Author: Our Man in Redmond

Once upon a time, but maybe not so long ago as you might think, the king was riding down the road with his entourage when he came upon an old man by the side of the road. The old man had a burlap pouch at his side, and as he walked through the field, he would take his walking-stick, burrow a hole into the ground, reach into his pouch, drop a seed into the hole, and then cover up the hole. He then moved on, planting another seed a couple of feet down the road.

The old man, hearing the clatter of hooves on the road, turned, and seeing that he was in the presence of the king, bowed low. “Your majesty,” he said simply.

The horses clattered to a stop. “Rise,” the king commanded, and the old man straightened up as best he could. “What are you doing, old man?”

“I’m planting trees, your majesty,” the old man said.

“I see,” said the king. “Tell me, old man, how old are you?”

“Seventy years, your majesty.”

“And how long will it be before your trees bear fruit?”

The old man scratched his grizzled face. “I’m not sure, your majesty. Perhaps ten years.”

“Ten years,” the king said. “Do you think it a profitable use of your time to plant trees when you will never see them bear fruit?”

“Oh absolutely, sire,” the old man said. “You see, I’m not doing this for myself, but for my children and grandchildren. When I came into this world, it was full of trees that were planted by those who came before me. Someday, God willing, my grandchildren shall eat fruit from these trees, and their children and grandchildren. Perhaps they will remember who planted these trees for them, perhaps not; but I want to provide for them all the same.”

The king thought this over for a moment, smiled and nodded, then spurred his horse on. The old man continued to plant as the king and his men rode off into the distance.

Word of the old man’s encounter with the king reached one of his sons, who was deeply affected by the old man’s wisdom. “Hey!” he told his own son, “get out there and help your grandpa. He’s doing this for you.”

The son refused. “I didn’t ask him to do this for me,” he said, “and if Gramps wants to plant seeds, that’s his business.”

Nevertheless the man managed to persuade his son to go help his grandfather plant. I don’t know what was involved in the persuasion, but disinheritance and a good hiding probably had something to do with it. So the grandson went out, but he was at best a reluctant assistant, planting perhaps one seed to his grandfather’s four, planting them too close together, not planting them deeply enough and in general just not doing a very good job.

About a week later the old man once again heard the clop-clop-clop of horses on the road, but this time the hoofbeats were accompanied by the rumble of the wheels of a carriage. The carriage stopped near the old man, and who should emerge from the carriage but the king’s chamberlain. “The king bids you come,” the chamberlain said. So the old man got into the carriage and the grandson, eager for any excuse to get out of the hot sun, went along.

After about an hour they came to the capital, and then continued on to the palace. At the palace the carriage stopped, the three men emerged and the chamberlain led the man and his grandson into the king’s audience chamber, giving them a brief course in palace etiquette along the way.

The three man waited at the back of the chamber while the king finished some other business. Eventually the chamberlain motioned for them to approach the Royal Presence. At the foot of the throne the old man bowed, then nudged his grandson, who clumsily followed suit.

“Ah, the old man who plants trees,” the king said. He clapped his hands twice and a pair of servant rushed off to a side room. “We have something for you in honor of your wisdom.” The servants returned carrying a long stick and a bushel box. “Approach,” he told the old man, and he presented him with a specially-made digging stick with an iron point. “We had this made for you,” the king said. “It should make it easier for you to plant your seeds.” Then the king motioned for the servant to show the man the box. Inside the box was an assortment of fruits the man had never seen before. “These were sent to us by our cousin in a land to the south,” the king explained. “We don’t know what kind of seeds they contain, but they are said to keep well and we can tell you they are quite delicious. Perhaps they will grow well here, and perhaps not; but at least if you cannot enjoy the fruit of your labor, you will enjoy some fruit while you labor.” It was a royal joke, and everyone knew to laugh appropriately.

“Thank you,” said the old man.

“You may go,” said the king.

“Hey!” they all heard a voice say. “What about me?” The old man shushed his grandson, but the damage had already been done.

The king looked down at the young man with all the royal ice he could muster. “Yes, what about you?” he said. “Who are you?”

“I’m his grandson,” the young man said. “I help him plant his trees. Don’t I get anything?”

The king regarded the upstart for a moment, then said, “Come here. Let me take a look at your hands.”

