A shoemaker and a tailor were wandering together. The shoemaker had some money; the tailor had none. Both were in love with the same girl, Lizzie, and both had in mind to marry her after he had made enough money for it and had become masters of their crafts. The shoemaker was wicked, while the tailor was good-natured and frivolous.
The tailor had not really want to wander with the shoemaker, since he himself was moneyless, but the shoemaker had said, "Come along with me. I have some money, so we may eat and drink every day, also when we do not get any work."
What the tailor did not know, was that the shoemaker had invited him to wander with him to do something evil against him, for by the way Lizzie looked at the tailor the shoemaker had found out she liked the tailor best. So the tailor had accepted the offer, and both had packed up their knapsacks and set off together.
They wandered for nine days. The tailor was offered work to do several times, but Peter was not. He persuaded the tailor not to accept the work but instead walk on with him. However, after these nine days the shoemaker said to the tailor, "Hans, my money is dwindling. It will still last a while, but from now on we may eat and drink only two times daily."
"Ah, a shortage of food and drink this early!" sighed the tailor. "I should not have come with you. I could have starved at home instead."
The shoemaker had money enough and had his fill of food every day, for when he bought their food, he ate then too, secretly. When he came back to Hans he had two more meals with him, and listened to his companion's complaints of being hungry, and his growling stomack.
Nine more days passed, and they did not find any work during this time. The shoemaker said, ""Hans, from now on there will be food only once a day."
"Oh, oh, Peter," said Hans to the shoemaker, "I am already so thin that I almost barely cast a shadow."
"Buckle your belt a little more!" the shoemaker said laughingly. "See, there is food where we go: berries and roots abound in this season."
Hans ate berries that he knew, but he did not get any stouter. He did not get any work offers any longer either, for master tailors thought that such a bony and thin fellow might not be good enough for their work, and said so in inconsiderate ways too."
The tailor wept when he did not get any work, while the shoemaker secretly took malicious pleasure in it. After nine more days he said, "Hans, There is no more food money for the two of us."
The tailor cried, "Woe that I went out in the world with you! If only you had never persuaded me to come with you, time after time."
The shoemaker said with a grim laugh, "But there is much to drink around us - Water, water!" Water can be healthy when you are thirsty, and I drink water too."
"But water is not food!" the tailor complained.
"Well, I will go to the bakery and for the last money I have got I will buy soemthing for us," said the shoemaker. He left Hans sitting on a stone and went to a bakery, bought four sandwiches, ate three and drank gin along with it. Then he went back to Hans.
"Peter, you smell of booze!" said the tailor to the shoemaker.
"So? Well, here is your half bread."
The starving tailor ate his half with water and then walked on with his secrely plotting companion. They said almost nothing to each other.
Towards evening they walked into a village. The shoemaker went to a bakery, ate his fill and came back to the tailor with a bread in his hand. The tailor thought he would share the bread with him, but the shoemaker shoved it in his pocket.
After a while, when they had left the village and gone into a forest, the tailor asked for his half bread.
"I am not hungry yet," said the shoemaker.
"Not hungry?" cried the tailor and stopped, with legs shaking. "What kind of monster are you?"
"Glutton!" the shoemaker sneered back to him. "You have cost me my very last money!"
"But it was you who persuaded me to go with you, and made me pass by all opportunities for work!" said the tailor with difficulty, for he was very weak and his tongue stuck to the palate.
"You will not get your half for free," said the shoemaker. "That bread in my pocket is as dear to me as two eyes. I will give you half the bread for one of your eyes."
"Goodness graceous!" the tailor could not believe it, and stretched out his hand for half the bread, ate it, and the shoemaker stabbed him in the eye.
The next day the same thing happened. The shoemaker bought a bread and gave the tailor nothing of it until he had promised him his other eye.
"But then I will be blind!" whined the tailor. "Then I can work no more, and cannot even thread a needle."
The wicked Peter said, ""Who is blind sees no evil, nothing false and faithless, and he no longer needs to work, for he is excused. As a rich beggar you can still be rich." The tailor was unable to think clearly because he was near death of starvation, so he got a half bread while the shoemaker made him blind. When that was done, the tailor hoped that at least the shoemaker would guide him. But the other said, "Goodbye, Hans! This is what I wanted to do all along. I can now go back home and marry Lizzie. Take care of yourself."
The shoemaker walked away, while the blinded tailor fainted from weakness, pain and grief. He fell to the ground and lay there unconscious. While he was lying like that three four-footed wayfarers came along the road, a bear, a wolf, and a fox. They sniffed at the unconscious man, and the bear growled, "This man seems dead! I don't care to eat him myself. Do you want him?"
"I ate from a sheep only an hour ago; I'm not hungry just now," said the wolf. "In any case, this fellow is so bony and skinny that he would be as hard on my teeth as a wooden leg!"
"He must have been a tailor, a very lean tailor, poor man!" laughed the fox. "I'd rather eat a fat goose! He can lie there for all I care."
The poor tailor came to himself again and sensed the animals around him and held his breath as best he could. Meanwhile while the three animals lay down in the grass to rest, not far away.
"I see he has been blinded. That is a great misfortune," said the fox, "both for us noble animals and for those who walk about on two legs. If they knew what I know, they would not be blind any longer."
"Oho!" cried the wolf. "I know something too! If the people in the nearby king's city knew it, they would not suffer from drought and thirst , and would not have to pay a gold piece for a small glass of water."
"Hm, hm!" growled the bear. "I know something remarkable too! If you will tell what you two know, I will tell what I know. But we must promise never to give away each others' secrets."
"No, we will not do that!" promised the fox and the wolf, and the fox began to tell, "I know that today is a special night where heavenly dew falls on grass and flowers. Who is blind and bathes his eyes in this dew, will see again."
