There was once a man who had one son, who married a widow who also
had one son, and both were hunchbacks. The wife took very good care
of her own son, but the son of her husband she used to put to hard
work and gave him scarcely anything to eat. Her son, too, used to
imitate his mother, and sadly ill-treat his stepbrother.
After treating him ill for a long time, she at last sent him away
from the house altogether.
The poor little hunchback wandered away without knowing where to go.
On, on, on he went, till at last he came to a lonely hut on a wide
moor. At his approach a whole host of little hunchbacks came out and
danced round him, chanting plaintively--
Sabbato!
Domenica!
a great number of times. At last our little hunchback felt his courage
stirred, and, taking up the note of their chant, chimed in with--
Lunedì!
Instantly the dancing ceased, all the little hunchback dwarfs became
full-grown, well-formed men, and, what was better still, his own hump
was gone too, and he felt that he, too, was a well-grown lad.
'Good people,' said our hunchback--now hunchbacked no more--'I thank
you much for ridding me of my hump and making me a well-grown lad. Give
me now some work to do among you, and let me live with you.'
But the chief of the strange people answered him and said: 'This favour
we owe to you, not you to us; for it was your chiming in with the right
word on the right note which destroyed the spell that held us all. And
in testimony of our gratitude we give you further this little wand,
and you will not need to work with us. Go back and live at home, and
if ever anyone beats you as heretofore, you have only to say to it,
"At 'em, good stick!" [84] and you will see what it will do for you.'
Then all disappeared, and the boy went home.
'So you've come back, have you?' said the stepmother. 'What, and
without your hump, too! Where have you left that?'
Then the good boy told her all that had happened, without hiding
anything.
'Do you hear that?' said the stepmother to her own son. 'Now go you
and get rid of your hump in the same way.'
So the second hunchback went forth, and journeyed on till he came to
the lonely hut on the moor.