Once upon a time there was a little Princess, and when she was ten
years old they gave her a wonderful birthday party. There were
musicians, and roses in all the rooms, and strawberry ice cream, and
cakes with pink icing. Every one brought gifts.
The King, her father, gave the Princess a white pony with a long tail,
and a blue and silver harness. The Queen, her mother, gave the
Princess a little gold tea set for her dolls. There were other
beautiful gifts; a ring with a sparkling stone set in it, and a dozen
or so new silk dresses, and a nightingale in a gold cage; but every
one waited to see what the gift of the Princess' fairy-godmother would
be.
She was late coming to the party. One never knew just _how_ she would
come, on wings, or on a broomstick. This time she came walking, and
dressed in a short red gown and a white apron. Her kind eyes twinkled
as she gave her gift to the Princess.
Such a strange gift as it was, only a tiny black key!
"This will unlock a little house at the end of the garden which is my
birthday gift to you," the fairy-godmother of the Princess said. "In
the little house you will find a treasure." And then, as suddenly as
she had come, the fairy-godmother was gone, wearing one of her
surprise smiles on her lips.
Every one wondered about the house, and some of the guests went to the
end of the garden to look at it. All they saw, though, was a tiny
thatched cottage, very neat, but not at all fine. So they turned up
their noses and went back to the castle.
"A very poor present indeed!" they said.
The little Princess put the key in the silk bag that hung at her side
and then forgot all about it. Not until late in the afternoon did she
go to the end of the garden.
The little house made her curious, because it was so different from
the castle. The castle had great, coloured windows, but the little
house had tiny ones with crimson geraniums on the ledges and plain
white curtains.
She opened the door and went inside. The castle had many rooms, large
and lonely, but the little house had one room, small and very cozy.
There was a chimney and a fireplace where a bright little fire
sparkled and danced and chuckled to itself. A tea kettle hung over the
hob and it was singing, as the water bubbled, the merriest song that
the little Princess had ever heard. The table was set for tea. It was
a very plain tea, only white bread and butter, and honey, and milk;
but it made the Princess hungry to look at it. In front of the fire
stood a straight-backed chair and a little spinning wheel.
The Princess sat down to her tea. How pleasant the little house was,
she thought, and how unusually hungry she was!
At tea, in the castle, she often was not hungry and asked for food
that was not good for her, roasted peacock, and almond cakes, and plum
pudding. But here, in her own little house, she found that nothing was
quite so good as bread and butter, and her milk tasted as sweet as the
honey.
After tea the Princess sat down in the straightest chair, and although
she had never in her life touched a spinning wheel before, she began
to spin. _Whirr, whirr_, the wheel turned and sang, as fine white
thread grew from the bunch of linen floss. The fire danced, and the
tea kettle sang, and the spinning wheel whirred merrily. It was so
pleasant to have had such a nice tea and to be working in her own
little house that the Princess began to sing too. She sang like a
bird, and she had never known before that she could sing.
"I heard you singing, and I stopped."
The Princess turned and she saw a little boy of her own age standing
in the room. He had a very pleasant face, but he was dressed in ragged
clothes. His shirt was so full of holes that it scarcely covered his
back.
"What are you spinning?" he asked.
The Princess had not known, until that moment, what she was spinning,
but now she understood at once.
"I am spinning to make you a new shirt," she said.
"Oh, thank you!" said the little boy as he smiled down at her. The
Princess looked at him, wondering. She noticed that his eyes looked
very like those of her fairy-godmother.
Then she thought of something else.
"In the little house you will find a treasure," her fairy-godmother
had said.
She looked all about. There was no gold, or anything that she had
thought before was a treasure there. Then she listened to her heart
that was singing, too, now. That was it. Her fairy-godmother had given
her, in her little house, the treasure of a happy heart.