VERYONE disliked El Enano who lived in the forest, because he always lay hidden in dark places, and when woodmen passed he jumped out on them and beat them and took their dinners from them. He was a squat creature, yellow of skin and snag-toothed and his legs were crooked, his arms were crooked, and his face was crooked. There were times when he went about on all fours and then he looked like a great spider, for he had scraggy whiskers that hung to the ground and looked like legs. At other times he had the mood to make himself very small like a little child, and then he was most horrible to see, for his skin was wrinkled and his whiskers hung about him like a ragged garment.
Yet all of that the people might have forgiven and he might have been put up with, were it not for some worse tricks. What was most disliked was his trick of walking softly about a house in the night-time while the people were inside, suspecting nothing, perhaps singing and talking. Seeing them thus, El Enano would hide in the shadows until someone went for water to the spring, then out he would leap, clinging fast to the hair of the boy or man and beating, biting, scratching the while. Being released, the tortured one would of course run to reach the house, but El Enano would hop on one leg behind, terribly fast, and catch his victim again just as a hand was almost laid on the door latch. Nor could an alarm be raised, because El Enano cast a spell of silence, so that, try as one would, neither word nor shout would come.
Then there was his other evil trick of hiding close to the ground and reaching out a long and elastic arm to catch boy or girl by the ankle. But that was not worse than his habit of making a noise like hail or rain, hearing which the people in the house would get up to close a window, and there, looking at them from the dark but quite close to their faces, would be the grinning Enano holding in his hands his whiskers that looked like a frightening curtain, his eyes red and shining like rubies. That was very unpleasant indeed, especially when a person was alone in the house. Nor was it much better when he left the window, for he would hop and skip about the house yard for hours, screaming and howling and throwing sticks and stones. So, wherever he was there was chill horror.
One day, a good old woman who lived alone went with her basket to gather berries. El Enano saw her and at once made himself into a little creature no larger than a baby and stretched himself on a bed of bright moss between two trees leafless and ugly. He pretended to be asleep, though he whimpered a little as a child does when it has a bad dream.
The good old woman was short-sighted but her ears were quick, and hearing the soft whimper she found the creature and took it in her arms. To do that bent her sadly, for Enano when small was the same weight as when his full size.
“Oh, poor thing,” she said. “Someone has lost a baby. Or perhaps some wild creature has carried the tender thing from its home. So, lest it perish I will take care of it, though to be sure, a heavier baby I never held.”
The dame had no children of her own and, though poor, was both willing and glad to share what she had with any needy creature. Gently she took it home and having put dry sticks on the fire she made a bed of light twigs which she covered with a mat of feathers. Then she bustled about, getting bread and milk for supper for the little one, feeling happy at heart because she had rescued the unhappy creature from the dismal forest.
At first she was glad to see the appetite of the homeless thing, for it soon finished the bread and milk and cried for more.
“Bless me! It must be half starved,” she said. “It may have my supper.” So she took the food she had set out for herself and El Enano swallowed it as quickly as he had swallowed the first bowl. Yet still he cried for more. Off then to the neighbours she went, borrowing milk from this one, bread from that, rice from another, until half the children of the village had to go on short commons that night. The creature devoured all that was brought and still yelled for more and the noise it made was ear-splitting. But as it ate and felt the warmth, it grew and grew.
“Santa Maria!” said the dame. “What wonderful thing is this? Already it is no longer a baby, but a grown child. Almost it might be called ugly, but that, I suppose, is because it was motherless and lost. It is all very sad.” Then, because she had thought it ugly she did the more for it, being sorry for her thoughts, though she could not help nor hinder them. As for the creature itself, having eaten all in the house, it gave a grunt or two, turned heavily on its side and went to sleep, snoring terribly.
Next morning matters were worse, for El Enano was stretched out on the floor-before the fire, his full size, and seeing the dame he called for food, making so great a noise that the very windows shook and his cries were heard all over the village. So to still him, and there being nothing to eat in the house, the good old woman went out and told her tale to the neighbours, asking their help and advice, and to her house they all went flocking to look at the strange creature. One man, a stout-hearted fellow, told El Enano that it was high time for him to be going, hearing which, the ugly thing shrieked with wicked laughter.
“Well, bring me food,” it said, looking at the man with red eyes. “Bring me food, I say, and when I have eaten enough I may leave you. But bring me no child’s food, but rather food for six and twenty men. Bring an armadillo roasted and a pig and a large goose and many eggs and the milk of twenty cows. Nor be slow about it, for I must amuse myself while I wait and it may well be that you will not care for the manner of my amusement.”
Indeed, there was small likelihood of any one there doing that, for his amusement was in breaking things about the house, the tables and benches, the pots and the ollas, and when he had made sad havoc of the woman’s house he started on the house next door, smashing doors and windows, tearing up flowers by the roots, chasing the milk goats and the chickens, and setting dogs to fight. Nor did he cease in his mischief until the meal was set out for him, when he leaped upon it and crammed it down his throat with fearful haste, leaving neither bone nor crumb.
The people of the village stood watching, whispering one to another behind their hands, how they were shocked at all that sight, and when at last the meal was finished, the stout-hearted man who had spoken before stepped forward. “Now sir!” said he to El Enano, “seeing that you have eaten enough and more than enough, you will keep your word, going about your business and leaving this poor woman and us in peace. Will you?”
“No. No. NO!” roared El Enano, each No being louder than the one before it.
“But you promised,” said the man.
