The Endless Tale

by James Baldwin

　　

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In the Far East there was a great king who had no work to do. Everyday, and all day long, he sat on soft cush-ions and lis-tened tostories. And no matter what the story was about, he never grew tiredof hearing it, even though it was very long."There is only one fault that I find with your story," he often said:"it is too short."All the story-tellers in the world were in-vit-ed to his palace; andsome of them told tales that were very long indeed. But the king wasalways sad when a story was ended.At last he sent word into every city and town and country place,offering a prize to any one who should tell him an endless tale. Hesaid,--"To the man that will tell me a story which shall last forever, I willgive my fairest daugh-ter for his wife; and I will make him my heir,and he shall be king after me."But this was not all. He added a very hard con-di-tion. "If any manshall try to tell such a story and then fail, he shall have his headcut off."The king's daughter was very pretty, and there were many young men inthat country who were willing to do anything to win her. But none ofthem wanted to lose their heads, and so only a few tried for theprize.One young man invented a story that lasted three months; but at theend of that time, he could think of nothing more. His fate was awarning to others, and it was a long time before another story-tellerwas so rash as to try the king's patience.But one day a stran-ger from the South came into the palace."Great king," he said, "is it true that you offer a prize to the manwho can tell a story that has no end?""It is true," said the king."And shall this man have your fairest daughter for his wife, and shallhe be your heir?""Yes, if he suc-ceeds," said the king. "But if he fails, he shall losehis head.""Very well, then," said the stran-ger. "I have a pleasant story aboutlocusts which I would like to relate.""Tell it," said the king. "I will listen to you."The story-teller began his tale."Once upon a time a certain king seized upon all the corn in hiscountry, and stored it away in a strong gran-a-ry. But a swarm oflocusts came over the land and saw where the grain had been put. Aftersearch-ing for many days they found on the east side of the gran-a-rya crev-ice that was just large enough for one locust to pass throughat a time. So one locust went in and carried away a grain of corn;then another locust went in and carried away a grain of corn; thenanother locust went in and carried away a grain of corn."Day after day, week after week, the man kept on saying, "Then anotherlocust went in and carried away a grain of corn."A month passed; a year passed. At the end of two years, the kingsaid,--"How much longer will the locusts be going in and carrying away corn?""O king!" said the story-teller, "they have as yet cleared only onecubit; and there are many thousand cubits in the granary.""Man, man!" cried the king, "you will drive me mad. I can listen to itno longer. Take my daughter; be my heir; rule my kingdom. But do notlet me hear another word about those horrible locusts!"And so the strange story-teller married the king's daughter. And helived happily in the land for many years. But his father-in-law, theking, did not care to listen to any more stories.

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