The Laughing Prince | Page 3

jokes and talking nonsense. And every evening after supper his little
sister, Militza, clapped her hands and cried:
"Now, Stefan, tell me a story! Tell me a story!"
"Father," Mihailo would say, "you ought to make him keep quiet! He's
foolish and all he does is fill Militza's head with nonsense!"
This always made Militza very indignant and she would stamp her little
foot and say:
"He isn't foolish! He knows more than any one! And he can do more
things than any one else and he's the handsomest brother in the world!"
You see Militza loved Stefan dearly and when you love a person of
course you think that person is wonderful. But the father supposed that
Mihailo must be right for Mihailo studied in books. So he shook his
head and sighed every time he thought of Stefan.
Now the kingdom in which the three brothers lived was ruled over by a
great Tsar who had an only daughter. In disappointment that he had no
son, the Tsar was having his daughter brought up as though she were a
boy. He sent all over the world for tutors and teachers and had the poor
girl taught statecraft and law and philosophy and all the other things
that the heir to the throne ought to know.
The Princess because she was an obedient girl and because she loved
her father tried to spend all her time in study. But the dry old scholars

whom the Tsar employed as teachers were not amusing companions for
a young girl and the first lady-in-waiting who was in constant
attendance was scarcely any better for she, too, was old and thin and
very prim.
If the poor little Princess between her geography lesson and her
arithmetic lesson would peep for a moment into a mirror, the first
lady-in-waiting would tap her arm reprovingly and say:
"My dear, vanity is not becoming in a princess!"
One day the little Princess lost her temper and answered sharply:
"But I'm a girl even if I am a princess and I love to look in mirrors and
I love to make myself pretty and I'd love to go to a ball every night of
my life and dance with handsome young men!"
"You talk like the daughter of a farmer!" the first lady-in-waiting said.
Then the Princess, because she lost her temper still further, said
something she should not have said.
"I wish I were the daughter of a farmer!" she declared. "Then I could
wear pretty ribbons and go dancing and the boys would come courting
me! As it is I have to spend all my time with funny old men and silly
old women!"
Now even if her tutors and teachers were funny looking old men, even
if the first lady-in-waiting was a silly old woman, the Princess should
not have said so. It hurt the feelings of the first lady-in-waiting and
made her angry and she ran off to the Tsar at once and complained
most bitterly.
"Is this my reward after all my years of loving service to your
daughter?" she asked. "It is true that I've grown old and thin looking
after her manners and now she calls me a silly old woman! And all the
learned wise men and scholars that you have gathered from the far
corners of the earth--she points her finger at them and calls them funny

old men!"
The fact is they were funny looking, most of them, but yet the first
lady-in-waiting was right: the Princess should not have said so.
"And think of her ingratitude to yourself, O Tsar!" the first
lady-in-waiting continued. "You plan to make her the heir to your
throne and yet she says she wishes she were a farmer's daughter so that
she could deck herself out in ribbons and have the boys come courting
her! A nice thing for a princess to say!"
The Tsar when he heard this fell into an awful rage. (The truth is
whatever temper the Princess had she inherited direct from her father.)
"Wow! Wow!" he roared, just that way. "Send the Princess to me at
once. I'll soon have her singing another tune!"
So the first lady-in-waiting sent the Princess to her father and as soon
as he saw her he began roaring again and saying:
"Wow! Wow! What do you mean--funny old men and silly old
women?"
Now whenever the Tsar began roaring and saying, "Wow! Wow!" the
Princess always stiffened, and instead of being the sweet and obedient
daughter she usually was she became obstinate. Her pretty eyes would
flash and her soft pretty face would harden and people would whisper:
"Mercy on us, how much she looks like her father!"
"That's just what I mean!" the Princess said. "They're a lot of funny