PRINCE VANCE

Prince Vance
The Story of a Prince with a Court in his Box

BY

ELEANOR PUTNAM and ARLO BATES

ILLUSTRATED BY FRANK MYRICK

BOSTON
ROBERTS BROTHERS
1888

Copyright, 1888,
By Arlo Bates.

University Press:
John Wilson and Son, Cambridge, U.S.A.

TO THE BOY ORIC

Dear son, this twisted, tangled web of whims
For you was woven while you scarcely knew
The simplest speech men use; but infant limbs,
That round and smooth in dimpled fairness grew,
Waved for all word in a babe's perfect glee,
So wondrous sweet to see.

It is not stranger than this world must seem
To one who its vagaries first does scan;
It is less weird than the enchanted dream
Which life may change to ere you be a man.
Such as it is, take it for this alone,—
That it is all your own.

Those who together wrought its colors gay,
And its fantastic warp and woof entwined,
May not again for you in work or play
Together labor. Yet the loving mind
In which they then were one will still be one
Till life and sense be done.

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

PRINCE VANCE.

I.

It was certainly not strange that Prince Vance was so stupefied with astonishment that he sat for a full half-hour foolishly staring before him, without an effort to move a muscle or to stir from his seat. Indeed, it is probable that any other prince in the same circumstances would have been equally struck dumb with amazement,—as any one may see who will attend while I go back to the beginning, and relate what had happened.

By the beginning is meant the birth of Prince Vance, when the powerful fairy Copetta had been chosen his godmother, since which time she certainly had not devoted herself to being agreeable to the Prince. She had insisted, for instance, that her godson should pay attention to his lessons; that he should show respect to his tutors; and, what was most outrageous of all, that he, Prince Vance, only son of his parents and sole heir to the kingdom, should learn to obey. She had coolly informed her godson, moreover, that if he did not obey her willingly, it would certainly be the worse for him; since learn he must, by harsh means, if no others would move him.

All this seemed to Vance a most unpleasant and unreasonable sort of talk, and, as may be imagined, it did not increase his love for his godmother. So things had gone on from bad to worse between them until Vance was a fine, lusty lad beginning his teens, when one day the Blue Wizard came to court.

Vance had been having a remarkably unpleasant scene with his godmother that morning. She had come popping into the school-room, in a disagreeable way she had of appearing when she was least expected; and, of course, nothing would do but she must come at the exact moment when the Prince was engaged in boxing his tutor's ears (without boxing-gloves), because the poor old man wanted him to learn the boundaries of what would some day be his own kingdom.

"You shall see the boundaries by travelling over them all on foot," the fairy had said crossly. "You are growing up idle, selfish, and disobedient; a shame to your godmother and a disgrace to your family. You will be associating with the Blue Wizard next, I dare say!"

"Yes, so I will," the Prince answered stubbornly; for though he really had never heard of the Blue Wizard before, he would have said anything just then to vex his godmother,—"so I will. I should like to see him. I really wish he would come this very day!"

"As for me, you evil boy!" Copetta said, more angrily yet, striking her cane sharply upon the ground, "you shall want me badly enough before you find me, I promise you; and sorrow shall have made you wiser before you look upon my face again."

"Not that I shall miss you much, with your scoldings and fault-findings!" replied the saucy Prince; and as she vanished before his eyes, according to her startling custom, he began shying his books at the head of his tutor, to the great discomfort of that unhappy man, who thought that his lot in life was indeed a sad one, and wished himself a wood-cutter in the royal forest, or indeed anything rather than what he was.

When his pile of books was quite gone, and the blackboard erasers, the bits of crayon, and the pointer had been thrown after them, the Prince put his hands in his pockets and lounged to the window, whistling a tune he had caught from a hand-organ. His twelve younger sisters were just coming into the courtyard, two by two, returning from taking their morning airing with their governesses. The Princesses were quite as good as the Prince was bad, and there could certainly have been no prettier sight than that of the twelve royal little girls walking along so properly and primly. Each had a green velvet pelisse, a neat Leghorn bonnet, and a green fringed parasol; each wore nice buff mitts and a good-tempered smile, and each had a complexion like pink and white ice-cream, and eyes like pretty blue beads. It was therefore very naughty indeed of Prince Vance to shout "Boh!" so loudly that each Princess started and hopped quite one foot from the ground, and even the governesses put their hands to their hearts. This, however, gave much joy to the Prince; and after his sisters had disappeared he stood by the window still whistling, with his hands in his pockets and a wicked grin on his face.

"Your Royal Highness," began the tutor, meekly, "your Highness really must not put your Highness's hands in your Highness's trousers pockets, and whistle that dreadful tune. If her Royal Highness the Queen should hear you, she would certainly have me beheaded."

