The Little Lame Prince
Yes, he was the most beautiful Prince that ever was born. Everybody was exceedingly proud of him, especially his father and mother, the King and Queen of Nomansland. The only person who did not love the Prince was the King’s brother, who would have been king one day if the royal baby had not come.
Of course a little Prince must be christened. The day came at last, as lovely as the Prince himself, and they carried the baby, magnificent in his christening robe, to the bedside of the Queen, his mother. She admired him very much. She kissed and blessed him, and then she gave him up with a gentle smile, and turned peacefully over in her bed, saying nothing more to anybody.
It was a wonderful christening procession: dukes and duchesses, princes and princesses, heralds, and ladies in waiting were in line. Every one was so busy shouting out the little Prince’s four and twenty names that they never noticed the accident. It was the Prince’s state nurse maid, an elegant young lady of rank, who let him fall just at the foot of the marble staircase. She had been so busy arranging her train—that was the reason she dropped him—but she contrived to pick him up again the next minute before any one saw. The baby had turned very pale under the heap of lace and muslin, and he had moaned a little, but that was all.
There were pages in crimson and gold, troops of little girls in dazzling white with baskets of flowers, the King and his train on one side—as pretty a sight as ever was seen out of fairyland.
“The only thing the baby wants is a fairy godmother,” said one of the children.
“Does he?” said a shrill, but soft voice behind.
She was no bigger than a child, and certainly had not been invited to the christening. She was a little old woman dressed all in gray; gray gown, gray hooded cloak of a material tinted like the gray of an evening sky, gray hair, and her eyes were gray also. Even her face had a soft gray shadow over it, but she was not unpleasantly old, and her smile was as sweet and childlike as the Prince’s own.
“Take care,” she said. “Don’t let the baby fall again!”
The grand lady nurse started.
“Who spoke? His Royal Highness is just going to sleep,” she said.
“Nevertheless I must kiss him,” said the little old woman. “I am his godmother.”
And she stretched herself up on tiptoe, and gave the little Prince three kisses.
“An insult to His Royal Highness,” said the nurse.
“His Majesty shall hear of this,” said a lord-in-waiting. But just then the little gray woman faded away like air, and the great bell of the palace—the bell which was only heard on the death of some member of the Royal family—began to toll—one—two—three—nine and twenty—just the Queen’s age!
So when the little Prince was carried back to his mother’s room, there was no mother to kiss him. She had turned her face to the window whence one could just see the Beautiful Mountains where she was born. So gazing, she had quietly died.
Everybody was very kind to the poor little Prince, but, somehow, after his mother died, things seemed to go wrong with him. From a beautiful baby he became sickly and pale, and his legs, which had been so fat and strong, withered and shrank. When he tried to stand he only tumbled down.
A prince, and not able to walk! People began to say what a misfortune it was to the country. Rather a misfortune to him, also, poor little lad, but he still had the old sweet look in his little face, and his body grew if his legs did not. His Majesty, the King, took very little notice of his son, and one day he died, too, and they made the Crown Prince, Regent, in his stead, and then things went much worse with the little Prince.
Perhaps the Prince Regent did not mean to do wrong. He told the country that the little Prince would be better if he were sent for a while to the Beautiful Mountains. So the poor little Prince started, with two whole regiments to guard him, and then there came back word that he had gone on a much longer journey. They said that he had died on the road, so the country went into mourning, and then forgot all about their little lame Prince. And the Regent was proclaimed King.
What really became of the Prince? Beyond the Mountains there lay a barren tract of country, with not a bush—not a tree. In summer the sunshine fell upon it hour after hour, and in winter the snow covered it steadily and noiselessly in one great sheet. Not a pleasant place to live—and no one did live there, evidently. The only human habitation for miles and miles was one large, round stone tower, circular, with neither doors nor windows, save some slits in the wall near the top. And the top was a hundred feet from the plain.
One winter night, when all the plain was white with moonlight, there was seen crossing it a great black horse, ridden by a man equally black, and carrying before him on the saddle a woman and a child. The woman had a sad, fierce look, and no wonder, for she was a criminal under sentence of death, but her sentence had been changed. She was to live in the lonely tower with a child—only as long as he lived. He was a little gentle boy, with a sweet, sleepy smile. He had been tired with his long journey. And he was very helpless, with his poor, small, shrivelled legs, which could neither stand nor run away—for the little boy was the Prince.