The young man approached the king, who took the young man’s hands, looked at the backs of them, then looked at the palms, which were almost as smooth and uncalloused as any of his advisors’. “Hmmm,” the king said. He motioned to another man who had been standing almost unnoticed in the background. The king whispered something in the man’s ear. The man nodded, then motioned to two guards who stood at the king’s side. The guards dropped their halberds and grabbed the young man by the arms. The guards led the grandson, struggling and squawking, out the palace gate and into the city square, where they clapped him into a stock. The chamberlain came along soon after and placed a bushel box of fruit at the edge of the platform the stock sat on. The fruit in this box was quite a bit riper than what the old man had gotten, and the people in the square, having seen this little drama enacted many times before, knew exactly what to do.

That evening the carriage returned the old man to his home while his grandson, his face and clothes still dripping with fruit juice, had to walk behind so as not to stain the inside of the carriage. The chamberlain himself carried the old man’s box of fruit into his home, and then the carriage rumbled off into the distance.

Finally the young man, back in familiar surroundings, exploded. For about ten minutes he ranted about how unfair it was that he had had to help his grandfather and all he got for his trouble was a trip to the stocks and a face full of overripe fruit. The old man just looked down and admired the digging-stick the king had given him while his grandson ranted.

Finally the grandson stopped to catch his breath and looked at his grandfather, who hadn’t said a word during the whole thing.

“Well?” the young man said.

The grandfather looked down at the iron tip of the digging stick, then back up at his grandson. “Well,” he said at last, “I think it’s a very good thing your father didn’t send you to help me shovel out a stable.”

Once upon a time, but not really all that long ago, there was a little boy with a big problem. OK, he wasn’t all that little, and his problem wasn’t all that big, but to him it seemed like a big problem.

“Mom,” he said to his mother, “I don’t know what to get Dad for Father’s Day.”

“Bud, he’ll like anything you get him,” she said as she put the dishes away.

“I know,” he replied, “but I want it to be something special.”

She turned and looked at him. “You’re a smart boy,” she said, “and you’re a good son. Give it some thought. You’ll come up with something really good.”

He thought about it for a couple of days, but everything Bud could think of was either too expensive, or his father already had.

Then on the Friday just before Father’s Day, while his mind was otherwise occupied with trying to take the square root of 2411809, he had an idea. It wasn’t a Father’s Day present, but it might give him an idea about what to get.

“Dad?” he asked his father that night while his father helped set the table. “Can we go fishing tomorrow?”

His father looked at him oddly, then started looking around the room. “Where’s my son?” he asked, looking in the cupboard under the sink. “What have you done with him?”

“Dad,” he protested in that voice.

“But my real son hates fishing,” his father said. “Any time we go he can’t wait to get back to his books and his Nintendo.”

“Dad, I mean it,” he said. “Can we go fishing tomorrow?”

His father looked at him. “Sure, if you want to,” he said. “What’s the catch?”

“No catch,” he said. “I just want to go.”

So that evening after supper they got out the fishing gear, found Bud a spare pole he could use, made sure the tackle was all in order, and got everything ready to go. Bud’s mother made them some sandwiches for their lunch.

“Why the sudden interest in fishing?” she asked him later when they were alone.

“I know Dad likes to fish,” Bud said. “I figure when we go out I can take a look at his gear and find something he needs, and then we can get him that for Father’s Day.”

His mother agreed that that was a good plan

Early the next morning they got in the car and set out for a lake about an hour away. Along the way Bud’s dad asked him about school and the books he’d been reading lately. Bud spent most of the trip summarizing a Robert Heinlein juvenile he’d checked out of the library, pausing only when they stopped along the way for some bait and soda pop.

They got to the stream, unpacked their gear and toted it down to the edge of the stream. It was a slow-moving stream, and clear toward the shore. Bud could see the rocks and sand at the bottom of the stream.

Bud’s dad sat in one of the camp chairs they had brought. He opened a white plastic box and produced a battered cloth hat. It was frayed around the edges, with a band that once might have been described as “festive” but now just came across as sad. Several lures were poked into the band. Bud’s dad started removing the lures from the hat and replacing them with others.

“That is one ugly hat,” Bud said, thinking a new hat might be a good Father’s Day present.

“Yeah, isn’t it?” his father laughed. “Your mother hates it. She makes me keep it in this box and stow it in the garage.”

“Do you think you’d like a new one?” Bud asked, hoping he wasn’t being terribly obvious.

