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

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 pr