The Laughing Prince | Page 6

moment he couldn't speak.
Then he knelt beside the bed and kissed her hand.
"Princess," he said, "I'm not learned and I'm not clever and I don't
suppose I can succeed where so many wise men have failed. And even
if I do make you laugh you won't have to marry me unless you want to
because the reason I really came was to please Militza."
"Militza?"
"Yes, Princess, my little sister, Militza. She loves me very much and so
she thinks the stories I tell are funny and she laughs at them. Last night
she said to me: 'Stefan, you must go to the Princess and tell her the

story that begins: In my young days when I was an old, old man.... I
think she'll just have to laugh and if she laughs then she can eat and she
must be very hungry by this time.'"
"I am," the Princess said, with a catch in her voice. Then she added: "I
think I like that little sister of yours and I think I like you, too. I wish
you would tell me the story that begins: In my young days when I was
an old, old man...."
"But, Princess, it's a very foolish story."
"The foolisher, the better!"
Just here the first lady-in-waiting tried to correct the Princess for of
course she should have said: "The more foolish, the better!" but the
Tsar shut her up with a black frown and one fierce, "Wow!"
"Well, then," Stefan began:
In my young days when I was an old, old man I used to count my bees
every morning. It was easy enough to count the bees but not the
beehives because I had too many hives. One day when I finished
counting I found that my best bee was missing. At once I saddled a
rooster and set out to find him.
"Father!" cried the Princess. "Did you hear what Stefan said? He said
he saddled his rooster!"
"Umph!" muttered the Tsar, and the first lady-in-waiting said severely:
"Princess, do not interrupt! Young man, continue."
His track led to the sea which I rode across on a bridge. The first thing
I saw on the other side of the sea was my bee. There he was in a field of
millet harnessed to a plow. "That's my bee!" I shouted to the man who
was driving him. "Is that so?" the man said, and without any words he
gave me back my bee and handed me a bag of millet to pay for the
plowing. I took the bag and tied it securely on the bee. Then I

unsaddled the rooster and mounted the bee. The rooster, poor thing,
was so tired that I had to take him by the hand and lead him along
beside us.
"Father!" the Princess cried, "did you hear that? He took the rooster by
the hand! Isn't that funny!"
"Umph!" grunted the Tsar, and the first lady-in-waiting whispered:
"Hush! Let the young man finish!"
Whilst we were crossing the bridge, the string of the bag broke and all
my millet spilled out. When night came I tied the rooster to the bee and
lay down on the seashore to sleep. During the night some wolves came
and killed my bee and when I woke up I found that all the honey had
run out of his body. There was so much honey that it rose up and up
until it reached the ankles of the valleys and the knees of the mountains.
I took a hatchet and swam down to a forest where I found two deer
leaping about on one leg. I shot at the deer with my hatchet, killed them,
and skinned them. With the skins I made two leather bottles. I filled
these with the honey and strapped them over the rooster's back. Then I
rode home. I no sooner arrived home than my father was born. "We
must have holy water for the christening," I said. "I suppose I must go
to heaven to fetch some." But how was I to get there? I thought of my
millet. Sure enough the dampness had made it grow so well that its tops
now reached the sky. So all I had to do was to climb a millet stalk and
there I was in heaven. Up there they had mown down some of my millet
which they baked into a loaf and were eating with boiled milk. "That's
my millet!" I said. "What do you want for it?" they asked me. "I want
some holy water to christen my father who has just been born." So they
gave me some holy water and I prepared to descend again to earth. But
on earth there was a violent storm going on and the wind