained just where we had discovered it until we were near enough to look it in the eye. It had evidently been a pet. Its fur was sleek and its face wore the open, candid expression peculiar to well-bred cats. It seemed glad to see us. Steadfastly it returned our gaze, and its pink mouth opened in a plaintive meow.

“Kitty!” I murmured. I’m fond of cats, and this one quite went to my heart. “Pick her up for me, Christopher. I’ll hold her while you drive.”

So Christopher went to pick her up, and for the next hour and a half he continued to repeat the motion.

Who could have believed it would be so hard to make connections with a pet kitten? She was not afraid of us. On the contrary, the minute we let her alone, she came stealing back to the side of the road where she could see us and call to us. But she simply could not make up her mind to let us rescue her.

First Christopher tried, with a confident method which left him staring rather foolishly at his unexpectedly empty hand. Then I tried.

“That’s not the way. Evidently, she’s been out here long enough to get frightened. Poor little thing! We must coax her into confidence.”

So Christopher sat down on a rock and lighted a cigarette while, slowly, slowly, discoursing, “Poor kitty! nice kitty!” in my most mellifluous accents. I crossed the road and approached the spot where the kitten crouched. It took me at least ten minutes, and, in the end, she slipped from beneath my very fingers. My discomfiture was worse than Christopher’s, for the retreating ball of fur turned and spat at me.

“Hard luck!” said Christopher, sympathetically, if also a little critically, “when you so nearly had her. I’ll try again next; but we’d better sit still for a while till she gets over her scare.”

As we sat waiting, it became evident that it really was going to rain. In fact, already a fine mist was in the air.

“Those bushes will soon be nice and wet,” remarked Christopher.

“Well,” I replied, much subdued, “she’s near the edge now. Go and get her, and get it over with.”

Three minutes later, after a slow approach followed by a plunge on Christopher’s part, the kitten was in the heart of the forest.

“Oh, I say!” cried Christopher. “This is hopeless. We might stay here all day and all night and all another day. Don’t you think we’d better conclude that we’ve done our best? After all, there are plenty of mice and grass-hoppers in the woods.”

I recognized this as sound, sensible masculine advice, and I longed to accept it. The prospect of spending indefinite hours dodging about tangled bushes in the rain was not exhilarating. Moreover, the next inn was leagues ahead, and we were hungry. But the sentiment of my sex was too much for me.

“I’m afraid I could never look Shem in the face again,” I murmured.

Shem is our yellow cat at home.

Christopher was admirable. He always is, but on this occasion he outdid himself. He said nothing further, but took off his hat and coat, turned up his trousers, and went to work. For nearly an hour he pursued that kitten, trying every method he could think of or I could suggest. He stalked and coaxed, he waited and plunged, he withdrew, he circumvented and headed off. The rain fell steadily, and the bushes more than fulfilled their promise of wetness. I was very unhappy. After all, I care more about Christopher than about kittens. But something of the kitten’s perversity had infected me. As she could not bring herself to be caught, so I could not bring myself to abandon her.

“Well,” said Christopher finally (he spoke carefully; for the last half hour when he had said anything at all, he had said it carefully), “I’m going to make one more effort, and then----”

It was a thorough effort. He made a wide détour about the kitten’s position, entering a part of the forest which he had not penetrated before, and was about to close in on the maddening outcast, when, to my perplexity, he suddenly desisted from the whole undertaking and returned to the road, shaking the rain from his hair and turning down his trousers with as dark an air of disgust as I have ever seen. I wanted to ask, “What in the world is the matter?” but I thought I’d better not.

He told me, however, presently. The situation was one which just had to be shared. “There’s a trail over there,” he said concisely, “leading to an occupied camp. We’ve spent the morning trying to kidnap that kitten.”

Perhaps there is nothing more to be said. Certainly Christopher and I said nothing for many miles. I was too humbly chastened, and he was too--well, let us call it considerate. But we did some thinking; and, after a most opportunely good dinner at an unexpected wayside inn, I was relieved to hear Christopher begin to meditate aloud.

“It wasn’t crying at all,” he reflected. “It was just saying, as its mother had taught it, ‘Welcome to our mountain home.’ How embarrassed it must have been!”

“And frightened,” I added. “No wonder I thought it looked scared. Several times we nearly had it.”

“Well,” Christopher concluded, with a grave glance at me, “philanthropy’s a ticklish business.”

By kind permission of _The Atlantic Monthly_.

THE TADPOLE AND THE FROG

“Be ashamed of yourself,” said the frog. “When I was a tadpole, I had no tail.”

“Just what I thought!” said the tadpole. “You never were a tadpole.”

Robert Louis Stevenson. _Fables._ By permission
of Charles Scribner’s Sons, the authorized
publishers.

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY OF FAIRY TALES, ALLEGORIES, PARABLES, AND FABLES

The editors have found the additional selections very useful in teaching these forms of narrative:

Andersen, Hans Christian. _Fairy Tales._

Æsop. _Fables._

Frazer, Lady. _Leaves from the Golden Bough._ The Macmillan Company.

La Fontaine. _Fables._

Schreiner, Olive. _Dreams._

Stephens, James. _Irish Fairy Tales._ The Macmillan Company.

Stevenson, Robert Louis. _Fables_, particularly _The Cart Horse and
Saddle Horse_ and _The Sinking Ship_. Charles Scribner’s Sons.