Midas

Midas was ashamed to confess that he was to blame, so he said nothing, and they sat down at the table. The King was very hungry, and he poured out a cup of coffee and helped himself to some fish, but the instant his lips touched the coffee it became the color of gold, and the next moment it hardened into a solid lump. "Oh dear me!" exclaimed the King, rather surprised.

"What is the matter, father?" asked his little daughter.

"Nothing, child, nothing," he answered; "eat your bread and milk before it gets cold."

Then he looked at the nice little fish on his plate, and he gently touched its tail with his finger. To his horror it at once changed into gold. He took one of the delicious hot cakes, and he had scarcely broken it when the white flour changed into yellow crumbs which shone like grains of hard sea-sand.

"I do not see how I am going to get any breakfast," he said to himself, and he looked with envy at his little daughter, who had dried her tears and was eating her bread and milk hungrily. "I wonder if it will be the same at dinner," he thought, "and if so, how am I going to live if all my food is to be turned into gold?"

Midas began to get very anxious and to think about many things he had never thought of before. Here was the very richest breakfast that could be set before a King, and yet there was nothing that he could eat! The poorest workman sitting down to a crust of bread and a cup of water was better off than King Midas, whose dainty food was worth its weight in gold.

He began to doubt whether, after all, riches were the only good thing in the world, and he was so hungry that he gave a groan.

His little daughter noticed that her father ate nothing, and at first she sat still looking at him and trying to find out what was the matter. Then she got down from her chair, and running to her father, she threw her arms lovingly round his knees.

Midas bent down and kissed her. He felt that his little [pg 20] daughter's love was a thousand times more precious than all the gold he had gained since the stranger came to visit him. "My precious, precious little girl!" he said, but there was no answer.

Alas! what had he done? The moment that his lips had touched his child's forehead, a change took place. Her sweet, rosy face, so full of love and happiness, hardened and became a glittering yellow color; her beautiful brown curls hung like wires of gold from the small head, and her soft, tender little figure grew stiff in his arms.

Midas had often said to people that his little daughter was worth her weight in gold, and it had become really true. Now when it was too late, he felt how much more precious was the warm tender heart that loved him than all the gold that could be piled up between the earth and sky.

He began to wring his hands and to wish that he was the poorest man in the wide world, if the loss of all his money might bring back the rosy color to his dear child's face.

While he was in despair he suddenly saw a stranger standing near the door, the same visitor he had seen yesterday for the first time in his treasure-room, and who had granted his wish.

"Well, friend Midas," he said, "pray how are you enjoying your new power?"

Midas shook his head. "I am very miserable," he said.

"Very miserable, are you?" exclaimed the stranger. "And how does that happen: have I not faithfully kept my promise; have you not everything that your heart desired?"

"Gold is not everything," answered Midas, "and I have lost all that my heart really cared for."

"Ah!" said the stranger, "I see you have made some discoveries since yesterday. Tell me truly, which of these things do you really think is most worth—a cup of clear cold water and a crust of bread, or the power of turning everything you touch into gold; your own little daughter, alive and loving, or that solid statue of a child which would be valued at thousands of dollars?"

"O my child, my child!" sobbed Midas, wringing his hands. "I would not have given one of her curls for the power of [pg 21] changing all the world into gold, and I would give all I possess for a cup of cold water and a crust of bread."

"You are wiser than you were, King Midas," said the stranger. "Tell me, do you really wish to get rid of your fatal gift?"

"Yes," said Midas, "it is hateful to me."

"Go then," said the stranger, "and plunge into the river that flows at the bottom of the garden: take also a pitcher of the same water, and sprinkle it over anything that you wish to change back again from gold to its former substance."

King Midas bowed low, and when he lifted his head the stranger was nowhere to be seen.

You may easily believe that King Midas lost no time in getting a big pitcher, then he ran towards the river. On reaching the water he jumped in without even waiting to take off his shoes. "How delightful!" he said, as he came out with his hair all dripping, "this is really a most refreshing bath, and surely it must have washed away the magic gift."

Then he dipped the pitcher into the water, and how glad he was to see that it became just a common earthen pitcher and not a golden one as it had been five minutes before! He was conscious, also of a change in himself: a cold, heavy weight seemed to have gone, and he felt light, and happy, and human once more. Maybe his heart had been changing into gold too, though he could not see it, and now it had softened again and become gentle and kind.

Midas hurried back to the palace with the pitcher of water, and the first thing he did was to sprinkle it by handfuls all over the golden figure of his little daughter. You would have laughed to see how the rosy color came back to her cheeks, and how she began to sneeze and choke, and how surprised she was to find herself dripping wet and her father still throwing water over her.

You see she did not know that she had been a little golden statue, for she could not remember anything from the moment when she ran to kiss her father.

King Midas then led his daughter into the garden, where he sprinkled all the rest of the water over the rose-bushes, and [pg 22] the grass, and the trees; and in a minute they were blooming as freshly as ever, and the air was laden with the scent of the flowers.

There were two things left, which, as long as he lived, used to remind King Midas of the stranger's fatal gift. One was that the sands at the bottom of the river always sparkled like grains of gold: and the other, that his little daughter's curls were no longer brown. They had a golden tinge which had not been there before that miserable day when he had received the fatal gift, and when his kiss had changed them into gold.

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