On the eastern arm of the Wendish Mountains in the foothills above the plains of Wendland there sits a village that is now empty, but once was filled with men and women. It is a small village, but is sturdy and cleverly built. It is said that the Amgamal built it long ago as a sort of trading post to facilitate commerce between the early Wendish people and the inhabitants of the great city of Ir-Shâmâyim, but if that is so, it must have been many, many years ago, for none now living can remember when the People of Reward were last seen in the land of the Wendish Men.
The little village is quite peculiar. It is located in a space that appears to have been carved straight out of the earth in a spot where two impassable hills come together. As such, the village sits in a tall, narrow gorge between the two hills, and below it sits a wide, bowl-shaped valley that appears to have been dug by artificial means rather than by the hand of God. All of its buildings are made entirely of stone, and each one sits atop an elevated stone foundation. Even though it has been uninhabited for many years, all the sturdy stone buildings are still standing today.
During its days of habitation, the little village could support no more than a few hundred people. As such, every inhabitant had his or her own specific job vital to the little community: Duncan of Slackton was the butcher, Ms. Buttercup was the teacher, John Grimble was the mayor, and George Blacksmith was, well, the blacksmith. The Eölings were in charge of livestock, Mr. and Mrs. Tyndale did the tailoring, the entire Wight family ran the general store, and Jasper Horndale was in charge of manning the gate and securing the village. All the inhabitants worked together in harmony and lived their lives in contented fellowship.
But there was one villager who didn’t seem to fit in. No one remembers his name or what he looked like, but the stories say that he was referred to as “the little old man who cleaned the streets.” He lived alone, in a tiny little apartment sandwiched between two much larger houses on a quiet street near the center of town. He had little money and few possessions. He had no wife or children that anybody remembered and he didn’t socialize enough to have friends. All remembered him as a pleasant, kind little man who was fond of dishing out little proverbs every time he crossed paths with another villager. Most people were so used to the sound of his quiet whistle accompanying the soft scraping sound of his bristly old broom that they hardly even noticed him. He never caused any trouble—unless someone dirtied his streets. Villagers learned very quickly to look over their shoulders before they dumped trash on the ground, for if the little man caught sight of them leaving their garbage behind, he was on them in an instant, poking them with the handle of his little broom and badgering them until their cleaned up his pristine streets. To him, spilling slop in the street was worse than spilling it on your pants. Many people joked that he’d store the garbage of the city in his house if it meant keeping it off the streets.
The little old man was especially protective of the trenches. This was another peculiar characteristic of the village, that each street had a trench running down its center. These trenches were about a cubit deep, and two or three cubits wide. No one knew what the trenches were for, or why they had been built in the first place. But the little old man guarded them as if they were made of gold. He kept the smooth stone trenches as clean as they must have been on the day they were dug. Neither leaf, nor rock was allowed to remain in a trench for long under his vigilant care. And woe to the individual who tried to fill one in or place a board across one to ease passage. When discovered, the little man flew into a violent rage, and the handle of his broom would fly faster than ever, like a woodpecker pecking for bugs. None of the villagers understood why, but they found life easier just to let him have his eccentric way, and so, the trenches stayed clean.
One spring morning, the sleepy village awoke to find an army on its doorstep. One of the old warrior-kings of the lowlands had marshalled his forces and ravaged the countryside with the goal of expanding his clan’s territory. The king and his warriors camped across the bowl-shaped valley at the base of the village and began to taunt the villagers. The king stood in the valley for the entire morning and shouted curses upon the tiny village, mocking it for its weakness and for its peculiar design. “I could destroy your puny homes with barely a flick of my wrist,” the burly, long-haired warrior roared. “But I offer you the chance to surrender, that your lives may be spared. Serve as my vassals, and I will treat you fairly with only a modest tribute. But defy me, and I will burn your pathetic village to the ground. You have until tomorrow morning to respond."
The villagers were terrified. They were a peaceful people and had no soldiers to defend them apart from Jasper Horndale and his handful of city guards.
“What will we do?” Mayor Grimble cried at an emergency town meeting that he had hastily assembled. “Jasper, you must protect us!”
“I cannot,” Jasper said. “I think the wisest choice would be for us to surrender to the brigands.”
The town was horrified at his suggestion.
“We can’t surrender to them!” Ms. Wight exclaimed. “They’ll tear us to bits with their weapons, or bleed us dry with their tributes. There must be some way for us to escape!”
Jasper, who fancied himself a wiseman, turned up his nose at the people and said, “I have spoken. You will find no better answer.”
A silence ensued amongst the townspeople that was broken only by a soft scraping sound near the back of the town square. The people looked behind them and saw the little old man sweeping up a bit of sawdust from the street. “Captain,” the little man said in a high-pitched, scratchy voice, “Perhaps I can be of assistance.”
“How could a street sweeper be of assistance in matters of life and death?” Jasper sneered.