"Why should I care for that?" asked the Prince, carelessly; and just at that moment he caught sight of the Blue Wizard himself coming into the court below.

II

Whatever else might be said of the Blue Wizard, nobody would ever think of calling him a beauty. His nose and his chin were long and pointed, his eyebrows big and bushy, his teeth sharp and protruding from his mouth; and everything about him—skin, hair, teeth, and dress—was as blue as a sky on a June afternoon when not a cloud is to be seen. He had, too, a way of perking his head about, which was most unsettling to the nerves; twitching and twisting it constantly from side to side, like a toy mandarin. He came boldly into the courtyard of the palace, quite as if the whole place belonged to him; and catching sight of Prince Vance at the window above, he raised one finger, long and skinny and blue as a larkspur blossom, and beckoned for him to come down.

The Prince hesitated. Certainly the Blue Wizard was not so charming in his looks as to make one wish to get any nearer to him, but Vance happened to remember that his godmother had seemed to disapprove most highly of this very wizard; so with an idea of displeasing Copetta, the Prince obeyed the beckoning finger and went down.

At a nearer view the Wizard looked even uglier than from a distance. His very lips were blue, and when he opened his mouth his tongue was seen to be blue also.

"Come," he said to the Prince, in rather an injured tone, "you keep me waiting long enough, I hope, when I only came to teach you a droll trick."

"That is good," answered Vance, growing interested at once. "I do like droll tricks. What is it?"

"It is in here," the Blue Wizard said, holding out a pretty gold bonbon box. "Just make anybody eat one of these, and then you shall see what you shall see."

The Prince took the box in his hand and opened his lips to ask another question; but before he could speak a single word the Blue Wizard had vanished quite away, and he stood alone.

He went slowly and thoughtfully upstairs, wondering what the trick could be.

"I'll try it on the tutor first," he concluded, "because I'm sure I don't care what happens to him, and I really must know what the droll trick is."

So he went smilingly up to his tutor and offered the open box; and the simple old gentleman, suspecting nothing, bowed and simpered at the great honor his Royal Highness did him, and quickly swallowed one of the little bonbons.

And this is what happened. Pouf! The unfortunate tutor shut up like a crush-hat, and shrunk together until he was as short as a pygmy and as plump as a mushroom. Really one might just as well have no tutor at all as to have one so tiny. How Prince Vance did laugh! Of all the wizards he had ever known—and for one so young his Highness had known a great many wizards; he almost always met more or less of them when he played truant by climbing out of a back window and going into the woods fishing—he thought the Blue Wizard was the most amusing and had invented the very drollest trick.

"Dear me, your Highness!" said the poor tutor, in so tiny a voice that it was quite all the Prince could do to hear him. "Dear me! what is the matter? I certainly feel very queer; I do, indeed."

"You look even queerer than you feel, I fancy," replied the naughty Prince, chuckling with glee.

He picked up the poor tutor, and putting him on the window-sill laughed at him till his sides were fairly sore. Then he began to consider how he could get the most fun and make the most mischief out of his bonbons, for there were not a great many of them; and, being a shrewd young rascal, he at last contrived the plan of putting them into the ice-cream which was then being frozen for the royal dinner. Then everybody would be sure to get a taste at least of the magic potion; and slipping down into the kitchen, the wicked young Prince succeeded in carrying out this evil and dangerous plan.

III

Everybody looked at the Prince when at dinner he declined ice-cream. It was unheard of. Nobody had ever known him to do such a thing before. The twelve young Princesses, though much too well bred to remark upon it, stared at their brother with their twenty-four beady blue eyes, and made their twelve little mouths as round as penny pieces in their surprise.

Now the King, being fond of ice-cream, happened to eat quite steadily for some moments without stopping; so that when he did look up he beheld his Queen already shrunk to the size of a teaspoon, and every moment growing smaller.

"My dear," said he, gravely, "really I don't think you ought,—before the children too; just consider what a bad example you are setting them."

"I'm sure, Sire," replied the Queen, rather crossly, for the sudden shrinking had given her quite a giddy feeling,—"I'm sure I cannot imagine what you are talking about. Bad example, indeed! You had better be looking to your own behavior. What the children will think of you for growing so very small, I'm sure I cannot imagine."

At this moment the royal pair looked about on their daughters. They were about the size of lucifer matches! They ran their eyes down the long table; every person there was a pygmy.

Horror and fear filled every mind save that of Prince Vance. He nearly went wild with joy over the great success of his trick. He had, it is true, run out of the dining-hall at first, from his old habit of starting off whenever he had performed any of his abominable jokes; but he soon ventured to come back again, and round and round the table he went, laughing as if he would kill himself at the tiny people sprawling helplessly in their big chairs.

