That night the whole kingdom was in a turmoil. The Bee Guards were
called out, and patrolled the city, alarm-bells rung, signal fires
burned, and everybody was out with a lantern. They searched every inch
of the road to the park where the Bee Festival had been held, for it
did seem at first as if the Princess had possibly been spilled out of
the basket, although the nurses were confident that it was not so. So
they searched carefully, and the nurses were in the meantime placed in
custody. But nothing was found. The people held their lanterns low,
and looked under every bush, and even poked aside the grasses, but
they could not find the Princess on the road to the park.
Then a regular force of detectives was organized, and the search
continued day after day. Every house in the country was examined in
every nook and corner. The cupboards even were all ransacked, and the
bureau drawers. The King had a favorite book of philosophy, and one
motto which he had learned in his youth recurred to him. It was this:
"When a-seeking, seek in the unlikely places, as well as the likely;
for no man can tell the road that lost things may prefer."
So he ordered search to be made in unlikely as well as likely places,
for the Princess; and it was carried so far that the people had all
to turn their pockets inside out, and shake their shawls and
table-cloths. But it was all of no use. Six months went by, and
the Princess Rosetta had not been found. The King and Queen were
broken-hearted. The Queen wept all day long, and her tears fell into
her honey, until it was no longer sweet, and she could not eat it. The
King sat by himself and had no heart for anything.
[Illustration: THE BEE GUARDS PATROLLED THE CITY.]
But the four nurses were in nearly as much distress. Not only had they
been very fond of the little Princess, and were grieving bitterly for
her loss, but they had also a punishment to endure. They had been
released from custody, because there was really no evidence against
them, but in view of their possible carelessness, and in perpetual
reminder of the loss of the Princess, a sentence had been passed upon
them. They had been condemned to wear their bonnets the wrong way
around, indoors and out, until the Princess should be found. So the
poor nurses wept into the crowns of their bonnets. They had little
peep-holes in the straw that they might see to get about, and they
lifted up the capes in order to eat; but it was very trying. The
nurses were all pretty young women too, and the Head-nurse who came of
quite a distinguished family was to have been married soon. But how
could she be a bride and wear a veil with her face in the crown of her
bonnet?
The Head-nurse was quite clever, and she thought about the Princess's
disappearance, until finally her thoughts took shape. One day she put
on her shawl--her bonnet was always on--and set out to call on the
Baron Greenleaf. The Baron was an old man who was said to be versed
in white magic, and lived in a stone tower with his servants and his
house-keeper.
When the Head-nurse came into the tower-yard, the dog began to bark;
he was not used to seeing a woman with her face in the crown of her
bonnet. He thought that her head must be on the wrong way, and that
she was a monster, and had designs upon his master's property. So he
barked and growled, and caught hold of her dress, and the Head-nurse
screamed. The Baron himself came running downstairs, and opened the
door. "Who is there?" cried he.
But when he saw the woman with her bonnet on wrong he knew at once
that she must be one of the Princess's nurses. So he ordered off the
dog, and ushered the nurse into the tower. He led her into his study,
and asked her to sit down. "Now, madam, what can I do for you?" he
inquired quite politely.
"Oh, my lord!" cried the Head-nurse in her muffled voice, "help me to
find the Princess."
The Baron, who was a tall lean old man and wore a very large-figured
dressing-gown trimmed with fur, frowned, and struck his fist down upon
the table. "Help you to find the Princess!" he exclaimed; "don't you
suppose I should find her on my own account if I could? I should
have found her long before this if the idiots had not broken all my
bottles, and crystals, and retorts, and mirrors, and spilled all the
magic fluids, so that I cannot practice any white magic at all. The
idea of looking for a princess in a bottle--that comes of pinning
one's faith upon philosophy!"
"Then you cannot find the Princess by white magic?" the Head-nurse
asked timidly.
The Baron pounded the table again. "Of course I cannot," he replied,
"with all my magical utensils smashed in the search for her."
The Head-nurse sighed pitifully.
"I suppose that you do not like to go about with your face in the
crown of your bonnet?" the Baron remarked in a harsh voice.
The Head-nurse replied sadly that she did not.
"It doesn't seem to me that I should mind it much," said the Baron.
The Head-nurse looked at his grim old face through the peep-holes in
her bonnet-crown, and thought to herself that if she were no prettier
than he, she should not mind much either, but she said nothing.
Suddenly there was a knock at the tower-door.
"Excuse me a moment," said the Baron; "my housekeeper is deaf, and my
other servants have gone out." And he ran down the tower-stair, his
dressing-gown sweeping after him.
