I
The boy came into the town at six o'clock in the morning, but the
baker at the corner of the first street was up, as is the way of
bakers, and when he saw the boy passing, he hailed him with a jolly
shout.
"Hullo, boy! What are you after?"
"I'm going about my business," the boy said pertly.
"And what might that be, young fellow?"
"I might be a good tinker, and worship god Pan, or I might grind
scissors as sharp as the noses of bakers. But, as a matter of fact,
I'm a piper, not a rat-catcher, you understand, but just a simple
singer of sad songs, and a mad singer of merry ones."
"Oh," said the baker dully, for he had hoped the boy was in search of
work. "Then I suppose you have a message."
"I sing songs," the boy said emphatically. "I don't run errands
for anyone save it be for the fairies."
"Well, then, you have come to tell us that we are bad, that our lives
are corrupt and our homes sordid. Nowadays there's money in that if
you can do it well."
"Your wit gets up too early in the morning for me, baker," said the
boy. "I tell you I sing songs."
"Aye, I know, but there's something in them, I hope. Perhaps you
bring news. They're not so popular as the other sort, but still, as
long as it's bad news--"
"Is it the flour that has changed his brains to dough, or the heat of
the oven that has made them like dead grass?"
"But you must have some news----?"
"News! It's a fine morning of summer, and I saw a kingfisher across
the watermeadows coming along. Oh, and there's a cuckoo back in the
fir plantation, singing with a May voice. It must have been asleep
all these months."
"But, my dear boy, these things happen every day. Are there no
battles or earthquakes or famines in the world? Has no man
murdered his wife or robbed his neighbour? Is no one oppressed by
tyrants or lied to by their officers."
The boy shrugged his shoulders.
"I hope not," he said. "But if it were so, and I knew, I should not
tell you. I don't want to make you unhappy."
"But of what use are you then, if it be not to rouse in us the
discontent that is alone divine? Would you have me go fat and happy,
listening to your babble of kingfishers and cuckoos, while my
brothers and sisters in the world are starving?"
The boy was silent for a moment.
"I give my songs to the poor for nothing," he said slowly. "Certainly
they are not much use to empty bellies, but they are all I have to
give. And I take it, since you speak so feelingly, that you, too, do
your best. And these others, these people who must be reminded hourly
to throw their crusts out of window for the poor--would you have me
sing to them? They must be told that life is evil, and I find it
good; that men and women are wretched, and I find them happy; that
food and cleanliness, order and knowledge are the essence of
content while I only ask for love. Would you have me lie to cheat
mean folk out of their scraps?"
The baker scratched his head in astonishment.
"Certainly you are very mad," he said. "But you won't get much money
in this town with that sort of talk. You had better come in and have
breakfast with me."
"But why do you ask me?" said the boy, in surprise.
"Well, you have a decent, honest sort of face, although your tongue
is disordered."
"I had rather it had been because you liked my songs," said the boy,
and he went in to breakfast with the baker.