the boy who wanted to trap sunshine

 

The boy who wanted to trap sunshine.

 

Once there was a boy, whose name was Tom, who ran errands to eke out the miserable living his widowed mother made in sewing, for he was not old enough for any to take him on to do a man’s job.  And one day, Tom’s errand had been to a distant place, and on the way back he halted at an inn for he was tired and thirsty.  He begged water from the well, and the innkeeper’s daughter, a beautiful girl with hair like sunlight on corn, drew it for him and served it in a fine, sparkling glass.

Having satisfied his thirst, he sat a while, enjoying the warmth of the sunshine as the fire in his legs from a long run settled down.  And, never having seen good crystal glass, he observed what seemed to be the sunshine trapped in the glass, and he moved to clap his hand over the top. In doing so he moved between the sun and the glass, and the gleam disappeared.

“Oh, it escaped!” he said, in dismay.

“What are you trying to do?” asked Bess, the landlord’s daughter.

“I wanted to trap the sun in the glass, to take home for my mother, for she complains that the tallow dips are not good enough to sew at night,” said Tom. “And if it burned me on the way home, it would be a small price to please my mother.”

Bess opened her mouth to tell him how foolish he was, and shut it again. He was a good boy to think so of his mother.

“Don’t you think it would be selfish to take the sun away from everyone else?” she asked.

Tom stared in consternation.

“Oh! Well, yes,” he agreed. “But I wasn’t expecting to trap it all.”

“It’s all or nothing with the sun,” said Bess. “But I tell you what, if you help me wash up the glasses from last night that I haven’t finished, I’ll let you have the ends of the real wax candles we have for the guests, and a chipped glass to put one in, which will catch its light and make it brighter.”

“Very well,” said Tom.

 

 

Tom’s mother was thrilled with the candle ends, and saved the wax to remould as well, and the crystal glass made the candle seem brighter. Tom washed glasses for Bess every Saturday morning, and ran errands for her father, which paid more than the small errands of the farm labourers, and managed to save enough to go to  the rector for some lessons.  And in due course, he married Bess and took over the inn, and his mother moved in with him, and only sewed when she felt like it, and they all lived happily ever after.