The Mysterious Guest Read online

  “I know I am.” John laughed and added, “I could skate rings around Old Nick himself!”

  “Make fun of the devil,” the man warned him, “and you might find he’ll have the laugh on you.”

  After this, the other boys steered clear of John, as if they were afraid that his devil-may-care cockiness might bring them all bad luck. Soon he had no one to race against.

  “They’re just bad sports,” John told himself, “because they know I can beat every one of them.”

  He continued to skate alone, building his speed until he could whip across the frozen pond faster than lightning.

  One clear, cold night, he went by himself to the pond. He put on his skates and began gliding faster and faster across the moonlit stretch of ice.

  “The devil himself couldn’t catch me!” he shouted to the sky.

  Suddenly, out of the corner of his eye he saw a small, shadowy figure, matching him stride for stride — skating backward or cross-toed in front of John, going him one better at every turn.

  John wondered who this expert skater was. He knew that none of the boys in the neighborhood could keep up with him. John spun around, trying to see the fellow’s face. But no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t make out the shadowy, speed-blurred figure who paced him move for move. He called, “Who are you?” But the stranger refused to answer. He swept past John, leaving a soft laugh and a shower of ice in his wake.

  Angry at being mocked, John pushed himself to his fastest speed ever.

  The moon slipped behind a cloud. The figure that had been skating first on this side, then on that side of John suddenly put on his own burst of speed and flew ahead. Turning around and skating backward, the stranger faced the boy. Two red eyes blazed in the dark head.

  When the moon emerged from the clouds a moment later, John saw, to his horror, that his challenger had horns and a pointed tail that lashed back and forth. Sparks flew from the challenger’s skates.

  The boy shivered, remembering his boasts about beating the devil.

  In fright, he veered suddenly toward the shore, but the shadowy figure circled him once, twice, a third time, and then vanished, leaving only a lingering smell of brimstone in the air.

  John hurtled forward, tumbling into a snowdrift on the shore. Not pausing to take off his skates, he charged up the bank and into the woods. He didn’t dare to look back or slow his breakneck pace until he had reached his cabin home, slammed the door, and tumbled onto the floor in front of his astonished family.

  It was days before he dared to tell his story, for fear that just mentioning the devil might bring Old Nick back. It was a lot longer before John went skating again. But he never went alone; he always left the pond at sunset; and no one heard him boasting after that.

  Old Nick is a nickname for the devil.

  The Mysterious Guest

  Long ago, parties were held on Mardi Gras, also known as “Fat Tuesday” (the day before Ash Wednesday begins the season of Lent, when Christians pray and fast for the sake of their souls). In towns and villages, young people often gathered for dances. But the merriment always ended at midnight. It was believed that anyone who danced after this time would have bad luck.

  In a little village, there lived a habitant, a farmer named Joseph, who had a lovely daughter, Angélique. She was engaged to marry Pierre. On the evening of Mardi Gras, neighbors gathered at Joseph’s house to celebrate and to watch the young people dance. This was the last time Angélique would join the dancing. Next year she would be wed, and married couples did not dance with the young folk.

  Near midnight, a sleigh drawn by a team of black horses stopped in front of Joseph’s house. A tall, handsome man stepped down. He had on a black wool cape and fine clothes with lace at the cuffs and collar, black silk gloves, and a hat of sleek dark fur. His hair and beard were the glossy black of raven feathers. He entered the house without knocking. Still, old Joseph greeted him politely and offered him food and drink, as was the custom.

  There was a moment of silence, while the other guests stared at the elegant newcomer. They found it odd that he didn’t remove his hat or gloves. But the air was icy and snow was falling, so they thought he had taken a chill.

  The fiddler struck up a tune, talk resumed, and the young people once again paired up to dance. The stranger approached Angélique and said, “Mademoiselle, I hope you will dance with me many times.”

  “Yes, Monsieur,” the young woman said. She was flattered that he had chosen her; no dancer in the room could match him. As he led her through dance after dance, Angélique seemed to forget Pierre, who stood watching in misery. But he would say nothing to distress old Joseph.

