When the Driver of the Dream Coach reached the last small star in the
sky, he unharnessed his hundred misty horses and put them out to pasture
in the great blue meadow of Heaven. It was well he reached the end of
his journey when he did, for in another moment a mounting wave of
sunlight and wind, rushing up from the world far below, blew out the
silver-white flame of the star so that no one could follow the strange
Driver and his strange Coach to their resting place.
Resting place? What a mistake! The Driver of the Dream Coach never
rests. You see, there are so many things to do even when he is carrying
no passengers. There are new dreams to invent: queer dreams, funny
dreams, fairy dreams, goblin dreams, happy dreams, exciting dreams,
short dreams, long dreams, brightly colored dreams, and dreams made out
of shadows and mist that vanish as soon as one opens one’s eyes. Then
there is the very bothersome matter of keeping the records straight,
records of those who deserve good dreams, those who need cheering with
ridiculous dreams, and those, alas, who have been bad and naughty and
have to be punished (how the little Driver hates this!) with nightmares.
It is hard to keep all those dreams from getting mixed up, there are so
many of them. Indeed, sometimes, they do get mixed up, and a good child,
who was meant to have a dream as pretty as a pansy or as funny as a
frog, gets a nightmare by mistake. But the Driver of the Dream Coach
tries as hard as he possibly can never to let this happen. He has so
very much to do that he never would catch up with his work no matter how
quickly his beautiful horses galloped from star to star, from world to
world, if there was not some one to help him.
There are little angels who help the Driver of the Dream Coach.
In their gold and white book they keep a record of every one on earth.
As soon as the Driver of the Dream Coach had unharnessed his horses he
went to these angels and planned his next trip. What a busy night it was
to be! If I should use all the paper and all the pencils in the world I
could not begin to tell you about all the dreams he arranged to carry to
the sleeping world.
And yet there was one child who was nearly forgotten, a little Princess
whose name had been written at the top of a new page which the Driver
had neglected to turn in his hurry.
“Surely you are not going to forget the little Princess on her
birthday!” pleaded the little angels, turning the page.
“Oh, dear!” said the Driver. “That will never do; now, will it? And
yet—I simply can’t pack another dream into the Coach. I’m sorry, but I’m
afraid——”
“Oh, dear!” echoed the angels.
“Perhaps——”
Just then one of the youngest angels, who happened to be leaning over
the parapet of Paradise, saw the Princess begin to cry, and took in the
situation instantly. So he hurried to the others and suggested that he
himself should carry a dream to the little Princess.
The Driver of the Dream Coach thought this was a splendid idea and
thanked him again and again for his help.
That is how the seven white dreams of the King’s little daughter were
carried to her by an angel, and as you know (or if you don’t, I will
tell you) the dreams carried in the moonbeam basket of the angels are
the most beautiful of all.
What did the Princess dream?
That you shall hear.
[Illustration]
I cannot remember all the names of the King’s little daughter, and
indeed few can. The Archbishop who christened her says that he can, but
he is so great and so deaf a dignitary that no one would think of asking
him to prove it. They are all there, twelve pages of them, in the great
book where are recorded the baptisms of all the Royal babies, so that
you can look for yourself if none of the ones I can remember—Angelica
Mary Delphine Violet Candida Pamelia Petronella Victoire Veronica Monica
Anastasia Yvonne—happen to please you.
It was the fifth birthday of the little Princess, and there were to be
great celebrations in her honor. Fireworks would blossom in the night
sky, and in the gardens lanterns were hung like bubbles of colored light
from white rose tree to red, while the great fountains would turn from
pink to mauve, from mauve to azure, to amber, and to green, as they
flung up slender stems and great spreading lacy fronds of water. Every
one from the King down to the smallest kitchen-maid had new clothes for
the occasion, and the Chief Cook had created a birthday cake iced with
fairy grottoes and gardens of spun sugar, so huge and so heavy that the
Princess’s ten pages in their new sky-blue and silver liveries,
staggered under the weight of it.
The little Princess had a new gown of white satin, sewn so thickly with
pearls that it was perfectly stiff, and stood as well without her as
when she was inside it. It was standing by her bedside when the bells of
the city awoke her on her birthday morning, together with her silver
bath shaped like a great shell, and her nine lace petticoats, and her
hoops to go over the petticoats, and her little white slippers on a
cushion of cloth-of-silver, and her whalebone stays, and her cobweb
stockings, and her ten Ladies-In-Waiting, Grand Duchesses every one.
When she opened her blue eyes they all swept her the deepest curtsies,
their skirts of bright brocade billowing up about them, and said
together:
“Long Life and Happiness to Your Serene Highness!” and then the first
Grand Duchess popped her out of bed and into her bath, where she got a
great deal of soap in the Princess’s eyes while she conversed in a most
respectful and edifying manner.
