It was only after several months, a little before St. John’s day, that the old man made ready to leave. One evening he said,
“Well, I’ve had a real nice rest, I have. Now, there’s nothing for it, got to be going again...”
The heart of the farmer’s wife gave a leap with joy, but she put on a sad face and exclaimed with affected surprise,
“Oh, dear me, oh, dear me, you mean you are leaving so soon? What a pity you don’t want to stay longer. But what can I do? Can’t be helped! Can’t be helped!” And frisking with joyous anticipation she saw the old man to the gate.
Seeing the beggar turn to go his way without so much as saying good-bye, the woman called after him,
“Wait, wait, stop a moment, good man, you’re such a good man, a wise man, can’t you advise me what work I should tackle to last the whole day?”
“How do I know, dear lady? I don’t know indeed. All I can say is that whatever you start must really be carried on until the evening,” answered the beggar and was soon lost to sight.
The farmer’s wife clapped her hands with joy. She slammed the gate to and rushed into the house to fetch her ellstick to go to the outbuilding to measure her rolls of cloth.
But then suddenly her stomach began rumbling and there followed a sharp pain. So instead of really going and fetching her ellstick she started moaning and groaning in a loud voice and sat down on the grass. And the stingy mistress kept sitting and groaning on the grass until night fell. She entered the house only when the upper edge of the sun’s disk had sunk below the horizon.
That bit of ill fortune embittered the stingy farmer’s wife so much that in the course of seven days and seven nights she did not exchange even seven words with the members of her household. Hadn’t she fed the beggar for several months? Hadn’t she quenched his thirst with her delicious mead, hadn’t he slept in her bed on downy feather pillows, between two snow-white sheepskin coats? And all she had got for it was a bad stomachache!
When the story got about the villagers laughed and said,
“Serves her right, the niggard, the skinflint!”
And one cannot but agree that it did serve her right.
The Retribution of Jack Frost
One half of the village lay on low and flat terrain, the other half spread on the gravelly slopes of drumlin landscape.
The plain was rich and fertile, the meagre soil of the drumlin country grew puny crops: rye was barely knee-high to a herdboy, oats and barley hardly tall enough to shelter a bigger sort of frog from the scorching sun. The villagers, like their fields and crops, differed from each other—the lowlanders were stuck-up and noisy, the highlanders spoke little and wore a constant troubled look.
One summer on a fine Sunday afternoon, the lowland farmers were sitting in the local inn drinking whiskey and biting delicious sausage to it, laughing and talking nineteen to the dozen. And they had every reason for feasting: there was a promise of a good harvest that year!
Boasting of their riches, the farmers were all in high spirits. There entered an old man dressed in tatters and asked the innkeeper whether he could give him shelter for the night. As the landlord was doing good business he, too, turned up his nose and snapped haughtily over his shoulder,
“No, I can’t.”
“Right, no shelter for a tramp like this!” the chorus of the rich farmers joined in.
“Do let me stay overnight! You can see I’m old and tired, where could I go at this late hour?” the tattered old man begged.
“No, I can’t,” the landlord repeated even more firmly.
And the rich farmers clamoured,
“No! No shelter, no shakedown for him!” “Don’t put him up for the night!”
“Kick the scamp out!”
“Out with him!”
The tattered old man turned resignedly and made for the door, looked back on the threshold and, wagging his finger, said in a threatening tone,
“Just you wait, you niggards! You’ll have reason to remember Jack Frost.”
So saying the man left the inn and went straight across the plain to that part of the village which was situated on the slopes of the gravelly hills. The first door he knocked at was hospitably opened to him. The farmer received him kindly, fed him and brought in a straw mattress for him to sleep on comfortably.
Taking his leave in the morning the tattered old man said gratefully,
“Best thanks, brother! And best thanks to your neighbours, too. I bet they would have given me a shakedown and fed me the same as you.”
“Sure enough. Because they’re no stone-hearted robbers any of them,” the farmer rejoined.
“Well, eh... And may your crops grow thick and tall, taller than the tallest man!” the old man called back from the gate and soon disappeared behind the stunted birch grove.
The lowland farmers continued their feast in the inn until small hours when the next day broke. But the moment the first rays of the sun penetrated through the window it grew bitterly cold in the room.
At first the innkeeper alone began to shiver, while the conceited farmers laughed and mocked at him ruthlessly. By and by, however, even the greatest mockers desisted—all of a sudden they, too, were seized by a violent fit of shivering. Shivering like aspen leaves—first the very rich men, then the rich and rather rich men, and at last the not so rich men. There was nothing for it but to run home as fast as their legs would carry them, and seek warmth under heaps of sheepskin coats.
Of course, the haughty farmers finally stopped shivering with cold, but they had to brace themselves for an even greater shock. The thing was that the unforeseen late frost had killed all the crops on the fields of the plain, all to the last blade and shoot. And the wealthy farmers could do nothing but stare and scratch their heads: all their grain had gone to the granaries of Jack Frost, while the crops of the highland farmers looked a lot thicker and taller than before!
So after all the haughty flat-land farmers came to understand that in this world one did not fare well with evil and envy.
