A Little Book of Profitable Tales | Page 8

sit inside?" inquired Barbara of the sexton.
"No!" said the sexton, gruffly, for this was an important occasion with the sexton, and he had no idea of wasting words on a beggar child.
"But I will be very good and quiet," pleaded Barbara. "Please, may I not see the prince?"
"I have said no, and I mean it," retorted the sexton. "What have you for the prince, or what cares the prince for you? Out with you, and don't be blocking up the doorway!" So the sexton gave Barbara an angry push, and the child fell half-way down the icy steps of the cathedral. She began to cry. Some great people were entering the cathedral at the time, and they laughed to see her falling.
"Have you seen the prince?" inquired a snowflake, alighting on Barbara's cheek. It was the same little snowflake that had clung to her shawl an hour ago, when the wind came galloping along on his boisterous search.
"Ah, no!" sighed Barbara, in tears; "but what cares the prince for _me_?"
"Do not speak so bitterly," said the little snowflake. "Go to the forest and you shall see him, for the prince always comes through the forest to the city."
Despite the cold, and her bruises, and her tears, Barbara smiled. In the forest she could behold the prince coming on his way; and he would not see her, for she would hide among the trees and vines.
"Whirr-r-r, whirr-r-r!" It was the mischievous, romping wind once more; and it fluttered Barbara's tattered shawl, and set her hair to streaming in every direction, and swept the snowflake from her cheek and sent it spinning through the air.
Barbara trudged toward the forest. When she came to the city gate the watchman stopped her, and held his big lantern in her face, and asked her who she was and where she was going.
"I am Barbara, and I am going into the forest," said she, boldly.
"Into the forest?" cried the watchman, "and in this storm? No, child; you will perish!"
"But I am going to see the prince," said Barbara. "They will not let me watch for him in the church, nor in any of their pleasant homes, so I am going into the forest."
The watchman smiled sadly. He was a kindly man; he thought of his own little girl at home.
"No, you must not go to the forest," said he, "for you would perish with the cold."
But Barbara would not stay. She avoided the watchman's grasp and ran as fast as ever she could through the city gate.
"Come back, come back!" cried the watchman; "you will perish in the forest!"
But Barbara would not heed his cry. The falling snow did not stay her, nor did the cutting blast. She thought only of the prince, and she ran straightway to the forest.
II
"What do you see up there, O pine-tree?" asked a little vine in the forest.
"You lift your head among the clouds tonight, and you tremble strangely as if you saw wondrous sights."
"I see only the distant hill-tops and the dark clouds," answered the pine-tree. "And the wind sings of the snow-king to-night; to all my questionings he says, 'Snow, snow, snow,' till I am weary with his refrain."
"But the prince will surely come to-morrow?" inquired the tiny snowdrop that nestled close to the vine.
"Oh, yes," said the vine. "I heard the country folks talking about it as they went through the forest to-day, and they said that the prince would surely come on the morrow."
"What are you little folks down there talking about?" asked the pine-tree.
"We are talking about the prince," said the vine.
"Yes, he is to come on the morrow," said the pine-tree, "but not until the day dawns, and it is still all dark in the east."
"Yes," said the fir-tree, "the east is black, and only the wind and the snow issue from it."
"Keep your head out of my way!" cried the pine-tree to the fir; "with your constant bobbing around I can hardly see at all."
"Take that for your bad manners," retorted the fir, slapping the pine-tree savagely with one of her longest branches.
The pine-tree would put up with no such treatment, so he hurled his largest cone at the fir; and for a moment or two it looked as if there were going to be a serious commotion in the forest.
"Hush!" cried the vine in a startled tone; "there is some one coming through the forest."
The pine-tree and the fir stopped quarrelling, and the snowdrop nestled closer to the vine, while the vine hugged the pine-tree very tightly. All were greatly alarmed.
"Nonsense!" said the pine-tree, in a tone of assumed bravery. "No one would venture into the forest at such an hour."
"Indeed! and why not?" cried a child's voice. "Will you not let me watch with you for the coming of the prince?"
"Will