What the creature said when answering that made nearly everyone there faint with horror. It said:
“What I promised was that I would leave when I had eaten enough. I did not——”
The bold man interrupted then, saying, “Well, you have eaten enough.”
“Ah yes, for one meal,” answered the cruel Enano. “But I meant that I would leave when I have eaten enough for always. There is to-morrow and to-morrow night. There is the day after that and the next day and the next day. There are to be weeks of eating and months of eating and years of eating. You are stupid people if you think that I shall ever have eaten enough. So I shall not leave. No. No. NO!”
Having said that, the creature laughed in great glee and began to throw such things as he could reach against the walls, and so, many good things were shattered.
Now for three days that kind of thing went on, at the end of which time the men of the place were at their wits’ ends to know what to do, for almost everything eatable in the village had gone down the creature’s throat. Sad at heart, seeing what had come to pass, the good old woman went out and sat down to weep by the side of a quiet pool, for it seemed to her to be a hard thing that what she had done in kindness had ended thus, and that the house she had built and loved and kept clean and sweet should be so sadly wrecked and ruined. Her thoughts were broken by the sound of a voice, and turning she saw a silver-gray fox sitting on a rock and looking at her.
“It is well enough to have a good cry,” he said, “but it is better to be gay and have a good laugh.”
“Ah! Good evening, Señor Zorro,” answered the dame, drying her tears. “But who can be gay when a horrible creature is eating everything? Who can be otherwise than sad, seeing the trouble brought on friends?” The last she added, being one of those who are always saddened by the cheerlessness of others.
“You need not tell me,” said the fox. “I know everything that has passed,” and he put his head a little sideways like a wise young dog and seemed to smile.
“But what is there to do?” asked the dame. “I am in serious case indeed. This alocado says that he will make no stir until he has had enough to eat for all his life, and certainly he makes no stir to go away.”
“The trouble is that you give him enough and not too much,” said the fox.
“Too much, you say? We have given him too much already, seeing that we have given him all that we have,” said the old dame a little angrily.
“Well, what you must do is to give him something that he does not like. Then he will go away,” said the fox.
“Easier said than done,” answered the old woman with spirit. “Did we but give him something of which he liked not the taste, then he would eat ten times more to take the bad taste away. Señor Zorro, with all your cleverness, you are but a poor adviser.”
After that the fox thought a long while before saying anything, then coming close to the old woman and looking up into her face he said:
“Make your mind easy. He shall have enough to eat this very night and all that you have to do is to see that your neighbours do as I say, nor be full of doubt should I do anything that seems to be contrary.”
So the good old woman promised to warn her neighbours, knowing well the wisdom of the fox, and together they went to her house, where they found El Enano stretched out on the floor, looking like a great pig, and every minute he gave a great roar. The neighbours were both angry and afraid, for the creature had been very destructive that day. Indeed, he had taken delight in stripping the thatched roofs and had desisted only when the men of the place had promised to double the amount of his meal.
Not five minutes had the fox and the dame been in the house when the men of the place came in with things—with berries and armadillos, eggs and partridges, turkeys and bread and much fish from the lake. At once they set about cooking, while the women commenced to brew a great bowl of knot-grass tea. Soon the food was cooked and El Enano fell to as greedily as ever.
The fox looked at Enano for a while, then said:
“You have a fine appetite, my friend. What will there be for the men and the women and the children and for me to eat?”
“You may have what I leave, and eat it when I end,” said El Enano.
“Let us hope then that our appetites will be light,” said the fox.
A little later the fox began to act horribly, jumping about the room and whining, and calling the people lazy and inhospitable.
“Think you,” he said, “that this is the way to treat a visitor? A pretty thing indeed to serve one and let the other go hungry. Do I get nothing at all to eat? Quick. Bring me potatoes and roast them, or it will be bad for all of you. The mischief I do shall be ten times worse than any done already.”
Knowing that some plan was afoot the people ran out of the house and soon came back with potatoes, and the fox showed them how he wanted them roasted on the hearth. So they were placed in the ashes and covered with hot coals and when they were well done the fox told everyone to take a potato, saying that El Enano, who was crunching the bones of the animals he had eaten, would not like them. But all the while the men were eating, the fox ran from one to another whispering things, but quite loud enough for Enano to hear. “Hush!” said he. “Say nothing. El Enano must not know how good they are and when he asks for some, tell him that they are all gone.”
“Yes. Yes,” said the people, keeping in with the plan. “Do not let Enano know.”
By this time El Enano was suspicious and looked from one man to another. “Give me all the potatoes,” he said.
“They are all eaten except mine,” said the fox, “but you may taste that.” So saying he thrust the roasted potato into the hands of Enano and the creature crammed it down its throat at once.
“Ha! It is good,” he roared. “Give me more. More. MORE.”
“We have no more,” said the fox very loud, then, quite softly to those who stood near him, he added, “Say nothing about the potatoes on the hearth,” but loudly enough for El Enano to hear, though quite well he knew that there were none.
“Ah! I heard you,” roared El Enano. “There are potatoes on the hearth. Give them to me.”
“We must let him have them,” said the fox, raking the red-hot coals to the front.
“Out of the way,” cried El Enano, reaching over the fox and scooping up a double handful of hot coals, believing them to be potatoes. Red hot as they were he swallowed them and in another moment was rolling on the floor, howling with pain as the fire blazed in his stomach. Up he leaped again and dashed out of the house to fling himself by the side of the little river. The water was cool to his face and he drank deep, but the water in his stomach turned to steam, so that he swelled and swelled, and presently there was a loud explosion that shook the very hills, and El Enano burst into a thousand pieces.