The Prince helped himself to fruit and cakes and bonbons from the table. He seated his royal mother on top of the sugar-bowl, and put the poor old King in the salt-cellar. As for the Lord Chancellor, whom he especially hated, Vance dumped the bewigged old fop into the pepper-box, where he would really have sneezed himself to death in another minute, had not the Blue Wizard fortunately appeared and given the unhappy man a sudden bath in a finger-bowl.

"It worked well, didn't it?" the Blue Wizard observed with a grin, as he put the Lord Chancellor, very white and limp, on the window-seat to dry in the sun.

"Oh, awfully well!" Vance replied briskly, although secretly he was more than a little afraid of this particular wizard, who seemed to be much more sudden in his way of appearing and disappearing than the common sort of wizards to which the Prince was accustomed.

"The worst of it is," remarked the Wizard, thoughtfully, pulling his bushy eyebrows with his long blue fingers, "you can't change 'em back."

"What!" exclaimed the Prince, in his confusion dropping his father into the pudding sauce and entirely ruining the royal robes. "Can't change them back? But you must change them back if I tell you to."

"Oh, as to that," the Blue Wizard answered carelessly, giving the king in turn a bath in the finger-bowl, "what you say isn't of the least consequence any way. In the first place, no wizard is bound to obey anybody who does not himself know how to obey; and in the second place, nobody can undo this particular charm but the Crushed Strawberry Wizard."

"Very well, then," said Vance, imperiously, paying no attention whatever to the first part of the Blue Wizard's remark; "go and get the Crushed Strawberry Wizard."

"Get him yourself!" was the answer. "I don't want him. It is nothing to me, you know; this isn't my family."

"But where does the Crushed Strawberry Wizard live?" asked the Prince, more humbly.

"I'm sure I've no idea," the Blue Wizard replied lightly; "and now I think of it, I don't believe I care. I'm sure I don't see why I should."

"But it's all your fault," blubbered Vance, beginning to cry, and sitting down upon his uncle, the Duke Ogee, without even noticing him till the Duke wriggled so that Vance jumped up in a fright, thinking he had sat down upon a frog. "I'm sure you got me into the scrape."

"Now you're getting tiresome," said the Wizard, yawning. "I never liked tiresome people myself."

"But I don't know what to do-oo!" sobbed the Prince.

At this the Wizard only gave a terrible laugh and vanished quite away again, leaving the naughty young Prince to get out of his trouble as best he could.

IV

For a few moments Prince Vance continued to cry rather noisily, though it must be confessed that it was more because he was so vexed at the Blue Wizard than because he was at all sorry for what he had done. Indeed, he did not even now realize that the trick was likely to turn out a very serious thing; and after a while he dried his eyes, and having collected his wits proceeded to collect also all the little people and put them together at one end of the royal dining-table.

They made such a pretty sight, with their little court robes and tiny jewels, that Vance was charmed with them and declared them to be more interesting than white mice or even guinea pigs. He could hear them, too, if he listened very closely indeed, quarrelling and blaming one another for what had befallen them; and this was so vastly funny to the wicked Prince that he rubbed his hands and fairly danced again with glee. It was only when the palace cat, pouncing upon the Lord Chancellor as he lay upon the window-sill, snatched him and carried him off in her mouth, that Vance began to be a little frightened, and to realize that, having made the whole family unable to protect themselves, it had now become his duty to care for them and see that they came to no harm. He just managed to save the Lord Chancellor from the lantern jaws of the royal cat, and then proceeded at once to set his small family in safe places for the night. Some he put in the crystal lily-cups of the chandeliers; others in the crannies of the golden mouldings on the wall; while for the King and Queen and the twelve little Princesses, he found a lovely chamber in a pink porcelain shell which hung from the ceiling by silver chains, and was commonly used for the burning of perfumes and spices to make the air of the dining-hall sweet and delightful. All this being attended to, the Prince betook himself to bed; but the palace seemed very lonely and silent, and the Prince was so dull and so frightened that he might not have gone to sleep at all, save for the cheering thought that at least there was no danger of lessons on the morrow, as the tutor was too small to teach, and his father and mother far too little to make him obey.

"I will go to the preserve closets," he murmured to himself as he was dropping off to sleep. "There is now nobody to stop me. I shall begin with the damsons and the honey in the morning, and I shall have all the wedding cake and macaroons that I can possibly eat."

