if I have no legs I can't walk, and if I can't walk I must flump. That's
plain, even to you, I suppose."
Prince Vance was too vexed to reply; so the pair kept on in silence,
save for the tired footsteps of the boy and the loud flumping of the
jelly-fish on the damp sand of the shore. Near sundown they reached a
broad field where ripe grain of some sort seemed to be growing, and
through it, shaded by trees, ran a brook, clear as crystal. Into this
field the weary Prince gladly turned, and first of all opened his box,
half fearing lest he should find the poor little Court quite dead from
cruel hunger. They were not indeed really lifeless, but they were lying
about limp and white, and looked as if there was very little strength
left in them. The Prince hastily filled them several acorn cups from
the clear, cold brook, and then, seizing one of the long heads, of which
the grain hung full, he broke it open as quickly as possible.
[Illustration]
"Raw wheat," he said, "is certainly not good, but at least it will keep
them from starva--"
He stopped in amazement, and no wonder; for instead of the grain he
expected to find, the pod was full of chocolate creams, large, and all
of the most delicious flavors, as the Prince found by trying one. He
opened another pod in astonishment; lemon drops fell from it. A third
was full of burnt almonds, while a fourth contained sugared dates. In
short, the whole wonderful field was full of sweetmeats: cocoanut cakes
and macaroons; cream figs, marsh mallows, and gum drops; almond paste,
candied nuts, sugared seeds, and crystallized fruits; in truth, you
could not even dream of any sort of luscious confectionery which was not
growing fresh and plentiful in that charming field.
Very quickly the Prince placed several fine bonbons upon the baby-house
table. The King, too near starving to care much for good manners,
carved with his sword, and ladies and gentlemen seized slices in their
hands and ate as if famished. A wine drop furnished them with delicious
cordial to drink, and thus the Court feasted so merrily that it would
have done one's heart good to see them.
Having thus provided for his family, you may be sure that Vance was not
a great while in providing for himself; and having shelled a fine lapful
of bonbons, he sat down to enjoy himself in peace, when to his vexation
he heard at his side the unwelcome voice of the jelly-fish.
"Feed me first!" cried the creature; "I have no hands to gather bonbons
for myself. Feed me first! I am hungry too."
Poor Prince Vance! He was indeed weary and warm and hungry, and his
patience was quite gone.
"Go and eat without hands, then!" he cried crossly; and seizing the
flabby creature he tossed it recklessly away from him among the vines.
He had, however, hardly drawn a breath of relief, and was just setting
his teeth in a delicious bit of nougat, when back came the jelly-fish
quite unhurt and fully as cheerful as ever.
"Now, why should you take the trouble to do a thing of that sort?"
demanded the fish. "It cannot amuse you, and it doesn't hurt me. I shall
certainly flump back again as often as you throw me away, so you see it
is of no use; and if it is of no use, why, it certainly is not useful. I
suppose even you can see that. Feed me!"
"I don't see any way of feeding you," replied the Prince, with his mouth
full of sugared apricot; "you certainly have no mouth."
"That is apparently true," returned the fish, amiably; "but just lay a
soft bonbon on top of me and see what will happen."
The Prince did as he was bid, and had the satisfaction of seeing a large
orange cream melt gradually away as the jelly-fish slowly drew it into
himself.
The Prince had eaten, for once in his life, all the sugar-plums he
wanted, and had just taken a drink of water from the cold, clear brook,
when he heard a voice like thunder rolling among the hills.
"Who is this," it cried, "in my lollipop field, stealing my lollipops?"
With his heart thumping loudly against his side, Vance looked up and
beheld a sight which might have made a king and his army shake in their
shoes; and how much more a poor little Prince with a Court to care for
and only a jelly-fish to help him!
[Illustration]
X
The sight which so terrified Prince Vance was indeed nothing more nor
less than a horrible giant, fully as tall as the tallest church-steeple
you ever saw, and having in his forehead three hideous great eyes--red,
white, and blue--and a mouth which looked like nothing so much as a dark
cave on a mountain side.
Before Vance really knew what had happened, he found himself snatched up
and standing upon the great hand of the giant, as if it were a table.
"Please," he said, speaking in a great hurry, he was so
frightened,--"please, we only took a few because we were nearly
starving. We did not know they belonged to you, and we meant no harm.
Please, oh, please let us go this once, and we'll promise never, never
to come back any more."
