STO RY begat An An Ias, who begat Wha Pur, who begat Ala Din, who begat
Sin Bad, who begat El Ra Shad, who begat Mun Chau Sen (the elder), who
begat Mun Chau Sen the younger (my grandfather), who submits the
following Items with knowledge they will be favorably received and
conscientiously preserved by his descendants:
_Item First_
My five-great-grandfather was walking in an orchard one day when he
discovered a tree laden with a peculiar fruit. He gazed on it with
wonder, for but the day before he had planted the sprout which had been
sent to him by his grandfather. He could scarcely comprehend he was
awake and in his right senses, but such was the case. The fruit seemed
of gold, and as he was a poor man his heart immediately yearned for the
possession of enough of it that he might buy a cow that his children
might have milk; to buy a few bees that they might have honey with which
to eat the milk; to buy a horse that he might no longer have to walk to
the city; to buy a farm on which to raise food; to buy a few sheep to
grow wool for clothing; to buy seed to sow, and to buy material with
which to build a house, for they were very, very poor and had lived in a
cave and subsisted on roots and things like that.
And he went up to the tree, put forth his hand to take some of the
fruit, when lo, the tree grew so rapidly he could not reach the fruit.
He became frenzied with the desire for it and he put forth such strength
to reach the lowest shining globe his arm was lengthened thereby to a
length almost sufficient to reach it, but not quite. So he persevered
until his arm had grown so long he had not strength in his body to keep
it longer in an upright position and it fell to the ground, from whence
he could not raise it, nor did it resume its former length, but remained
as it was.
He gazed aloft at the golden fruit, tears streaming down his face.
Then he started off in great haste in search of a ladder, as the tree
seemed to have stopped its remarkable growth, and he was forced to drag
his arm and hand after him trailing on the ground.
When he had gone a great distance he was suddenly stopped by the king,
who was out riding, for the king had not ever seen a man with such an
arm. In answer to the king’s question as to how he came by it, he told
his story. The king immediately ordered one of his attendants to
dismount, and had my forefather put on the horse and directed him to
lead the way to this wonder, which they very soon reached.
Thereupon the king commanded one of his attendants (who happened to be
one of the ancestors of Sin Bad) to climb the tree and throw down the
fruit.
[Illustration]
When the man began to climb, the tree began to grow above him; he
climbed and climbed and climbed until he was worn out with exhaustion
and slid down with such force he lay stunned for several hours.
In the meantime the king ordered his hewer to cut down the tree, which
he proceeded to do with a great show of confidence. But, strange though
it may seem it is nevertheless in strict accord with veracity, before
the chopper could make a second stroke the cut he had made had risen
above his reach by reason of the swift growth of the tree; and he was
fain to desist after a long and hard struggle to strike the blows
quickly enough to get two cuts in the same place.
He was at once beheaded by the order of the king, who was frantic with
rage at his defeat.
He then ordered his bridgemaker to tie a chain around the tree, hitch
twenty oxen to the chain, and thus pull the tree up by the roots.
Now, this driver of oxen was a vainglorious man and earnestly sought
emulation in the sight of his majesty, and it was with exceeding
readiness he set about obeying the command. He dextrously switched his
oxen into line, and they were lusty ones, and with much adroitness took
a lockstitch around the trunk of the tree. Then he reached for his whip,
and observed the oxen all dangling in the air above his head, bellowing
with fear and liked all to have their necks broken by the phenomenal
growth of the tree. Had the chain not broken by the efforts of the oxen
to free themselves, they had all surely been done to death by the tree.
But the extreme weight of the oxen thus hanging on one side of the tree
had made a kink in the trunk, and a peculiar thing happened—the tree now
grew upward in kinks.
The king was simply beside himself with passion and with his own hand
cut off the head of the oxen driver; and he then commanded his commander
of war engines to knock the tree down with a battering ram.
Now, this commander had had nothing to do for ages, as the king had
hitherto been a peaceable man, and he felt the honor of receiving a
command from his monarch so keenly he strutted about the work of
arranging the ram for decisive action.
This was a ponderous piece of machinery, had cost many talents of gold,
but had never been brought into actual use. It had an ugly-looking ram
which seemed powerful enough to have knocked down a castle with a single
blow. It was worked by electricity, and all the commander had to do was
to press the button and it would do the kicking.
When all was ready, he pressed the button. The ram shot forward with
enormous velocity, only to come at the tree as one of the kinks removed
the trunk from its track. And no matter how rapidly the button was
pushed, so it was thought, a kink in which there was no tree was always
found in front of the shooting ram. So the commander was beheaded, and
the king jumped from his horse and danced up and down in a frightful
state.
He turned upon my forefather and would have beheaded him on the spot for
having told him about the thing, had not my forefather asked the
privilege of cutting down the tree. He was at once commanded so to do,
and in not very choice language, for the king was so far gone he had
entirely forgotten the rules of polite society.
My forefather had been thinking all this time and thinking pretty hard,
too, for he felt pretty sure he would not be home for supper that night
if the king got no golden apples. And he thought to some purpose, and
had observed the tree very minutely.
He took a long piece of heavy wire from his pocket, quickly placed it
around the trunk of the tree, and, though he was carried some distance
up before he could fasten it to his liking, he succeeded in doing so and
dropping safely to the ground, though it was a goodly jump he had to
make.
As the tree expanded in its growth of girth in proportion to its upward
movement the wire soon began to cut into the trunk. Thus the tree was
caught, for it had now grown to such a height if it did not keep on
growing larger around it would become top-heavy and break off at the
narrow point where was the wire.
And now the king’s pleasure knew no more bounds than did his wrath, and
he knighted my forefather on the spot.
The work of the wire was made apparent by the waving of the tree top,
which soon became quite visible; but the tree had grown so high when the
wire had finished its task, the top fell far out into the ocean, with
all its golden fruit.
And now the king did a very mean thing—he directed his sword-bearer to
give him his long sword, which was about twenty feet long, with which he
desired to have the honor of removing my forefather’s head.
But my forebear was not to be outdone. He grasped the king about the
middle with the long fingers of his long hand on his long arm, held him
high above his head for a moment, then threw him far out to sea, telling
him to bring him some of the golden fruit and he would sit on his throne
until he did so, which he proceeded to do, and thereby attained all the
things he would have bought with the golden fruit, and many more
besides.
So great had been the effort in throwing the king into the ocean, my
forefather’s arm at once resumed its natural length.
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X
_Wherein the Third Document is continued, relating
here the second item thereof, which has to do with
that mighty hunter my four-great-grandfather,
and tells how he made a wonderful capture of a
remarkable beast in nick of time to save his own
life from the headsman of the king._