But, alas for the Prince! when morning came he found that affairs were turning out differently indeed from the way in which he had planned. When he came down to breakfast, with his foolish head full of visions of ordering the cook to send up pigeon pot-pie, curry of larks, strong coffee,—which was a forbidden delight to the Prince except upon his birthdays,—and unlimited buttered toast and jam, what a downfall to all his hopes was it to find, pacing the dining-hall, the fierce and cruel General Bopi, who, luckily for himself, had been out hunting the day before, and so missed the fatal dinner, and was still quite as large as life if not larger. He had discovered the state of affairs at the palace; and so far from making himself unhappy about this, he was evidently in great good spirits, and, to say the least, was disposed to make the best of matters instead of the worst. He had put on the King's very best crown which was kept to be worn only on great occasions, and with a cloak of royal ermine on his shoulders was strutting boldly up and down, enjoying his new splendors and the feeling of power which they brought.

How it happened Vance never was quite able to tell, but the first thing he knew, his dreams of having his own way and ordering the servants about to his heart's content were shattered, and he found himself somehow pushed and hustled outside on the palace steps,—himself, the Prince, and heir to the royal throne, turned away from his own door and ordered to leave the kingdom on pain of death.

"But my family!" cried Vance; "I hid them from the cat, and now they will starve. Nobody can find them but me!"

"As for their starving," the General replied indifferently, "I don't know that I care for that; but I would rather the palace should be rid of the whole vermin race of them, so you may come in and gather them up. But be quick about it, or I'll set the royal bloodhounds on you!"

Thus roughly treated, the poor Prince made haste to collect his scattered family from the nooks and crannies where he had hidden them. He was cramming them into his pockets with very little thought for their feelings, when he happened to remember his sister's baby-house, which not only had parlors, bedrooms, and dining-rooms in plenty, but was well furnished with everything which the heart of little people could desire. This he begged very humbly of the new king, and having it granted him he packed his family into it, making them as comfortable as their reduced circumstances would allow. A grinning footman strapped the box on the back of the Prince as an organ-grinder carries his organ; then he helped him out of the palace with a sudden push which had nearly sent him headlong down the steps. Laughing pages ran before him, and the Prince recalled the many times he had tweaked their noses and stuck pins in the calves of their legs. Everybody seemed heartily glad to see him go.

"Good riddance to bad rubbish!" quoth the palace hound; "you will never again put my meat up a tree where I cannot get it."

"Get out with you!" snapped the royal cat. "I'm glad you are turned out of the house. Let us hope a body can take a nap in comfort now, without having her tail stepped on or snuff sprinkled in her face."

"Don't trouble yourself ever to come back," screeched the peacock, hoarsely. "For my part, I'm tired of having my handsomest tail-feathers snatched out by the handful. I'm sure I trust I shall never set eyes on you again."

So it was with all the animals in the royal gardens. The deer, the emus, the gazelles, the swans, the flamingoes, the parrots, even his own particular white mice and spotted guinea pigs, declared that they were glad he was going, and hoped he might never come back any more. Not a creature did anything but rejoice as the royal beggar was tumbled rudely out from his own father's gardens and left standing alone in the highway, already heartily sorry for his prank, and quite at his wits' end as to what to do with the Court which he carried in his baggage.

V

Considering that Prince Vance had never done anything at all for himself, not even so much as to tie his own shoe-strings, it was a pretty hard lot for him to be turned out into the world to get his own living, and take care of the whole Court besides. At first he was almost tempted to throw away the box and all his relatives with it; but although of course he could not be expected to think so much of his father and mother now that there was so very little of them to be fond of, still under all his follies Vance had a good sort of heart, and so he trudged away with the troublesome little Court strapped tightly to his shoulders. I am not perfectly sure that he did not take some pleasure in jolting it about, for I have more than once seen little folk bang and jerk bundles they were made to carry against their wills. At any rate, the King and the Queen and the Court came very near being seasick upon dry land, from the jolting and rocking of this new manner of travelling.

Prince Vance had not the least idea where he was going. He knew, of course, that he wanted to find the Crushed Strawberry Wizard, but he did not know where that individual lived, or how to go to work to find him; so he only made his best pace to get away from the palace as fast as he could, being afraid that the new king might repent of not having taken his head from his shoulders, and send somebody after him.

It was about sunset when he came to a beautiful field which lay along the banks of a wide dark river; and Vance, who by this time was half starved, was delighted that wild strawberries grew here in great plenty, making the ground quite red. He first looked about for somebody to pick them for him, but naturally he found no one; so he set down his luggage and fell to helping himself, eating very fast and paying very little attention to the rules of good society.

