Tell Me Another Story | Page 8

asleep.

Very tenderly the Woodcutter took up the child and wrapped the cloak
around it to shield it from the harsh cold, and he made his way down
the hill to the village.
"I have found something in the forest," he said to his wife when he
reached the poor house where they lived.
"What is it?" she cried. "The house is bare and we have need of many
things." So he drew the cloak back and showed her the sleeping child.
"It is a Star-Child," he said, and told her of the strange manner of
finding it.
"But our children lack bread; can we feed another?" she asked.
"God careth for the sparrows even," he answered.
So after a time she turned round and looked at him, and her eyes were
full of tears. And he came in swiftly, and placed the child in her arms,
and she kissed it, and laid it in a little bed where the youngest of their
own children was lying. And on the morrow the Woodcutter took the
curious cloak of gold and placed it in a great chest, and a chain of
amber that was round the child's neck his wife took and set in the chest
also.
So the Star-Child was brought up with the children of the Woodcutter,
and sat at the same board with them, and was their playmate. And every
year he became more beautiful to look at, so that all those who dwelt in
the village were filled with wonder. While they were swarthy and
black-haired, he was white and delicate as ivory, and his curls were like
the rings of the daffodil. His lips, also, were like the petals of a red
flower, and his eyes were like violets, and his body like a narcissus of a
field where the mower comes not.
Yet, the Star-Child's beauty worked him harm, for he grew proud and
cruel and selfish. He despised the other children of the village because
they were of mean parentage, and he made himself master of them and
called them his servants. He had no pity for the poor, or for those who

were blind, or lame; but would cast stones at them.
Now there passed one day through the village a poor beggar-woman.
Her garments were torn and ragged, and her feet were bleeding from
the rough road on which she had travelled, and she was in very evil
plight. And being weary, she sat her down under a chestnut-tree to rest.
But when the Star-Child saw her, he said to his companions, "See!
There sits a beggar-woman under that fair and green-leaved tree. Come,
let us drive her hence, for she is ugly and ill-favoured."
So he came near and threw stones at her, and mocked her, and, she
looked at him with terror in her eyes, nor did she move her gaze from
him.
"Whose child is this?" she asked. Then the Woodcutter, who was
passing by, told of finding the Star-Child, of the chain of amber around
his neck and the cloak wrought with stars. And, hearing, the
beggar-woman cried with joy.
"He is my little son," she said, "whom I lost through enchantment in the
forest. I have searched for him through all the world."
The Woodcutter called the Star-Child, and said to him,
"Here is thy mother, waiting for thee."
But the Star-Child laughed scornfully.
"I am no son of thine," he said. "I am a Star-Child, and thou art a
beggar, and ugly, and in rags. Get thee hence that I may see thee no
more."
"Oh, my little son," cried the beggar-woman. "Will you not kiss me
before I go? I have suffered much to find thee."
"No," said the Star-Child. "I would rather kiss an adder or a toad than
thee."

So the woman went away into the forest, weeping bitterly, and the
Star-Child was glad and ran back to his playmates. But when they saw
him coming they ran away from him in fear. He went to the well and
looked in. Lo, his face was as the face of a toad and his body was
scaled like an adder. He flung himself down on the grass, and wept.
"I denied my mother," he said. "This has come upon me because of my
sin. I will seek her through all the world, nor rest until I have found
her."
So he ran away into the forest and called out to his mother to come to
him, but there was no answer. All day long he called to her, and when
the sun set he lay down to sleep on a bed of leaves, and the birds and
the animals fled from him, for they remembered his cruelty, and he was
alone save for the toad that watched