FOR days and days and for weeks and weeks Canassa and I rode to the
south, and the only break in our days was when we changed our tired
horses for fresh ones. That we did sometimes four times in the day. We
had plenty of choice, for we were driving some three hundred mares and
colts. Canassa was a gaucho, a plainsman, as we would say, and a most
excellent horseman, so he made nothing at all of catching an unbroken
colt with his lasso and saddling and riding it, doing his share of the
driving with the horse new to saddle.
With so much of it I grew tired, and one night as we sat about our
little campfire heating water for our maté, the tea we made from herbs,
I said that I wished the job was at an end.
Canassa strummed his guitar awhile, then laid it aside and said:
“Wishes are no good and he who wishes, risks. For why? Whenever you
wish, you leave out something that should not be left out, and so things
go wrong.”
I told him that a small wish might be all right, but this he would not
allow. Things had to go just so, he said, and no one in the world was
wise enough to wish things as they should be wished. Then, in the way of
the men of the pampas, he told me a tale to prove the truth of what he
said, and this was the tale:
* * * * *
Once there was a woman in Paraguay who had no children and she wished
day and night for a boy and a girl. She did more than wish, going to a
place in the woods where were wild sweet limes and oranges and lemons,
and where the pools were covered with great leaves of waterliles, and in
the quiet of that place she made a song about the children she wished
for. In that song she sang of the boy as handsome and swift of foot and
strong of arm, and she sang of the girl as a light creature with keen
eyes and silken hair. Day after day she did this and at last her wish
came true, for she had a boy and a girl and the boy was straight-limbed
and well made and the girl as lovely as a flower of the air.
So far, so good. But that was not the end. The woman had wished that the
boy might be strong and brave and swift and all these he was. But she
had not thought of other things, and, sad to say, he lacked sight. For
him there was neither day nor night, neither sun nor moon, neither green
of the pampas nor blue of the sky. As for the girl, it is true that she
had sight so keen that she could see the eye of a humming-bird at a
hundred paces, but her legs were withered and useless and she could not
walk, for the mother in wishing had said nothing of her health and
strength. To crawl about, helping herself with her hands, was as much as
she could do.
Seeing what had come to pass the mother was very sad, for her dream had
become a very pesadilla, a nightmare. So she grieved and each day grew
paler, and at last one evening caught her children in her arms and
kissed them and they saw her no more, the neighbours next morning
telling them that she had died.
Now one day when the children were well grown, there came to the house
in which they lived a man in a torn poncho who said that he had walked
hundreds of miles, from the land of the Noseless People where it is
always cold. He was tired and hungry and torn with thorn-bushes, and his
feet were cut with stones. So the boy and girl took him into the house
and gave him water to wash himself with and chipa bread made of mandioca
flour and sweet raspadura in banana leaves. When he was well rested and
refreshed, in return for their great kindness he told them of a strange
old witch-woman who lived far away, one who knew many secrets by means
of which she could do wonderful things.
“In a turn of the hand,” said he, “she could make the girl strong of
limb and with another turn could restore sight to the lad.”
Then he went on to tell of other witches that he knew, saying that there
were many who were not all bad, but like men, were a mixture. True, they
sometimes kept children, but that was not to be laid to their meanness
but rather to their love of beauty. “For,” he said, “it is no more wrong
to keep a child to look at than it is to pluck a flower or to cage a
bird. Or, to put it another way, it is as wrong to cage a bird as it is
to steal a child.”
The meal being done the three of them sang a little, and the sun being
set the old man bade them good-night and stretched out under a tree to
sleep, and the next morning before the children awoke he had gone.
All that day brother and sister talked much of what the old man had told
them, and the girl’s face flushed red and her eyes were bright as she
looked at her brother and thought of how sweet it would be if he could
see the mists of the morning and the cool cleanness of the night.
Meanwhile he in his dark world wondered how he could find his way to the
witch and persuade her to work her magic, so that his sister might be
able to go up and down, and to skip and dance on limbs that were alive.
So at last they fell to talking, and the end of it all was that they
started on a journey to the witch, the brother carrying the sister on
his shoulder while she guided him safely through thorn-thicket, past
swamps where alligators lay hidden, and through valleys where bushy
palmetto grew shoulder high. Each night they found some cool place where
was a spring of crystal, or a pool of dark sweet water, and at last they
came to the little hills where the witch lived.
They found that all was as the old man had said, for the witch was a
lonely creature who saw few, because few passed that way. She was glad
enough to see her visitors and led them to a fragrant leafy place, and
seeing that the girl was drooping like a wind-wearied bird, did what
things she could. To the boy she told tales of the birds and the golden
light of the sun and the green of spreading branches, thinking that with
her tales they would be comforted and content to stay with her in her
soft green valley. But the more she did for their comfort and the more
she told them of the wonders of the world, the greater was their desire
to be whole, the girl with her limbs unbound, the boy with his eyes
unsealed.
Before long the lad told the witch of the old man’s visit and of their
hopes that had led them to take the great journey, and then the old
woman’s heart fell as she saw her dream of companionship vanish. She
knew that as soon as they were whole again they would leave her as the
birds that she fed and tended in nesting time left her when winter came.