It was not until he had stuffed himself to the throat that he happened to think that his travelling companions might also be hungry. He opened the box and let them out, and found much pleasure in watching their funny antics as they stumbled over tiny pebbles or became entangled in the grass and struggled helplessly as if caught in some horrible thicket. Two or three would seat themselves around one ripe berry, and dine from it where it was growing; others drank drops of the evening dew, which already shone in the clover leaves and buttercups; while the Lord Chancellor, who seemed to be always getting into trouble, picked some sort of quarrel with a large green grasshopper,—and so terrible did the battle become that there is no telling who would have come out of it alive had not Vance gone to the poor Lord's help and frightened the insect away.

Under all these trying circumstances the poor nobles kept something of their court manners; and their smiles and stately movements, their bowings and courtesies, seemed to Prince Vance so droll that he went into violent fits of laughter and rolled about on the grass.

As it grew dark he did indeed stop laughing and think longingly of his soft bed with its silken pillows and down coverings, but in truth he was so tired he could hardly keep his eyes open at all; and as soon as he had picked his small relatives and friends out of the damp grass and put them safely into their box, he lay down under a spreading beech-tree and fell into a sound and delicious sleep.

The morning found the Prince somewhat refreshed and gave him a fresh determination. He resolved to set out at once on the search for the Crushed Strawberry Wizard, leaving no means untried until he discovered him and prevailed upon him to change the transformed Court to its former condition. He shouldered his box and started bravely on the road, not knowing at all where he was going, and already beginning to regret that he had not paid to his lessons at least sufficient attention to have learned in which direction his own kingdom extended.

He had walked an hour or two when he saw by the roadside a man engaged in gathering the down from the tall thistles that grew by the way.

"Hallo!" cried the Prince; "what do you expect to do with that?"

"Beds," answered the man, shortly, and without stopping his work.

"Oh!" Vance said, seating himself on a stone and putting down his box beside him. "You make beds of it, do you? They must be very soft."

"Dandelion," replied the man.

"Dandelion?" repeated the Prince. "That doesn't mean anything."

The man nodded his head in a knowing way, but said nothing. He was a strange-looking individual, with clothing which was made of all sorts of odds and ends pieced together; while so lean and wizened was he that it made the Prince hungry only to look at him.

"Do you mean that dandelion down makes better beds?" asked Vance, whose wits were being sharpened by his travels.

The other nodded.

"Then why in the world couldn't you say so? You are not dumb."

"Breath," returned the little thin man, briefly.

He moved from the bunch of thistles which he had stripped to the next, turning as he did so and carefully picking up his footprints to use over again and save himself the trouble of making new ones.

"You are certainly the most economical man I ever saw," declared the Prince, irritably. "I wouldn't be so mean with my old footprints; nobody else would bother to pick them up. And as for breath, you might spare a little more of that; it doesn't cost anything."

The man paid no especial attention to these rather uncivil remarks, but went on in his work with great diligence.

"Do talk a little!" Vance said, becoming more and more impatient every moment. "At least you can tell me how to find the Crushed Strawberry Wizard?"

"Why?" asked the man, with the first show of interest he had displayed.

"I'm going in search of him."

"Wouldn't," was the little man's reply.

"Why not?"

"Dreadfully wearing on shoes," the other answered.

Then he stopped and collected the breath which he had used in this speech,—for him a very long one,—and went on steadily picking thistledown.

"But I must find him," Vance persisted, vexed anew at this reply; "where does he live?"

"Don't know," said the thistledown-gatherer, shortly.

Vance arose from the stone with an impatient flounce, and took up his box so suddenly that the teeth of all the Court chattered.

"Well," he said snappishly, "you are certainly the stingiest man I ever saw. You can't even give away a civil word."

"Oh, no!" returned the old man, with an expression of great astonishment. "Never give anything away. What will you give for your dolls?"

Now, this question might sound like pure idiocy to some people; but funnily enough it came into the head of Vance that when he had been teasing those twelve models of propriety, his sisters, a few days before, and had made their blue bead-like eyes swim with tears by taking away their playthings, he had used just those very same words to them. He hung his head a little; but still, determined to put a bold face on the matter, he said,—

"Don't talk nonsense! Tell me the way to the Crushed Strawberry Wizard's this minute!"

But, to his surprise, where the queer old man had stood there was only a seedy black raven, very battered and ragged, but with a remarkable pair of glittering red eyes.

VI

"I must say," the raven remarked severely, "that, considering the fact that nobody invited you to come to this concert at all, and that you have no check for a reserved seat, it would look better in you to keep quiet and not disturb the entertainment."

"Concert!" exclaimed Vance, in bewilderment. "There isn't any concert."

"But there is going to be," returned the bird, more severely than before. "I'm going to sing myself. First, I shall sing a love-song. Be quiet!"