The second Grand Duchess, who was
Lady-In-Waiting-In-Charge-Of-The-Imperial-Towel, was even more
respectful, and nearly rubbed the Princess’s tiny button of a nose
entirely off her face.
The third Grand Duchess brushed and combed the little duck tails of
yellow silk that covered the Royal head; and _oh_, how she did pull!
The fourth Grand Duchess was
Lady-In-Waiting-In-Charge-Of-The-Imperial-Shift, and as she was rather
old and slow, although extremely noble, the Princess grew cold indeed
before the shift covered up her little pink body.
The fifth Grand Duchess put on the rigid stays.
The sixth put on the stockings and slippers.
The seventh was very important and gave herself airs, for the nine lace
petticoats were her concern.
The eighth Grand Duchess was
Lady-In-Waiting-In-Charge-Of-The-Imperial-Hoops.
The ninth put on the little Princess the dress of satin and pearls, that
glowed softly like moonlit drops of water.
And the tenth Grand Duchess, the oldest and ugliest and noblest and
crossest and most respectful of them all, placed on the yellow head the
little frosty crown of diamonds.
Then the Princess’s Father Confessor, a very noble Prince of the Church,
dressed in violet from top to toe, came in between two little boys in
lace, and said a long prayer in Latin. It was so long that, I am sorry
to have to tell you, right in the middle the Princess yawned, so of
course another long prayer had to be said to ask Heaven to overlook such
shocking wickedness on the part of Her Highness.
Then the Chief-Steward-In-Attendance-On-The-Princess brought her
breakfast—bread and milk in a silver porringer. The little Princess had
hoped for strawberries, as it was her birthday, but the Chief Gardener
was saving every strawberry in the Royal gardens for the great Birthday
Banquet that was to be held that evening.
Then the little Princess went to say good morning to her Mother and
Father, and this is the way she went.
First came two heralds in forest green, blowing on silver trumpets. Then
came the Father Confessor and his little lace-covered boys. Then came
the Ladies-In-Waiting in their bright brocades, with feathers in their
powdered hair, and after each lady came a little black page to carry her
handkerchief on a satin cushion. The ten pages of the Princess were
next, and after them came the Royal Baby’s Own Regiment of Dragoons in
white and scarlet. And last came four gigantic blacks wearing white loin
cloths and enormous turbans of flamingo pink, and carrying a great
canopy of cloth-of-silver fringed with pearls, and under this, very
tiny, and looking, in her spreading gown, like a little white hollyhock
out for a walk, came the Princess.
[Illustration: The nine lace petticoats were her concern.]
After she had curtsied, and kissed the hands of her Royal parents, her
Father gave her a rope of milk-white pearls and her Mother gave her a
ruby as big as a pigeon’s egg, both of which were instantly locked up in
the Royal treasury. They then bestowed upon her, in addition to her
other titles, that of Grand Duchess of Pinchpinchowitz, which took so
long to do that when she had said thank you it was time for lunch, which
was just the same as breakfast, except that this time the porringer was
gold.
After lunch the Prime Minister read the Princess an illuminated Birthday
Greeting from her loyal subjects, which ran along so that the
Ladies-In-Waiting nearly yawned their heads off behind their painted
fans, and the Princess had a nice little nap, and dreamed that there
would be strawberries for supper.
But instead there was bread and milk in a porringer covered with
turquoises and moonstones.
Then, as the younger Ladies-In-Waiting were thinking of the
Gentlemen-Of-The-Court who would be waiting for them among the rose
trees and yew hedges, to watch the colored water of the fountains and
listen to the harps and flutes, and as the older Ladies-In-Waiting were
thinking of comfortable seats out of a draught in the State Ball Room,
and having the choicest morsels of roasted peacock and larks’ tongue pie
and frozen nectarines, they popped the Princess into bed pretty
promptly—indeed, an hour earlier than usual—and went off to celebrate
her birthday.
The room in which the little Princess lay was as big as a church, and
the great bed was as big as a chapel. Four carved posts as tall as palm
trees in a tropic jungle, held a canopy of needlework where hunters rode
and hounds gave chase and deer fled through dark forests. Below this lay
the broad smooth expanse of silken sheet and counterpane, and in the
midst, as little and alone as a bird in an empty sky, lay the King’s
little daughter.
One large tear rolled down her round pink cheek, and then another. The
long dull day had tired her, and the great dim room frightened her, and
she wanted to see the fireworks she had heard her pages whispering
about. She sat up among her lace pillows, and her tears went splash,
splash, on the embroidered flowers and leaves of her coverlet.
