The Rich Woman and the Poor Woman

O N a cold winter night, thousands of years ago, St. Peter took one of his occasional walks on earth. Towards nightfall he knocked at a rich peasant's door. The farmer's wife was busy making pancakes in her cosy kitchen. Her little chubby baby was watching her as she poured the batter into the frying-pan. She spied the stranger through the window, and said to herself, "This fellow is attracted by the good smell, but I do not waste my pancakes on strangers." She sent the beggar away, wishing him God-speed.

He went on his way, and presently arrived at a mud cabin, where a poor widow lived with her six children. On hearing the old man begging her to have pity on him for God's sake, she opened the door and bade him stay the night in her little hut. "Night is falling," she said; "it is bitterly cold, stay with us, and you shall have my bedroom. I will doze in a chair near the fire." The stranger gratefully accepted her offer, and after having supped, retired to bed.

Before leaving the next day, he thanked the good woman, and said to her, "Listen, little mother: as you welcomed me in your house, I give you a wish; ask anything you like and you shall have it." The good woman thought at once of an unfinished roll of cloth which her dead husband was weaving a little before his death. Without further hesitation, she answered, "My good man, as you are so kind and so powerful, grant that the work which I begin the first thing in the morning may continue all day." "It shall be as you wish," said the stranger, as he bade her good-bye. Her six children accompanied him to the outskirts of the village, where they bade him God-speed.

Very early the next day the busy little woman began to measure the piece of cloth, which was about twelve yards long. Marvellous to relate, she measured and measured, and she found that when she had measured a certain length of cloth the pattern, texture, and designs changed. She then cut it off carefully and rolled it up, and thus as the day advanced she had rolls of cloth of every imaginable shade, design, and material. They filled the whole cabin to the rafters; there was scarcely room to move. Her children were huddled together in one spot, staring open-mouthed as she went on measuring. The neighbours came to say good day, but the cloth blocked up the door; it was with the greatest difficulty that they succeeded in squeezing their heads through the crack. Others on tiptoe were craning their necks to gaze in amazement through the window, which was half hidden in cloth. By midnight she had sufficient cloth to supply ten villages.

The wonderful news soon spread abroad, it was the wonder of the hour. When it reached the ears of the mean, rich peasant woman, who had turned the old man so roughly from her door, she was disgusted with herself, and did not sleep a wink the following night. She thought out innumerable plans to repair her mistake. She could not come to a decision, and she had to patiently await the return of the stranger. "Probably he will return next year," she said; "a year soon passes."

It was Christmas Eve. The peasant woman was again making pancakes, and she looked up from time to time to see if the old man appeared. Presently she saw him coming through the gate. Before he had time to knock, she opened the door, welcomed him in, and gave him a seat near the fire. "This time you must stay the night with us," she said; "it is too cold and too dark to go farther." "Thank you, my good woman," said the stranger, "but I still have a long way to go to-day. I only wanted to ask the way." "No, no," said the peasant, "you must certainly stay, you cannot be better cared for; draw up to the table and eat some pancakes; it will do you good, and to-morrow you can go as early as you like." There was nothing more to be said. A chair was drawn up to the table; the man was obliged to eat and drink. At bedtime they showed him into the best bedroom.

The next day the stranger thanked the woman and her husband, and said good-bye. He had already reached the gate, when he said, "Woman, I can give you nothing in return for your kind hospitality, but I grant that the first work you undertake to-morrow will last all day." Then he went on his way.

The woman was overwhelmed with joy. "To-morrow we shall be very rich," she said to her husband. "I shall be more cunning than my neighbour; I shall count money all day. I shall not waste a minute; I shall get up at midnight, for before daybreak I must make some bags to pour our fortune into."

All that night she never closed her eyes; on the stroke of midnight she sprang from her bed, and seizing the scissors she began to cut out the bags. But strange to say, she cut and cut until all the stuff was in fragments. Try as she would, she was obliged to go on cutting; she seized linen, shirts, sheets, tablecloths, napkins, handkerchiefs; even the window curtains did not escape. Then it was the turn of the wardrobe. Throwing it open, she took out her husband's wedding suit. "Look!" she said, as she cut off his coat-tails, "these will make two more bags. Here are strings for the bags," she added, snipping off her best bonnet-strings. She went on cutting without a pause. By night she had cut up everything except the clothes she was wearing. Her husband looked on at this terrible scene, howling with rage, while his wife sighed and cried with vexation. There was nothing left; her husband only managed to save the shirt he was wearing by running up the stairs as midnight struck.

The news of this disaster spread like wild-fire far and wide, but no one pitied the woman.