And without further ado he began, in a terribly hoarse and cracked voice,—

"Snip-snap, frip-frap,
Bungalee, tee hee lees;
Jip-jap; nip-nap,
Tungatee tinum gee me strap,
Bring me a bottle of cheese."

"Oh, come," exclaimed the Prince, "you must really know that that is nonsense! It certainly means nothing."

"How do you know?" demanded the raven, fixing his glittering eye on the Prince. "Do you understand the language of love?"

"No," said Vance, more humbly; "I must confess that I don't, though I've always heard it was very silly."

"Speaking of the boundaries of a king—" the raven began easily; but the Prince interrupted in great haste.

"Nobody was speaking of boundaries," he said sharply; "you made that up yourself."

"—dom," resumed the raven, calmly, paying no sort of attention to the interruption of the Prince, but cocking his head on one side and looking wickedly out of one eye, "they are very useful to know, and there are various ways of learning them. Some people learn them in the school room; that's one way: some travel; that's—"

But before he could get any farther Vance had caught up a stone and flung it at him. With a terrible croaking the raven flew up into the air in circles higher and higher until he vanished straight overhead.

"Ten to one that was Godmother herself," grumbled Vance, as he picked up his box and started again along the dusty road.

All the rest of the day he travelled, growing more and more weary, until at sunset he came to a very old woman sitting beside a great tree upon the river's bank.

"Hallo!" cried Vance, not too politely.

The wrinkled old creature looked at the river, at the tree, at the sky,—everywhere, in a word, except at the travel-stained Vance.

"Come!" he said more roughly yet, "why don't you speak when you are spoken to? Do you know who I am?"

The aged crone wrinkled her forehead and lifted her grizzled eyebrows, still without looking at him.

"No," she answered coolly, "I don't know that I do. You look like a boot-black with that box on your shoulders, only that a boot-black would be more civil-spoken."

An angry retort sprang to the lips of the Prince, but before he could give vent to it a terrible little shrill sound from the box struck his ears. In sudden dismay he unslung the baby-house, and opened it to discover what was the matter with his family.

In the middle of the floor of the largest room of the baby-house were all the Court, gathered about the old King, who had fallen in a faint from hunger.

"He is starved!" cried the Queen, in a piercing wee voice of anguish.

"I am starving myself!" roared the Lord Chamberlain, in a keen though tiny roar.

"We are all starving!" shrieked the whole Court, in voices more or less audible.

"Well," Vance said, looking at the affliction of the little people, "I must say this is extremely disagreeable of them all to be starving. They always are starving."

"Very," the old woman echoed, with a sneering chuckle.

As she spoke, she took from beneath her faded cloak a basket in which were delicate white cakes, fruits, and honey. These she began to eat with great relish, apparently not at all interested in the Prince or his family.

"Come, now," cried he, "give me some of that! My Court is half dead."

"Really?" she returned, coolly munching away.

"Yes," shouted Vance, vainly attempting to snatch something from the well-filled basket, "and I must have a cake to feed them on."

The old lady made no resistance, but only flitted up like a bird, in some unaccountable way, to a limb of a tree, where she sat eating as placidly as ever.

"Goodness!" said poor Vance, startled half out of his wits, "are you Godmother too? You shy about just like her."

"She is a friend of mine," answered the old woman. "I know all about you, too, for that matter."

There was nothing left for Vance but to beg for pity, and at last the strange creature threw him down half a small cake.

"There's plenty for your family."

Vance provided for his little people, and then began humbly to beg for a few morsels for himself.

"Wait," said the woman on the bough overhead, "till I see what there is in the pantry."

She disappeared with great suddenness; but presently a little window opened in the side of the tree trunk, from which the wrinkled old face looked out.

"Here are a few dry crusts from the closet," she said. "You may have them. With a little honey I think they will go very well."

She handed two or three mouldy scraps of bread out as she spoke, which Vance took with as good grace as he could muster.

"Where is the honey?" he asked, eying his crusts ruefully.

"Oh, I'll eat the honey while you eat the crusts," was the answer. "That is by far the best way to arrange it."

"You are mean enough, I hope," he exclaimed angrily.

But, alas! at the word the crusts left his grasp and appeared in the hand of the old woman.

"Oh, very well," she said, "just as you please! You are not obliged to have them, of course."

Poor Vance was ready to cry with vexation and hunger, and quite broke down at this last misfortune. He begged so humbly for the crusts that at last the queer old crone relented and gave them back; and never did anything taste sweeter to him than these dry and mouldy morsels of bread.

"You may sleep where you are," the woman said as he finished; and she closed the window with a slam, leaving it impossible to say where it had been.

"Oh, by the way," she cried, a moment later, sticking her head through the bark of the tree, in a way that looked very uncomfortable indeed, "about those boundaries, you know, and the Crushed Strawberry Wizard, I was going to say—But, no; on the whole, it's no matter."

