Page:Czechoslovak fairy tales.djvu/233

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THE GOLDEN GODMOTHER

THERE was once a wealthy farmer named Lukas who was so careless in the management of his affairs that there came a time when all his property was gone and he had nothing left but one old tumbledown cottage. Then when it was too late he realized how foolish he had been.

He had always prayed for a child but during the years of his prosperity God had never heard him. Now when he was so poor that he had nothing to eat, his wife gave birth to a little daughter. He looked at the poor unwelcome little stranger and sighed, for he didn’t know how he was going to take care of it.

The first thing to be thought about was the christening. Lukas went to the wife of a laborer who lived nearby and asked her to be godmother. She refused because she didn’t see that it would do her any good to be godmother to a child of a man as poor as Lukas.

“You see, Lukas, what happens to a man who has

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