Fulfilled

 

Fulfilled

By Kate Douglas Wiggin

One Christmas Eve two poor travelers came to a farmhouse and begged a night’s lodging.  Nay, said the people of the house, they had no room for travelers and beggars!  So the wayfarers went on their way until they came to a cottage where lived a poor farm laborer and his wife.  They knocked at the door and asked if they might stay the night there.  Yes, was the reply, they might stay, and welcome, if they would put up with such as was there, for they were only very humble folk.  The strangers thanked them very warmly, and entered the house.  They had not been there long when the wife whispered to her husband:

“We must see if we cannot find something nice for our guests, on the eve of such a holy festival.  We must kill our little goat.”

“Yes, let us do that,” said the man.

So they killed the goat, and roasted it for supper, and they ate and were glad of heart that holy eve.

When bedtime came, they gave their guests their own bed, which was the only one they had, and then they spread some straw upon the floor and slept there.

Next morning they all went to church together, and the cottagers begged the travelers to stay with them the two feast days, “For now there is that good meat,” said they, “you must help us to eat it.”

The strangers agreed to do this, and stayed with them both Christmas Day and the day following.

On the morning of the third day, when they were to leave, the travelers thanked the cottagers for their hospitality.  They were very sorry, they said, that they had nothing to give them in payment.

“Oh, that does not signify in the least!” said both the man and his wife; they had not taken them in for the sake of any reward.

Just as they were going out of the door, however, one of the strangers said, ”But has the goat no horns?”

“Oh, yes,” replied the man, “but they are worth nothing.”

He thought perhaps the strangers had some use for horns, and would have begged for them.

“How many horns had the goat?” asked the traveler again.

“Two,” answered the man, much surprised.

“Well, then, you may have two wishes,” said the visitor; “choose for yourselves.”

But the man said they wished for nothing save their daily bread, a peaceful life in this world, and heaven when they died.

“God grant it!” said the strangers.  “We will come again in a year’s time.”  And they went their way.

From that day forward everything thrived and prospered in the most marvelous manner with the cottagers.  Their only cow presented them with three fine calves, their two sheep had eight lambs, their sow so many little pigs that they could hardly count them, and everything that had been sown, or that they now sowed in their little bit of land, brought forth a hundredfold.  Thus they became quite well-to-do, and they set to work building and adding to their house, making it much larger and lighter.

Meanwhile they looked forward with gladness to Christmas time, when the two strangers should come again, for they knew very well they had to thank them for all this prosperity.  Their neighbors and the village folk marveled greatly at all the good things that kept streaming in upon them; and the people at the farm close by, where the two travelers had been refused admittance, wondered most of all.  When they heard what the poor cottagers themselves made no secret of, that all this prosperity was owing to the good offices of the two wayfarers who had been their guests last Christmas, they were bitterly angry, and considered it had been as good as stolen from them, for they might have had the wishes if they had taken the travelers in.

When these same neighbors heard that the strangers had promised to come again at Christmas, they begged and entreated the good-natured cottagers to promise them that when the travelers arrived they would send them on to their farm.

On Christmas Eve, at twilight, the same two travelers came and knocked at the cottage door.  Both the man and wife ran out to meet them and thank them for all the prosperity that had accrued to them from their visit.  The strangers then asked if they might stay the night there, and spend Christmas with them.  Yes, said the man and his wife, nothing would have pleased them so well, but they had promised the people at the farm close by that they would send them over to them when they came.  They were so vexed at having sent them away last year, and were anxious now to make up for it.

“As you will,” answered the strangers, “we will go over there this evening, but early in the morning we will return and go to church with you.”

So they went to the farm.

A boy had been stationed at the door to keep a lookout for them, and he at once ran in and announced their coming.  Both the farmer and his wife rushed out to meet their prospective guests, and with many apologies for having sent them away last year, led them into their best parlor.  The farmer had killed a fat ox, and his wife had roasted it for them; so there was soup and roast meat, and cake and good ale, and old mead and wine into the bargain.  They had a room to themselves in the upper story, with two large beds in it, with feather mattresses and pillows.

Next morning the strangers were up early, and the farmer and his wife begged them to stay at least over Christmas; but the wayfarers said they must be leaving, as they intended going to church and afterward continuing their journey.  The farmer thereupon harnessed his horses to his best carriage.  “They must not walk there; they should drive,” he said.

They thanked him courteously and, before leaving, one said to his host and hostess that they did not know what return they could make to them for their hospitality, for they had no money.  “But wait,” he added, “had the ox any horns?”

“Yes, indeed, sure enough it had,” answered the farmer.  Having heard from the cottagers of the talk there had been last year about the goat’s horns, he understood at once what his guest alluded to.

“How many horns?” asked the stranger.

The wife, pulling her husband by the sleeves, whispered, “Say four.”

So the man answered that the ox had four horns.

“Ah!” said the stranger, “then you can have four wishes, two for each of you.”

And they got into the carriage and drove to the church where the cottagers were awaiting them.

The farmer had himself driven them, and he made all possible haste to get back home again, when, he told himself, he and his wife would settle about their four wishes.  He was just thinking of this when one of the animals stumbled and broke a trace.  The farmer at this was obliged to get down and mend it.  Then he dove on, but it was not long before the other horse stumbled.

“Ah!  The wicked elves take you both!” he cried, and hardly had he said this before both the animals vanished, and there he sat in the carriage, with the reins in his hands, but nothing to drive.  So he had to leave the vehicle standing there, and continue his journey on foot.  Here was one of his wishes fulfilled.  But he did not trouble himself much about that when he remembered that he and his wife still had three more.  He could easily get as many horses as he wanted, together with many other good things.  So he trudged quite contentedly along the highroad.  Meantime his wife was at home, waiting and waiting and longing for her husband to come that they might begin to wish.  She went outside and looked up the road, but he was not in sight.

“If he were only here, the lazy bones!”  She exclaimed, and as she spoke there he stood. 

“Ah!” she cried, “now I have wasted one of my wishes!  But how is it you come trudging along like any vagabond?   What have you done with the carriage and horses?”

“I wished the wicked elves might take my best horses, and they have taken them.  You have only yourself to thank.  There is no luck in such cheating.  It was you who said the ox had four horns.  I only wish two of them where sticking out of your own head.”  And no sooner had he said so than there they were.

Three out of their four wishes had now been fulfilled, and the only one left belonged to the woman.

“Dear little wife,” said the husband coaxingly, “now make a good use of your wish and ask for a heap of money, that all may yet be well.”

“No, thank you,” retorted the woman, “and I going about with a pair of horns until the day of my death.”

Determined not to do that at any cost, she straightway wished the wicked elves might take the horns, and in an instant they vanished.

Thus the farmer and his wife were no richer for all the wishes, but rather the poorer by a pair of horses and an ox.