"That is a wonderful secret," said the wolf, "and here is mine: The wells in the king's city dried up long ago, and the people in it must either die of thirst or leave unless something happens soon. If they only knew they have plenty of water right under their feet! For in the middle of the paving in the market place lies a gray stone; if anyone lifts it up, a spring of water would shoot out of the ground. How glad the people would be to have water again!"
The bear said, "Now hear my secret. The king's only daughter has been sick for seven years and no doctor can help her, for none of them knows what the matter is, wise as they think they are. The king's daughter is so ill that the king has promised to marry her to the man who can heal her. But none can help her, because none else knows what I know!"
"Now you have made us curious!" said the wolf.
The bear growled and said, "Wait a little," and snorted and cleared his throat before he went on, "When the princess was a young girl, she was to throw a piece of gold into the poor box in the church as an offering. But she was young and shy in front of all the people in the church, so she threw the gold piece awkwardly, so that she missed the box and the coin fell into a crack on the floor beneath it. That was when she got her illness, and she will not be well again until the piece of gold is pulled out of the crack and put into the poor box. The cure is simply to go and find the gold piece and let the king's daughter put it into the box."
When the animals had shared these secrets with each other, they got up and went away - the bear went to look for wild honey, and the others went near poulty yards to steal a breakfast if they could.
But the tailor bathed his eyes with the dew that had started to fall, and soon his eyes were as good as new. He felt strangely refreshed, and when night had passed he soon walked further down the road. In some villages he passed through, he got so much food and drink that he felt satisfied, and at last he came to the city where people for the lack of water drank wine and gin instead, even though it was not good for them.
The tailor had no money to by gin for, so he walked into an inn and asked for a large glass of water. The landlady looked at him and said, "If you do not have money enough to gin and wine, you do not have money for water either, for it costs much more around here; it would cost a fortune, really. There is so little water in the city that I do not have anything of it to sell or give away."
"Is it really that dry around here?" asked the tailor. "But I know how to let fresh water well up. Call me a fountain doctor."
Some young nobles in the inn heard him say that. In their extreme need they were drinking champagne and brandy, and hoped to get better things to drink instead. They flocked around the tailor and asked quickly if he could give the city a fountain.
"Yes, I could if I would," said he, "but not for nothing. What I ask for in return is a salary of five or six thousand gold pieces a year, for example."
The town council hastened to consider the tailor's offer, and all the members voted for paying the tailor what he asked for. The head of the counsil was then sent to the king, asking him to make a decree that made the tailor the city's "fountain doctor", his salary paid by the city. The king agreed, but with the reservation that there had to be plenty of water coming if the well doctor was to get a salary.
The tailor now walked to the market and pointed to a grey, square stone in the pavement in the middle of the market. To the officials around him he said, "Gentlemen, let people tdig up that stone!"
As soon as they did, a jet of water sprang high into the air while the onlookers shouted and cried for joy. The same day the king called for the tailor and was very friendly, made him one of his royal advisers. During the reception someone mentioned the disease of the king's daughter, and the king asked his new adviser, "Do you think this sort of welling water have any effect on her disease?"
"Oh no, sire!" answered the 'fountain doctor'. "It is not water than will cure her. But if you will allow me to see her, I may perhaps find out why she is ill."
The king took his new adviser with him to the princess. She was very beautiful. The advisor felt her pulse, and then said, "Sire, if you will permit us to carry her to church, I think she can be healed."
The king welcomed the idea. "It is worth a try," he said.
In the church Sir Hans - the former tailor - was shown the offering box and then looked for and found a crack with a gold piece in it. He gave the gold piece to the princess and asked her to put in the poor box. She did, and at once got well again. Then they went back to the castle and made her father very happy.
The king's new adviser soon became chief minister, and then a count, a prince, and the princess's beloved husband.
After the wedding, the newly married couple went on a journey through the country. They came to the village that Hans once set out from when he was a moneyless tailor. A grinder stood beside the village inn. He was sharpening knives while his wife turned the grindstone for him. It was Peter and Lisa. At first she had not wanted to marry Peter when he returned, but she accepted him in the end, as he swore she would never see Hans again.
Hans recognized them at once, and called out to the coachman to stop. "Peter!" he said.
Peter started and hurried forward, asking what the prince wanted.
"I just want you to recognise what has become of me after you felled me in the woods. I lay under a tree when we parted, all alone and blind. But as I lay there, good fortune came my way, and now I can see again, I have got rich, and now I leave you! Have this purse of money in return for feeding me. Drive on, coachman!"
Peter stood as if he had become lame and stared after the fine-looking coach for some time. Then he gave the money to his wife saying, "That was Hans! I will go and seek my own fortune where he found his."
Off he went as fast as he could go to the place where he had blinded and left the starving Hans. A fox was running ahead of him and stopped at just that spot. Then a wolf came bounding too. Peter turned quickly and saw a bear who was trotting toward him. Peter hastily climbed a tree.
"Traitors! Traitors! Traitors!" barked the fox, and howled the wolf, and growled the bear. They accused each other of telling the secrets they had promised to keep. They grew very angry. In the end the bear and fox sided together against the wolf. They said he was the traitor, so he must be hanged. The fox twisted a rope out of fir twigs and tied a noose in it. The bear held the wolf fast and the fox put the noose around the wolf's neck. But as the wolf was pulled up in the air, he looked up and saw Peter sitting on a branch of the tree. "There is a man in the tree! He could have told our secrets!" he howled.
Now the two other animals looked up and let the wolf fall to the ground. "Let us interrrogate him!" they howled and grunted.
The bear climbed the tree, and with a blow from his forepaw he knocked Peter from the branch. He fell badly and died on the spot.
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