Lady Rum-Di-Doodle-Dum's Children

by Samuel Benjamin Dickson

IN WHICH FLIP USES NEEDLESSLY LONG WORDS,
BUT, TO WIN OUR GOOD-WILL AGAIN, HE TELLS
A REAL OLD-FASHIONED FAIRY TALE

For a perfectly good story-teller Flip had some rather queer ideas. He didn’t believe in fairy tales: that is, the kind that told about witches and Godmothers and Princes and such. He said he could not explain just why—it had something to do with inefficient education. Of course we do not know what “inefficient education” is, but Father and Mother Dear know, so it must be all right. Nevertheless, everyone knows that real fairy tales are nice even if they are not efficient education, so one night, about an hour before bedtime, when the children were all in the living-room before the fire, Martha Mary asked if, please, Flip would tell one. Flip was in a particularly good humor; there had been a thickish letter from someone during the day, and of course the someone was Jane. So he agreed. Only he was rather annoying; he started by using needlessly long words that no one understood. He said they would have to “create the right atmosphere.” John said he would, although he didn’t know what it meant. But Flip didn’t alone. He put out all the lights so that there was only the log fire to keep people from bumping. The flames really looked like a witch’s fire, only there were no witches in the story. Then he heaped cushions on the floor for Martha Mary to sit on; Flip had been very polite to Martha Mary since Jane’s visit. Walter and Edward Lee lay on their stomachs on a rug. Liza was the only one who was not there. Flip piled some lovely-smelling pine cones on the fire, which sputtered and flamed like a blacksmith’s forge, only didn’t smell at all the same.

“Once, in the days before Mother Dear was born, or Mother Dear’s Grandmother, or her Grandmother’s Great Grandmother’s Great Grandmother, which was many years ago,” said Flip, although everyone knew that, “there lived a King whose lands were so great that it took the birds a whole month to fly across them. He was the richest king who lived in the days of the fairies. His chests were of the finest gold, lined with purple satin, and in them were so many beautiful emeralds and rubies that it would hurt your eyes to look at them. In his garden grew the rarest of flowers; roses that had been brought from England and yellowish brown and purple orchids from Brazil; iris, lilac, cherry blossoms, and St. Joseph’s lilies were there, too, from all the four corners of the earth. In his stables there were Arabian horses and splendid dogs: deerhounds and greyhounds, and had there been St. Bernards in those days, he no doubt would have had some of them, too. In the Palace there were wonderful ancestral paintings, beautiful furniture, table service of pure gold, and glass of the rarest cut. Best of all, there was his very dear Queen Wife and the little prince who would be King when he grew up. It was the sunniest of days when the prince came. The Queen Mother had longed for a son and heir for a very long time. She dreamed one night that when the King had grown to love her very much she would be given a son; you know, there can only be children where there is love. The dream made her more pure and lovely than ever; her thoughts and her ways so delighted the King that he learned to love her more than he thought a mortal could love. And so, just as the rosebush grows until it is lovely and old and wise enough to be a mother, and then the seed develops in it under the petals and finally wins strength and goes away on the breeze to take root for itself and become a rose child, so the seed was born within the Mother Queen. While it was gaining strength within her, she kept her thought cheerful and clean, so that when her child came he would be cheerful and clean always. Then came the sunniest of days; just the day for a Prince’s birth, and early in the morning the King was allowed to come to his wife’s room and there, beside her, on a soft little cushion, was his son, the Prince.

“You can well believe that the King was filled with gladness. He went to the balcony of the Palace with the tiny baby in his arm and held it up so that all the subjects could see it. They cheered and the bronze church bells rang and there was gladness throughout the kingdom.

“From the wisest of the courtiers, guardians were chosen for the Prince. There was the chief astrologer to teach him the knowledge that was in books. The grey-haired old Lord of The Park taught him the beauty of flowers and the song of the bird, and the Master of The Whip showed him the correct way to trot a horse and the manner in which a King’s son should hold his sword. So, surrounded by wealth and the dearest of parents and the wisest of teachers, Prince Winfred grew strong and wise. At the time of my story he was about ten years old, the finest young prince you have ever seen, only of course you have never seen a prince.

“You would think that, with all his wealth and splendor, he would be perfectly happy, but he wasn’t. You see, one day he was riding down the Park road on his white horse and he saw through the Castle gates a farmer’s boy pass by on a burro. It was a perfectly good, young grey burro with a collar of wild flowers and tinkling bells hanging from it. As soon as Winfred saw it he knew that he did not have everything in the world. He made up his mind that he wanted a burro very much. He told his wish to old Esau, the astrologer, but Esau raised his hands in horror and said it would be disgraceful and undignified for His Grace to ride a burro. He would speak to the Master of The Whip, he said, and order new horses. That was not what the Prince wished for; he had plenty of horses already. He did not know just why he wanted a burro; personally, I think I can guess. There was something simple and modest in the small creature that would have been a welcome change from the show and pomp of the Castle. So Winfred went to the Lord of The Park and told him his desire; that proud official sneered rather disrespectfully and said:

“‘Perhaps Your Highness desires a goat, too, to milk when you tire of the burro.’

“Winfred almost lost his temper, but he remembered that Princes had to be dignified, so he went to his father, the King, and in a most proper fashion, said:

“‘Your Majesty, I have a request to make.’

“It pleased the King to be asked favors by his son, and so he smiled and demanded what it might be.