Presently he returned, and there was a young man with him. This young
man was as pretty as a girl, and he looked very young. His blue eyes
were very sharp and bright, and he had rosy cheeks and fair curly
hair. He was dressed very poorly, and around his shoulders were
festooned strings of something that looked like fine white flowers,
but it was in reality pop-corn. He carried a great basket of pop-corn,
and bore a corn-popper over his shoulder.
When he entered he bowed low to the Head-nurse; her bonnet did not
seem to surprise him at all. "Would you like to buy some of my nice
pop-corn, madam?" he asked.
She curtesied. "Not to-day," she replied.
But in reality she did not know what pop-corn was. She had never seen
any, and neither had the Baron. That indeed was the reason why he had
admitted the man--he was curious to see what he was carrying. "Is it
good to eat?" he inquired.
"Try it, my lord," answered the man. So the Baron put a pop-corn in
his mouth and chewed it critically. "It is very good indeed," he
declared.
The man passed the basket to the Head-nurse, and she lifted the
cape of her bonnet and put a pop-corn in her mouth, and nibbled it
delicately. She also thought it very good.
"But there is no use in discussing new articles of food when the
kingdom is under the cloud that it is at present, and my retorts and
crystals all smashed," said the Baron.
"Why, what is the cloud, my lord?" inquired the Pop-corn man. Then the
Baron told him the whole story.
"Of course it is necromancy," remarked the Pop-corn man thoughtfully,
when the Baron had finished.
The Baron pounded on the table until it danced. "Necromancy!" he
cried, "of course it's necromancy! Who but a necromancer could have
made a child invisible, and stolen her away in the face and eyes of
the whole court?"
"Have you any idea where she is?" ask the Pop-corn man.
The Baron stared at him in amazement.
"Idea where she is?" he repeated scornfully. "You are just of a piece
with the idiots who broke my mirrors to see if the Princess was not
behind them! How should we have any idea where she is if she is lost,
pray?"
The Pop-corn man blushed, and looked frightened, but the Head-nurse
spoke up quite bravely, although her voice was so muffled, and said
that she really did have some idea of the Princess's whereabouts. She
propounded her views which were quite plausible. It was her opinion
that only an enemy of the King would have caused the Princess to be
stolen, and as the King had only one enemy of whom anybody knew, and
he was the King across the river, she thought the Princess must be
there.
"It seems very likely," said the Baron after she had finished, "but if
she is there it is hopeless. Our King could never conquer the other
one, who has a much stronger army."
"Do you know," asked the Pop-corn man, "if they have ever had any
pop-corn on the other side of the river?"
"I don't think they have," replied the Baron.
"Then," said the Pop-corn man, "I think I can free the Princess."
"You!" cried the Baron scornfully.
But the Pop-corn man said nothing more. He bowed low to the Baron and
the Head-nurse, and left the tower.
"The idea of his talking as he did," said the Baron. But the nurse was
pinning her shawl, and she hurried out of the tower and overtook the
Pop-corn man.
"How are you going to manage it?" whispered she, touching his sleeve.
The Pop-corn man started. "Oh, it's you?" he said. "Well, you wait a
little, and you will see. Do you suppose you could find six little
boys who would be willing to go over the river with me to-morrow?"
"Would it be quite safe?"
"Quite safe."
"I have six little brothers who would go," said the Head-nurse.
So it was arranged that the six little brothers should go across the
river with the Pop-corn man; and the next morning they set out. They
were all decorated with strings of Pop-corn, they carried baskets of
pop-corn, and bore corn-poppers over their shoulders, and they crossed
the river in a row boat.
Once over the river they went about peddling pop-corn. The man sent
the boys all over the city, but he himself went straight to the
palace.
He knocked at the palace-door, and the maid-servant came. "Is the King
at home?" asked the Pop-corn man.
The maid said he was, and the Pop-corn man asked to see him. Just then
a baby cried.
"What baby is that crying?" asked he.
"A baby that was brought here at sunset, several months ago," replied
the maid; and he knew at once that he had found the Princess.
"Will you find out if I can see the King?" he said.
"I'll see," answered the maid. And she went in to find the King.
Pretty soon she returned and asked the Pop-corn man to step into the
parlor, which he did, and soon the King came downstairs.
[Illustration: "YOU!" CRIED THE BARON SCORNFULLY.]
The Pop-corn man displayed his wares, and the King tasted. He had
never seen any pop-corn before, and he was both an epicure and a man
of hobbies. "It is the nicest food that ever I tasted," he declared,
and he bought all the man's stock.
"I can buy corn for you for seed, and I can order poppers enough to
supply the city," suggested the Pop-corn man.
"So do," cried the King. And he gave orders for seven ships' cargoes
of seed corn and fifty of poppers. "My people shall eat nothing else,"
said the King, "and the whole kingdom shall be planted with it. I am
satisfied that it is the best national food."
