BUT there was one in the village who neither laughed at David nor called him moon-calf. That was Hans Krout, the cobbler. For Hans Krout also was moon-struck. Some of the people of the village used to say that he knew less than nothing, and I dare say what they said was true enough--only sometimes it takes more wits to know less than nothing than to know more than a little.
But Hans Krout had not always been thus. One time he was as world-wise as anybody else. One time he had a wife living with him. He had worked hard when he was young to earn enough money for two people to live upon, and when he had earned it he had married the girl he liked best. They lived together for a while, and then she died. After that Hans Krout became just as he was now, so that some people said he was crazy, and some that he knew less than nothing.
Yet, in spite of what folks said, Hans Krout did know something. He knew more about the moon-path, and the Moon-Angel, and the moon itself than almost anybody.
Little David was very fond of Hans Krout, and when he was not helping his mother, or nursing the baby. or sitting by himself down among the rocks, he used to be in the cobbler's shop watching Hans Krout cobble shoes.
This is how Hans Krout would do it:
He always sat on a bench that had a leather seat to it, and a box at one side. The box was full of brads, and wax-ends, and cobbler's wax, and shoe-pegs, and this and that and what not and the other. Hans Krout would take up a shoe and put into it a wooden foot that he called a last. Then he would fit a piece of sole-leather to the upper and tack it down to the sole of the wooden last. Then he would hold the shoe and all tight between his knees with a strap that went down under his foot. Then he would take his crooked awl and drive it in through the leather sole and out the upper. Then he would stick the two bristles of the wax-end into the hole he had made. Then stretching his arms and drawing the thread about his little fingers, that were always black with shoemaker's wax, he would give a grunt and draw the thread tight.
That is the way he would sew the shoes;--this is the way he would drive the pegs:
He would make a hole with his awl in the sole of the shoe. Then he would stick a little wooden peg into it. Then, rap-tap-tap, he would drive in the peg with his queer, round-faced hammer, and there the peg would be as tight as wax. Then, by and by, he would take his knife and trim off the tops of all the wooden pegs he had driven into the shoe, and rub down the sole till it shone like glass.
Yes, indeed! It is a very wonderful thing to see.
When I was a little boy like David there used to be a cobbler at the old toll-gate under the weeping-willow trees. He had a little black dog, blind of both eyes, whom the Moon-Angel used to lead around hither and thither with a string that nobody could see. I used to go down to the toll-gate and sit there and watch the cobbler cobble shoes just as David used to sit and watch Hans Krout at his work, and to this day I believe it takes more wits to cobble a pair of shoes than to write a big book, and more cleverness to make a good wax-end than to draw a picture with a lead-pencil.
But it was not altogether the shoe cobbling that brought David to the cobbler shop. Hans Krout had a fiddle, and he could play you a tune so sweet and thin and clear that it would make your throat fill up with happiness to listen to him. When he was not busy he used to play the fiddle to David, and David would sit and listen and listen, and the baby would suck its thumb and go to sleep.
But it was not altogether the fiddle either that brought David to the cobbler shop. For the most wonderful thing about Hans Krout was that he was as full of stories as an egg is full of meat. He could tell you about princes and princesses, and kings and nobles, and lords and giants and hobgoblins, by the hour and by the day, when he was not busy cobbling shoes.
But even this was not the best, for Hans Krout knew ever so much more than these things. He knew all about the Moon-Angel and the moon-path and the moon-garden and the moon-house, and he would sometimes tell the little boy about them. That was the most wonderful of all, for all the other things were only fairy tales, but what he told about moonshine was real.
"Were you ever out along the moon-path yourself? " said David.
"Yes," said Hans Krout. As true as I sit here. I didn't know how to travel the moonpath at first, for I hadn't learned the trick. All the same I knew that Katherine"--Katherine was Hans Krout's wife--" that Katherine had gone out that way--I mean along the moon-path--with the Moon-Angel. And so I tried and tried, and by and by I learned how to do it. I was down on the shore one night," said Hans Krout, "and there was the moon-path stretching away toward the moon. I knew that this was just the time to take a walk upon it, for the moon was neither too high toward heaven, nor too low toward the earth. There was a wave coming in toward the shore. Right on top of the wave was a crooked bar of moonlight. I knew that was what I had to stand upon, and so I stepped out. But just as I did so I got frightened, and--souse! there I was in the water over head and ears. Well, what of that? I got out and walked home. But I wasn't going to give it up--not I. I went out again another day. There was the moon-path, and there was the wave, and there was the bar of moonlight right a-top of the wave. I stepped out again, and this time I wasn't afraid. This time, would you believe it, I didn't fall into the water at all. All the same I had to jump off that wave on to another, for the moonlight was sliding away under my feet. It was as slippery as glass. I jumped to the next wave and to the next and to the next, and then I was all right, and it was like gravel under my feet, and I ran just like you run along the shore where the gravel is. Then by and by the path was like a field of pure light with blades of silver grass, and I ran along just as you do when you run across the fields up on the hills."
"Did you get to the moon " said David.
"No," said Hans Krout, "not that time. I did get to the moon afterwards, but not that time."
"And what was it like inside of the moon?" asked David.
Hans Krout looked at him and smiled just like a little child when it first awakens--a foolish, silly, simple smile that had no more wits in it than moonshine itself. But it seemed to David that his face grew white and shone bright. He got up, took his fiddle down from the wall, and began to play. He played and played, and little David sat and listened and listened, and the baby slept on and smiled and smiled, until Hans Krout grew tired of playing. Then he laid his fiddle aside and began cobbling shoes, rap-tap-tap! and the baby came awake and began reaching for David's face. "I wish you 'd show me how to walk on the moon-path some time," said David.
"So I will," said Hans Krout, "if you'll be a good boy and mind the baby." Rap-tap-tap! and he drove another peg. Then David heard his mother calling, and he knew he had to go home.
"Moon-calf!" called Tom Stout, as he went along the street. "Moon-calf! Moon-calf! Moon-calf!" called all the other boys and some of the little girls.
Little David looked over his shoulder and laughed. He did not mind how much they called him moon-calf now, for Hans Krout had promised to show him the way to the moon-path, and if he was to play on the moon-path, why, of course he must be a moon-calf.