His father took the hat off and rested it on his fist. “This is my lucky fishing hat,” he eventually said. “When I was about your age we went to visit my Grandpa and Grandma in Idaho. They were having a trout derby that weekend, and I caught a beaut. I won this hat as a prize. Your grandpa hated it as much as your mother does, and it was brand new back then. Great-grandpa loved it, though. Said somehow it suited me.” He put the hat back on. “Every time I wear this hat I think of great-grandpa. He loved to fish, you know. They moved to Idaho when he retired from the railroad so he could fish anytime he wanted.”

Somehow a hat seemed out of the question as a Father’s Day present.

Once he was done fiddling with the lures on his lucky fishing hat he took the hat off, studied it for a moment, chose one of the lures, picked it out of the band and started fastening it to his fishing line. Bud perked up again. Maybe a lure would be a good present! They were small enough that you could probably buy several of them for what you’d pay for a hat.

“Where do you buy those lures?” Bud asked.

“Buy them?” his father snorted. “You don’t buy a good lure. You have to make it. I learned how to make this one from a guy I served with in the Navy. His name was Sal,” he continued, fastening the lure to his line with a clove hitch, but Bud was only half listening. Another opportunity to buy a Father’s Day present seemed to be closed to him.

Then Bud noticed his father’s fishing pole. Bud had his mother’s pole, which looked almost new, but his father’s had clearly seen better days. It was a wooden pole, with peeling varnish and a worn handle.

Bud’s father showed him how to fasten a lure to his line, and then they baited their hooks. “How come you don’t get a new pole like Mom’s?” Bud asked.

His father stopped for a second, then said, “Let me show you something.” He raised his pole, cocked it over his shoulder, and flipped it, releasing the button on the spool. The lure sailed about sixty yards and landed in the water with a soft plop.

“I’ve never found another pole that could cast that well,” he said. “I suppose someday this will get ratty and worn enough that I’ll let your mother give it to Goodwill, and then I’ll have to buy a new pole and learn how to cast with that one. Maybe I’m just superstitious, but I think the pole makes a big difference in how you cast.”

They sat in their camp chairs, with the water gurgling by and birds singing and the drone of insects filling the air. Bud hadn’t tried very hard to cast his line, and the float was only about five yards into the water.

“You’re going to have a hard time catching anything if you don’t do some fishing,” his father said.

Bud didn’t say anything.

“This was your idea, you know,” his father said.

“I know,” Bud said at last, and then the words came tumbling out. “I know you like fishing. I wanted to find something I could get you for Father’s Day, and I thought maybe something you could use when you’re fishing would be good. But everything I think I can buy for you, you already have and you don’t want a new one.” He slouched in his chair.

They were silent for a few minutes. “I know you don’t like to fish,” his father said. “You’re the kind of kid who’d rather be reading or playing chess on the Internet or something than go outside and get your hands dirty and gut fish and build a campfire and stuff like that. I know that. And I’ve never pressured you to pretend to like something I knew you didn’t like.

“But let me tell you something else. I like to fish. No, I love to fish. I love fishing as much as you love that computer of yours. As far as I’m concerned there’s nothing better than going outside and sitting by the stream and just listening to the birds and the water and the wind rustling in the leaves and seeing the chipmunks and the skunks and the sunset. So when you offered to go fishing with me, and I got a chance to spend some time with my son and talk about great-grandpa and Sal and fishing . . . well, that was the best Father’s Day present I could have imagined.”

“Really?” Bud asked.

“Really.”

And then Bud’s mother’s fishing pole almost jerked out of Bud’s hands as something started jumping and flailing at the other end.

“I quite disagree,” said Horace.

“But why should he?” said Horace’s friend. “If a man has done nothing, why should he worry? The facts of it will come out.”

The year was 1909. Horace was a student at Cambridge, and keenly interested in politics. He happened to be in London that day, and had met up with a friend of his, a member of Parliament from Leeds. The topic of discussion had turned to crime and punishment, and whether an innocent man had anything to fear from the authorities.

The debate had been going on for some time when suddenly Horace sighed. “Perhaps you’re right,” he said in apparent acquiescence. He looked up absently, as if listening to some inner voice, then tapped his friend on the shoulder. “Race you to the corner?”

“You’re on,” said the MP.

“All right,” said Horace. “Ready – steady – GO!”

