a tale with a stone begins

The howling wind was cold and strong and the clouds raced like rabbits.  The young man was trotting as fast as he could under his heavy burden of stones.  He hoped the old wicker baskets wouldn't break and spill his prizes all over the dry dirt path.  And it was too dry.  The summer had been hot and bright and now the fall came with only rivers of air flowing over the land.  The people worried about the crops.  The animals fought over leathery tufts of grass.  The young man was fortunate to live near the Salt Pond, where he could catch fish.  He didn't eat them himself, he found their taste too strong, but people in town enjoyed them at their parties and they paid good prices.  Sometimes he accepted goods directly, like the stones.  He wanted to fix the chimney before winter settled in.  He hurried home as best he could against the wind, and once inside, mixed the mortar and set to work.  He could have waited until the next day, but he was too excited about his project.  As he was fitting the stones into the wall of the chimney, he noticed one had a strange colorful stripe through the middle of it.  He examined it to see if it was paint, but it seemed to be a natural part of the stone itself.  He shrugged and cemented it in place, color side out, thinking it would make a nice decoration until the ashes covered it.

On the first day of winter the air was still and filled with knives of frost.  The young man had been hunting in the forest, but with little luck.  He had managed to snare only a scrawny, sick looking rabbit.  In better times, he would have been wary of eating it, but the times were not good at all, and he felt he ought to be thankful even for this chewy, sallow mouthful.  His boiled dinner was gamey but warmed his stomach just for a bit, and he sat poking at the fire for minutes afterwards.  The flames were low, but bright enough to throw shadows around the room, and for just a moment the young man felt no fear for the future.

"A pleasant meal, young man?" said the voice.  The young man started and fell over backwards, but was up in an instant, holding the poker out in front of him.  His house was small and nobody could get in without his knowledge.  He was alone.  "It's been a long while since I had a fine rabbit to eat," came the voice again, gravelly, wistful, maybe a little mocking.  Narrowing his eyes, the young man stared hard at the wall across the room from the fireplace.  He could barely make out a silhouette - a grinning wolf - squinting, gleeful eyes and sharp daggers of teeth bristling in its long slice of a mouth.  Suddenly, the eyes widened and the shadow spoke, or at least it seemed the voice came from the direction of the shadow, although the mouth didn't move at all.  "Oh, how quick you are, dear boy!  How poor my skills have become!"  Something in the young man's head told him he should be afraid, but he wasn't.  He just looked at the shadow and waited for it to speak again.  "You are a calm one, too.  That is grand.  I think it will be easy to help you."

"Help me?  How?  Why?"

"How?  I will tell you how to reach your desires.  Why?  Why not?  Sometimes we spirits are generous.  And you have a talisman near the flame to call me."

The young man looked back towards the fire and saw the colored stripe positively glowing inside the chimney, as if it had its own flames inside it.  He pulled up his rickety wooden chair and sat down facing the shadow.  It looked at him expectantly.

"You say you will help me get what I desire.  How do I know your help is worth my time?"

The shadow winked coquettishly.  "I will tell you what you can do.  More aid at this time I cannot offer."  The young man thought he even saw the shadow shrug.  "You decide to follow my advice, or not.  It is of no consequence to me.  As I say, sometimes we are simply generous."

The young man tried to be skeptical.  But his stomach was eager for easy pickings.  "Tell me how to get food for the winter," he said.

The shadow's smile lengthened impossibly and innumerable pointy teeth appeared.  "You should look carefully around the Giant's Hands.  Many things are incautious and take less care in their shade."

The young man frowned.  He didn't know what giant the shadow was referring to.  "Let me consider," he said and turned to bank the fire.  He half expected the shadow to still be on the wall without the fire's light, and half expected to see a real wolf smiling at him.  But there was nothing.  He went to bed.

The next morning he got up as he did any other winter day.  Taking a stale roll and a handful of dried apple, he went to see what he could find in the woods.  He had almost forgotten about the shadow from the night before; it felt more like a dream than a real happening.  The young man checked his empty snares all through the woods, the loops staring at him from the snowy ground like the eyes of a corpse starved to death.  He decided to stray from his usual rounds, which had not been providing plentifully of late, and trudged up a small hill.  A few scattered birds rattled the bare tree limbs and squeaked from above.  The young man glanced up at them, but noticed something: A number of branches were pointing towards the gray sky, much thicker than others nearby; they joined into two imposing trunks, like thick wrists pushing out of the frozen earth.  Giant's wrists.  The young man stared for a moment and then cautiously moved forward, trying to avoid as much crunch of snow and underlying brush as he could.  A wintery crow cawed.  There was no sound from the old trees as he approached, but suddenly a brown triangular head popped out from behind them.  The young man had fallen to the ground before he recognized it as a goat.  What luck!  It was not very fat, but it stood calmly staring at him, chewing something it must have found in the woods.

"You must be lost," he said, and the goat gave him a quizzical look, still chewing.  Looking around, the young man saw no sign of other people or goats, and he decided he was simply in luck that day.  The goat, better than 10 rabbits, went home with him and was soon in the stew pot.  That night the young man was sleepy after a good meal, and when he heard the voice again he nearly tumbled out of his chair.

"I see you have profited from my advice.  Perhaps you will listen to a few more words?"  The young man searched the walls for the shadow but found no sign of it.  Then he saw two glowing spots high on the chimney, dirty orange and round as berries.

"Indeed, it was useful."

The eyes glowed brighter, going from orange to yellow, and the voice said, "Maybe you should take a visit to the town.  I have a feeling there will be many feathers for the plucking."  The young man smiled, thinking of roast quail and partridge.  That night his dreams were full of stuffed goose and duck.