And once more she disappeared, not again to be seen.

"I must say," muttered Prince Vance, "strange things happen to me all the time."

And curling himself up on the moss, he fell fast asleep from weariness.

VII

The morning sun shining into his eyes awakened him; and after looking about carefully to assure himself that there was nothing to be had to eat in that place, Vance shouldered his box and trudged along the river's bank. It was a beautiful bright morning; the birds were singing, the flowers were opening to the light, and had it not been for a constantly growing hunger, the young traveller might have enjoyed his walk greatly. As it was, he soon became so hungry that he could think of nothing but eating. He went on, however, until about noon, before he found any food; then to his great joy he came upon a fine tree hanging full of ripe peaches, rosy and plump as a baby's cheek.

"Now for a feast!" he said eagerly to himself, as he put down his box and prepared to gather a hatful of the delicious fruit.

Just then he stumbled over something, and looking down saw a man lying on the grass with his eyes shut and his mouth open.

"Hallo!" exclaimed the Prince. "Who are you? Are you awake or asleep?"

"Awake," answered the man, without stirring.

"Why don't you get up then?" asked Vance. "Are you ill?"

"No," replied the man, briefly.

And indeed he was as stout a fellow as one would meet in a summer's day.

"Then what are you doing?" demanded the Prince, who had lost all patience and who thought that the other might at least take the trouble to open his eyes to see who was talking to him.

"Waiting," the man said, opening his eyes at last.

"Waiting for what?"

"For a peach to drop into my mouth."

"One has fallen beside your cheek," said Vance, "and another right in your hand."

"But I want it in my mouth," sighed the man on the ground. "I am so dreadfully hungry."

"So dreadfully lazy, you mean," exclaimed Vance, quite out of patience; and he began to eat the luscious fruit. "You must certainly be the laziest man in the world."

"If you think that," was the drawling answer, "you ought to see my cousin Loto, who lives down the river a mile as the crow flies."

"He'll have to be lazy, indeed, to beat you," the Prince said, as he once more shouldered his box. "Do you know where the Crushed Strawberry Wizard lives?"

"I know," returned the man, "but I'm too lazy to tell."

"It wouldn't take you any longer to tell than to say you can't tell," cried Vance, hotly.

"Perhaps not," was the cool retort; "but if I told it would be doing something, and I never do anything."

The Prince started on his way without another word. He did not even stop to put a peach into the lazy man's open mouth, as he at first had some thought of doing. He kept along beside the river for some time, and had nearly forgotten the words of the lazy man about his cousin, when suddenly he came upon what to his horror he at first supposed to be the body of some thief hanging from a tree. As he got closer, however, he found that the man was alive and suspended by a belt which went under his arms. The man did not seem in the least to mind being hung, but looked quite calm and peaceful. A second man stood upon an overturned bucket and blew into the mouth of the first with a pair of bellows.

"What are you doing?" asked Vance curiously, as he stopped beside them.

"Why," replied the man with the bellows, "this fellow is too lazy to stand, so we have to hang him up; and he is too lazy to breathe for himself, so he pays me a groat a day to do it for him with the bellows."

"I saw a man up the river who was too lazy to eat," observed Vance. "I thought he was bad enough, but this is surely the laziest man alive."

"If you think that," the blower answered, "you should see his cousin Gobbo, who lives a mile farther down the river as the crow flies."

At this Vance was reminded that nightfall was not very far off, and once more he started on his way. The man with the bellows jumped down from his bucket and ran eagerly after him. He was a simple-looking man, with a large and frog-like mouth.

"It creeps in the family," he whispered hoarsely to the Prince.

"What does?"

"Laziness. If it were anything else, you know, you'd say it ran in the family. But wait till you see Gobbo!"

Just then he noticed that Loto was growing quite limp and purple in the face for want of breath; so he hastily scrambled back to his bucket, and once more began to blow for dear life and a groat a day.

"By the way," asked Vance, halting, "do you know where the Crushed Strawberry Wizard lives?"

"He knows," replied the blower, "but you can't get it out of him. He's too lazy to speak; so it's no manner of use fretting about it."

With a sigh of weariness and disgust the royal wayfarer turned away and went on his journey. Just at dusk he reached a small village, or rather a group of poor little houses; and as he was about to knock at the door of one to ask for shelter, he saw a procession coming over the fields. There were a number of men with flaring torches, one or two with picks and spades, while in the midst was carried a bier upon which lay a man with his eyes wide open, staring straight ahead.

"What's all this?" the Prince asked of one who seemed of some authority in the company.

"We are going to bury Gobbo," replied the man.