The MP took off like a shot, but instead of racing, Horace began to scream bloody murder. “Thief! Thief!” he yelled. “Stop that man! He’s got my watch!” Only then did Horace take off running after the MP.

A policeman at the corner the MP had been rushing toward grabbed the MP as he rushed past. “What’s all this then?” the copper asked.

Horace rushed up to the policeman, out of breath. “Thank you, officer,” he panted.

“Stop this!” the MP said to Horace, then turned to the officer. “Do you know who I am?”

“Can’t say that I do, sir,” the policeman replied. The MP identified himself.

“And my name, officer,” Horace offered, “is Horace de Vere Cole.”

Horace made a great show of reaching into the MP’s jacket pocket and he pulled out a watch, which he had slipped into the pocket when his friend wasn’t looking. Inside the cover of the watch was the inscription: “H. d.V. Cole.”

The officer led the MP away, still protesting. “Don’t worry,” Horace called after him. “After all, an innocent man has nothing to fear.”

Way back in the Beginning, the Creator created the first man, and he created the first woman.

Now the story of how and why He created the first man and the first woman is a good story, and one well worth telling; but it is not the story I am going to tell today. No, I am going to tell a story of what happened afterward.

The first man and the first woman lived in a beautiful garden. Of course the world was new to them, just as they were new to the world, so they spent their days learning about the world they had come into, and they spent their nights learning about each other. And for a very long time, they got along perfectly well and never fought or disagreed.

But, you know how men are, and you know how women are. One day the first man said something he should not have, and the first woman did not like it, so she said something she should not have, and they got into an argument. The argument turned into a verbal fight, and eventually the first man said something that hurt the first woman greatly, and she turned and walked away from him.

The noise of this argument reached the Creator, and so He asked one of His angels to go down to Earth to see what the noise was all about.

The angel went to the first man, and asked him what had happened. For a long time the first man said nothing; but at last he said, through his tears, “I fear I have done a great evil. I have said things I should not have, and I have made my wife angry, and now she is gone from me.”

“What would you do now?” asked the angel.

“I would apologize to her,” the first man said. “I would make amends.”

The angel waited for a moment to see if the first man had anything else to say.

Finally he added, “And I would never say such things to her again.”

That was what the angel wanted to hear. So he went to find the first woman.

The first woman was still angry. Now perhaps you have noticed that sometimes when a woman is angry, she will begin to walk away, and she will walk very fast. This goes all the way back to the first woman, and that is exactly what the first woman was doing. She was walking away from her home, and she was walking very fast. So fast, in fact, that though the angel tried to stop her to speak to her, she would not stop, but just kept walking.

The angel returned to the first man. “She is walking away toward the east,” he told the first man.

The first man got up from where he sat. “Then I must catch up with her,” he said. “I must apologize, and I must tell her I love her, and that I will never do such a thing again.”

“She is walking very fast,” the angel said.

“Then I must go now.” And the first man set off to find the first woman.

The angel saw that the first man was also walking very quickly, but he was not quite as fast as the first woman, and she showed no signs of stopping or slowing down, so the angel decided the first man could use some help. So, the angel returned to where the first woman was walking. The angel had the power to cause the plants to flower, and for those that bear fruit to do so; and that is what he did. As the first woman walked quickly along the path, flowers bloomed all around her. The magnolia, and the dogwood, and the honeysuckle and the rose and the daisy; they all bloomed around her, and the angel hoped that the first woman would stop and smell the flowers, and perhaps the edge would wear off her anger, and thus the first man could catch up to her.

But the first woman’s anger was fierce, and she did not stop or slow down.

Then the angel caused the fruit trees to bloom; the pear, and the apricot, and the orange and the peach. And he hoped that the first woman would grow hungry, and stop to eat, and thus the first man would be able to catch up to her.

But still she was angry, and still she continued to walk.

Then the angel caused the berry bushes along the path to bloom; the blueberries, and the huckleberries, and the blackberries and raspberries; but still the first woman walked on.

So the angel went back to the Creator, and reported on the things he had seen and done. “I have reached the limits of what I can do,” the angel said. “I have failed.”

“No, you have done well,” said the Creator. “I just think this situation needs something extra. Something new.”

