Hans Hedgehog A GERMAN FOLK TALE

Once, in a small town, there was a rich merchant and his wife who could have anything in the world that money could buy. But there was one thing they wanted more than the world itself, and money couldn’t buy it. They wanted a child of their own.

“Be patient!” the merchant’s wife soothed. “Time will bring us a child.”

But years passed, and more years, and no child came.

The merchant became grumpy and short-tempered. He worried about what his friends would think of him—he, who had no child to carry on his name and inherit his money! Anytime he looked down from his high window he could see peasants hurrying past, each with six or seven children in tow.

“It’s not fair!” he’d complain to his wife. “It’s not right! Those ragged peasants without two pennies to rub together have more children than they can feed. Here am I, a man who could feed and clothe have a child? No, not me!”