The Old Man Made Young Again
At the time when our Lord still walked this
earth, he and St. Peter stopped one evening at a smith's and received free quarters. Then
it came to pass that a poor beggar, hard pressed by age and infirmity, came to this house
and begged alms of the smith. St. Peter had compassion on him and said, Lord and master,
if it please you, cure his torments that he may be able to win his own bread. The Lord
said kindly, smith, lend me your forge, and put on some coals for me, and then I will make
this ailing old man young again. The smith was quite willing, and St. Peter blew the
bellows, and when the coal fire sparkled up large and high our Lord took the little old
man, pushed him in the forge in the midst of the red-hot fire, so that he glowed like a
rose-bush, and praised God with a loud voice. After that the Lord went to the quenching
tub, put the glowing little man into it so that the water closed over him, and after he
had carefully cooled him, gave him his blessing, when behold the little man sprang nimbly
out, looking fresh, straight, healthy, and as if he were but twenty. The smith, who had
watched everything closely and attentively, invited them all to supper. He, however, had
an old half-blind crooked, mother-in-law who went to the youth, and with great earnestness
asked if the fire had burnt him much. He answered that he had never felt more comfortable,
and that he had sat in the red heat as if he had been in cool dew. The youth's words
echoed in the ears of the old woman all night long, and early next morning, when the Lord
had gone on his way again and had heartily thanked the smith, the latter thought he might
make his old mother-in-law young again likewise, as he had watched everything so
carefully, and it lay in the province of his trade. So he called to ask her if she, too,
would like to go bounding about like a girl of eighteen. She said, with all my heart, as
the youth has come out of it so well. So the smith made a great fire, and thrust the old
woman into it, and she writhed about this way and that, and uttered terrible cries of
murder. Sit still. Why are you screaming and jumping about so, cried he, and as he spoke
he blew the bellows again until all her rags were burnt. The old woman cried without
ceasing, and the smith thought to himself, I have not quite the right art, and took her
out and threw her into the cooling-tub. Then she screamed so loudly that the smith's wife
upstairs and her daughter-in-law heard it, and they both ran downstairs, and saw the old
woman lying in a heap in the quenching-tub, howling and screaming, with her face wrinkled
and shriveled and all out of shape. Thereupon the two, who were both with child, were so
terrified that that very night two boys were born who were not made like men but apes, and
they ran into the woods, and from them sprang the race of apes.
--The End-- |
