"The Devoted Friend"
Hans is a gardener, the devoted friend of a rich miller. On the basis of this friendship, the miller helps himself to flowers from Hans' garden, and promises to give Hans an old, broken wheelbarrow, to replace one that Hans was forced to sell so that he could buy food. Against this promise, the miller compels Hans to run a series of arduous errands for him; one stormy night, the miller asks Hans to fetch a doctor for his sick son. Returning from the doctor, Hans is lost on the moors in the storm, and drowns in a pool of water. After Hans' funeral, the miller's only emotion is regret, as he has been unable to dispose of the wheelbarrow.
The story is told by a linnet to an intellectual water-rat, who fancies himself a literary critic; the water-rat is sympathetic to the miller rather than Hans, and storms off on being informed that the story has a moral.
Read more about this topic: The Happy Prince And Other Tales
Famous quotes containing the words devoted and/or friend:
“When I reflect to what a cause this man devoted himself, and how religiously, and then reflect to what cause his judges and all who condemn him so angrily and fluently devote themselves, I see that they are as far apart as the heavens and the earth are asunder.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“A friend to all is a friend to none.”
—18th century English proverb, collected in Thomas Fuller, Gnomologia (1732)