  During a pause in the music, Angélique’s aunt, a pious woman, took her niece aside. “You are wrong to ignore your future husband, while you dance with this stranger,” the old woman said. “There is something odd about the man. While I sat in the corner, praying with my rosary, he glared at me each time you danced by.”

  Angélique, still under the stranger’s spell, ignored the warning. She and the newcomer danced again.

  As the stroke of midnight announced the arrival of the holy season of Lent, Joseph held up his hand to stop the music.

  “I beg you, sir, allow us just one more dance,” the stranger asked.

  “Please, Papa,” Angélique begged, “grant me this last dance before my marriage.”

  Though it troubled him, her loving father agreed. But no one else would join the dancing couple, fearing bad luck.

  “You have been mine all evening,” the stranger whispered. “If you want, you can be mine forever.”

  “But I am to marry another,” Angélique said. She seemed to remember Pierre for the first time since the stranger had appeared. But when she looked for Pierre, she could not find him.

  “Do you love the man you will wed?” asked the stranger.

  “I did until tonight,” said Angélique, uncertainly.

  “Give me your hand, instead,” said the stranger, “and we will be together for all time. I will take you away and you can live like a grand lady.”

  Angélique stretched out a trembling hand. Several things happened almost at once.

  Pierre, who had stepped outside, called to Joseph in alarm. He pointed to where the stranger’s dark horses and sleigh stood on a patch of bare ground. Unearthly heat had melted a circle in the snow. “Run and bring the curé!” urged Joseph. Pierre hurried to fetch the village priest.

  Then Angélique cried out. When the stranger took hold of her hand, a sharp claw tore through his glove and cut her, so that her palm began to bleed. As she drew back in alarm, her aunt slipped her rosary beads over Angélique’s head. At the sight of the cross, the stranger drew back with a hiss. The fearsome looks he cast froze people where they stood.

  He pulled a diamond necklace from his coat pocket. “Throw away those wretched glass beads,” he said to Angélique. “Anyone as lovely as you deserves to wear gems.”

  Angélique refused, though his anger frightened her.

  “Remove those beads!” the stranger insisted.

  Angélique tried to resist, but her hands moved toward her throat as if he—not she—controlled them.

  At that moment the curé appeared at the door, followed by Pierre. The priest sprinkled holy water on Angélique, and the dark spell on her was broken. The priest faced the stranger and cried, “Leave this house, evil spirit! You do not belong among good Christians!” Then he loudly spoke some words of Latin.

  The priest tossed holy water at the stranger. Howling, the man flew up and burst through the roof like a cannonball. The house shook, and a smell of sulfur lingered. Outside, his sleigh and horses also vanished, leaving a puddle of melted snow.

  Angélique and Pierre were married soon after this. Angélique filled her days praying with her rosary and doing good works. From that time, Mardi Gras dances always ended exactly on the stroke of midnight. People remembered how Angélique, who had danced one dance too many, was nearly carr
ied off by the stranger, who they felt certain was the Devil.

  Jack and the Bull

  There was a boy named Jack, who went to work for a man who was rich and had lots of cattle. The old man took a liking to Jack, but his old woman, for whatever reason, just hated Jack.

  Jack had to work mighty hard. He didn’t get anything for his work except the clothes on his back and precious little to eat. But because the old man liked Jack, he gave the boy a calf that grew up to be a fine black bull.

  Jack had to go to the pasture to feed the cattle twice a day, and he would feed his calf then. And the calf grew into a bull, big and strong.

  Yet that old woman, for whatever reason, decided she would get rid of Jack. Starving him seemed the best way to do it, so she made sure he was out in the fields morning, noon, and night, when meals were being served. Soon enough, Jack was nearly starving to death. He got so weak, he could barely walk.

  It happened that one evening Jack went out to the field feeling so bad that he began to cry.

  But the black bull Jack had been tending wandered over and asked, “What’s made you cry so?”