Still happy with his goat supper, the young man walked into town the next day with no doubts at all.  He expected to find some fowl wandering free, lost from its flock and keeper, but hours passed and no opportunity presented itself.  He began to feel frustrated, and thought perhaps the shadow wolf was making a fool of him.  Then a pillow fell on his head.

"Oh no!  I'm so sorry!" came a girl's voice from above.  The young man looked up, ready to scold the child for her carelessness, but he saw a lovely young woman, concern in her eyes and braids dangling towards the ground.

"Well, it was only a pillow," he said, "No harm done today." and he laughed in a way he hoped sounded unconcerned.

"I have to air these linens before my step-aunt arrives," explained the young woman, "But she's a terrible severe woman.  No matter what she'll find fault with what I've done."

"How could there be any fault at all in someone as lovely as you?  But I am rude.  I have made no move to return your fine pillow for your surely splendid step-aunt," and he took the pillow into the house, not noticing the few white feathers that drifted to the cold cobblestones behind him.

The house was rather dark inside, but the young man could easily see the comfort in which its inhabitants lived.  All the wooden surfaces were straight and shiny with cleanliness rather than use, and there was abundant gleam of metal.  The furniture had somber colors, but also cushions and tassels that marked it as the property of a fine family.  The young woman led him upstairs without a word, but in the bedroom where she had been airing the bedclothes she said, "My name is Hidda.  I earn my keep for Aunt Demeter by helping with the housework.  What is your name and business when you're not retrieving fallen pillows for young ladies?"

The young man smiled, "They call me Jobe.  I'm just a forest dweller.  I earn my keep however I can."

Hidda's eyes darkened slightly, "That may be fine for one person alone, but it doesn't sound very secure for a family."

"Oh, fortunately I am alone," began the young man, but then he stopped, thinking that "fortunately" placed too much joy in solitude.  Maybe he should say something about loneliness or boredom so she would feel more welcome to his time.  Hidda had already turned away, back to pulling at the sheets when he said, "What I mean is, it's fortunate that nobody else suffers when I have trouble making due with what I can find.  I couldn't bear it if I caused somebody else pain or want.  If I were to start a family, I suppose I would look into more stable jobs - goatherd, perhaps.  Or woodsman.  I could stay in my own house then."

Now Hidda was smiling a little, "I suppose every girl in town dreams of a house in the wood.  Such freedom!  No gossipy neighbors, no prying, demanding relatives."

"They might dream, but they don't tell me about it.  I guess they tell only their friends."

Hidda was now standing beside the bed, sheet corners in her hands, "I fear I have taken too much time from you today.  And you must know my step-aunt will be angry if my tasks aren't finished.  Perhaps it is best if you leave - for now."

"But I might return?"

"Come meet me at the market tomorrow and we shall see."

The young man went home feeling lighter than the feathers in those faded flowered cotton covered pillows.

That night he was more startled than ever by the voice, being lost in daydreams as might be expected.  "I believe you have had success in town, young man."  The voice sounded more vibrant now than in nights past.  The young man looked around for a shadow or glowing eyes, but saw nothing.  "Don't fret, my child, I am here" spoke the voice, it's source seeming to move along the wall towards the hearth, "and I have even more advice for you."

"How can you come by so much advice?" murmured the young man in wonder.

"Well, you see, I am not all here.  And if I am not here, I must be there.  But there is also here to others, so I am neither here nor there.  I am almost anywhere and not nowhere."  There was a definite note of glee in the voice as it circled the room, "It is no great effort for me to find things out."

"I think I would like advice about making a comfortable life," said the young man boldly.

"Would you now?" came the purring response, "Well, as everyone knows, shiny things can make any life comfortable.  Be on the lookout for them.  They are often mostly hidden.  I suggest you visit your old friend, the miller's lad."

The young man brooded on his new bit of help, staring hard into the fire until he nearly fell off his chair from exhaustion.  Finally, he went to bed and dreamed of flour sacks full of gold dust.

The next morning he left his little house with the just rising sun making mirrors of the air ice.  He kept his eyes alert all the way to the mill; the voice had only told him to go there, it hadn't said wealth would be in the mill.  But all the road walked left him with empty pockets in front of his friend's workplace.

"Long time gone," grinned the miller's lad when he saw him, and he brushed clouds of dust from his unrescuably floured shirt.  The two men shook hands and exchanged the normal greetings and boasts of friends who have been apart.  The joy of the visit made the young man forget about his search almost immediately.  He and the miller's lad talked and joked and it was only when the miller called for his help that the young man remembered the mission that he had set out on.  He followed his friend into the mill, stifling a cough, and looked around.  Everything was covered with a fine layer of powder.  The young man felt his heart in his throat; shiny things here would not only be mostly hidden, they would be completely covered over.  He kicked a nearby sack in frustration and was aghast to see it begin to tip over, spilling grain onto the floor.  He dove down upon the sack and hauled it upright, surprised that that simple act took all his strength.  "How can I not right a plain sack of grain?" he asked himself, "Has the hard winter taken so high a toll on my arms?"  Then he looked more closely at the grain and saw something glittering in the sack.  Looking about him to be sure nobody witnessed his poking into a business that certainly wasn't his, he stealthily pulled out a reddish stone.  A jewel?  Why would it be in a grain sack in a mill?  Was the miller hiding treasures beyond anyone's suspicions?  The young man probed the grain several more times, gaining a stone in each turn, and it occurred to him that it would be greedy to continue and difficult to take his collection home.  What he had already filled his pockets.  He left the building and circled the mill to raise a hand of farewell to his friend, now back at his toil, and received the answering hand.  Then he left.