Then she told them no more pleasant tales, but tales of things dead and
cold, of gray skies and desert places, of tangled forests where evil
things lived.
“It is better not to see at all,” she said, “than to see foul things and
heart-searing things.”
But the boy spoke up and said:
“There being such things, the more I would have my eyesight, so that I
might clear those tangled forests of the evil beasts of which you
speak.”
Hearing that, the witch sighed, though her heart was glad at the boy’s
words. So she turned to the girl, telling her of the harm that sometimes
came to those who walked, of the creatures that do violence and scratch
and maul; of stocks and stones that hurt and cut tender feet; of
venomous things that hide under rocks. But the girl heard patiently,
then clasped her hands and said:
“And that is all the more reason that I ask what I ask, for with feet
light and active I can skip away from the hurtful things, if indeed my
brother does not kill them.”
“Well,” said the witch, “perhaps when you know the beauty of the place
in which I live, you will be content to stay with me. I must do what you
ask because you are what you are by reason of a wish that went wrong.
Now to get the magic leaves with which to cure you I must take a journey
of a day and a night, and it is part of the magic that those who would
be cured must do a task. So to-morrow while I am away you must work, and
if I find the task finished you shall be cured. But if you should not
finish the task, then all will remain as it is; but I will be eyes for
the boy, telling him of the fine things of the world, and for the girl I
will be as limbs, running for her, working for her. But I shall do and
not wish. Truth is that I would gladly see both of you whole again, but
then you would go away, and I sorely lack companionship.”
After a little the witch said to the girl:
“Tell me, little one, if this place were yours what would you do to make
it better to live in?”
“I would,” answered the girl, “have all the thorn-bushes taken away that
are now in the little forest behind the house, so that Brother could
walk about without being scratched and torn.”
“That is fair enough,” said the witch. “And you, boy, what would your
wish be?”
“I would have all the little stones that are in the valley taken away,
so that Sister could play on the soft grass without being hurt.”
“Well,” said the witch, “it is in the magic that you set your own tasks.
So the boy must have every stone cleared away before I return and the
girl must see to it that there are no more thorn-bushes. Hard are the
things that you have wished.”
After the witch had gone there was no joy in the hearts of the children,
for it seemed impossible that a blind boy should gather the stones and
no more possible for a lame girl to clear the forest. There was a little
time in which they tried, but they had to give up. So they stood
wondering, and for a moment thought of starting for their own home.
Suddenly, strange to tell, who should come over the hill but the old man
in the torn poncho, and they were both very glad to see him. After he
had rested awhile they told him their troubles and spoke of their grief
because, in spite of all their efforts, it seemed as though all must
come to naught.
“I wish——” began the boy, but the old man stopped him with lifted
finger.
“Wishing never does,” he said. “But help does much and many can help
one.” He put his fingers to his mouth and gave a peculiar whistle, and
at once the sky was darkened with birds and each bird dropped to the
ground, picked up a stone and flew away with it, so that the valley was
cleared in a moment. He gave another whistle and from everywhere came
rabbits which ran into the woods, skipping and leaping, and at once set
to work to gnaw the stems of the bushes. And as soon as the bushes fell,
foxes came and dragged them away, so that in an hour the forest was
clear, and when the witch came back, behold, the set task was done!
So the witch took the leaves that she had brought and made a brew of
them, giving the liquid to brother and sister to drink. “But,” said she,
“see to it that you speak no word, for if you do before sunset, then
back you go to your old state.”
Both promised that heartily and drank. But as soon as the boy saw the
green of the grass, and the blue and crimson and purple flowers, and the
humming-birds like living diamonds in the shade, he called out in his
great joy:
“Oh, Sister, see how beautiful!” and at once he was in utter darkness
again. At the same moment, feeling her limbs strong, the girl was filled
with such delight that she tossed her arms into the air and danced. Then
from her came a keen cry of pain as she heard her brother’s cry and knew
that he was blind again. There was a moment when she wanted to lose all
that she had gained so that she could tell her brother that she shared
his grief, but she remembered that being strong she could help him in
his pain, so she went to him and took him by the hand and kissed his
cheek.
At sunset the boy, who had been sitting quiet, spoke, turning his
sightless face to the witch.
“You have tried to be good to us,” he said, “and you have been as kind
as it lay in your power to be. Since Sister is well, I am content. And I
have seen the beauty of the world, though it was in a flash. So, mother
witch, since you have not been able to give us all we ask, we will give
you all that we have. Come, then, to the place where we live and see the
things that we love, the birds and the flowers and the trees, and we
will try in kindness to repay you for what you have done.”
Hearing that, the witch suddenly burst into singing and hand-clapping
and told them that the spell was broken because she had been befriended.
“No witch am I,” she said, “but your own mother who did not die, but was
changed to this form for vain wishes.”
Then the boy regained his sight and the mother became as she had been,
tall and straight and beautiful and kind, and the three of them went to
their old home and lived there for many years, very happy and contented.
[Illustration]