So the Creator went down to earth. Now the angel could do many remarkable things, but he could not create anything new, and the Creator felt this situation called for something new to be created in the world. So he went to the path, where the woman was still walking very quickly, and he caused a new type of berry to grow, and flower, and ripen into fruit the shape and color of a heart. Now the first woman had seen the flowers before; she had seen the fruits of the trees before, and she had seen the other berries before; but this new berry was something new, and its sweet scent reached up to her. The edge came off her anger, and she stopped, and she picked some of these new berries, and began to eat them. And soon enough the first man caught up with her, and they sat and talked, and he apologized for the harsh words he had said to her, and promised never again to be unkind to her. And together they shared this new kind of berry.

This new berry the Creator had created was of course the strawberry. The Creator made it in the shape of a heart, and He made it sweeter than the other berries, to remind us that love is the most important thing in our lives, and sweet above all else.

The battle of Fredericksburg had been fierce. It was not the bloodiest of America’s Civil War, but it was bloody enough, with over 7,000 casualties on the Union side against 1,200 Confederates. General Jackson occupied the high ground of Marye’s Hill and his men had the Union army pinned down behind a four-foot stone wall 150 yards away. The ground between the two sides was literally covered with fallen Union soldiers. Temperatures dipped below freezing on the night of December 13th, 1862, and many of the wounded froze to death. Others used whatever means they could to keep warm throughout the night, including scavenging the possessions of their dead comrades — and sometimes even using their bodies as shelter from the cold.

By the next morning the continuing skirmish was punctuated with cries from the wounded. “Water!” they cried. “Water!” But the Union soldiers couldn’t get to them; the Confederates wouldn’t let them approach.

The cries for water affected many of the soldiers, but none more than Sergeant Richard Kirkland. Kirkland was a member of General Kershaw’s Second Regiment of South Carolina Volunteers. Throughout the morning he listened to their cries, and finally he could take it no longer.

Kirkland made his way to Kershaw’s tent, saluted the general, and said, “Sir, all through last night and all through the morning I have heard the poor wounded Federal soldiers crying for water. I request permission to go give them some.”

The general sat back in his chair and looked up at the young sergeant. He wasn’t much to look at, but there was something about his earnestness that struck the general. “Sergeant, you realize of course that the moment you go over that wall you will probably get a bullet put through you.”

“Yes sir,” the young sergeant replied, “But I am willing to try.”

The air hung thick with cold and anticipation for a moment. In the background the men could hear the crack of a rifle, followed by a call for water. “Very well,” the general said at last. “I ought not let you go on this fool’s expedition, but the spirit that moves you is so noble I cannot refuse. Go, and may God protect you.”

The young sergeant saluted and left the tent. He gathered up a half dozen canteens, made sure they were full of water, and went for the wall. One or two of his fellow soldiers tried to stop him, but most, seeing what it was he meant to do, just watched in amazement.

On the other side of the battlefield, there was no less amazement when, during a lull in the skirmish, the Union soldiers saw a figure slip over the wall they had tried in vain to take the day before. A few took aim, but lowered their rifles when they saw that his hands in the air, and six canteens slung about his neck and shoulders. The Confederate soldier, keeping an eye on his foes a few yards away, carefully approached a wounded soldier calling out for water. He raised the canteen to the man’s lips and let him drink. Then Kirkland took the man’s backpack, propped his head up against it, and did his best to arrange the man’s broken limbs to make him as comfortable as possible under the circumstances.

“Hold your fire!” the call went up from both sides. “Hold your fire!”

Kirkland continued in this way, giving water to the parched soldiers until his canteens ran out. As he shook the last of the water out of the last canteen, he heard a thump behind him. He flinched and ducked, as any soldier on a battlefield would, and then heard two more thumps. When he looked up three canteens lay near him, tossed there by Union soldiers.

All that day Kirkland delivered water to the wounded.

I wish I had a happier ending than to tell you that Kirkland did not survive the war. He was killed at the battle of Chickamauga less than a year after Fredericksburg. His heroic service does not go unremembered, however; on Sunken Road near Fredericksburg, there is a monument to Kirkland, designed by sculptor Felix DeWeldon, who is better known for the monument commemorating the raising of the flag on Mount Suribachi during the Battle of Iwo Jima.

