The Magic Fishbone | Page 3

This most particular secret was a secret about the magic fish-bone, the
history of which was well known to the Duchess, because the Princess
told her everything. The Princess kneeled down by the bed on which
the Duchess was lying, full-dressed and wide awake, and whispered the
secret to her. The Duchess smiled and nodded. People might have
supposed that she never smiled and nodded, but she often did, though
nobody knew it except the Princess.
Then the Princess Alicia hurried downstairs again, to keep watch in the
Queen's room. She often kept watch by herself in the Queen's room; but
every evening, while the illness lasted, she sat there watching with the
King. And every evening the King sat looking at her with a cross look,
wondering why she never brought out the magic fish-bone. As often as
she noticed this, she ran up-stairs, whispered the secret to the Duchess
over again, and said to the Duchess besides, "They think we children
never have a reason or a meaning!" And the Duchess, though the most
fashionable Duchess that ever was heard of, winked her eye.
"Alicia," said the King, one evening when she wished him Good Night.
"Yes, Papa."

"What is become of the magic fish-bone?"
"In my pocket, Papa."
"I thought you had lost it?"
"O, no, Papa."
"Or forgotten it?"
"No, indeed, Papa."
And so another time the dreadful little snapping pug-dog next door
made a rush at one of the young Princes as he stood on the steps
coming home from school, and terrified him out of his wits and he put
his hand through a pane of glass, and bled bled bled. When the
seventeen other young Princes and Princesses saw him bleed bleed
bleed, they were terrified out of their wits too, and screamed
themselves black in their seventeen faces all at once. But the Princess
Alicia put her hands over all their seventeen mouths, one after another,
and persuaded them to be quiet because of the sick Queen. And then
she put the wounded Prince's hand in a basin of fresh cold water, while
they stared with their twice seventeen are thirty-four put down four and
carry three eyes, and then she looked in the hand for bits of glass, and
there were fortunately no bits of glass there. And then she said to two
chubby-legged Princes who were sturdy though small, "Bring me in the
Royal rag-bag; I must snip and stitch and cut and contrive." So those
two young Princes tugged at the Royal rag-bag and lugged it in, and the
Princess Alicia sat down on the floor with a large pair of scissors and a
needle and thread, and snipped and stitched and cut and contrived, and
made a bandage and put it on, and it fitted beautifully, and so when it
was all done she saw the King her Papa looking on by the door.
[Illustration]
"Alicia."
"Yes, Papa."

"What have you been doing?"
"Snipping stitching cutting and contriving, Papa."
"Where is the magic fish-bone?"
"In my pocket, Papa."
"I thought you had lost it?"
"O, no, Papa."
"Or forgotten it?"
"No, indeed, Papa."
After that, she ran up-stairs to the Duchess and told her what had
passed, and told her the secret over again, and the Duchess shook her
flaxen curls and laughed with her rosy lips.
[Illustration]
Well! and so another time the baby fell under the grate. The seventeen
young Princes and Princesses were used to it, for they were almost
always falling under the grate or down the stairs, but the baby was not
used to it yet, and it gave him a swelled face and a black eye. The way
the poor little darling came to tumble was, that he slid out of the
Princess Alicia's lap just as she was sitting in a great coarse apron that
quite smothered her, in front of the kitchen-fire, beginning to peel the
turnips for the broth for dinner; and the way she came to be doing that
was, that the King's cook had run away that morning with her own true
love who was a very tall but very tipsy soldier. Then, the seventeen
young Princes and Princesses, who cried at everything that happened,
cried and roared. But the Princess Alicia (who couldn't help crying a
little herself) quietly called to them to be still, on account of not
throwing back the Queen up-stairs, who was fast getting well, and said,
"Hold your tongues, you wicked little monkeys, every one of you,
while I examine baby!" Then she examined baby, and found that he

hadn't broken anything, and she held cold iron to his poor dear eye, and
smoothed his poor dear face, and he presently fell asleep in her arms.
Then, she said to the seventeen Princes and