The Song That Traveled

________________________________________________
Title:     The Song That Traveled
Author: Maud Lindsay [More Titles by Lindsay]

One day when all the world was gay with spring a king stood at a window of his palace and looked far out over his kingdom. And because his land was fair to see, and he was a young king, and his heart was happy, he made a song for himself and sang it loud and merrily:

"The hawthorn's white, the sun is bright,
And blue the cloudless sky;
And not a bird that sings in spring
Is happier than I, than I,
Is happier than I."

Now it chanced that a ploughboy at work in a field hard by the palace heard the king's song and caught the words and the air of it.

He was young and happy and as he followed his plough across the dewy field, and thought of the corn that would grow, by and by, in the furrows it made, and of his little black and white pig that would feed and grow fat on the corn, he sang:

"The hawthorn's white, the sun is bright,
And blue the cloudless sky;
And not a bird that sings in spring
Is happier than I, than I,
Is happier than I."

"A right merry song, Robin Ploughboy," called the goose-girl who tended the farmer's geese in the next field; and she leaned on the fence that divided the two, and sang with him, for she was as happy a lass as ever lived in the king's country.

The farmer's wife had given her a goose for her very own that day, and the goose had made a nest in the alder bushes. There was already one egg in it and soon there would be more. Then she would send them to market; and when they were sold she would buy a ribbon for her hair. It was no wonder that she felt like singing:

"The hawthorn's white, the sun is bright,
And blue the cloudless sky;
And not a bird that sings in spring
Is happier than I, than I,
Is happier than I."

The chapman,[5] from whom she bought her ribbon in all good time, learned the king's song from her; and as he trudged along the king's highway with his pack upon his back he, too, sang it; for there is no better weather for peddling or singing, either, than that which comes in the spring.

[Footnote 5: A peddler.]

A soldier just home from the wars, and glad enough to be there, had the song from the chapman; and in turn he taught it to a sailor who took it to sea with him.

The sailor was going to the far countries, but if all went well with his ship, and with him, he would be at home in time to see the hawthorn bloom in his mother's yard another year and another spring.

[Illustration: SHE LEANED ON THE FENCE THAT DIVIDED THE TWO.]

He kept the song in his heart for a year and a day, and then, because nothing had gone amiss and he was homeward bound, he sang it, too:

"The hawthorn's white, the sun is bright,
And blue the cloudless sky;
And not a bird that sings in spring
Is happier than I, than I,
Is happier than I."

On the sailor's ship there was a minstrel bound for the king's court to sing on May Day; and the minstrel learned the song from the sailor.

He was a young minstrel and very proud to sing at the king's festival, so when it was his turn and he stood before the throne he could think of no better song to sing than:

"The hawthorn's white, the sun is bright,
And blue the cloudless sky;
And not a bird that sings in spring
Is happier than I, than I,
Is happier than I."

Now the king had been so busy about the affairs of his kingdom deciding this question and that, sending messengers here and there, and listening to one and another, as all kings must do, that he had forgotten the song which he had made. But when he heard the minstrel it all came back to him; and then he was puzzled.

"Good minstrel," said he, "ten golden guineas I will give you for your song, and to the ten will add ten more if you will tell me where you learned it."

"An easy matter that," said the minstrel. "The sailor who rides in yon white ship in your harbor taught it to me."

"The soldier who even now stands guard at your majesty's gate gave me the song," said the sailor when he was asked.

"I had it from the chapman who travels on the king's highway," said the soldier.

"I heard the little goose-girl sing it," said the chapman when they found him.

"'Tis Robin Ploughboy's song," laughed the goose-girl. "Go ask him about it."

"The king sang it first and I next," said the ploughboy.

Then the king knew that he had made a good song that everybody with a happy heart might sing; and because he was glad of this, he stood at his window and sang again:

THE SONG THAT TRAVELED

Words, MAUD LINDSAY

Music, ELSIE A. MERRIMAN

_Allegretto_

The hawthorn's white, the sun is bright, And blue the cloud-less

sky; . And not a bird that sings in spring Is

hap-pi-er than I, than I, Is hap-pi-er than I. . .

[The end]
Maud Lindsay's short story: The Song That Traveled

________________________________________________



GO TO TOP OF SCREEN