A Harvard MBA only a couple of years out of school was at a conference in Mazatlán, Mexico, and instead of going to yet another panel discussion on administering loans to third world nations on Saturday morning, decided to go visit the parts of Mexico that aren’t given over to the tourist trade. He drove up the coast for an hour or so and found himself at a fishermen’s dock. He stopped his rental car, got out and walked out onto the sand. As he was taking in the sights and sounds of the sea, he saw a small boat coming into the dock. He watched the boat as its solitary occupant, a man about his age, brought the boat in and tied it up at the mooring.

“¡Hola!” the MBA called out, trying out his excellent Spanish.

“Hi,” the fisherman answered. (Note: I don’t speak a lick of Spanish, and for all I know neither do you, so I’m just going to write their dialogue in English.)

The MBA looked into the boat and saw three yellowfin tuna. “Nice fish,” the man said. “How long did it take you to catch them?”

“Not long,” the fisherman answered, looking at a wristwatch on his sunburnt arm. “I go out when the sun first comes up and am back before noon.”

“Then what?” the MBA asked.

“Then I go sell the fish in the village to get money to buy food for my family.”

“And what do you do after that?”

“Oh, this and that. I swap news with the people in the market. Then I go home, take a siesta with my wife, and then we spend some time with our children. After that we go take a long walk, have a fine meal, I play guitar with my amigos. Stuff like that.”

The MBA sighed. “Such a waste.”

The fisherman looked puzzled. “What do you mean?”

“Well, just think. If you spent more time out here on your boat, you could catch more fish.”

The fisherman smiled as he stowed his gear. “Why would I want to do that? I catch enough fish as it is.”

“Well, yes, but just think. If you caught more fish, you could make more money.”

“Señor, I already make all the money I need by selling the fish I catch now.”

“If you made more money, you could buy a bigger boat and catch even more fish.”

The fisherman just laughed, but the MBA was on a roll. “See, then you could sell the fish and make even more money. You could hire other fisherman to help you. Then you could buy more boats, hire more fishermen, catch more fish and make great amounts of money. Why, in thirty years or so you could have millions of pesos! You could be wealthy and retire.”

By this time the fisherman had the fish in his arms and was heading for a battered old pickup truck not far from the dock. “Retire?” he asked as he went to the truck. “What do you mean by retire?”

“Well, you could do what you enjoy. You’d have all the money you need. You could go fishing in the mornings. Swap news in the market. Take a siesta with your wife. Spend some time with your children. Take long walks. Have fine meals. Play the guitar with your amigos . . . “

The wealthy fisherman loaded the tuna into the back of his truck and drove away.

Once upon a time, the animals got along much better than they do today. That doesn’t mean they didn’t eat each other, of course, but they would sometimes get together like civilized creatures to enjoy each others’ company. Kind of like the Chuck Jones cartoon where when the whistle blew at 5:00 PM, the coyote would knock off trying to steal the sheep and the sheepdog would stop beating the living daylights out of the coyote, and they would punch out at the time clock and say “Goodbye” and “See you tomorrow.”

So at any rate, one day Fox decided he was going to invite Stork over for dinner. Fox prepared a well-chilled vichysoisse for his guest, who sat down to eat, only to discover that Fox was something of a trickster. He had placed the soup into a shallow bowl, and while he could easily lap the soup out of the bowl with his tongue, Stork was reduced to staring that the soup with a sad look on his face. His beak was far too long to be able to dip into the bowl, and he could no more drink the soup than you can scratch your ear with your elbow.

“What’s the matter?” Fox said, a big grin on his sly face. “I’m sorry if the soup isn’t to your liking.”

Stork, being a gracious guest, murmured some vague acquiescence,

Two or three days later Fox got an invitation from Stork to a dinner party at Stork’s house. Now Fox had been rather rude to Stork in his trick, but to not show up at Stork’s house after Stork had visited him would have been a major faux pas. So, Fox accepted the invitation and appeared on the designated night.

Stork’s house smelled delicious. He had spent the entire day preparing a vegetable consomme, and Fox’s mouth watered. Imagine Fox’s surprise, then , when Stork appeared with two large glasses full of consomme, like champagne flutes but much longer. Just the right length, in fact, for Stork to put his beak into the glass and drink the consomme, almost like sipping through a straw. Fox of course was left to just look and smell, since he couldn’t even get his snout into the glass.

“What’s the matter?” Stork asked, a look of mock concern on his face. “Oh, I’m sorry if the soup isn’t to your liking. But, I won’t apologize for the dinner.”

What goes around comes around.

