Transcriber’s Note
Italic text displayed as: _italic_
THE PRINCE OF THE PIN ELVES
[Illustration: HIS MAJESTY.]
THE
PRINCE OF THE PIN ELVES
BY
CHARLES LEE SLEIGHT
Illustrated by
AMY M. SACKER
[Illustration: Decoration]
BOSTON
L. C. PAGE AND COMPANY
(INCORPORATED)
1897
_Copyright, 1897_
L. C. PAGE AND COMPANY
(INCORPORATED)
Colonial Press:
Electrotyped and Printed by C. H. Simonds & Co.
Boston, Mass., U. S. A.
[Illustration: CONTENTS]
CHAPTER. PAGE
I. WHERE THE PINS GO 1
II. TAKEN PRISONER 13
III. PURSUED 24
IV. A TRIP TO THE GNOMES 32
V. CAUGHT IN A TRAP 41
VI. THE TABLES TURNED 51
VII. A NEW KING 61
VIII. THE PASSAGE OF THE TOAD 73
IX. A PERILOUS TRIP 84
X. THE THREE JEWELS 95
XI. THE SECRET DOOR 108
XII. A MIGHTY BATTLE 123
XIII. IN THE DARK 134
XIV. SURPRISED 140
XV. ON TOP 148
[Illustration: ILLUSTRATIONS]
PAGE
HIS MAJESTY _Frontispiece_
“‘PLEASE GIVE ME BACK MY HAT’” 3
“HARRY ... SAT DOWN ON THE EDGE OF THE COUCH” 17
“HE BEGAN A LONG WHISPERED CONVERSATION” 35
“WAMBY EAGERLY SEIZED THE PIN, AND ... PRESSED UPON IT.” 53
“HE PUT THE ... JEWELS ... IN A LITTLE BOX 69
“‘THEN LET US FALL TO WITHOUT DELAY’” 89
ON THE WARDROBE 111
“‘SMITHKIN! RUN TO HELP WAMBY!’” 131
“HE ... PLACED THE LITTLE TOAD ON THE GROUND” 157
THE PRINCE OF THE PIN ELVES
CHAPTER I.
WHERE THE PINS GO.
“I wonder where all the pins go,” said Harry to himself, as he examined
the lapel of his coat, where he was sure he had stuck two or three that
very morning.
Of course Harry was not the first boy who had thus wondered, but it
was the first time the question had ever occurred to him. If he wanted
a pin the only sure place to find one was on his mother’s cushion,
because that was kept filled with new ones. But what became of all the
old ones? He himself would sometimes lose several in a day, and yet he
hardly ever found one, no matter how carefully he might look.
Just now, however, he saw one lying in the path before him, and was
about to pick it up, when suddenly it vanished from sight. He rubbed
his eyes and looked again, but it was certainly gone.
“That’s funny!” he thought; “I’m sure it was there.”
Stooping over, he put out his hand and seemed to touch something soft.
He closed his hand and started back, when to his amazement he found in
his grasp an object that looked like a small, round, pointed hat.
Now Harry knew a thing or two. He had read all about fairies and elves,
and had seen pictures of them, and he concluded at once that this must
be an elf’s hat. He put it on his head without delay, and sure enough,
just as he expected, there stood an elf before him.
“Please give me back my hat,” said the little creature, in a beseeching
tone.
“No, no,” replied Harry. “I’ve read about you elves, and I know you are
my servant while I have your hat. I want to see where you live, and all
that. And—oh! yes,” he exclaimed as a thought struck him; “what became
of that pin that was here in the path? Did you take it?”
The elf nodded, and held out his hand, in which lay the pin.
[Illustration: “‘PLEASE GIVE ME BACK MY HAT.’”]
“So that is the reason it disappeared,” said Harry. “Why did you pick
it up?”
“That’s my work,” responded the elf. “I belong to the Pin Elves. We
have to gather up the pins that you mortals lose or throw away.”
“How funny!” cried Harry. “But what do you do with them?”
“Well,” replied the elf, “a long time ago our king ran a needle in his
foot. Now we have a law that whoever injures the King’s person shall
be banished. Of course the King could not banish himself, so he had
to banish all the needles. No sewing could be done after that, so we
gradually took to using pins for fastening our clothes together, and
now we need so many that most of our work is pin-gathering. That is the
reason we are called the Pin Elves.”
Harry looked at the little fellow curiously and saw that his garments
had neither button nor sewed seam. Shoes, stockings, tight breeches,
belted coat,—all were fastened together with pins.
“But I thought that you elves worked at night only,” said Harry.
“So we do, usually,” responded the elf, “but some of us occasionally
are sent out on a dark, cloudy day like this, when there is little
danger of the sun shining upon us. I had bad luck last night, didn’t
find a pin, so my master made me come out again to-day.”
“Well, I am your master now,” said Harry, “so you can stop work and go
home. Only, you must take me with you.”
Off they started, the elf leading, in the direction of Central Park.
The elfin hat which Harry wore made him invisible, and the elf himself
of course was visible only to Harry; therefore they attracted no
attention as they walked up the Avenue and along Fifty-ninth Street.
They entered the Park at the Sixth Avenue gate, and went a little way
until they came to a small rock with a rather flat top.
The elf scrambled up on this, and sticking a pin in a little hole in
the centre and pressing upon it thrice, sang in a queer, croaking voice
the following:
“Pin, pin, let me in.
Needles are banished,
All of them vanished;
I am a trusty Pin.”
