The Laughing Prince Part 20

"Very well, then, we'll see."

The old man looked up into the tree and called:

"Come down, Little Singing Frog! A Prince wants to marry you!"

So the little frog girl hopped down from among the branches and stood before the Prince.

"She's my own daughter," the laborer said, "even if she does look like a frog."

"I don't care what she looks like," the Prince said. "I love her singing and I love her. And I mean what I say: I'll marry her if she'll marry me. My father, the Tsar, bids me and my brothers present him our brides to-morrow. He bids all the brides bring him a flower and he says he'll give the kingdom to the prince whose bride brings the loveliest flower. Little Singing Frog, will you be my bride and will you come to Court to-morrow bringing a flower?"

"Yes, my Prince," the frog girl said, "I will. But I must not shame you by hopping to Court in the dust. I must ride. So, will you send me a snow-white c.o.c.k from your father's barnyard?"

"I will," the Prince promised, and before night the snow-white c.o.c.k had arrived at the laborer's cottage.

Early the next morning the frog girl prayed to the Sun.

"O golden Sun," she said, "I need your help! Give me some lovely clothes woven of your golden rays for I would not shame my Prince when I go to Court."

The Sun heard her prayer and gave her a gown of cloth of gold.

Instead of a flower she took a spear of wheat in her hand and then when the time came she mounted the white c.o.c.k and rode to the palace.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _This, the Bride of the Youngest Prince, Is My Choice_]

The guards at the palace gate at first refused to admit her.

"This is no place for frogs!" they said to her. "You're looking for a pond!"

But when she told them she was the Youngest Prince's bride, they were afraid to drive her away. So they let her ride through the gate.

"Strange!" they murmured to one another. "The Youngest Prince's bride!

She looks like a frog and that was certainly a c.o.c.k she was riding, wasn't it?"

They stepped inside the gates to look after her and then they saw an amazing sight. The frog girl, still seated on the white c.o.c.k, was shaking out the folds of a golden gown. She dropped the gown over her head and instantly there was no frog and no white c.o.c.k but a lovely maiden mounted on a snow-white horse!

Well, the frog girl entered the palace with two other girls, the promised brides of the older princes. They were just ordinary girls both of them. To see them you wouldn't have paid any attention to them one way or the other. But standing beside the lovely bride of the Youngest Prince they seemed more ordinary than ever.

The first girl had a rose in her hand. The Tsar looked at it and at her, sniffed his nose slightly, and turned his head.

The second girl had a carnation. The Tsar looked at her for a moment and murmured:

"Dear me, this will never do!"

Then he looked at the Youngest Prince's bride and his eye kindled and he said:

"Ah! This is something like!"

She gave him the spear of wheat and he took it and held it aloft. Then he reached out his other hand to her and had her stand beside him as he said to his sons and all the Court:

"This, the bride of the Youngest Prince, is my choice! See how beautiful she is! And yet she knows the useful as well as the beautiful for she has brought me a spear of wheat! The Youngest Prince shall be the Tsar after me and she shall be Tsarina!"

So the little frog girl of whom her parents were ashamed married the Youngest Prince and when the time came wore a Tsarina's crown.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

THE NIGHTINGALE IN THE MOSQUE

[Ill.u.s.tration]

_The Story of the Sultan's Youngest Son and the Princess Flower o' the World_

THE NIGHTINGALE IN THE MOSQUE

There was once a Sultan who was so pious and devout that he spent many hours every day in prayer.

"For the glory of Allah," he thought to himself, "I ought to build the most beautiful mosque in the world."

So he called together the finest artisans in the country and told them what he wanted. He spent a third of his riches on the undertaking, and when the mosque was finished everybody said:

"See now, our Sultan has built the most beautiful mosque in the world for the greater glory of Allah!"

On the first day when the Sultan went to pray in the new mosque, a Dervish who was sitting cross-legged at the entrance spoke to him in a droning sing-song voice and said:

"Nay, but your mosque is not yet beautiful enough! There is something it lacks and your prayers will be unavailing!"

The words of the holy man grieved the Sultan and he had the mosque torn down and another built in its place even more beautiful.

"This is certainly the most beautiful mosque in the world!" the people said, and the Sultan's heart was very happy on the first day as he went in to pray.

But again the Dervish, seated at the entrance, said to him in his droning, sing-song voice:

"Nay, but your mosque is not yet beautiful enough! There is something it lacks and your prayers will be unavailing!"

At the holy man's words the Sultan had the second mosque torn down and a third one built, the most beautiful of them all. But when it was finished for a third time the Dervish droned out:

"Nay, but your mosque is not yet beautiful enough! There is something it lacks and your prayers will be unavailing!"

"What can I do?" the Sultan cried. "I have spent all my riches and now I have no means wherewith to build another mosque!"

He fell to grieving and nothing any one could say would comfort him.