Martin Pippin in the Apple Orchard by Eleanor Farjeon (top 10 novels to read .TXT) 📗

shoe the equal of your last, that he said I could not make a better.' And so saying he died. Now I had no other relative in all the world except my Great-Aunt, the Wise Woman of the Bush Hovel, and her I had never seen; but I thought I could not do better in my extremity than go to her for counsel. So, shouldering my father's tools, I journeyed west until I came to her place, and found her trying to break in a new birch-broom that was still too green and full of sap to be easily mastered; and she was in a very bad temper. Good day, Great-Aunt,' I said, I am your Great-Niece Viola.' I have no more use for great nieces,' she snapped, than for little ones.' And she continued to tussle with the broomstick and took no further notice of me. Then I went into the Hovel, where a fire burned on the hearth, and I took out my tools and fashioned a bit on the hob; and when it was ready I took it to her and said, This will teach it its manners'; and she put the bit on the broom, which became as docile as a lamb. Great-Niece,' said she, it appears that I told you a lie this morning. What can I do for you?' Tell me, if you please, how I am to live now that my father is dead.' There is no need to tell you,' said she; you have your living at your fingers' ends.' But women cannot be smiths,' said I. Then become a lad,' said she, and ply your trade where none knows you; and lest men should suspect you by your face, which fools though they be they might easily do, let it be so sooted from week's end to week's end that none can discover what you look like; and if any one remarks on it, put it down to your trade.' But Great-Aunt,' I said, I could not bear to go dirty from week's end to week's end.' If you will be so particular,' she said, take a bath every Saturday night and spend your Sundays with me, as fair as when you were a babe. And before you go to work again on Monday you shall once more conceal your fairness past all men's penetration.' But, dear Great-Aunt,' I pleaded, it may be that the day will come when I might not wish--'"

And here, dear maidens, Viola faltered. And William put his arm about her a little tighter--because it was there already--and said, "What might you not wish, beloved?" And she murmured, "To be concealed past one man's penetration. And my Great-Aunt said I need not worry. Because though men, she said, were fools, there was one time in every man's life when he was quick enough to penetrate all obscurities, whether it were a layer of soot or a night without a moon." And she hid her face on the King's shoulder, and he tried to kiss her but could not make her look up until he said, "Or even a woman's waywardness?" Then she looked up of her own accord and kissed him.

"In this way," she resumed, "it became my custom on each Saturday, after closing the forge, to come here with my woman's raiment, and wait in a hollow until night had fallen, and make myself clean of the week's blackness. For I dared not do this by daylight, or be seen going forth from my forge in my proper person."

"But why did you choose to bathe at midnight?" asked the King.

She was silent for a few moments, and then said hurriedly, "I did not choose to bathe at midnight until a month ago.--For the rest," she resumed, "I was hard to please in the matter of the shoes because I knew that when they were finished you would ride away. And therefore the more you improved the crosser I became. And if I have tormented you for a month it was because you tormented me by refusing to speak when you saw me here, in spite of your hateful vow; and you would not even look at my cake in the larder."

"Women are strange," said the King. "How do you know I did not look at the cake?"

"I do know," she said as hurriedly as before. "And if I would not tell you who I was, it was because I could not bear, on the other hand, to extort from you a love you seemed so reluctant to endure; until indeed it became of its own accord too strong even for the purpose which brought you every week to the Ring. For I knew that purpose, since all dwellers in Washington know why men go up the hill with the new moon."

"But when my love did become too strong for my vow, and opened my lips at last," said the King, "why did you run away?"

Viola said, "Had you not run away the week before? And now I have answered all your questions."

"No," said the King, "not all. You haven't told me yet when you first loved me."

Viola smiled and said, "I first stole barley sugar when my father said This is for the other little girl over the way'; and I first loved you when, seeing you had been too absent-minded to know that Pepper had cast her shoes, I feared you were in love."

"But that was three minutes after we met!" cried the King.

"Was it as much as that!" said she.

Now after awhile Viola said, "Let us get down to the world again. We cannot stay here for ever."

"Why not?" said the King. However, they walked to the brow of the hill, and stood together gazing awhile over the sunlit earth that had never been so beautiful to either of them; for their sight was newly-washed with love, and all things were changed.

"Now I know how she looks from heaven," said the King, "and that