[Illustration]
"Oh, ho!" cried the giant, with a great laugh; "let you go, indeed! Not
so fast, Thumbkin! I am fond of little people like you."
Poor Vance danced helplessly about upon the giant's great palm, but
could do nothing to help himself and had to look on as the giant seized
the box in his other hand and shook it gently, making the little folk
fly about wildly and get many a bruise and bump from tables and chairs.
"These will amuse my wife vastly," said the giant, as he began to stride
toward home. "I should not wonder but she'd preserve ye in brown sugar.
I like such little relishes, and 'tis a long time since I've had any."
At this you can fancy that poor Vance became quite ill with fear; but as
there seemed just then to be no way of escaping, he held his tongue and
looked sharply about him until in time they came to the giant's castle.
It was a huge gray stone building, with iron-barred windows, and at the
gate three dogs so enormous in size and so hideous to see that merely to
hear of them would be enough to give one the shivers, so you shall be
told nothing at all about them. Horrible as they looked, they stood in
fear of the giant; and at his word they lay down meekly enough, and did
not even growl as he strode by them through the court and into the
castle hall.
"Wife," cried the giant to a woman who stood admiring herself in a big
mirror in the end of the room,--"wife, come ye here and see what I have
found."
"What have you found?" asked she, without turning away from the glass.
"Is it anything to wear?"
"Zounds!" shouted the giant. "Can you think of nothing but dress, Madam?
No, it is far better than something to wear; it is something to eat.
Come, put on the pot!"
At this all hope forsook poor Vance, and he thought that his end had
come indeed. But the giant's wife spoke up sharply, and declared that it
was quite too late to be cooking anything fresh for supper, and that the
giant might wait until morning.
"What is there for supper, anyhow?" asked the giant, discontentedly,
for he had quite counted upon the fresh stew he would have made from
Vance.
"Why," replied the giantess, "there's the sea-serpent pie I've warmed
up, and I've opened a can of elephant's heads by way of a relish."
"Be quick with it," growled the giant, "or I shall eat this boy up raw
in no time!"
At this the giant's wife, who was by no means a bad-hearted woman,
though rather fond of dress and vain of her beauty, (and being as high
as a steeple, one must confess that there was a good deal of her to be
vain of!) gave Vance a shove into a corner to get him out of her
husband's sight; and in the corner Vance was glad enough to stay hid
while the giant ate an enormous supper, and drank a whole cask of ale
which his wife drew for him from a huge butt in the corner of the hall.
After he had finished eating and drinking, the giant bade his wife look
to it that the boy was put in a safe place for the night; then, seizing
a candle as long as a bean-pole, he stumbled heavily away to bed. His
wife, who had been sitting by the fire, now rose and invited Vance to
come and share the remains of the supper.
"You are a pretty little boy," she said, "and that peach-colored velvet
jacket must have been handsome before it grew so soiled. Now come, eat a
bit of pie and drink a little ale; you want to be in good condition for
to-morrow. If you must be made into a stew, of course you'd rather be a
good stew than a bad one."
"I don't know about that," replied Vance, dismally; "if I must be cooked
whether I like it or not, I rather think I would like to taste
particularly nasty."
"Oh, fie now!" cried the giantess. "Good little boys do not talk so. I
am sure you must be a good little boy, by your looks. What is in your
box? Jewelry?"
"If I will show you," asked Vance, with some hope in his voice, "will
you let me go? My dear, kind lady, you do pity me, don't you? I am sure
you are kind and good. Only let me go, and I will send you beautiful
jewels. I will do anything for you if you will only let me go."
"No," said the giantess, "I can't do that. He would beat me to death if
I let you go; besides, you could not get by the dogs if I let you free
twenty times over. But I'll tell you what I will do; if you will unlock
your box I'll give you laughing-gas before I cook you to-morrow, and
then you won't know what has happened till you are fairly stewed and
eaten."
This was but cold comfort to Vance, as you may imagine; but he saw that
the giantess meant kindly, and he still hoped to escape in some way, so
he swallowed his sobs as best he could and proceeded to open his box. No
sooner were the tiny people free than they began to run eagerly about
the table, eating the crumbs of oaten bread and the grains of sugar
which the untidy giantess had scattered. Small as the little courtiers
were, their jewels and robes glistened and made a fine show; and the
giantess leaned upon her elbows and watched them with delight, declaring
them the prettiest little things she ever saw.
