第 一百四十二 章 · The Star-Money

. The Star-Money

There was once on a time a little girl whose father and mother were

dead, and she was so poor that she no longer had any little room to

live in, or bed to sleep in, and at last she had nothing else but the

clothes she was wearing and a little bit of bread in her hand which

some charitable soul had given her. She was, however, good and pious.

And as she was thus forsaken by all the world, she went forth into the

open country, trusting in the good God. Then a poor man met her, who

said, “Ah, give me something to eat, I am so hungry!” She reached him

the whole of her piece of bread, and said, “May God bless it to thy

use,” and went onwards. Then came a child who moaned and said, “My head

is so cold, give me something to cover it with.” So she took off her

hood and gave it to him; and when she had walked a little farther, she

met another child who had no jacket and was frozen with cold. Then she

gave it her own; and a little farther on one begged for a frock, and

she gave away that also. At length she got into a forest and it had

already become dark, and there came yet another child, and asked for a

little shirt, and the good little girl thought to herself, “It is a

dark night and no one sees thee, thou canst very well give thy little

shirt away,” and took it off, and gave away that also. And as she so

stood, and had not one single thing left, suddenly some stars from

heaven fell down, and they were nothing else but hard smooth pieces of

money, and although she had just given her little shirt away, she had a

new one which was of the very finest linen. Then she gathered together

the money into this, and was rich all the days of her life.