"But he isn't dead yet," exclaimed Vance, quite horrified.

"True," the man returned, in a matter-of-fact tone, "but he does not care about living. I know, for he's hired me to think for him these ten years. Now I'm tired of it, and so I think it's best to bury him; and of course it's all the same as if he thought so himself."

"Well," said Vance, who was beginning to grow badly confused by the odd people he encountered, "if he doesn't mind I'm sure I don't know why I should. But perhaps before he is buried he can tell me where to find the Crushed Strawberry Wizard."

"He won't take the trouble to remember," answered the man, "and I'm sure I'll do no more thinking for him."

"Well," was the thought with which the unlucky Vance consoled himself, "it is something to have seen the laziest man on earth."

VIII

He found an empty hut, in which was some mouldy straw; and there he passed the night, sleeping as soundly as if he had been on his own royal bed of down in the palace at home. His breakfast was begged at the door of one of the houses in the village; and all day he followed the river, until near evening he came to the gray seashore and the huts of the fisher folk.

"What is the name of the river I have been following?" he asked of a wrinkled old fisherman who was mending his net in the sunset.

"It is called Laf," the old man answered. "It is the eastern border of Jolliland, as the coast is the northern."

"Oh, bother boundaries!" Vance exclaimed, "I hate them. Can you give me something to eat?"

"We are poor folk," said the old man, "but I suppose we can give ye a bite if ye pays for it."

"Pay for it!" cried Vance, in astonishment. "Do you know who I am?"

"Not rightly," said the fisherman; "but from yer look and from yer box I take ye for a travelling showman. What have ye got in yer box?"

"My family," answered the Prince, before he thought. "Do you know where the Crushed Strawberry Wizard lives?"

"Not rightly," the other replied again; "but I think somewhere alongshore. What sort of a family have ye got? A happy family?"

"I'm sure I hope they're happy," was Vance's response. "I know that I am not. Perhaps they may like being carried better than I like carrying them."

"What can they do?" the fisherman persisted. "Can they dance and eat buns like a bear, or do they fight and knock each other about like Punch and Judy?"

"They do nothing of the sort," began the Prince, angrily. "It is not a show at all; it is—"

Then remembering that if he was rude to the fisherman he should certainly lose all chance of getting a supper, he became more polite, and ended by saying,—

"They are—I mean they act out a king and queen and their court."

"Truly," cried the fisherman; "that is a rare show indeed! I never saw the like. Come in and get your supper, and afterward we will have out the puppets."

Upon this he led the way into his hut, and bade the Prince follow him. It was a very poor little hut indeed, with rude walls, in which the cracks were stuffed with seaweed to keep out the wind, and with a small fire burning on the heap of flat stones which served for a fireplace. The fisherman's wife, who was old and quite crooked with rheumatism, was hobbling about getting the supper, which she said was all but ready. When it was all ready, without the but, they sat down, though the poor Prince, hungry as he was, found it hard work to swallow the dry red herring, the rasping oaten cakes, and the brackish water of which the meal consisted. When he had finished the meal,—which, as you may suppose, did not take long,—he set his box upon the table and opened it.

"First," he said, "let us give them some food, and you shall see how prettily they can play at eating and drinking."

But if the food was coarse eating to Vance, you may well imagine that it was quite beyond the power of the tiny teeth of the little people, who were not able to eat a morsel. This made them wring their hands and weep upon their tiny pocket-handkerchiefs; and the King even boxed the Lord Chancellor's ears, so angry was he at being disappointed of his supper.

All this was vastly amusing to the fisherman and his wife, who thought the whole thing was done as a show, and would not hear of Vance's closing his box until the darkness quite hid the supposed puppets from sight.

In the night, as Vance lay trying in vain to sleep upon the hard clay floor of the cottage, he overheard the fisherman and his wife whispering together.

"I tell ye, wife," the old man was saying, "I will do it, so there be's an end to the matter. I tell ye I will have the show for my very own. I could make more money with the puppets in one day at the fair, than I make by a year's fishing hereabouts."

"But the boy," asked the old woman, eagerly,—"ye won't hurt the boy, will ye, good man?"

"Hurt him? No," returned the fisherman, "I won't do him no harm. I'll sell him for a sailor to the ship that lies in the offing, and then I'll take his show and travel about the country with it, making money."

As Vance heard this, you may be sure he shivered with horror at the idea that his family was to be stolen and he himself sold to go as a sailor. He lay very still, however, till the loud snoring told him that the fisherman and his wife were both asleep, when he rose softly, and finding his precious box shouldered his burden, crept quietly from the cottage, and made all the speed he could in the darkness to leave the wicked fisherman and his hut far, far behind.