"I should not wonder, now," she said, "if my husband would give these
little things to me; they are too small to be of any use except as
seasoning. I wish I could make them useful in some way."
[Illustration]
The giantess, as has been said, was a vain woman, and she was always
thinking how everything could be put to use as something to wear.
"I have an idea," she said, suddenly jumping up and bringing a spool of
pink silk from her work-box, which was about the size of a Saratoga
trunk. "I have heard of ladies wearing live beetles fastened by tiny
gold chains to their breast-pins. I believe I can do something of the
sort with these little puppets."
"But, Madam," begged Vance, in dismay, "you do not seem to understand
that these are my own royal rela--"
"Now, you be still!" said the giant's wife, playfully, "or I'll pop you
into that steaming kettle over there without a single sniff of
laughing-gas; and you can't begin to fancy how unpleasant you would find
it,--you can't, really."
At this Prince Vance shivered, and said very feebly indeed,--
"Please don't hurt them, dear Mrs. Giant; they are very tender."
"I shall not hurt them," said the lady, "or at least only enough to make
them kick; they are so amusing when they kick."
As she talked, she tied bits of silk about the waists of the King and
the Queen, and hung them in her ears as children sometimes hang buttons
when they pretend to have eardrops. When she had fastened on her strange
ear-rings, she made a necklace of the Princesses and Courtiers, and
having put it on she began to admire herself in the glass as if she
would never be done. After a while, however, she got so sleepy that she
could no longer see, and was even too tired to toss her head and make
the King and the Queen swing about in her ears. She put her new jewelry
back in their box, and picking Vance up put him into a wooden bird-cage
on the wall.
"Pleasant dreams!" she said cheerfully.
And then she too went away to bed.
XI
Left alone in his high-hung cage, poor Vance was indeed in deep despair.
He saw no way out of his troubles, and could not help weeping as he
bemoaned his miserable lot.
"It is all the fault of that wretched Blue Wizard!" he exclaimed; for it
did not occur to him that it was his own bad behavior which brought the
Blue Wizard to the palace in the first place.
Just at this moment, in a pause between his sobs, the Prince heard a
familiar flumping sound on the stone floor below him; and looking down
beheld to his surprise his old companion the jelly-fish.
"How do you do?" asked the jelly-fish, politely. "I suppose you're not
very glad to see me."
"Oh, but I am, though!" cried the Prince, not very politely. "I should
be glad to see anybody now, no matter who. How did you get by the dogs?"
"I flew," replied the creature.
"Jelly-fish cannot fly," said the Prince; "so that cannot be true."
"Well, then," responded the jelly-fish, indifferently, "I swam; and if
that isn't true, why, I suppose it is false. Even you can see the wisdom
of that, can't you? However, now that I am here, I've something to tell
you. This castle is in the township of Bogarru, and Bogarru is situated
on the western boundary of Jolliland, which--"
"Who cares for boundaries?" the impatient Prince interrupted. "Have you
nothing pleasanter than that to talk about?"
"--brings me to my point," the unmoved jelly-fish continued. "Whenever I
visit a place for the first time I am able to have one wish come true.
This is my first visit to Bogarru. Now the question is, Shall I wish the
heathen of Gobbs Island to become converted, stop eating their
grandmothers and take to wearing clothes; or shall I wish you out of
this castle, you and your Court, in the time a cat winks?"
"The last, the last!" cried the Prince, too eager to speak correctly.
"Dear, kind, good jelly-fish, do wish us out of this horrible place, and
you shall go everywhere with me if you want to, and I'll never speak
rudely to you again as long as you live!"
"Ah!" replied the fish, "I was afraid you'd choose thus. You care more
for yourself than you do for the Gobbs Islanders. It is not truly noble,
but perhaps it is natural. Now, then, open your mouth and shut your
eyes!"
The Prince obeyed, and at once there was a taste of something
exceedingly bitter on his tongue; sparks danced before his closed eyes,
and directly he felt a whiff of cool fresh air blowing upon him.
"Open your eyes!" said the voice of the jelly-fish.
The Prince did so, and to his great joy found himself, with his box
beside him, out upon a country road, with the stars twinkling over his
head.
"Oh, dear, good jelly-fish!" he cried joyously, "how can I ever thank
you?"
"You seem to be fonder of me than you were a while ago," observed the
jelly-fish, dryly. "However, I forgive you. If you want to find the
Crushed Strawberry Wizard, keep straight on along this road till you
come to the house of the Funny Man. Flubaloo!"
