The Junior Classics, Volume 6: Old-Fashioned Tales
General
The Junior Classics, Volume 6: Old-Fashioned Tales
Children's literature
Dawn came at last, and the two brothers looked out of Gluck's little
window in the morning. The Treasure Valley was one mass of ruin and
desolation. The inundation had swept away trees, crops, and cattle,
and left in their stead a waste of red sand and grey mud. The two
brothers crept shivering and horror-struck into the kitchen. The water
had gutted the whole first floor; corn, money, almost every movable
thing had been swept away, and there was left only a small white card
on the kitchen table. On it, in large, breezy, long-legged letters,
were engraved the words:--
SOUTH-WEST WIND, ESQUIRE
South-West Wind, Esquire, was as good as his word. After the momentous
visit above related, he entered the Treasure Valley no more; and, what
was worse, he had so much influence with his relations, the West Winds
in general, and used it so effectually, that they all adopted a
similar line of conduct. So no rain fell in the valley from one year's
end to another. Though everything remained green and flourishing in
the plains below, the inheritance of the three brothers was a desert.
What had once been the richest soil in the kingdom, became a shifting
heap of red sand; and the brothers, unable longer to contend with the
adverse skies, abandoned their valueless patrimony in despair, to seek
some means of gaining a livelihood among the cities and people of the
plains.
All their money was gone, and they had nothing left but some curious
old-fashioned pieces of gold plate, the last remnants of their
ill-gotten wealth.
"Suppose we turn goldsmiths?" said Schwartz to Hans, as they entered
the large city. "It is a good knave's trade; we can put a great deal
of copper into the gold, without any one's finding it out."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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