48 
by the wayside 
THE DEVIL DECEIVED 
Once upon a time, many many years 
ago, there lived in the German city of 
Bonn, a man who liked birds very 
much. All his life long lie had stud¬ 
ied them and had killed and stuffed 
so many that the walls of every room 
in his house were covered with them. 
Ue had grown old and could no longer 
make excursions. Yet lie wished more 
than ever to make journeys into 
strange countries to find and collect 
new and strange birds. One day as he 
was thinking how unfortunate he was, 
there suddenly stood before him a man, 
grinning broadly < id wearing a feath¬ 
er in his hat. 41 e old man knew at 
once that it was Mepliisto who had 
come to him. 
“What do you want?” he asked. 
“I want to show you all the birds 
on the earth in five years,” Mepliisto 
answered. 
“And what must I do in return?” 
“At the end of five years I shall de¬ 
mand your soul. Just sign this agree¬ 
ment and I will be your servant,” 
“And will you tell me the name of 
each bird?” 
‘ ‘ Certainly. ’ ’ 
“Is that a part of the written con¬ 
tract ? ’ ’ 
“No.” 
“Add that to it and I shall sign my 
name.” 
Mepliisto did as he was asked and 
the old man signed the contract with 
his own blood, for that was the way 
they made contracts with the devil in 
those days. 
At first Hie old bird-lover was a lit¬ 
tle afraid that he hadn’t done right, 
but Mepliisto came each day and 
brought such wonderful and beautiful 
birds that the old man forgot his fear 
and became very happy. 
The five years were soon gone. The 
day came when Mepliisto was to claim 
the soul of the old bird-lover. Early 
in the morning the old man rose. He 
took his youngest grandson and dipped 
him into a barrel of syrup, so that lie 
was sticky all over; and then he took 
from the stuffed birds many hundreds, 
even thousands of feathers. All these 
bright colored feathers he stuck over 
the little boy until lie looked just like 
some strange bird from a far away 
land. 
Pretty soon Mephisto came and told, 
the old man to follow him. But the old 
man said to him, you promised to tell 
me the name of every kind of bird, and 
here’s one that you’ve forgotten. Me¬ 
phisto was puzzled when he saw the 
queer bird. He looked at it sharply 
and then walked around and around it. 
He stopped to scratch his head, and 
then walked around it again, but he 
could not think of its name. At last 
he said, “oh well, I’ll look it up in my 
books, and if I can tell you its name be¬ 
fore midnight, your soul is mine any¬ 
way. ’ ’ 
He disappeared, but never came 
back again. 
(Adapted from Stern’s “Geschich- 
ten von Rhein.”) 
