The House with the Golden Windows

Once upon a time, long ago, when robins used to nest in old men’s beards, there was a little boy who lived in a little cottage on a small farm. His family were very poor, so all day long he worked hard helping his father in the fields and taking care of the animals.

At the end of each day, when the work was all done and the sun began to go slowly down, he would go to the top of the hill behind his house and look across the valley at a hill a long way away, on this far away hill was a cottage, a white cottage, a white cottage with golden windows.

And as the sun was setting, he would sit on the hill looking across the valley to the cottage with the golden windows and as darkness came on and he could no longer see the beautiful golden windows, all he could see at the top of the hill was a plain cottage.

The little boy would go home for his dinner, wishing all the time that he could live in a cottage with golden windows.

The next day, the little boy decided to set off on a journey across the valley to find the cottage with the golden windows. He took some bread and cheese to eat on the way, kissed his mother goodbye and started off on his long journey.

It was fun to be walking, he loved to walk, he wasn’t wearing shoes and when he looked back, he laughed because it seemed as if the marks left by his feet were following him, he was very very happy.

He was feeling hungry and sat down under a large tree, he drank the cold water from the stream and ate his bread and cheese, he broke off some small pieces of bread, as he seen his father do, and feed the birds.

As he walked on the little boy came to a hill and near the top of the hill, was a small cottage, but he could not see the golden windows and he was sure that this was the right place, but the windows were glass just like any others.

He knocked on the door, and a woman answered and asked the little boy very kindly what he was looking for. “At the end of every day from the top of the hill behind our farm I see a cottage in the distance with golden windows, and now I have come here to find them.”

The lady moved her head slowly from side to side. “We are poor farming people,” she said, “and I don’t think there will ever be any gold about our windows.” She asked the little boy to sit down and rest on a bale of hay and went and brought him a cup of milk and a piece of gingerbread and called her little girl, a girl of his own age, to sit with him.

The little girl was not wearing shoes and was dressed in old clothes, she was very pretty, and her hair was as golden as the windows, her eyes were blue like the mid-day sky, and she had a very warm smile.

She showed the little boy about the farm, showed him her baby calf which was all black with a white star on its forehead, he told her about his own calf at home, which had four white feet.

They talked and played and became the best of friends, he asked the little girl about the cottage with the golden windows. “You have taken the wrong way,” she smiled. “Come with me to the top of the hill behind our cottage, and I will show you the cottage with the golden windows you are looking for.”

As they walked, she told him that the cottage with the golden windows could only ever be seen as the sun goes down.

“Yes, I have known,” said the little boy. They waited and waited on the hill and just as the sun was starting to go down the little girl pointed. “Look, there it is, pointing back over the valley, and one day, I am going to go and look for that cottage with the golden windows just like you.”

There, on a hill far away across the valley, stood a house with windows of gold, the little boy looked, he saw that the house, it was his very own home.

He gave her his best stone, the white one with red lines around it, that he had carried in his pocket all year. She gave him three dried flowers that were special because she had pressed them herself: one yellow like the sun, one as green as grass and one white as milk.

He kissed the little girl and said that he was sure that he would see her again.

As the little boy went down the hill, she stood in the dying light of day and watched him walk away, wishing that what he said about seeing her again would come true.

It was almost dark before the little boy got home, but he could still see the light coming through the windows, making them look just as he had seen them from the top of the far-off hill.

He opened the door, his mother came over and kissed him, his little sister ran up and put her arms around him, and his father looked up and smiled.

“Have you had a good day?” asked his father.

“Yes,” he answered, “a very good day.”

“And have you learned anything?”

“Oh, yes,” said the little boy. “I have learned that the house we live in has windows of gold and that everything we desire and everything we want is right where we are, we just need to recognise it all for what it truly is and be grateful for what we already have.”