Immediately a door in the rock opened, disclosing a flight of stairs,
down which the elf conducted Harry. The stairs ended in a small,
well-lighted room, with several passageways leading out of it. They
entered one of these, and after walking a short distance, came to a
long, steep incline, the floor of which shone like polished glass.
“Hold on!” cried Harry in alarm; “that’s too steep and slippery to walk
on. It looks like glass.”
“It is glass,” said the elf, “and we are going to slide down. You
needn’t be afraid. It’s safe enough, and I’ll go in front.”
He sat down on the brow of the hill, and continued: “You sit down
behind me and stick your feet on each side of me, and I’ll steer you
straight. All ready? Well, here goes! Hold on to my hat!”
Whiz! away they went, and in about ten seconds reached the bottom,
where a short, level space with a gentle rise at the end of it brought
them to a gradual standstill.
“Glorious!” exclaimed Harry, springing to his feet. “Beats coasting all
hollow! Let’s go back and try it again.”
“No, we must hasten on,” replied the elf; “the King holds a reception
this afternoon, and no one is permitted to be absent.”
They hurried along the passage and presently came to a door, before
which stood two tall elves, each one armed with a long spear. Harry’s
elf whispered a word to these guards, and they instantly opened the
door.
On they trotted; that is, the elf trotted, but Harry simply walked at a
good pace, through several more passageways, until finally they reached
another door, guarded like the first, through which they were admitted
to the Grand Royal Reception Hall.
It was a room of immense size, brilliantly lighted by what seemed to
be strings of precious stones festooned from the lofty ceiling. At
the further end, on a raised dais, was the King, seated upon a throne
of gold, with his royal body-guard of five hundred picked soldiers
stationed near him. On a lower platform at the right of the King were
seated a few persons, who, Harry’s elf informed him, were members of
the royal family.
The hall was otherwise quite vacant, as the reception was just
beginning, so they stood at one side and watched the elves coming in.
“There is my old master, the Lord of the Safety-Pin,” said the elf to
Harry, as a surly-looking elf entered, whose clothes were fastened
with numerous safety-pins. “See him scowl at us; he knows you are my
master now. Those elves behind him are his knights. Each knight has two
esquires and twelve retainers; any retainer who finds a good safety-pin
becomes an esquire, and if he finds another he is made a knight; but he
can’t become a lord until he has found enough to pin all his clothes
together. There is only one lord of that order, because you mortals
don’t lose many good safety-pins, and a broken one doesn’t count.
“Those two fellows coming now are Knights of the Breast-Pin. Each of
them found one breast-pin, and the King made them knights. They are the
only members of their order.
“Here come the Black-Pins. There are six lords, seventy-two knights, a
hundred and forty-four esquires, and I don’t know how many retainers.
They are rather a common lot,” he added contemptuously.
After the Black-Pins had passed, there entered a pompous elf with a
large hat-pin hanging like a sword from his belt. At sight of him
Harry’s elf bowed very low.
“Who is that?” asked Harry.
“One of the Hat-Pins,” replied the elf in a whisper; “belongs to the
royal family, you know. The King’s sceptre is a gold-headed hat-pin,
and any one who finds a hat-pin is made a member of the royal family.”
Just then a messenger summoned them to appear before the King.
“There is one rule you must bear in mind, while you are in this hall,”
said the elf to Harry, as they followed the messenger; “no one is
permitted to turn his back to the King.”
Half-way down the hall they came to the Lord of the Safety-Pin, who
looked so ugly and hateful that Harry could not help smiling. Just
after they passed him, Hairy felt a sharp pin-prick in his leg, and
turning about hastily, discovered that it had been inflicted by the
Lord of the Safety-Pin himself.
“Ha! ha!” cried that individual, with a malicious grin, “_you have
turned your back on the King_!”
The King spoke a few words to his body-guard, and instantly a large
number of them started towards Harry.
“Quick! you must escape!” cried the elf whose hat he possessed. “Follow
me.”
Harry was inclined to stand his ground, but on second thoughts it
seemed wiser to run, so he followed his little friend through a side
doorway and on through many corridors and up numerous flights of stairs
until they arrived at the chamber where they had first entered. The elf
ran up the steps, and taking a pin from his coat inserted it in a small
hole in the rock overhead, and said:
“Pin, pin,
Trusty and stout,
I am within
And want to get out.”
The door in the rock opened, and they stepped out into the open air.
“We’re safe now,” said the elf, and he slammed the door shut, just as
the foremost of the pursuing soldiers began to mount the stairs. “Now,
please give me my hat!” he added imploringly.
“Not yet,” said Harry. “You must go home with me; I’m not going to walk
the streets bareheaded and visible.”
When they reached the house Harry bade the elf wait a minute, and
removing the elfin hat from his head, he went up to his mother’s room,
and took an old hat-pin from a closet. Stopping on his way back at the
sitting-room door, he obtained his mother’s permission to keep it, and
then ran out to the elf.
“You have been a good servant,” said he, “and here is your reward.”
The elf’s little black eyes sparkled with pleasure as he took it, and
he drew himself up proudly, saying: “Now I shall become a member of the
royal family. And here,” he continued, drawing a pin from his coat, and
handing it to Harry, “is a token of my gratitude. If you ever want to
see me, go to that rock in the Park; in the centre of the top you will
find a small hole; stick this pin in the hole, and while you press upon
it thrice, repeat these words:
“Pin, pin, let me in.
Needles are banished,
All of them vanished;
A mortal wants to get in.”
“Thank you,” said Harry. “Good-by, little chap. Here’s your hat,” and
he tossed it to the elf, who instantly disappeared.
“Well,” thought Harry, as he entered the house, “I’ve certainly found
out where the pins go.”