The Laughing Prince | Page 7

carried away
my millet. So there I was with no way of getting down. I thought of my
hair. It was so long that when I stood up it covered my ears and when I
lay down it reached all the way to earth. So I pulled out a hair, tied it
to a tree of heaven, and began descending by it. When it grew dark I
made a knot in the hair and just sat where I was. It was cold, so I took
a needle which I happened to have in my coat, split it up, and lighted a

fire with the chips.
"Oh, father!" the Princess cried, "Stefan says he split a needle into
kindling wood! Isn't he funny!"
"If you ask me--" the first lady-in-waiting began, but before she could
say more the Tsar reached over and stepped on her toe so hard that she
was forced to end her sentence with a little squeally, "Ouch!" The
Princess, you see, was smiling and the Tsar was hoping that presently
she would burst into a laugh. So he motioned Stefan to continue.
[Illustration: Stefan Tells the Princess a Story]
Then I lay down beside the fire and fell asleep. While I slept a spark
from the fire fell on the hair and burned it through. I fell to earth with
such force that I sank into the ground up to my chest. I couldn't budge,
so I was forced to go home and get a spade and dig myself out. On the
way home I crossed a field where the reapers were cutting corn. The
heat was so great that they had to stop work. "I'll get our mare," I said,
"and then you'll feel cooler." You know our mare is two days long and
as broad as midnight and she has willow trees growing on her back. So
I ran and got her and she cast such a cool shadow that the reapers
were at once able to go back to work. Now they wanted some fresh
drinking water, but when they went to the river they found it had frozen
over. They came back to me and asked me would I get them some water.
"Certainly," I said. I went to the river myself, then I took off my head
and with it I broke a hole in the ice. After that it was easy enough to
fetch them some water. "But where is your head?" they asked. "Oh!" I
said, "I must have forgotten it!"
"Oh, father!" the Princess cried with a loud laugh, "he says he forgot
his head! Then, Stefan, what did you do? What did you do?"
I ran back to the river and got there just as a fox was sniffing at my
skull. "Hi, there!" I said, pulling the fox's tail. The fox turned around
and gave me a paper on which was written these words: =NOW THE
PRINCESS CAN EAT FOR SHE HAS LAUGHED AND STEFAN AND
HIS LITTLE SISTER ARE VERY HAPPY.=

"What nonsense!" the first lady-in-waiting murmured with a toss of her
head.
"Yes, beautiful nonsense!" the Princess cried, clapping her hands and
going off into peal after peal of merry laughter. "Isn't it beautiful
nonsense, father? And isn't Stefan a dear lad? And, father, I'm awfully
hungry! Please have some food sent in at once and Stefan must stay
and eat with me."
So the Tsar had great trays of food brought in: roast birds and
vegetables and wheaten bread and many kinds of little cakes and honey
and milk and fruit. And Stefan and the Princess ate and made merry
and the Tsar joined them and even the first lady-in-waiting took one
little cake which she crumbled in her handkerchief in a most refined
manner.
Then Stefan rose to go and the Tsar said to him:
"Stefan, I will reward you richly. You have made the Princess laugh
and besides you have not insisted on her marrying you. You are a fine
lad and I shall never forget you."
"But, father," the Princess said, "I don't want Stefan to go. He amuses
me and I like him. He said I needn't marry him unless I wanted to but,
father, I think I want to."
"Wow! Wow!" the Tsar roared. "What! My daughter marry the son of a
farmer!"
"Now, father," the Princess said, "it's no use your wow-wowing at me
and you know it isn't. If I can't marry Stefan I won't marry any one.
And if I don't marry any one I'm going to stop eating again. So that's
that!" And still holding Stefan's hand, the Princess turned her face to
the wall.
What could the poor Tsar do? At first he fumed and raged but as usual
after a day or two he came