The jelly-fish disappeared as he spoke this last mysterious word.
"What a pity!" said the Prince; "I can never tell him how sorry I am for
my rudeness. I have lost my only friend. I wonder what he meant by
'flubaloo,' now?"
This, however, was so hard a question to think out that at last the
Prince decided to give it up. So, shouldering his pack, he started
briskly off along the high-road, not daring to linger till daylight for
fear that the giant would wake up, and, finding his prisoner gone, would
come after him and carry him back to the terrible castle of Bogarru.
XII
All night Prince Vance trudged on in the starlight, and did not stop
even to take breath till he saw the sky begin to grow red with the
coming sunrise; then, clambering over a hedge, he laid himself down in
its shelter, and instantly fell into a deep and heavy sleep.
The sun was high above him when he woke, and at once he became aware of
a great ringing of bells, blowing of horns, and beating of drums, as if
he were in the midst of some holiday celebration. He started up, rubbing
his eyes, and found that he had fallen asleep in a field which was now
gay with hundreds of merry-makers. Flags were flying from tents and
booths; bands of musicians were playing; glass-blowers and jugglers were
performing their tricks; peasants in gay dresses were singing, dancing,
and feasting; and there were all manner of shows and swings and
merry-go-rounds, enough to have turned your head entirely, had you been
there to see. As to the Prince, he was so delighted as even to forget
for a while both hunger and weariness, and walked about from sight to
sight, crying "Hurrah!" as the jugglers and rope-dancers performed their
curious and daring tricks.
At length he came to a booth in which an old woman was preparing over
her fire a kettle of steaming stew, which to the hungry Prince seemed to
send forth the most delicious odor of any stew he ever had known in his
life.
"Ah," he exclaimed eagerly, "that smells exceedingly savory, good
mother!"
"Ay," replied the old woman; "and truly it ought, for it has in it blue
pigeons, a fine fat cock, three wild hares, and every vegetable and
savory herb known in all Jolliland. Will you have a bowl?"
"Ay," said the Prince, "that I will; and let the bowl be a large one!"
he added, as he watched the old woman filling a goodly wooden basin with
the stew.
"There!" she exclaimed as she held it toward him, "there it is; and good
enough eating for a royal prince, if I do say it who made it. One silver
bit and 'tis yours, my fine young fellow!"
[Illustration]
"But," stammered the Prince, his mouth watering as the fragrant steam
reached his nostrils,--"but I have no silver bit. If you will only trust
me for it, I will pay you as soon as ever I find the Crushed Straw--"
He stopped speaking suddenly, for he saw that the woman was laughing at
him. She had snatched the basin of stew as it were from his very mouth;
and as she laughed loudly and shrilly, she pointed at the Prince with
her fat forefinger.
Drawn by the noise she was making, all the peasants flocked around,
crying out,--
"What is it, Mother Michael? What is the joke? Tell us, that we may
laugh too; for you know we must laugh. It is our duty to laugh."
"He wants to be trusted for a basin of broth," tittered the old dame,
"and he says that he will pay me when he finds the Crushed Strawberry
Wizard!"
At this all the peasants laughed in chorus till the very hills echoed.
"I don't see what you are laughing at," cried the poor Prince, hotly; "I
think you are very silly indeed."
"Of course we are!" answered the laughing peasants. "It is our duty to
be silly. If we cannot laugh at something, we laugh at nothing, since
this is Sillyburg, the merriest town in Jolliland."
[Illustration]
"But," asked the Prince, in vexation, "does nobody here know anything?
Has nobody any sense?"
"Of course not!" said the peasants. "Who cares about knowing anything,
and what's the good of having sense? We have a good time in the world,
and that's enough for us."
The Prince would have reproved the peasants for talking so foolishly,
but that the words seemed to have a strangely familiar sound; and he
suddenly remembered that he had used them himself at one time when his
tutor was urging him to learn common fractions.
In the mean time the peasants, always eager for any new thing, had
become very anxious to know what was in the mysterious box which the
Prince carried.
"If it is a show," they cried, "open the box and set it out. We are
weary for something new to laugh at."
But the Prince hardly thought it would please the King and Queen to be
laughed at by a crowd of gaping rustics. To be sure, he had shown them
before, but that was in private and not as a real exhibition at a public
fair. Some days ago this would not have troubled the Prince at all; but
trial and hardship were fast making Vance into a very different sort of
boy from the Prince who was the despair of his poor tutor and the
torment of the entire palace.