That day the court dined on pop-corn, and as it was very light
and unsatisfying, they had to eat a long time. They were all the
after-noon dining. Right after dinner the King wrote out his royal
decree that all the inhabitants should that year plant pop-corn
instead of any other grain or any vegetable, and that as soon as the
ships arrived they should make it their only article of food. For the
King, when he had learned from the Pop-corn man that the corn needed
to be not only ripe but well dried before it would pop, could not
wait, but had ordered five hundred cargoes of pop-corn for immediate
use.
So as soon as the ships arrived the people began at once to pop corn
and eat it. There was a sound of popping corn all over the city, and
the people popped all day long. It was necessary that they should,
because it took such a quantity to satisfy hunger, and when they were
not popping they had to eat. People shook the poppers until their arms
were tired, then gave them to others, and sat down to eat. Men, women
and children popped. It was all that they could do, with the exception
of planting the seed-corn, and then they were faint with hunger as
they worked. The stores and schools were closed. In the palace the
King and Queen themselves were obliged to pop in order to secure
enough to eat, and the nobles and the court-ladies toiled and ate,
day and night. But the little stolen Princess and the King's son, the
little Prince, could not pop corn, for they were only babies.
When the people across the river had been popping corn for about a
month, the Pop-corn man went to the King of Romalia's palace, and
sought an audience. He told him how he had discovered his daughter in
the palace of the King across the river.
The King of Romalia clasped his hands in despair. "I must make war,"
said he, "but my army is nothing to his."
However, he at once went about making war. He ordered the swords to be
cleaned with sand-paper until they shone, and new bullets to be cast.
The Bee Guards were drilled every day, and the people could not sleep
for the drums and the fifes.
[Illustration: BOTH THE KING AND QUEEN WERE OBLIGED TO POP.]
When everything was ready the King of Romalia and his army crossed
the river and laid siege to the city. They had expected to have the
passage of the river opposed, but not a foeman was stationed on the
opposite bank. All the spears they could see were the waving green
ones of pop-corn fields. They marched straight up to the city walls
and laid siege. The inhabitants fought on the walls and in the
gate-towers, but not very many could fight at a time, because they
would have to stop and pop corn and eat.
The defenders grew fewer and fewer, some were killed, and all of them
were growing too tired and weak to fight. They could not eat enough
pop-corn to give them strength and have any time left to fight. They
filled their pockets and tried to eat pop-corn as they fought, but
they could not manage that very well.
On the third day the city surrendered with very little loss of life
on either side, and the little Princess Rosetta was restored to her
parents. There was great rejoicing all through Romalia; in the evening
there was an illumination and a torch-light procession. The nurses
marched with their bonnets on the right way, and the Knights of the
Golden Bee were out in full regalia.
The next day the Head-nurse was married, and the King gave her a farm
and a dozen bee-hives for a wedding present, and the Queen a beautiful
bridal bonnet trimmed with white plumes and hollyhocks.
All the court, the Baron and the Pop-corn man went to the wedding, and
wedding-cake and corn-balls were passed around.
After the wedding the Pop-corn man went home. He lived in another
country on the other side of a mountain. The King pressed him to take
some reward. "I am puzzled," he said to the Pop-corn man, "to know
what to offer you. The usual reward in such cases is the hand of the
Princess in marriage, but Rosetta is not a year old. If there is
anything else you can think of"--
The Pop-corn man kissed the King's hand and replied that there was
nothing that he could think of except a little honey-comb. He should
like to carry some to his mother. So the King gave him a great piece
of honey-comb in a silver dish, and the Pop-corn man departed.
He never came to Romalia again, but the Poet Laureate celebrated him
in an epic poem, describing the loss of the Princess and the war
for her rescue. The Princess was never stolen again--indeed the
necromancer across the river who had kidnaped her was imprisoned for
life on a diet of pop-corn which he popped himself.
The King across the river became tired of pop-corn, as it had caused
his defeat, and forbade his people to eat it. He paid tribute to the
King of Romalia as long as he lived; but after his death, when his
son, the young prince, came to reign, affairs were on a very pleasant
footing between the two kingdoms. The new King was very different from
his father, being generous and amiable, and beloved by every one.
Indeed Rosetta, when she had grown to be a beautiful maiden, married
him and went to live as a Queen where she had been a captive.
And when Rosetta went across the river to live, the King, her father,
gave her some bee-hives for a wedding present, and the bees thrived
equally in both countries. All the difference in the honey was this:
in Romalia the bees fed more on clover, and the honey tasted of
clover: and in the country across the river on peppermint, and that
honey tasted of peppermint. They always had both kinds at their Bee
Festivals.