These stories Mihal had learned from his old grandmother, who died the year before the famine. She used to sit in the open air knitting, or spinning with a distaff, and the scarlet yarn that trailed across the gray jacket and green petticoat glowed in the sun like a thread of crawling fire, and seemed to keep time to her droning voice, as she poured story after story into the wide-open ears of the child nestled on her feet.
But all these pretty tales of Mihal did not keep his eight brothers and sisters warm. Zitza, the least of all, cried herself to sleep often, and woke with hunger, wailing, in the sad and quaint accents of her land, for bread and berries. These were sorrowful sounds for poor Otto Koenig; he knew well the eager pain for food that forced that cry from the child's lips,—for his black crust was as small as it could be to keep him alive, and his cup of sour beer was only a quarter filled. Often, as he shouldered the rude axe with which he gashed the trees, and wandered out into the forest, the spicy smell of the pine-boughs seemed to make him sick and giddy, he was so faint with hunger; and instead of the hymns the wind used to sing in the long green tufts of leaves, there was a rush of unearthly whispering laughter, and mocking voices said in the poor man's ear, “Bread and beer! bread and beer!” chorused with another rustle of laughter; whereat the unlucky man, half crazed, would bless himself devoutly, and, taking to his heels, run like a scared cony till the woods were far behind him.
In the hut things went worse still; in vain did Matthias, the oldest of the nine children, take his twin sister into the fields to search the brambles for stray hips, or locks of wool the sheep had not left there willingly; men and women even worse off had been there before them, and they came home at night, tired out and footsore, only to hear Zitza's fretful cry for food, and the constant chatter of Meister Hans, croaking for his own share in what they had not.
One night, when Mihal had told more wonderful stories than ever, and fairly talked the other eight to sleep, he was still awake himself. Nothing stirred on the side of the hut where the children lay sleeping on some straw covered with sheep-skins, but Meister Hans, who, perched for the night on the arm of the grandmother's empty chair, rustled his blue-black wings now and then. But as Mihal lay thinking and hungry, his looks turned restlessly toward the uneasy bird; and presently he saw the creature's eyes begin to shine through the darkness brighter and brighter, till they made the room so light that one could plainly see the eight sleeping children, the straw-bed from which Father Koenig's snores were loudly heard, Mother Marthon's petticoat and red jacket hung against the wall, and the old black chair with the fiery-eyed jackdaw perched on one arm. Mihal lifted himself on his elbow and rubbed his eyes. Yes, it was really so! Meister Hans nodded gravely to him, and, hopping down to the floor, turned his eyes toward the boy, nodded again, croaked circumspectly, and walked with odd, precise steps toward the door, which was screened from the cold by a rough mat hung inside, and again turning, repeated the nod and the croak, as if he were inviting Mihal to follow him. The child gathered his rags more closely about him, and stepped across the threshold, at which Meister Hans gave a very satisfied croak and hopped along. The moon shone brightly on bare brown fields silvered with white frost, and in the still, cold air the distant forest stood like a black cloud just dropped upon earth.
In a strange, dreamy way Mihal followed the movements of the bird, stumbling over hard furrows, bruising his feet against stones, falling into ditches, but still straight after his odd guide, who peered at him now and then with one fiery eye, and wagged his head. On and on they went, away from the pine forest, but into places where Mihal had never been before, wide as were his usual rambles; on and on, over stone walls, ditches, stubble-fields, and wide meadows, till they found themselves at the foot of a high, round hill. Out of one side of this great mound ran a pure bubbling spring, and over its waters hung an old oak-tree, leafless now, but still strewing the ground beneath with dry acorns. Right at the root of this tree was an upright gray stone, apparently part of a rock deeply sunk in the hillside; dark lichens clung to its face, and dead leaves lay piled at its foot. Beside this stone Meister Hans paused, and, looking hard at the boy, deliberately picked up an acorn, and, hopping to the side of the little gravelly basin, dropped his mouthful into the fountain, and returned to the flat stone, where Mihal stood wondering much what was to follow.
Presently the jackdaw approached the stone and knocked upon it three times. No sound replied, but the rock opened in the middle, and there stood a little old woman, as withered as a spring apple and as bright as a butterfly, dressed in a scarlet bodice covered with spangles, and a black petticoat worked in square characters with all the colors of the rainbow. She made a reverence to the bird and Mihal, and in a shrill, eager voice invited them to come in. The boy hesitated, but the little old woman snatched his hand and pulled him in. A draught of warm air and a delicious smell of food invited him still more charmingly, he was so cold and hungry, and he passed through the cleft stone to find himself in a high round cavern, of shining, sparkling crystals, that glittered like jewels whenever the light of the old woman's iron lamp shone across them. She opened a low door in the side of this cavern, and beckoned her companions to follow. In the middle of a still larger vault stood a great arm-chair, fashioned from beryl and jasper, with knobs of amethyst and topaz, in which sat a dwarf no taller than little Zitza. He was dressed in robes of velvet, green and soft as forest moss, and a ring of rough gold lay on his grizzled hair; his little eyes were keen and fiery, his hands withered and brown, but covered with glittering jewels.
About the cave a hundred little creatures, smaller still than he, were busied in a hundred ways. Some ran to and fro with long ladles, wherewith they stirred and tasted kettles of smoking broth; others shredded crisp salads, and sliced fresh vegetables for the pottage; some, with ready hands, spread a table with flowered damask, golden plate, and crystal goblets; three tugged and strained at turning a huge spit before a fire at the end of the cavern, while a dozen more watched the simmering of pots and pipkins, seething on the coals; and full a score moulded curious confections, adorned vast pastries, heaped fruits upon baskets of carved ice, or brewed steaming potions in great silver pitchers, whose breath of tropic fragrance curled upward in light clouds to the sparkling roof above; while the red flashes of the blaze on the hearth lighted up their swarthy little figures and merry faces, and cast grotesque, mocking shadows against the sides of the cave.
As Meister Hans hopped gravely past all this toward the chair of the Dwarf-king, making profound reverences all the way, the little monarch stretched out his sceptre, which was a tall bulrush of gold, and touched the jackdaw on the head, whereat, to Mihal's great wonder, his old friend turned suddenly into just such another little old woman as the one who had brought them in.
After another low reverence to the king, she turned to Mihal and made him aware, by a long speech, that she had been turned into a jackdaw for twenty years, because she had once presumed to say that gold was not so yellow as buttercups, or so bright as sunshine,—a statement altogether against the belief and laws of the dwarf; but now her punishment was over, and, knowing that she would never go back to the earth again, because she had lived there long enough to know better, and had learned that gold was the best of all things, she had resolved to bring little Mihal with her, (for she loved him almost as much as gold, and quite as well as silver, he was such a good boy), and persuade her master to grant him one wish before he left the cavern.