  Jack replied, “That old woman is starving me to death. Her husband don’t dare cross her, and I’m sure to die afore very long.”

  “Don’t you cry,” the bull told Jack. “Just screw off my left horn and you’ll find bread and butter inside. Then screw off my right horn, and you’ll find milk and porridge.”

  Jack did, and found everything the bull had promised. He did this every evening, and soon the mean old woman wondered why Jack was getting fat. So she decided to send a spy to watch him.

  As it happened, she had three sons of her own: one was three-eyed, one was two-eyed, and the last was one-eyed. First she sent the one-eyed boy to watch Jack. But the one-eyed son got sleepy after a while and lay down in the shade of a tree and went to sleep. So he didn’t see Jack screw off the bull’s horns and have himself a fine meal.

  Then the old woman sent her two-eyed son to see where Jack was getting food. But this boy fell asleep also, so he didn’t see Jack take a bite of anything.

  The old woman grew hopping mad: She knew Jack was getting something to eat somewhere. The next day, she sent her three-eyed son, who closed two eyes in sleep, but kept his third eye open. He saw Jack get vittles from the bull’s horns and ran home to tell his mother about it.

  The old woman told her husband that she wouldn’t have peace of mind until the bull in the pasture became her meal.

  But Jack heard what she was planning. He told the bull, and that big black bull said, “Climb on my back, Jack.” The boy did so, and the bull sprang over the fence and carried Jack away down the road.

  They hadn’t gone far before they heard another bull a-bellowin’. Jack’s bull warned Jack to hold tight. The two bulls — Jack’s all black, the newcomer all red — fought and fought, until Jack’s bull slew the red challenger.

  Soon after this, they met a big blue bull, bellowing and pawing the ground in front of him. Jack’s black bull met him in combat, and took him down, so he ran away. Then Jack screwed off his bull’s horns, ate his supper, and went on his way with his friend.

  Soon they met a big white bull who blocked their way. Jack’s bull locked horns with the creature, and the two battled this way and that. But the white bull finally bested Jack’s bull and left him dying in the road.

  Jack ran over and cradled his friend’s head, crying at this sad turn of events. But the bull said, “Cut a tiny bit of skin from the root of my tail, touch it three times with your finger, and see what you’ll see.”

  So Jack cut the bit of flesh off the bull, and touched it three times. To his amazement, the bit of skin grew into the finest horse he had ever seen, with a fine saddle and bridle upon it. Jack quickly climbed into the saddle. Away the two rode.

  Soon they came to a place where the wealthiest man in the land had said that he would marry his daughter to the one who could ride a horse up a greased ramp and catch the crown of flowers at the top. All day long, would-be heroes had tried, only to slide down the slippery ramp. Though others laughed at him, Jack mounted the ramp, grabbed the crown of flowers, and claimed the rich man’s daughter for his wife. To tell the truth, though, that gal had taken a fancy to Jack the moment she laid eyes on him, so getting hitched wasn’t much of a problem for either Jack or his lady fair.

  John Henry:

  Man vs. Machine

  Folks say lightning flashed and the whole state of Virginia shook the night John Henry was born to Preacher Henry and his wife. The same folks say he weighed 44 pounds at birth.

  Even as a baby, John loved hammering things. By age 10, he could hammer down fence posts like a grown man. At 18, he was more than six feet tall, weighed about 200 pounds, and was strong as a locomotive. When working on the family’s small farm, he would hear a distant train whistle and say, “Someday, I’m gonna be a steel driver for the railroad.”

  So he went to West Virginia and signed on with the Chesapeake & Ohio — called the C&O — railroad crew, working on the Big Bend Tunnel. One and a quarter miles long, it would cut through a mountain and become the longest railroad tunnel in America.

  John Henry was hired as a “driver,” who hammered a steel drill into the rock to make an opening for blasting powder. His every blow drove the drill an inch deeper into solid rock. The work was hard and the days were hot, but John loved the idea that his hammering was helping make a tunnel through which trains would soon roar. His boss boasted, “He’s my finest driver. I’d match him against any man.”