Once upon a time a herd of deer lived in a forest in the realm of a human king. These deer had beautiful blonde coats, almost the color of gold. Their coats were prized by hunters, who would come from great distances to hunt the golden deer.

At length the numbers of the golden deer dwindled, until they became what today we would call an endangered species. So it was that the human king declared that thenceforth no one was to hunt the golden deer except by his royal assent. Many hunters came and asked him for permission to hunt the deer, but they were all turned away, and over time the herd grew.

Now as kings do the human king died and was succeeded by his son, and him in turn by his son, and on for many years, and all of these kings protected the golden deer, and their numbers increased. But eventually a human king rose up who had a passion for hunting. He saw the great herd of golden deer and decided he would hunt them. And hunt them he did! Sometimes he would slay three, four, five deer in a single day.

The deer were alarmed that this human king might all by himself bring the herd back to the size it was when the first king took them under his protection, so one night they held a council. The deer shared many ideas about what to do. Finally the king of the deer spoke to his subjects. “It is clear that the human king means to hunt us,” said the hart king, “so the best we can do is to limit our losses. Here is what we shall do. Every morning we shall have a lottery. The deer who draws the lot will present himself to the human king, and lead him on a chase away from the bulk of the herd. With any luck at all he will be able to slay no more than one of us every day, and in that way we can protect the other members of the herd.”

The deer all agreed to this, and so it was the next morning, they drew lots and one deer was chosen. He went out of the forest, made sure the human king could see him, and then led the human king on a wild chase through the forest. At the end of the day the king had hunted his deer, but he had had to work for it!

This continued for some time. Every day the human king would hunt a deer chosen by lot. He never was able to kill more than one deer in a day, and sometimes the deer would lead the human king on an all-day chase and live to tell the tale.

Then one day the lot fell to a pregnant hind. This threw the deer into a quandry.

“What shall we do?” they asked. “We never anticipated this.” “We cannot send her out to die with her calf.”

“Please,” she told them. “It is my duty. I am almost due. I shall deliver my calf and then go out to do what I must do.”

“No.” The voice was as familiar as it was firm. It was the deer king. “This cannot be done. The calf will need its mother or both will die.” He paused for a moment, then said, “I will go in your place.”

The deer were astonished and begged him not to go. “You are our king,” they told him. “How will we survive without you?” Several others offered to go in place of the hind. But he would not change his mind. He turned to one of his sons. “You shall reign in my stead. Be a good king and do as you have seen me do.” And with that the hart king left the forest.

The human king had just finished his breakfast and was checking the fletching on his arrows when he saw a great golden deer silhouetted against the morning sky. This was the moment he lived for! He slowly grabbed an arrow, fitted it to his bowstring . . . and then stopped as he realized who he was facing.

The human king lowered his bow. He called out, “You are the king of the golden deer, are you not?”

“I am,” the hart king called back.

The human king was puzzled. “How is it that I am to hunt a fellow monarch?”

“I am here in the place of a hind who is ready to calve,” he replied. “You will hunt me in her stead, for I am not prepared to have my subjects do anything that I am not prepared to do myself.”

When he heard this, the human king lowered his bow and finally dropped it to the ground. “I can see that you are a very wise king,” the human king said, “for you put the welfare of your subjects ahead of your own. Such a king is better suited to lead his people than to be sport for a man. Let the word go forth from today that so long as we both live, no man, myself included, will hunt the golden deer.”

And so it was that the golden deer lived in peace from that time until the end of the human king’s life, and the human king lived a very, very long time.

Things were not going well in the Land of the Idiot King. It was a hot, dry summer. The terror level had been raised to plaid based on reports from the Ministry of Truth that someone was deploying a weapon that was a clear and present danger to the Kingdom. The portion of the Army that hadn’t been sent overseas to expand the Kingdom’s borders was busy scouring the cities, looking for the weapon. Tensions and tempers were on edge.

In the absence of concrete reports from the Ministry, rumors and stories flew. Some said the weapon was so powerful, there was no defending against it at all. Others said it spread like a disease, into places even ants and mosquitoes could not go. And yet others said even if you saw the weapon, you would not recognize it until it was too late. And still everybody searched for the weapon.