When they reached the foot of the tower there was light enough to see a huge chain dangling from the top, half way. The man fitted together a ladder and mounted, drawing up the Prince and his nurse. Then he came down again and left them alone.
And there they stayed for years.
It was not an unhappy life for the little boy. He had all sorts and kinds of beautiful toys, and more picture books than he could look at. He learned to crawl like a fly, and to jump like a frog. He played about from room to room—there were four; parlor, kitchen, his nurse’s room, and his own—and as he grew older he would sit at the slits of windows and watch the sky, and wonder about things—for his nurse never talked much.
“I wish I had somebody to tell me all about the world,” he said to himself once, “a real, live person. Oh, I want somebody dreadfully!”
As he spoke, there sounded behind him, the tap-tap-tap of a cane, and—what do you think he saw?
A little woman, no larger than he, with gray hair, and a dress of gray, and there was a gray shadow over her wherever she moved. But she had the sweetest smile, and the prettiest hands, which she laid on his shoulders, as she said:
“My own little boy, I couldn’t come until you said you wanted me, but here I am!”
“Are you my mother?” asked the little Prince. He had always wondered what had become of his mother.
“No, only your godmother,” said the little woman, “but I love you as much as your mother did, and I want to help you all I can, my poor little boy. I am going to give you a present—a traveling cloak,” but just then in came the Prince’s nurse, and his lovely old godmother melted away, as a rainbow melts out of the sky. He knew, for he had watched one many a time.
And what of the traveling cloak? I will tell you all about it.
It was the commonest-looking bundle imaginable—shabby and small. It seemed no treasure at all; only a circular, green piece of cloth, and quite worn and shabby. It had a slit cut to the center, forming a round hole for the neck, and that was all its shape.
“Of what use will it be to me?” thought the little Prince sadly. “I never go out. She must be a rather funny person, this dear old godmother of mine.”
But he spread it out on the floor, and sat down in the center for all the world like a frog on a water lily leaf. The edges of the cloak began turning up—and—the cloak rose, slowly and steadily, and higher and higher until the little Prince was obliged to open the skylight to let himself through. There they were outside. Oh, it was wonderful, nothing but earth and sky for a while. Then came the patches of flowers that grew on the plain, white saxifrage, and yellow lotus, and ground thistles. Next, he saw a farm where cows and horses, lambs and sheep fed in the meadows. Presently he heard a murmur in the distance, like a gigantic hive of bees. It was a great city which he was sailing over and the cloak stopped directly over a palace.
Such a magnificent palace! It had terraces and gardens, battlements and towers. Its windows looked in all directions, but mostly toward the Beautiful Mountains.
“I wonder if there is a king in this palace,” thought the little Prince.
Just then the cloak settled down to the palace roof between some great stacks of chimneys as comfortably as if it were on the ground. There were some broken tiles in the roof, and the Prince peered in.
It was the largest room he had ever seen, and very grand. There was the loveliest carpet ever woven on the floor, a bed of flowers; but the room was perfectly empty and silent. In the center of a magnificent bed, large enough to hold six people, lay a small figure, something like wax work, fast asleep—very fast asleep. There were some sparkling rings on the fingers and the nose was sharp and thin, and a long gray beard lay over the breast. Two little flies buzzed about the curtains of the bed, and made the only sound—for the King was dead.
Then there came a great shouting from the city.
“Long live the King! The King is dead—down with the King! Hurrah for the Republic! Hurrah for no government at all!”
“Oh, dear godmother,” cried the little Prince. “Let me go back to the tower.” And he suddenly found himself in his own room alone and quiet—for the traveling cloak had taken him there; after which it folded itself into the tiniest bundle, and tied its own knots, and rolled itself into the farthest and darkest corner.
The clock was striking ten, and no nurse was to be seen. The little lame Prince crawled about from room to room on his weak little knees, but all the four chambers were deserted.
“Nurse—dear nurse—please come back!” he cried. “Come back and I will be the best boy in the land!”
But she did not answer, nor come.
In truth the poor woman had not been such a wicked woman after all. As soon as she heard of the death of the King, she determined to go to Nomansland, and set upon the throne its rightful heir. She had persuaded the old black messenger to take her down from the tower, and together they galloped like the wind from city to city spreading the news that the little lame Prince was alive and well, and the noblest young Prince that ever was born.
