Part 10 (1/2)

As soon as the Old Gnome spied this stump he cried,--”Ha! This is the spot for me! Here will I make my hermitage. And when the time comes for my long sleep, here will I rest forever.” For you must know that the Gnomes do not die, being immortal like the Fays; but unlike them growing older and dryer and drowsier until they are fit only for eternal sleep.

The Old Gnome was soon at home in his cell; and very peaceful and cozy he found it. For several days he lay and swung in his hammock, growing comfortably drowsier and drowsier, too lazy even to gather berries for his food. He would soon sleep without waking; and by and by the moss and lichens would grow over him, too, and he would become a silent part of the Ancient Wood,--a little green mound such as you yourself may have seen many a time.

But one day while he was snoring, with his wrinkled hands folded peacefully on his little chest, he heard a sound which made him open his eyes with a snap. It was the noise of an axe chopping. The Old Gnome sat up nervously and peered through his knot-hole window. A woodcutter was at work at the very next tree.

”h.e.l.lo!” said the Old Gnome, staring open-eyed; ”That must be a _man_!”

For this was the first mortal he had ever seen.

Forgetting his drowsiness, he climbed up his staircase and peered closely at the creature from behind a curtain of fern.

It was a strong young man, who wielded the axe heartily against the giant oak. The Old Gnome watched him curiously, admiring the lithe sweep of his arm and the rhythmic bend of his body.

”They are goodly folk, these men!” he sighed, looking down on his own misshapen frame. ”How can those evil brothers of mine care so much to vex and trouble them?” And he turned over and tried to go to sleep; but the sound of the axe kept knocking at something within him.

Suddenly, the man made a mis-stroke. The axe slipped and came down upon his sandaled foot. With a cry he dropped the axe and fell to the ground, lying very still and white.

”Ha!” frowned the Old Gnome, ”the work of my brothers! Some one of them must have charmed that axe. But how strange he looks! Doubtless it is pain, which I do not know. Ah, pain must be something very sore!” And he felt a throb of pity.

He hobbled to the spot where the woodman lay. Across his leg was a deep gash and on the moss were drops of crimson. The Old Gnome looked at them wonderingly, for the Gnomes are bloodless. ”How beautiful the color!” he cried, and he touched his finger to one of the drops. Immediately a thrill went through his cold body, and he seemed to feel a fresh draught of life. New impulses came to him.

”These men!” cried he, ”how weak they are, after all! How greatly they need aid. I can help him now,--even I!” And his ugly little face wrinkled into the first grin it had known for centuries.

He called to mind his long-forgotten skill in herbs, and hunted in the Ancient Wood for certain plants of healing. One he crushed and laid upon the wound to stanch the blood. Others he set out in the ground close under the young man's nose, so that they seemed to be growing naturally there.

Presently the woodman opened his eyes and stared about him dazedly, but the Old Gnome had hidden himself. As he gained strength, the woodman tore a strip of linen and bound it upon his leg. Then, sniffing the aromatic herbs which grew conveniently at hand, he plucked a bunch with which to make a lotion, and with it limped painfully from the wood.

The Old Gnome watched him go with curious eyes. ”I wonder if he will return,” he said to himself. And he decided not to sleep until he should know how it fared with the young man.

It was not many days thereafter before the woodman returned to the forest. The lotion had been wondrous helpful, and had healed him more quickly than he had dared to hope; for he was eager to be at work again.

Limping slightly, for the wound had been a sore one, David began work anew.

Day by day the Old Gnome watched him, half jealously at first. But the more he watched the more he liked the ways of the intruder. The woodman sang at his work; his eyes sparkled and his lips smiled as if with pleasant thoughts.

The Old Gnome found himself smiling too, unseen behind the fern. ”I will not sleep yet awhile,” he said, ”for there is work to do.”

In the night when the Ancient Wood was silent he toiled long and heartily at the crafts wherein he was wise. And the woodman tasted the result. For the Old Gnome made the berries to ripen more quickly in that glade. He caused delicious mushrooms to spring up all about. He coaxed a spring of fair water from the bed where it slumbered underground and made it gush into a little basin where David came upon it gladly. He caused medicinal herbs to grow, and certain fragrant plants that drove away the mischievous insects sent by his brother Gnomes. All this the Old One did while David was away; and the young man did not know. But he was very happy and busy. Now, one day the young man finished his woodcutting, and lo! he had made a clearing in the Ancient Wood large enough for a tiny house; but the Gnome did not know this. David looked about him at the spring and the flowers and the berries of the pleasant place which the Old Gnome had prepared, and said, ”It is good!”

Forthwith of the logs which he had felled he began to build the house itself.

When the Old Gnome saw what David was about to do, indeed he was angry!

For he said,--

”Oho! I did not bargain for this. This is my wood! I want no neighbor,--though a merry visitor was not unwelcome. What is to become of my solitude, of my hermitage? And how am I to sleep, with another restless creature living close by forever and ever?”

For several days he sulked in his cell and would not work. But finally the merry sound of the young man's whistle keeping time to the wheeze of saw and the knock of hammer made the Old Gnome smile again, and he said to himself,--

”Well, what of it? True, I shall have a neighbor for good and all. But he will be alone and speechless, since there is no one with whom to chatter; and he will never trouble me. Let him build here if he will.”

David builded his house; and a pretty little place it was, for he was a careful workman and his heart was in it. When all was done he laid the axe aside, hid the hammer and saw, put on fine new clothes and went away across the meadow, whistling happily as a bird. It was the Gnome's first chance to see the inside of a man's dwelling, and he lost no time in going there, you may be sure. He found many things to wonder at, for naturally it was very different from a Gnome's hermitage. But nothing surprised him more than the wreaths of flowers which David had hung over door and window and fireplace, over bed and chairs and table, so that the place was like a fragrant bower prepared for a beloved guest.

The Old Gnome shook his head. ”Strange folk, these men!” said he. ”Why, and why, and why?” But he brushed up the sawdust, which David had forgotten in a corner; and he re-piled the kindlings on the hearth, which David had hastily put together for a fire. He neatly spread the bed, which David had clumsily prepared; and he made tidy the kitchen which, in his eagerness to don his new clothes, David had quite overlooked. Then the Old One went back to his cell and lay down in his hammock, chuckling. ”How surprised the fellow will be!” he said.

At night the Old Gnome heard voices in the wood, and sprang up from his hammock angrily. ”More of them?” he cried. ”Am I to hear human prattle around me, after all?” And he peered from the balcony of his cell with eyes almost as fierce as those of his brother Gnomes in the Great Fear.