One pleasant night at the close of a very sultry day they met to pass the evening together; so, getting into a little eddy beneath the shade of some large chestnut trees, where the moonbeams which glanced tremulously through the foliage enabled them to see each other’s faces indistinctly, they thus spake in murmurs.
Bono. “What a beautiful evening, neighbor Malo, after such a sultry day! Yet I don’t know as I ought to speak ill of the weather, for it has enabled me to do much good, to water many beautiful flowers and fields of grain that otherwise would have perished.”
Malo. “I don’t know about that. Who thanked you for it? I have been this whole day,—yes, for the matter of that, my whole life,—running first here, then there, squeezed in flumes, tangled in water-wheels, pounded in fulling mills, flung over precipices till my neck was well-nigh broken. Again, I am kept broiling in the sun, and if I steal for a moment into the shade, I cannot stay there. I have almost boiled to-day journeying among hot rocks and over burning sands. And what thanks have I got for it? Do you know, neighbor Bono, the old peasant Alva?”
Bono. “Has he a daughter Lenore? Is his cottage shaded by two large cork trees? And is there a field of saffron between his house and the mill?”
Malo. “Just so.”
Bono. “I have known him these many years. His daughter keeps a few sheep and goats on the mountain and often drives them to my waters.”
Malo. “Well, only think! the old churl has been hoeing this morning among his saffron; so at noon he comes to me and goes down on his hands and knees to drink. Then he says, ‘I’ll bathe.’ So he bathes and, without saying as much as ’By your leave’ or ’God is good’ or anything of the sort, just puts on his clothes and walks off. Yet I have watered his fields and those of his ancestors for a thousand years, have often kept them from starving, and not one of them ever gave me even a look of gratitude. But I am resolved to do so no more. I won’t wear out my life for those who give me no thanks. I mean in the future to keep my waters to myself and to water no one but myself.”
Bono. “Well, neighbor Malo,” replies Bono, with a murmur so sweet that the nightingale who was saying her evening prayers in the almond tree stopped to listen, “I cannot feel as you do, neither do I wish to. I have, indeed, had some weary times, especially, as you say, to-day, and sometimes have been almost dried up. But I know what my duty is; God made me to water the earth and the plants. It would be pleasant to receive gratitude, but if we cannot have that, there is one thing we can always have,—the happiness of feeling that we have done our duty.”
Malo. “Duty! This is fine talking, but I heed it no more than the song of that nightingale. What duty do I owe to that old peasant or any of his kin? To the earth or the plants? What good have they ever done me?”