The wise man from Cumberland was so angry at being outwitted that he
sprang at Solomon and would no doubt have injured him had not our
wise man turned and run away as fast as he could go. The man from
Cumberland at once ran after him, and chased him through the streets
and down the lanes and up the side of the hill where the bramble-bushes
grow.
Solomon ran very fast, but the man from Cumberland was bigger, and he
was just about to grab our wise man by his coat-tails when Solomon gave
a great jump, and jumped right into the middle of a big bramble-bush!
The people were all coming up behind, and as the big man did not dare
to follow Solomon into the bramble-bush, he turned away and ran home to
Cumberland.
All the men and women of our town were horrified when they came up and
found their wise man in the middle of the bramble-bush, and held fast
by the brambles, which scratched and pricked him on every side.
"Solomon! are you hurt?" they cried.
"I should say I am hurt!" replied Solomon, with a groan; "my eyes are
scratched out!"
"How do you know they are?" asked the village doctor.
"I can see they are scratched out!" replied Solomon; and the people all
wept with grief at this, and Solomon howled louder than any of them.
Now the fact was that when Solomon jumped into the bramble-bush he was
wearing his spectacles, and the brambles pushed the glasses so close
against his eyes that he could not open them; and so, as every other
part of him was scratched and bleeding, and he could not open his
eyes, he made sure they were scratched out.
"How am I to get out of here?" he asked at last.
"You must jump out," replied the doctor, "since you have jumped in."
So Solomon made a great jump, and although the brambles tore him
cruelly, he sprang entirely out of the bush and fell plump into another
one.
This last bush, however, by good luck, was not a bramble-bush, but one
of elderberry, and when he jumped into it his spectacles fell off, and
to his surprise he opened his eyes and found that he could see again.
"Where are you now?" called out the doctor.
"I'm in the elderberry bush, and I've scratched my eyes in again!"
answered Solomon.
When the people heard this they marvelled greatly at the wisdom of a
man who knew how to scratch his eyes in after they were scratched out;
and they lifted Solomon from the bush and carried him home, where they
bound up the scratches and nursed him carefully until he was well again.
And after that no one ever questioned the wond'rous wisdom of our wise
man, and when he finally died, at a good old age, they built a great
monument over his grave, and on one side of it were the words,
"Solomon; the Man who was Wond'rous Wise."
and on the other side was a picture of a bramble-bush.
[Illustration: What Jack Horner Did]
What Jack Horner Did
Little Jack Horner sat in a corner,
Eating a Christmas pie;
He put in his thumb and pulled out a plum
And said, "What a good boy am I!"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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