Prince Vance: The Story of a Prince with a Court in His Box

"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.

At daybreak he met a man just pushing his boat from the shore, and from him he asked whither the road along the beach would lead him.

"That's a thing as nobody can't tell ye," said the man, fitting the oars into his boat, "because nobody don't rightly know. Howsoever, I advise ye to take it, for it's full as likely to lead somewheres as nowheres."

This advice was of no great value to the Prince, yet he felt obliged to follow it, as he dared not go back; so he tramped on steadily, though the sun was high, and the box was heavy, and the Court within buzzed like a hive of angry bees at being forced to go so long without food.

IX

Near noon the Prince was joined by a jelly-fish, who seemed to be of a cheerful and lively disposition, and who insisted upon attaching himself to Vance and going along with him. The boy thought that he already had quite as many people as he was able to look after, and he told the creature so plainly.

"Besides," he finished quite crossly, for he was really out of patience, "to say the truth, you flump so that you make me nervous."

"Boys shouldn't have nerves," said the jelly-fish, coolly. "Of course, if I have no legs I can't walk, and if I can't walk I must flump. That's plain, even to you, I suppose."

Prince Vance was too vexed to reply; so the pair kept on in silence, save for the tired footsteps of the boy and the loud flumping of the jelly-fish on the damp sand of the shore. Near sundown they reached a broad field where ripe grain of some sort seemed to be growing, and through it, shaded by trees, ran a brook, clear as crystal. Into this field the weary Prince gladly turned, and first of all opened his box, half fearing lest he should find the poor little Court quite dead from cruel hunger. They were not indeed really lifeless, but they were lying about limp and white, and looked as if there was very little strength left in them. The Prince hastily filled them several acorn cups from the clear, cold brook, and then, seizing one of the long heads, of which the grain hung full, he broke it open as quickly as possible.

"Raw wheat," he said, "is certainly not good, but at least it will keep them from starva – "

He stopped in amazement, and no wonder; for instead of the grain he expected to find, the pod was full of chocolate creams, large, and all of the most delicious flavors, as the Prince found by trying one. He opened another pod in astonishment; lemon drops fell from it. A third was full of burnt almonds, while a fourth contained sugared dates. In short, the whole wonderful field was full of sweetmeats: cocoanut cakes and macaroons; cream figs, marsh mallows, and gum drops; almond paste, candied nuts, sugared seeds, and crystallized fruits; in truth, you could not even dream of any sort of luscious confectionery which was not growing fresh and plentiful in that charming field.

Very quickly the Prince placed several fine bonbons upon the baby-house table. The King, too near starving to care much for good manners, carved with his sword, and ladies and gentlemen seized slices in their hands and ate as if famished. A wine drop furnished them with delicious cordial to drink, and thus the Court feasted so merrily that it would have done one's heart good to see them.

Having thus provided for his family, you may be sure that Vance was not a great while in providing for himself; and having shelled a fine lapful of bonbons, he sat down to enjoy himself in peace, when to his vexation he heard at his side the unwelcome voice of the jelly-fish.

"Feed me first!" cried the creature; "I have no hands to gather bonbons for myself. Feed me first! I am hungry too."

Poor Prince Vance! He was indeed weary and warm and hungry, and his patience was quite gone.

"Go and eat without hands, then!" he cried crossly; and seizing the flabby creature he tossed it recklessly away from him among the vines.

He had, however, hardly drawn a breath of relief, and was just setting his teeth in a delicious bit of nougat, when back came the jelly-fish quite unhurt and fully as cheerful as ever.