THERE were once two brothers who were soldiers, and one had become an officer and grown rich. The other remained a common soldier and was poor. At last the poor one, with the hope to improve his fortune, took off his soldiering coat and became a farmer. He ploughed a small field and sowed turnip seed. The seed came up, and the farmer soon observed that one turnip was growing much faster than any of the others. It grew till he thought it would never get done growing, and at the end of the season, when he uprooted it, that one turnip filled a cart and required two oxen to draw it. Truly it was the queen of turnips, and its like had never been seen before, nor ever will be again. The farmer knew not what to do with it, and was uncertain whether it would bring good fortune or bad.
“If I sold it I should not get much money for it,” said he. “As for eating it, the ordinary turnips would do as well for that. I think I will take it to the king.”
So away he went, with oxen dragging the cart that contained the turnip, and in due time he arrived at court and presented the turnip to the king.
“What an extraordinary object!” the king exclaimed. “I have seen many marvels, but never anything so remarkable as this. You must be a child of good luck, whether you raised this turnip from seed or found it full grown.”
“Oh no!” said the farmer, “lucky I certainly am not. For many years I was a poor soldier, but recently I hung my uniform on a nail, and now I till the earth. I have a brother who is rich and well known to you, my lord king; but I, because I have nothing, am forgotten by all the world.”
Thereupon the king pitied him and said, “You shall be poor no longer;” and he presented him with gold, land, flocks, and herds that made him richer than his brother.
When the brother heard what had happened he was envious and pondered how he might gain a like treasure for himself. Presently he took jewels and swift horses and gave them to the king. “If my brother got so much for a single turnip,” thought he, “what will I not get for these beautiful things?”
The king received the present very graciously and told the soldier he could give him in return nothing rarer or better than the magnificent turnip.
So the wealthy soldier was obliged to hire a cart, and have the turnip taken to his home. He arrived there full of wrath and bitterness. The more he thought on the matter the worse he felt, and at length he formed the evil design of having his brother killed. He hired two ruffians, who waylaid the former poor soldier as he was passing through a wood. They seized and bound him and prepared to hang him on a tree. But before they had accomplished their purpose they heard an approaching clatter of hoofs and the sound of singing. That frightened them so much that they thrust their prisoner head first into a sack, attached a rope to it, threw the end of the rope over a branch of an oak and hauled him well up into the tree. Then they took to flight.
The prisoner soon contrived to work a hole in the sack, and stuck his head out. Then he perceived that the noise which had saved him was made by a student, a young fellow who was riding through the wood singing snatches of song as he went along. Just as the student was passing the tree, the man called out: “Good day. You come in the nick of time.”
The youth stopped his horse and looked all round, but could not make out where the voice came from. At last he said, “Who calls?”
“Raise your eyes,” said the man. “I am sitting up here in the Sack of Knowledge, and in a short time I have learned so much that the wisdom of the schools is as air compared to mine. Soon I shall have learned everything, and I shall come down and be the wisest of mankind. I understand astronomy and the blowing of the winds and the art of healing the sick, and I know every herb and all the birds and stones. If you were here in my place you would feel what splendor flows from the Sack of Knowledge.”
All this greatly astonished and impressed the student, in which he said: “Blessed be the hour in which I met you! Let me get into the sack for a little while.”
“Well,” said the other with apparent reluctance, “that you may do if you will wait for a short time till I am ready. There is one piece of learning which I have not yet fully mastered.”
So the student waited, but he soon became impatient and entreated to be allowed to get into the sack at once and satisfy his great thirst for knowledge. Then the man pretended to take pity on him and told him to lower the sack to the ground and open the mouth of it. That done, the farmer got out, and the student started to get in, feet first, saying, “I want you to make haste and pull me up as fast as possible.”
“Stop, stop!” cried the man. “That won’t do.”
Then he laid hold of the student by the shoulders and thrust him into the sack head downward, tied it up, and swung the disciple of wisdom up on the bough of the tree. When the student was dangling up aloft in the air, the man said: “How do you feel now, my dear fellow? Do you find that wisdom comes with experience? Stay there quietly till you become wiser.”
Thereupon he mounted the student’s horse and rode off; but an hour later he sent some one to release the prisoner in the sack.
