I’ll tell you a story now, and I’ll not be with you again till
Christmas; and I never saw a man that could read an open book, was able
to tell a story out of the mouth.
King Solomon made a great house for himself, the best that was ever
seen. And there was a man passing one day, and he stopped to give a look
at it—the way I might give a look at that house there. ‘Tell me what
there is stronger and finer than that house,’ says King Solomon. ‘I
don’t know anything that is stronger and finer than it is,’ says the
man. ‘Well,’ said King Solomon, ‘unless you can give me an answer to
that by to-morrow I’ll have the head struck off of you,’ he said.
So when the man went home, he told all that to the daughter he had, and
he said he could find no answer. ‘I will give you an answer,’ says she.
‘Is not God stronger than that house, and isn’t heaven finer than what
it is?’ So he went the next day and he gave that answer. ‘I’ll give you
another question,’ says the King then. ‘Tell me,’ says he, ‘what is the
number of the stars of the sky! And tell me that by to-morrow,’ says he,
‘or I will strike the head off you.’
So the man went home, and he could think of no answer, and he told the
daughter what happened, and how King Solomon asked him to give an
account of the stars in the sky. ‘I will give you an answer,’ says the
daughter. ‘If you were to put twelve candles lighting on the top of the
highest mountain,’ says she, ‘and to be looking at them, and your sight
to spread on you, you wouldn’t know how many you were looking at, but
you might think it was hundreds. And there is no one can tell the number
of the stars,’ says she, ‘or give an account of them, but God that made
them.’
So the man went back next day, and he gave that answer to King Solomon.
‘Where did you get that answer,’ says the king, ‘or who made it?’ says
he. ‘It was my daughter made it,’ says the man. ‘Bring her here till
I’ll have a look at her,’ says the king.
So the daughter was brought before him, and she was a fine comely girl,
and when King Solomon saw her he took a liking to her. ‘Will you marry
me?’ says he. ‘I will not,’ says she; ‘for if you marry me to-day, you
might throw me off again to-morrow.’ I suppose she said that because she
knew of him having seven hundred wives. ‘I will not do that,’ says he.
‘Well,’ says she, ‘I’ll make a bargain with you that I’ll marry you if
you give me your word that the day you turn me out you’ll let me carry
away with me the three things I’ll ask for, and to have them for my
own.’
[Illustration: THE THIRD THING I’LL BE TAKING IS YOURSELF.]
So King Solomon agreed to that, and she married him, and she had a
child. And after a while he tired of her, and said she might go home. ‘I
will go,’ says she, ‘but I’ll bring away the three things you offered to
give me.’ So the first thing she brought away was the child, and the
second thing was a bag of gold. She came then to King Solomon. ‘Now,’
says she, ‘since you said I could bring away three things, it is you
yourself is the third. And come with me now,’ she says. So when King
Solomon heard that, he was afraid she would bring him with her, and that
she would have power over him. So he asked her to stop with him, and so
she did.
He began well and he ended badly; and Samson did the same, killing a
lion that was going to eat him in the beginning, and killing himself in
the end. It was through a woman that he lost his eyesight.
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