It was a bold stroke, but it succeeded.
“Hurrah for the Prince! Let the little Prince be our King,” came from end to end of the Kingdom.
Everybody tried to remember what a dear baby he once was, and nobody at all spoke of his lameness. They went with great rejoicing; lords and gentlemen, and soldiers traveling night and day to fetch the little lame Prince.
They found him sitting on the floor—quite pale, for he expected a far different end from this, although he had decided to die, if die he must, courageously, like a Prince.
“Yes,” he said, “I am only a little boy, but I will try to be your King. I will do my best to make the people happy.”
Then there arose from inside and outside the tower, such a shout as never yet was heard across the lonely plain.
So the little lame Prince came to his own after all, and every one says he was the best King that ever ruled Nomansland. His reign lasted for years and years, and then he went away.
Whither he went, or who went with him, it is impossible to say. But I myself believe that his godmother took him on his traveling cloak to the Beautiful Mountains. What he did there, or where he is now, who can tell? I cannot. But one thing I am quite sure of, that, wherever he is, he is perfectly happy.
And so, when I think of him, am I.
Adapted, from Miss Mulock.
STORIES SELECTED BECAUSE OF A SPECIAL EMOTIONAL APPEAL IN EACH
| Bre’r Rabbit and the Little Tar Baby (Merriment) | Joel Chandler Harris, in Nights with Uncle Remus |
| The Story of Cedric (Courage) | Elizabeth Harrison, in In Storyland |
| The King of the Golden River (Unselfishness) | John Ruskin, adapted by Sara Cone Bryant, in How to Tell Stories to Children |
| The Star Child (Humility) | Oscar Wilde, in The Happy Prince |
| The Ugly Duckling (Pity) | Hans Christian Andersen |
| Little Cosette (Sympathy) | Victor Hugo, in Les Misérables |
| Epaminondas and His Aunty (Glee) | Sara Cone Bryant, in Best Stories to Tell to Children |
| The Elves and the Shoemaker (Industry) | Grimm’s Tales |
| Tiny Tim (Love) | Adapted from Charles Dickens, in For the Children’s Hour |
CHAPTER XI
IMAGINATION AND THE FAIRY STORY
WHAT is child imagination?
The Puritans thought the imaginative person was a liar. Old Salem said that such a vision as is conjured into reality by the imagination constituted witchcraft. Even to-day there are parents and teachers who believe that the child who has the power to pierce the veil of reality and see into a beyond is a dreamer who lacks stability of mind and practicality of purpose. But the unexplainable power by means of which a human mind grasps a bundle of bare, dry facts, sorts them over speculatively and then pieces them together into a new, luminous bit of mind stuff, different from anything seen, or heard or handled by that personality before—this is the miracle working of what we know as constructive imagination. Edison chaining electricity and perpetuating the human voice imaged these wonders before he realized them. Moissant saw air craft through the telescope of his mind before he built bird machines. Jane Addams saw, felt, imaged herself alone, poor and an outcast before she could successfully help her fellows. In adult life, the power to image the unreal, the power to feel with another personality spells genius, as well as imagination.
Child imagination is a kaleidoscopic mind method of seeing, and piecing, and patching together ideas gathered by the senses, and making of them a new concept.
No child ever saw a live fairy, but any child will explain a fairy to you, quite plausibly, because he has formed his own fairy concept. A being with hair like his favorite small girl friend, and the stature of his little sister’s doll, having wings like the dragon fly he saw last summer and dressed in something colored and soft and rustling like his mother’s dresses, a person capable of doing all that the story books say she can do—this is a child’s mind picture of a fairy.
No one of us ever saw Heaven but all of us can describe it. A place of this world’s grass and flowers and music and familiar, beloved personalities transplanted, renewed, translated—this is our manner of describing, of seeing Heaven.
The child’s method of imaging a fairy and our method of imaging Heaven are identical. From known, experienced, familiar perceptions we make a new, as yet unexperienced concept. If we want a child to see Heaven, we must help him to see fairies. Success, happiness, efficiency, belief—all these in adult life are dependent upon the proper stimulating of the child’s constructive imagination.
A good fairy story is the best stimulus to child imagination.