  Though tough, John had a tender heart and fell in love with Lucy, who worked as a maid. She was short to his tall, coffee and cream to his ebony — but while she seemed soft, she was a steel-driving woman from a family of railroad workers. She could lay down rails second only to John Henry, if she had a mind to. They were soon married, and lived in one of the little wooden shanties that housed the railroad workers. The whole crew turned out for the wedding. They bought John a new 20-pound hammer and gave Lucy a flapjack turner big enough to flip hotcakes the size of wagon wheels.

  Word reached the tunneling crew that the owners of the C&O railroad were thinking of buying a newly invented steam drill to replace many workers.

  John Henry and the other men laughed and called it “the iron monster.”

  But the drill’s inventor insisted, “My machine will drill a hole faster than any 10 men!” Then John began to worry that he might lose his job and his and Lucy’s dream of buying a farm. And it bothered him to think that folks would say the tunnel was dug by a machine, not a good, honest man’s work.

  So John went to his boss and said, “You tell everyone, ‘I’ve got a man who can swing two 20-pound hammers. He’ll beat that steam drill down and prove that a man is better than any iron monster.’ But you gotta promise, if I win, you’ll keep all the men working until the Big Bend Tunnel is finished.”

  The boss agreed to a 30-minute contest. If the machine outdrilled John Henry, the C&O would buy it and fire the workers. But if John Henry won, they would pay him $100, and he and the other men could keep their jobs.

  Lucy was worried, and tried to get him to give up his plan. But John kissed her and said, “The men are countin’ on me. And with that money, we can buy our farm. Besides, a man ain’t nothin’ but a man. I gotta prove that no machine can drill better than a sledgehammer and steel in an honest man’s hand.”

  The next day, the man-giant and the steam drill lined up side by side, near the end of the tunnel, while a big crowd gathered inside.

  The boss dropped his flag and the contest began.

  At first the steam-powered drill pulled ahead.

  But this only made John Henry slam his hammer down faster. By the time the contest was halfway over, John Henry’s spikes were biting just as deep as the machine’s, while the men cheered.

  Soon John’s 20-pounders rose and fell so fast they were almost invisible. The sweat poured down his face, and he grunted as he strained
to lift his hammers. Still John slammed away. And he smiled when he saw the steam drill begin to overheat and shake.

  John pulled farther ahead. His muscles were aching and the rock seemed to grow harder, but this only made him pound more forcefully. Just before the boss yelled, “Time!,” the mechanical spike driver shook and wheezed and ground to a halt.

  But John Henry could not slow down at first. He drove his spike several inches deeper, then suddenly fell to the ground. The men carried him out of the tunnel and laid him with his head in Lucy’s lap.

  “Lucy,” he gasped. “Did I beat that steam drill?”

  “You did,” she said, her tears falling like cool rain on his burning face.

  “Oh, Lucy, I hear a roarin’ in my head, like a locomotive rushin’ down the tracks,” John said. Then his soul boarded the train that only he could see.

  While John Henry died that hot July day, his story became a part of railroad legend. Wherever a train speeds over the tracks, some part of John Henry rides the rails with it.

  The Mine Owner and the New Hand

  Once, two orphan brothers in Pennsylvania were so poor that the older brother, Thomas, who was 12, decided to work in a coal mine.

  “We can always use strong lads,” said the mine’s owner. “I’ll hire you if you’ll stay one year. But if you fail to work while it’s still light, or become angry, you’ll have to pay me $50 to buy back your contract or work for seven years without wages. If I become angry, I will pay you $100.”

  Thomas signed a contract, and the owner sent him to work as a breaker with other boys. Coal from the mine was crushed and poured down long chutes, while they picked slate and slag from the rushing streams of coal. Thomas cut his hands on sharp stones and choked on dust.

  When the sun set, he started for the bunkhouse, but the owner exclaimed, “You’re supposed to work while it’s still light.”