However, the poor wayfarer reflected that as food was only to be had for
money, money must be earned in some way, or the Court and himself were
certain to starve. It also occurred to him that if his family still had
any feelings they must be such exceedingly small ones that they were not
of much importance; and accordingly he opened his box and proceeded to
show off his tiny relatives, the peasants screaming with laughter at the
airs and graces of the little Courtiers, and offering them all manner of
cakes, fruits, and bonbons for the sake of seeing them eat. The Court
Priest pleased the rustics particularly, as he seized the only sugared
almond and ran away with it into a corner, pursued by the entire Court,
all squabbling and quarrelling in the most undignified manner possible.
This sight so delighted the peasants that they gave Vance plenty of good
silver bits, and thus he was able at last to buy himself a breakfast,
though you may be quite sure he did not get it of the old woman who had
made sport of him before.
When he had finished his meal, which was eaten sitting on the grass
before a chicken-pasty booth, he rose and asked the peasants politely
the way to the Funny Man's house.
"The house is far away," they cried, "but the Funny Man is here at the
Fair if you can only find him. You can't always find him."
"This is the Funny Man," cried a jolly gay voice. "This is I! Here I be.
Why don't you catch me?"
[Illustration]
XIII
Vance looked, and saw, dodging and hopping about behind a neighboring
booth, a fat little man dressed in green and hung all over with
fluttering ribbons and jingling bells. He looked so lively and merry
that at first sight the Prince was quite charmed with him; but he soon
thought that his looks were far more agreeable than his behavior, for
the Funny Man would neither stop to speak nor to listen, but kept
running and dodging about and hiding behind booths or groups of
peasants, so that the Prince was in despair about ever finding out from
him where the Crushed Strawberry Wizard lived.
"I want to speak to you, if you please," cried the Prince. "I have
something which I must say to you; I really must."
"Catch me, then!" cried the Funny Man. "Chase me! Run after me! Whoop!
Now you see me, and now you don't! Hurrah for me and my legs!"
Away dashed the Funny Man, and away scampered the angry Prince in
pursuit of him. But Vance soon found it to be of no use in the world to
try to capture so swift a runner; so he stopped, hot and breathless and
weary, while all the peasants held their sides to prevent their
splitting with laughter, and cried,--
"Hurrah for the Funny Man!"
"Do you give it up?" asked the Funny Man, as Vance seated himself by his
box and wiped his heated forehead.
"Of course I do," answered the Prince, crossly. "I should think you'd be
ashamed of yourself. Why do you want to act so, anyway?"
"For the fun of it afterward," replied the Funny Man.
Now that at last he was standing still, the Prince perceived that his
nose was of a most peculiar and curious fashion. It was not only of
large size and green in color, but it ended in a long and slender pipe,
something like a stick of macaroni, which was twisted up for ornament or
convenience into a sort of figure eight.
[Illustration]
"For the fun of it afterward," repeated the Funny Man.
"Well," said the Prince, "I should say that it couldn't be any great
fun, in the first place, to be a grown-up man like you, and it certainly
can be no fun whatever afterward."
"Oh," rejoined the Funny Man, "that's only one of my queer sayings, you
know. It doesn't really mean anything. By the by, what did you want of
me?"
"A friend of mine who was a jelly-fish," began the Prince, "told me to
ask you how I should find the Crushed Strawberry Wizard."
"Pooh!" cried the Funny Man, turning rapidly on the ends of his pointed
toes. "I don't care about doing that. Why should I? There's no fun in
it. Stop a minute, though! Is that _all_ the jelly-fish said? You are
sure he said nothing more, not a word?"
"Nothing that meant anything," replied the Prince. "He said 'Flubaloo'
as he left me."
"No!" exclaimed the Funny Man, turning rather pale. "Did he really,
though? If he did, that puts matters in a very different light, a very
serious light. Come home with me, and in the morning I'll set you off on
the right road. Hurry! for we have a good distance to go, and 'tis a
roundabout way."
Following the lead of the Funny Man, the Prince found himself once more
upon the high-road, along which they journeyed until late in the
afternoon, when their path suddenly plunged deep into the forest.
"Wait a minute!" said the Funny Man; "I must light my nose."
"Do what?" asked the astonished Prince.
"Light my nose, Stupid!" replied his guide.