On one particularly hot day, the soldiers scouring the horizon for signs of trouble saw something approaching from the distance. As he neared the city they could see it was a man riding a donkey. The man was dressed in wild motley, with a tricorn hat that had bells on each of its corners that jingled as he bounced up and down. When he got close enough to be heard, the man started calling out in a sing-song voice, “Stories! I have stories to tell!” Then he called out again. “Stories! I have stories to tell!!”

A group of children who had been playing near the city gate heard him and rushed out toward him. The invisible communications network that springs up among children whenever something truly interesting is going on sprang to life, and other children ran out to meet the storyteller. When they had almost reached him he put out his palms, called “STOP!” and halted his donkey. The children, not knowing what to make of this, stopped and waited to see what would happen next; then, a moment later, the storyteller called out “Let’s have a parade!” The children cheered and they fell in behind him, and he led them in singing “I Am A Fine Musician” as they marched. Sliding the slides on their unseen trombones and pounding their pretend drums, the impromptu parade followed the storyteller through the gate of the city and on to the market square, where he dismounted.

“Go! Tell your families! Tell your friends!” the storyteller said. “Tell them to meet me here in fifteen minutes and I shall have stories to tell!” The children rushed off in every direction, except for one or two who stayed behind to pet the donkey and feed it a carrot.

The storyteller took advantage of the relative calm to walk around a little bit and shake off some of the stiffness of the long ride. As he walked, a woman approached him off to the side of the market area. A hatchet-faced biddy with a purposeful walk. He’d never seen her before, but he knew her type.

“Ah,” he said, “The Welcome Wagon!”

If she was amused by this, she showed no sign of it. “How do you do,” she said perfunctorily. “I am Miss Ilmore of the Citizens Orthodoxy Committee.”

I’ll just bet you are, he thought to himself. “Hi,” he said casually as he continued to shake his limbs and walk around, jingling as he went. “Nice weather we’re having.”

“Not really,” she replied. “May I ask what you’re doing here?”

He stopped walking, sighed, and looked up at the cloudless sky. “I’m an entertainer,” he said. “I go from town to town, singing my songs and telling my stories. I thought the people here could use a little cheering up.” He paused and took a deep breath. “You know, what with this weather and the terror alerts and all.”

“I see,” she said curtly. She then turned her attention to the donkey. “Would you mind if I looked in your saddlebags?”

He walked over to the donkey and opened the saddlebags it carried. “I’m not sure you want to,” he said as he brought out the contents. He’d had to prove his harmlessness many times in the past few years, and by now it was something of a ritual with him. “I’ve been on the trail a very long time, and don’t get many opportunities to wash up. A bedroll . . . a change of clothes . . . some food . . . carrots for my donkey. Nothing to worry about.”

The woman continued to watch him as he began to repack his possessions. “Thank you. You know how it is. You can’t be too careful these days. They say someone could smuggle the weapon in under our very noses, you know.”

“How right you are,” the storyteller said as he finished packing and cinched the saddlebags.

“May I ask you a question?” the woman said.

“Of course,” he replied.

“I’m sure you’ve traveled many places and heard many things.” She lowered her voice conspiratorially. “Do you think the stories about the weapon are true?”

He’d run into women like this many times before. Self-important types who loved nothing better than to meddle in other people’s affairs. She was right. One couldn’t be too careful. “You should never ask a storyteller that question,” he said. “They’ll tell you all stories are true, and mean it. But yes, I believe such a weapon exists.” He did not add, because it was once used on me. He merely smiled and said, “After all, the Ministry tells there is such a weapon, and they wouldn’t lie, would they?”

The Orthodoxy Chair sniffed. This one was trouble, but she hadn’t seen a weapon. Women like her never did.

The storyteller pointed to the rapidly gathering crowd in the market. “Are you going to go find a place to watch the show?”

“I’ll watch from back here if you don’t mind,” she said.

“Fair enough,” he said. “Then watch this.” The storyteller walked toward the crowd, waving as he did so, then tripped over an imaginary root, did a double somersault, and sprang to his feet with a big grin on his face and his arms outstretched in greeting. The children cheered and the adults applauded. Even the Orthodoxy Chair seemed amused.

Then, as soon as the noise died down, he told them the story about the emperor who had no clothes.

He followed it up with the story about the man who stole a pig and dressed it up in a bright red coat with shiny brass buttons, and no one could find the pig because what they saw wasn’t what they were looking for.

And as he told them the story about the day the sheep rose up against the wolves, a cool breeze began to blow from the northwest.