16. THE EMPEROR AND THE SCHOOL CHILDREN
Frederick the Great, King of Prussia, was walking one June morning out into the country for a little rest and recreation. He came to a country schoolhouse, and asked the teacher if he might speak to the children and ask them some questions. Taking an orange from his pocket he said, “Who can tell me to what kingdom this belongs?” A brave, bright boy spoke up quickly and said, “It belongs to the vegetable kingdom, sir.” “Why?” asked the King. “It is the fruit of a plant, and all plants belong to the vegetable kingdom,” said the boy. The King was pleased. “You are right, and you shall have the orange for your answer. Catch it,” he said, tossing it to the boy. Then taking a gold coin from his pocket and holding it up, he said, “To what kingdom does this belong?” Another bright boy answered quickly, “To the mineral kingdom, sir! All metals belong to the mineral kingdom.” “That is a good answer,” said the King. “Here is the gold-piece for your answer.” The children were delighted.
“I will ask you one more question,” he said. “To what kingdom do I belong?” The bright boys were puzzled now. Some thought of saying “To the kingdom of Prussia.” Some wanted to say “To the animal kingdom.” But they were a little afraid, and all kept still. At last a tiny, blue-eyed little girl looked up into the King’s smiling face and said in her simple way, “I think you belong to the kingdom of heaven, sir.”
King Frederick’s eyes filled with tears, and he stooped down and kissed the sweet little girl, and said, “I hope I may always belong to that kingdom, my child.”
17. TOLSTOY’S DAUGHTER AND THE PEASANT BOY
One day Count Tolstoy’s little daughter, ten years old, was in front of the house playing with some peasant children of the village. In a quarrel that arose one of the boys struck the little girl with a stick on her arm, making it black and blue. She ran in the house crying, and said to her father: “That naughty boy has bruised my arm. I want you to go out and whip him.” The father took the little girl on his knee and said: “My daughter, tell me, what good would it do if I went out and beat him? Would not your arm really hurt just as much? He struck you because he was angry with you. For a few minutes he hated you. If I whip him he will hate you more than ever and hate me too, and all of us. Would it not be better to make him love us? Perhaps that would change his character for the rest of his life. I tell you what I would do if I were you. I would go to the pantry and get some of that nice raspberry jam and take it out to him, and I think he will be made to love us all, instead of hating us.”
The little girl did what her father told her. Such a spirit of love Tolstoy believed in and taught in all his writings. Were such a spirit of love shown everywhere in the world, evil would oftener be overcome by good.
18. THE WRISTS BOUND WITH THE RED THREAD
Once the English were at war with some fierce tribes of India, called the Hillsmen. The English knew they were very brave, and noticed after every battle the bravest chiefs who were killed were found with a red thread bound around their wrists, as a mark of greatest honor. One day some English soldiers, following the enemy, were marching along a narrow valley, far in the hill-country, when suddenly they came to a place where the valley was divided by a great pointed boulder. The main regiment kept to the right. A sergeant and eleven men took the left, thinking they could easily pass around the boulder and meet their companions beyond it. But in a moment the sergeant found that the boulder was an arm of the left cañon of the valley, and that they had marched into a deep gorge with no outlet except the way they came. As they looked up at the great walls they spied a number of Hillsmen who, from their hiding-places, began showering spears upon them. Just at that moment the officer in command of the other soldiers saw the danger of these men and gave the order for them to retreat. In some strange way they mistook the signal for a command to charge. At once they charged on a run up the slope, cheering as they ran. But as they were eleven against seventy, some of them were killed by spears, others were hurled backward over the precipice, and three only got to the top and fought hand to hand with the foe. When the fighting was finished two Hillsmen lay dead for every Englishman. Later in the day the English relief party arrived and gathered up their dead comrades, and they found, bound around both wrists of every one, the red thread! The Hillsmen had given to their foes the honor reserved for their own heroes.—Adapted from “How to Tell Stories to Children,” by Sara Cone Bryant.