Not any fairy story, selected with slight discrimination and told to a child just because it is a story of fancy, however. “Blue Beard,” “Ali Baba,” “The Cruel Stepmother” do little but cause child nightmares and give children ideas of cruelty, vengeance and crime. These concepts will present themselves to the child soon enough in the daily newspapers. Let us shut them out of the story hour. In selecting a fairy story to tell to children, we will first analyze it with exceeding care, asking ourselves these questions in regard to it:
What constitutes the imaginative element of this story?
Is its point of unreality an idea which we want to give permanence in the child’s mind?
Is the story told in a series of such familiar, known images that there is material in it for stimulating the child’s constructive imagination?
If a fanciful story survives these three tests, we may be sure that it is perfect.
There is Hans Andersen’s story of “The Faithful Tin Soldier.” Its climax is told in a lesson of heroism and faithfulness, qualities that we wish to make permanent in the child’s mind through the medium of the imagination. And how are these qualities presented? We find that they are made real to children by means of familiar settings; a little boy is playing with new toys upon his birthday, we see the child going to bed, there is the coming-alive of the toys in the play-room, the tin soldier’s experiences in the street, his return to the kitchen. Every child knows toys, a birthday, a play-room, a city street in the rain, a kitchen; but out of these patches of gray, every-day pigment Andersen paints for children a new, colored picture of fancy. Presented in terms of the real we have the unreal; a live tin soldier who is as heroic and faithful as we wish our children to be. This is a perfect imaginative story, a bit of unreality which we wish to make real for children and told in terms of child experience.
Alice Brown’s wonderful allegory, “The Gradual Fairy,” is also perfect in its theme and construction. Its hero, the Green Goblin, wishes to become a fairy. The story of his changing his ugly colors for those of the flowers when he promises never to hurt them again, losing his harsh, shrill voice by being kind to the brook, and so gradually finding beauty, is a marvellously compelling bit of imagery to leave with a child and it is told in familiar, right-at-hand word pictures. In the several chapters of Jean Ingelow’s, “Mopsa, the Fairy,” child hearers are transported to familiar places, but places where the unusual, the beautiful happens. The story tells of the Winding Up Places where tired-out horses are put in green pastures and are allowed to grow back to colt-hood, and where weary working folks are wound up, like clocks, and given such vigor that they never run down again.
Charles Kingsley, from the reality of a dirty chimney sweep and a sooty chimney, takes children voyaging into his paradise of fancy under the sea. Eugene Field gives children a permanent picture of Santa Claus in his legend of “Claus.” There is the little lad, Claus, up in the Northland, finding his greatest happiness in carving wooden dolls and animals for the children. When his parents disappear, Claus lights his father’s forge fire and in the wonder light of the Northern star pledges himself to create child happiness. The elves bringing him gifts of metal and precious stones for his work, the forest giving him its trees and greens, the reindeer drawing his sleigh full of toys, the snow and frost speeding him on his way—these give children the true meaning of Claus’ world saint-ship in terms of the imagination.
Apply this threefold test to every imaginative story and your selection will be infallible.
What does the story image?
Do I want to vivify this image for my children?
How does it stimulate the imagination?
The old, loved fairy stories that have lived for centuries stand this test. The story of Cinderella leaves a child with a mental picture of a cinder maid full blown into a princess but with this image is the lesson of rewarded faithfulness to duty, and the story plot is built up of familiar concepts; the kitchen, a pumpkin, a party, a chiming clock, a tiny slipper. “The House in the Wood,” “Little Daylight,” “The Many Furred Creature,” “Snow White and Rose Red,” “The Goose Girl,” “Briar Rose,” “Spindle, Needle and Shuttle,” “The Elves and the Shoemaker,” “The Story of Midas,” “The Star Dollars,” “Why the Sea is Salt,” “Tom Thumb,” all these world-old fanciful tales take children far afield but they leave them better off, ethically, than before they heard them and each story is a healthy stimulus to the imagination.
What is the place of the fairy story in the story hour?
A good fairy story is like the touch of spice that gives the needed zest to a dish, it is the sweet at the end of the meal, it should not be spoiled by over use, by voraciousness. We will select our fairy stories with the utmost care, measuring each by our threefold rule. We will tell these perfect fairy tales occasionally only, realizing that they will bear frequent retelling and are to be the classics of the child’s story literature.
One of the most beautiful of all fairy stories, Mary Wilkins Freeman wrote. “The Blue Robin” is perfect in treatment and theme.