[Illustration]
One of the youngest angels happened to be leaning over the parapet of
Paradise when the Princess began to cry, and he took in the situation
instantly, and hurried off to his Heavenly playmates to tell them about
it. “It is her birthday,” he said, “and no one has given her as much as
a red apple or a white rose—only silly old rubies and pearls that she
wasn’t even allowed to play marbles with! And now they have left her to
weep in the dark while they dance and feast! I shall go down to her and
sit by her bed till her tears are dry, and take her a white dream as a
gift.”
“Oh, let me send a dream too!” cried another angel. “And let me!” “And
let me!” So that by the time the little angel was ready to start to
earth there were seven white dreams to be taken as birthday gifts from
Heaven, and he had to weave a basket of moonbeams to carry them in.
That night the Princess dreamed that she was a daisy in a field, dancing
delicately in the wind among other daisies as thick as the stars in the
Milky Way. Feathery grasses danced with them, and yellow butterflies
danced above, and the larks in the sky flung down cascades of lovely
notes that scattered like spray on the joyous wind.
Some poor little girls were playing in the field. Their feet were bare
and their faded frocks were torn, but they danced and sang too. There
came a rumbling like thunder, and through a gap in the hawthorn hedge
the children and the daisies saw the King’s little daughter driven past
in her great scarlet coach drawn by eight dappled horses. They could see
the little Princess sitting up very straight with her crinoline puffing
about her and her crown on her head, and after she had passed all the
children played that they were princesses, making daisy crowns for their
heads, and hoops of brier boughs to hold out their limp little
petticoats.
[Illustration]
The next day the Princess looked in vain for a daisy as she took her
morning constitutional in the Royal gardens. There were roses and
lilies, blue irises, and striped red and yellow carnations tied to
stakes, all stiff and straight.
“Hold up your head, Serene Highness!” snapped one of the
Ladies-In-Waiting, who had had too many cherry tarts at too late an hour
the night before.
But daisies danced in the Princess’s heart.
The next night the Princess dreamed that she was a little white cloud
afloat in the bright blue sky. She floated over the blue sea and the
white sand, and over black forests of whispering pines, and over a land
where fields of tulips bloomed for miles, in squares of lovely colors,
delicate rose and mauve and purple, coppery pink and creamy yellow, with
canals running through them like strips of old, dark looking-glass. She
floated over rye fields turning silver in the wind, and over nuns at
work in their walled gardens, and finally over a great grim palace where
a King’s little daughter lived. “I would rather be free and afloat in
the sky,” thought the small white cloud.
When she took the air the next day, she looked up to see if any white
clouds were in the sky. “Her Highness is growing very proud,” said the
Ladies-In-Waiting. “She holds her nose up in the air as a King’s
daughter should.”
[Illustration]
On the third night, the Princess dreamed she was a little lamb skipping
and nibbling the new green grass in a meadow where hundreds of lilies of
the valley were in bloom. They were still wet and sparkling with rain,
but now the sun shone and a beautiful rainbow arched above the meadow
and the lilies of the valley and the happy little lamb.
[Illustration]
Through the rest of her life the gentleness of the lamb lay in the heart
of the Princess.
The next night she dreamed that she was a white butterfly drifting with
other butterflies among the tree ferns and orchids of the jungle, gentle
and safe from harm, although serpents lay among the branches of the
trees and lions and tigers roamed through the green shadows.
[Illustration]
A white butterfly flew in at her window the next day. “A moth! A moth!”
cried the Ladies-In-Waiting. “Camphor and boughs of cedar must be
procured instantly, or the dreadful creature will eat up Her Highness’s
ermine robes!”
But the little Princess knew better than that.
On the fifth night she dreamed that she was a tiny white egg lying in a
nest that a humming bird had hung to a spray of fern by a rope of
twisted spider’s web. The nest was softly and warmly lined with silky
down, and above her was the soft warmth of the mother bird’s breast.
[Illustration]
On the sixth night she was a snowflake. It was Christmas night, and the
towns and villages were gay. Rosy light poured from every window,
blurred by the falling snow, and the air was full of the sound of bells.
High up on the mountain was a lonely wayside shrine with carved and
painted wooden figures of the Mother and Her Child whose Birthday it
was. There were no bells there, nor yellow candle light, but only snow
and dark evergreen trees. The snowflake, whirling and dancing down from
the sky, a tiny frosty star, gave its life as a birthday gift to the
Holy Child, lying for its little moment in His outstretched hand.
[Illustration]
The angel was distressed to find, on the seventh night, that the seventh
dream had slipped through a hole in the moonbeam basket and was lost.
Careless little angel! But it really did not matter, for instead of a
dream, he showed himself to the Princess. And she liked that the best of
all, for she had never had any one to play with before, and there is no
playmate equal to an angel. But the seventh dream is still drifting
about the world—I wonder where? Perhaps it will be upon my pillow
to-night—perhaps upon yours. Who knows?
[Illustration]
[Illustration]