Page:Turkish fairy tales and folk tales (1901).djvu/194

 him: "The wise men and the leeches cannot help the damsel, the only medicine that can cure her lies hidden elsewhere." Then he advised the Padishah to make a great bath, the water whereof should cure all sick people, but whoever bathed therein was to be made to tell the story of his life. So the Padishah caused the bath to be made, and proclaimed throughout the city that the water of this bath would give back his hair to the bald, and his hearing to the deaf, and his sight to the blind, and the use of his legs to the lame. Then all the people flocked in crowds to have a bath for nothing, and each one of them had to tell the story of his life and his ailment before he returned home again.

Now in that same city dwelt the bald-headed son of a bed-ridden mother, and the fame of the wonder-working bath reached their ears also. "Let us go too," said the son; "perchance the pair of us shall be cured."

"How can I go when I can't stand on my legs?" groaned the old woman.—"Oh, we shall be able to manage that," replied bald-pate, and taking his mother on his shoulders he set out for the bath.

They went on and on and on, through the level plains by the flowing river, till at last the son was tired and put his mother down upon the ground.