A little girl once lived all alone with her old grandmother upon the
borders of a forest. They were so poor that they were scarcely able to
buy food for their mouths, or clothes to cover them.
“Never mind, Granny,” the little girl would say. “Some day I will be
big enough to work, and then I will earn so much that I will be able to
buy everything that we need, and to give something to other poor folk
as well.”
One day the child went off into the forest to gather fagots. These she
hoped to sell for a few pennies in the town over beyond the hill. She
was to be gone all day, so she took with her into the forest a bit of
the black bread, which was all they had left to eat.
It was winter, and the air was bitterly cold. The child wrapped her
little shawl about her, and ran on as fast as she could. She was
hungry, but she intended to save her crust until after the fagots were
gathered.
Just as she reached the edge of the forest she met a boy, even smaller
than she herself, and he was crying bitterly.
The little girl had a tender heart. She stopped and asked the child why
he was weeping.
“I am weeping,” he answered, “because I am hungry.”
“Have you had nothing to eat to-day?” she asked.
“I have had nothing, and I am like to starve, for I know not where to
go for food.”
The little girl sighed. “You are, perhaps, hungrier than I,” she said,
and she took the crust from her pocket and gave it to the boy. Then she
again hurried on.
A little farther on, she met another child who was even more
miserable-looking than the first, for this child seemed almost frozen
with cold. Her clothing hung about her in rags, and her skin looked
blue through the rents.
“Ah,” cried she, “if I had but a warm little dress like yours! Help me,
I pray of you, or I will certainly die of cold.”
The good little girl was filled with pity. “It is not right,” thought
she, “that I should have both a dress and a shawl. I will give one of
them to this poor child.”
She took off her dress and gave it to the child, and then wrapped the
shawl closely about her shoulders. In spite of the shawl she felt very
cold. Still she was near the place where the fagots were to be found,
and as soon as she had gathered them she would run home again.
She hastened on, but when she reached the place where the fagots were
she saw an old woman already there, gathering up the fallen wood. The
old woman was so bent and poor and miserable-looking that the little
girl’s heart ached for her.
“Oh, oh!” groaned the old woman. “How my poor bones do ache. If I had
but a shawl to wrap about my shoulders I would not suffer so.”
The child thought of her own grandmother, and of how she sometimes
suffered, and she had pity on the old woman.
“Here,” said she, “take my shawl”; and slipping it from her shoulders
she gave it to the old woman.
And now she stood there in the forest with her arms and shoulders
bare, and with nothing on her but her little shift. The sharp wind blew
about her, but she was not cold. She had eaten nothing, but she was not
hungry. She was fed and warmed by her own kindness.
She gathered her fagots and started home again. It was growing dusk,
and the stars shown through the bare branches of the trees. Suddenly an
old man stood beside her. “Give me of your fagots,” said he, “for my
hearth is cold, and I am too old to gather wood for myself.”
The little girl sighed. If she gave him the fagots she would have to
stop to gather more. Still she would not refuse him. “Take them,” she
said, “in heaven’s name.”
No sooner had she said this than she saw it was not an old man who
stood before her, but a shining angel.
“You have fed the hungry,” said the angel, “you have clothed the
naked, and you have given help to those who asked it. You shall not go
unrewarded. See!”
At once a light shone around the child, and it seemed to her that all
the stars of heaven were falling through the bare branches of the
trees, but these stars were diamonds and rubies and other precious
stones. They lay thick upon the ground. “Gather them together,” said
the angel, “for they are yours.”
Wondering, the child gathered them together—all that she could carry in
the skirt of her little shift.
When she looked about her again the angel was gone, but the child
hastened home with her treasure. It was enough to make her and her old
grandmother rich. From then on they lacked for nothing. They were not
only able to have all they wished for, but to give to many who were
poor. So they were not only rich, but beloved by all who knew them.
[Illustration]