Then out walked the king, carrying his bride; out marched the men-at-arms; out tramped the elephants, two by two; out came the old man, beating his donkey; out walked the old woman, scolding the cat; and last of all, out hopped the parrot, holding a cake in each claw. (You remember, two cakes were all he wanted?)
But the poor cat had to spend the whole day sewing up the hole in his coat!
THE RAT PRINCESS[1]
[ [1] Adapted from Frank Rinder's Old World Japan. In telling this story the voice should be changed for the Sun, Cloud, Wind, and Wall, as is always done in the old story of The Three Bears.
Once upon a time, there was a Rat Princess, who lived with her father, the Rat King, and her mother, the Rat Queen, in a ricefield in far away Japan. The Rat Princess was so pretty that her father and mother were quite foolishly proud of her, and thought no one good enough to play with her. When she grew up, they would not let any of the rat princes come to visit her, and they decided at last that no one should marry her till they had found the most powerful person in the whole world; no one else was good enough. And the Father Rat started out to find the most powerful person in the whole world. The wisest and oldest rat in the ricefield said that the Sun must be the most powerful person, because he made the rice grow and ripen; so the Rat King went to find the Sun. He climbed up the highest mountain, ran up the path of a rainbow, and travelled and travelled across the sky till he came to the Sun's house.
"What do you want, little brother?" the Sun said, when he saw him.
"I come," said the Rat King, very importantly, "to offer you the hand of my daughter, the princess, because you are the most powerful person in the world; no one else is good enough."
"Ha, ha!" laughed the jolly round Sun, and winked with his eye. "You are very kind, little brother, but if that is the case the princess is not for me; the Cloud is more powerful than I am; when he passes over me I cannot shine."
"Oh, indeed," said the Rat King, "then you are not my man at all"; and he left the Sun without more words. The Sun laughed and winked to himself. And the Rat King travelled and travelled across the sky till he came to the Cloud's house.
"What do you want, little brother?" sighed the Cloud when he saw him.