Tell Me Another Story | Page 3

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.

THE OLD HOUSE
Up there in the street was an