HOW FRITZ FOUND THE PURSE.
There was always something the matter with Fritz, though no one knew exactly what it was. His eyes were dull and heavy, his face was pale, and his head ached. His shoulders were bent, his muscles weak and flabby, he had no appetite, and did not sleep well. His mother petted him and coaxed him to eat, and would not let him do any work, for, she said, “Fritz is too delicate to work; work never did agree with him.” The neighbors sent in every kind of delicacy they could think of, but, though he tried everything, he grew no better. Then they all shook their heads and sighed, wishing they could know the real name of his trouble. At last his mother, worn out with hard work and anxiety, died, murmuring with her last breath, “Ah me! what will become of my poor Fritz?” She left a small but cozy cottage, a large garden, and an orchard, with a long lease and low rental. But everything was ill kept, poorly cultivated, forlorn, and neglected. “Good-evening to you, Fritz,” said a voice as Fritz sat by himself, wondering, as his mother and all the neighbors had wondered, how he was to live in this hard-working world. It was the old, very old schoolmaster, who came up the little walk to the cottage door. Fritz made room for the old man. “I taught you to read, Fritz,” he said, “and your father, and his father before him. I’m an old, old man, you see. And I’ve come to tell you something you ought to know. There’s a heavy purse of gold buried on this place of yours.” “A purse of gold!” exclaimed Fritz in astonishment. “Whereabouts? Show me, so that I can dig it up.” “No one can show it to you,” said the master; “I only know that it is somewhere within those boundary lines, and that whoever seeks it faithfully is sure to find it.” “But I am not strong,” said Fritz mournfully. “I never could dig.” “That’s true, poor lad,” said the master compassionately. “How could I forget that?11Ah, well, you are a good boy, Fritz, and will be able to rejoice in thinking that whoever comes after you here will find it! A lucky fellow he will be! I shall have to tell him what it is hardly worth while telling you, that there is a kind of charm about it. No one will find it who leaves any slack work behind him. The garden must be well cared for and well planted as he goes, and if a single tree in the orchard is injured, the charm will fail.” After a little more chat he went on, leaving Fritz full of thought over the wonderful thing he had told him. He would have doubted the story if it had come from any one else, but no one ever knew the old schoolmaster to tell an untruth. He thought and thought of it as he tossed on his bed that night, wondering in what part of the garden or orchard the purse might lie, and thinking it very hard and cruel that a poor, weak fellow like himself could not be shown the spot at once. He would be willing to dig one hole, but he could not dig over the whole place. But the more he thought over it, the less was he inclined to rejoice in the idea of some one else finding the gold. Perhaps there were others who knew of it. Perhaps already greedy eyes were turning in that direction and wondering how soon he might die and be out of the way. Full of indignation at the thought, he sprang out of bed the next morning with the first peep of day, mended an old spade, and began to dig. In the very farthest corner of the garden he began, digging deep and carefully pulverizing every inch of soil. The cool, moist earth looked so inviting as he went on that it seemed no hardship to carry out the old man’s caution by stopping to plant in the neatly prepared beds the seeds his poor mother had stored. His limbs ached and his back was stiff when he stopped work to get something to eat. “If this kills me,” he said to himself, “it will be the master’s fault. My mother always told him I was not fit for work.” But he was amazed at finding how good his bread and water tasted, and he made up his mind that it was the first loaf of really good bread that the rascally baker had ever furnished. His pains and aches gradually disappeared as his work went on, and he sometimes found himself almost forgetting the purse of gold in the interest he began to take in his garden. He was surprised that he had never before discovered the delight of watching the growth of beautiful things, forgetting that the secret lay mainly in the fact of his own hands having planted and cared for them. The bounteous earth seemed ready to cast back to him a hundred-fold return for all he intrusted to her, and the sunshine, the soft wind, and the gentle rains coöperated lovingly with her. He scarcely had time to turn from one finished section of his garden plot to attack vigorously another before the tender green leaves seemed to start out of the ground and smile up at him with a: “Ho, Fritz! All this in return for the little brown seeds you hid!” And before many weeks had passed, the neighbors raised their hands and eyes at beholding Fritz carrying his baskets of green vegetables to market. “What can have cured him?” they asked. “And what could have been the real name of that terrible disease he had?” “Found the purse?” asked the old schoolmaster leaning over the fence one day in late autumn to speak to Fritz, who was banking up with his spade a fine crop of cabbages. “Not yet, master,” said Fritz. “In truth I’ve been too busy lately to look very sharply after it. I’ve spent all my time on the garden this season, you see, but there’s the old orchard yet. I shall begin early next spring and go carefully over that.” “You’ll find it,” said the old man very positively. “How is your health?” “My health, master? Why, bless your heart, I haven’t had much time to think of that either.” He slept as sound as a top, and ate with the appetite of an honest laborer, and the good gossips were no longer obliged to distress themselves as to what was to become of him, for he had a good provision ahead of him. At the end of the second summer the old schoolmaster went in at Fritz’ gate, taking quiet note of the evidences of care and pains bestowed upon every corner of the premises. The neatly-trimmed vines over the door were laden with ripe fruit, and he smiled to himself, as he walked between the borders of bright-colored flowers, remembering a whisper he had heard, that the pretty little maid at the mill was coming before long to help Fritz keep house. He opened the door without knocking, and Fritz looked up from his seat at a table, upon which he was counting some money, to welcome him. “You have found it at last?” asked the visitor. “Ah, I remember! No, master, I haven’t. Somebody else must look for your purse if they want it, for I have no time to look for gold. My garden and my orchard give all the work I can do.” “Then what is all this?” The master laid his forefinger on some of the gold pieces. “This is the price of my crop of fruit,” replied Fritz. “You must have noticed how my trees have been laden and borne almost to the ground. They have produced as never before.” His eyes were bright, and his cheeks ruddy with the glow of health; his form was straight, and every limb was round and strong. The master looked keenly at him, and laughed—a laugh so full of thorough, hearty, genial enjoyment that Fritz could not forebear laughing with him. “Ah, friend Fritz,” he at length said, “I promised you only one purse, but if I had promised you a dozen, or perhaps a hundred, I should have been the nearer right!” Fritz stared at him with something of the perception of his true meaning dawning upon him. “Then you were jesting with me!” he cried. “No,” said the old man, “it was every word true.” And Fritz took his honest old hand in a tight clasp. “Surely, master, if it was a jest, it was the best jest ever played.” And to this day the neighbors never learned the real name of the disorder which came so near being fatal to Fritz in his younger days.—Christian Freeman.