“I don’t know much about life or death,” the little man said with a curious smile, “but I do know that the ancients who built this town designed it to withstand even the strongest army. Many years ago, a warrior-king like the one who besieges us now attacked this very same village. At that time, a young man who had done much exploring knew a way to protect the city and defeat the attackers at the same time. The young man showed the town how to protect the city and the attackers were defeated without a single hand being raised.”
“And how would you know all of this?” Jasper replied roughly.
“Because I was that young man all those years ago,” the old man said. “Once before, I showed this city how to defend itself. And, if you will follow me, I will show you how to defend it again.”
Jasper scoffed at the old man’s stories, but the townspeople were so frantic that they compelled Jasper to accompany the little old man. So, with a sigh of exasperation, he complied.
The old man followed one of the trenches in the road out the back of the city and up the mountain. As they left the city behind, Jasper saw something he had never noticed before. All of the street trenches met together outside of the city and coalesced into one massive canal. The little man continued to follow this canal up into the mountain. They followed it back and forth over hills and gullies as it wound its way higher. Jasper grew tired and frustrated many times and constantly made it known to the little man that he thought he was insane and suffered from delusions of grandeur. But the little man just smiled and kept going. Darkness began to fall, but the little man did not stop. On and on he travelled, heedless of the danger, and Jasper, who was afraid to hike down the mountain in the dark, had no choice but to follow.
Finally, as the black of night began to give way to the gray of dawn, their path was barred by a massive gate built into the side of a ridge near the summit of the mountain. Jasper, who was already shivering with cold from the high elevation, began to berate the old man for leading him on so long only to find a massive gate blocking their path. “It is almost morning,” Jasper said. “The king will be launching his attack on the village at any time, and I won’t be there to defend it. You’ve doomed the entire village!”
The old man just smiled again and pointed to a large crank near the gate. “Turn the crank and see what happens,” he said.
Jasper sighed and out of frustration began to turn the crank. At first it wouldn’t turn, but after a few good shoves, it began to move. As Jasper turned the crank, the gate began to rise. As it did, water began to spill out from beneath it and into the canal. The more Jasper turned, the higher the gate rose, and the more water began to spill out. Before long, there was a rushing torrent of water flowing into the canal and down the mountain. “What’s going on?” Jasper yelled over the sound of the rushing water.
“The ancients built the village beneath a mountain spring that feeds into the great river,” the old man explained. “This canal leads all the way back to the village.”
“What good does that do?” Jasper asked.
“Just watch,” the little old man said with a smile.
Jasper watched. He watched the water follow the canal all the way down the mountain and reach the village. He watched the water split into dozens of different channels and flow into the city’s peculiar trenches—the same trenches that the little old man had kept clean and unobstructed for so many years. He watched the water flow through the city and out towards the peculiar bowl-shaped valley. And, as the sun peeked over the horizon, and as the invading army began to march over the rise, the water rushed into the valley. The army was caught completely off-guard and were swept off their feet. Many of them tried to run, but they were too late. The water quickly filled the little valley, drowning the army, including its king. Those warriors who weren’t drowned now found themselves completely cut off from the village by the water-filled valley in front and the impassable hills to the sides. Defeated, they retreated and did not return.
After lowering the gate and stemming the flow of water, Jasper and the little old man began to hike back down the mountain. Jasper was so excited that the city had been saved that he outdistanced the little man and arrived home long before he did. He found the village in the midst of a wild celebration. As soon as he stepped foot in town, the people swept him off his feet and paraded him around the town shouting huzzah and singing his praises. The mayor gave him a special commendation, and the ladies baked him whatever treats he desired. Jasper, who had always fancied himself a bit of a hero, basked in their admiration and celebration.
Night was about to fall by the time the little old man returned to the village. When he entered the town, no one was waiting to applauded or celebrate him. They were too busy congratulating Jasper Horndale. The old man, exhausted from his climb up and down the mountain, went straight home and slept. The next morning found him sweeping the streets again.
As the days turned into weeks and the weeks turned into months, the villagers forgot about the little old man who had saved their village. Every now and then they would say some kind thing to him in remembrance, but soon they stopped doing even that. They built a statue to honor Jasper Horndale (at the suggestion of Jasper himself), but for the little old man they did nothing but forget.
Now the story is told by those who know that one day the little old man died and went to the place of waiting where all souls go to wait for that final day of judgment. There he met the warrior-king from whose wrath he had protected the village. The king was smug and laughed at the little old man.
“Just think,” he said, “you swept those trenched for all those years and saved your village from destruction, but none of them ever even thanked you. You must regret saving them now, don’t you?”
But the little old man chuckled. “I didn’t save the city because I wanted to be thanked,” he said. “I did it because it was the right thing to do.”
Then he said something that mystified the old king: “The words of a wise man will not be appreciated for long, especially if he is poor. But even so, the quiet words of a wise person are better than the shouts of a foolish king. Keep doing what is right, not because people are watching, but because it is the right thing to do.”
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