Little Saint Elizabeth and Other Stories

Once upon a time, in the days of the fairies, there was in the far west country a kingdom which was called by the name of Stumpinghame.  It was a rather curious country in several ways.  In the first place, the people who lived there thought that Stumpinghame was all the world; they thought there was no world at all outside Stumpinghame.  And they thought that the people of Stumpinghame knew everything that could possibly be known, and that what they did not know was of no consequence at all.

One idea common in Stumpinghame was really very unusual indeed.  It was a peculiar taste in the matter of feet.  In Stumpinghame, the larger a person’s feet were, the more beautiful and elegant he or she was considered; and the more aristocratic and nobly born a man was, the more immense were his feet.  Only the very lowest and most vulgar persons were ever known to have small feet.  The King’s feet were simply huge; so were the Queen’s; so were those of the young princes and princesses.  It had never occurred to anyone that a member of such a royal family could possibly disgrace himself by being born with small feet.  Well, you may imagine, then, what a terrible and humiliating state of affairs arose when there was born into that royal family a little son, a prince, whose feet were so very small and slender and delicate that they would have been considered small even in other places than Stumpinghame.  Grief and confusion seized the entire nation.  The Queen fainted six times a day; the King had black rosettes fastened upon his crown; all the flags were at half-mast; and the court went into the deepest mourning.  There had been born to Stumpinghame a royal prince with small feet, and nobody knew how the country could survive it!

Yet the disgraceful little prince survived it, and did not seem to mind at all.  He was the prettiest and best tempered baby the royal nurse had ever seen.  But for his small feet, he would have been the flower of the family.  The royal nurse said to herself, and privately told his little royal highness’s chief bottle-washer that she “never see a infant as took notice so, and sneezed as intelligent.”  But, of course, the King and Queen could see nothing but his little feet, and very soon they made up their minds to send him away.  So one day they had him bundled up and carried where they thought he might be quite forgotten.  They sent him to the hut of a swineherd who lived deep, deep in a great forest which seemed to end nowhere.

They gave the swineherd some money, and some clothes for Fairyfoot, and told him, that if he would take care of the child, they would send money and clothes every year.  As for themselves, they only wished to be sure of never seeing Fairyfoot again.

This pleased the swineherd well enough.  He was poor, and he had a wife and ten children, and hundreds of swine to take care of, and he knew he could use the little Prince’s money and clothes for his own family, and no one would find it out.  So he let his wife take the little fellow, and as soon as the King’s messengers had gone, the woman took the royal clothes off the Prince and put on him a coarse little nightgown, and gave all his things to her own children.  But the baby Prince did not seem to mind that—­he did not seem to mind anything, even though he had no name but Prince Fairyfoot, which had been given him in contempt by the disgusted courtiers.  He grew prettier and prettier every day, and long before the time when other children begin to walk, he could run about on his fairy feet.

The swineherd and his wife did not like him at all; in fact, they disliked him because he was so much prettier and so much brighter than their own clumsy children.  And the children did not like him, because they were ill natured and only liked themselves.

So as he grew older year by year, the poor little Prince was more and more lonely.  He had no one to play with, and was obliged to be always by himself.  He dressed only in the coarsest and roughest clothes; he seldom had enough to eat, and he slept on straw in a loft under the roof of the swineherd’s hut.  But all this did not prevent his being strong and rosy and active.  He was as fleet as the wind, and he had a voice as sweet as a bird’s; he had lovely sparkling eyes, and bright golden hair; and he had so kind a heart that he would not have done a wrong or cruel thing for the world.  As soon as he was big enough, the swineherd made him go out into the forest every day to take care of the swine.  He was obliged to keep them together in one place, and if any of them ran away into the forest, Prince Fairyfoot was beaten.  And as the swine were very wild and unruly, he was very often beaten, because it was almost impossible to keep them from wandering off; and when they ran away, they ran so fast, and through places so tangled, that it was almost impossible to follow them.

The forest in which he had to spend the long days was a very beautiful one, however, and he could take pleasure in that.  It was a forest so great that it was like a world in itself.  There were in it strange, splendid trees, the branches of which interlocked overhead, and when their many leaves moved and rustled, it seemed as if they were whispering secrets.  There were bright, swift, strange birds, that flew about in the deep golden sunshine, and when they rested on the boughs, they, too, seemed telling one another secrets.  There was a bright, clear brook, with water as sparkling and pure as crystal, and with shining shells and pebbles of all colours lying in the gold and silver sand at the bottom.  Prince Fairyfoot always thought the brook knew the forest’s secret also, and sang it softly to the flowers as it ran along.  And as for the flowers, they were beautiful; they grew as thickly as if they had been a carpet, and under them was another carpet of lovely green moss.  The trees and the birds, and the brook and the flowers were Prince Fairyfoot’s friends.  He loved them, and never was very lonely when he was with them; and if his swine had not run away so often, and if the swineherd had not beaten him so much, sometimes—­indeed, nearly all summer—­he would have been almost happy.  He used to lie on the fragrant carpet of flowers and moss and listen to the soft sound of the running water, and to the whispering of the waving leaves, and to the songs of the birds; and he would wonder what they were saying to one another, and if it were true, as the swineherd’s children said, that the great forest was full of fairies.  And then he would pretend it was true, and would tell himself stories about them, and make believe they were his friends, and that they came to talk to him and let him love them.  He wanted to love something or somebody, and he had nothing to love—­not even a little dog.

One day he was resting under a great green tree, feeling really quite happy because everything was so beautiful.  He had even made a little song to chime in with the brook’s, and he was singing it softly and sweetly, when suddenly, as he lifted his curly, golden head to look about him, he saw that all his swine were gone.  He sprang to his feet, feeling very much frightened, and he whistled and called, but he heard nothing.  He could not imagine how they had all disappeared so quietly, without making any sound; but not one of them was anywhere to be seen.  Then his poor little heart began to beat fast with trouble and anxiety.  He ran here and there; he looked through the bushes and under the trees; he ran, and ran, and ran, and called and whistled, and searched; but nowhere—­nowhere was one of those swine to be found!  He searched for them for hours, going deeper and deeper into the forest than he had ever been before.  He saw strange trees and strange flowers, and heard strange sounds:  and at last the sun began to go down, and he knew he would soon be left in the dark.  His little feet and legs were scratched with brambles, and were so tired that they would scarcely carry him; but he dared not go back to the swineherd’s hut without finding the swine.  The only comfort he had on all the long way was that the little brook had run by his side, and sung its song to him; and sometimes he had stopped and bathed his hot face in it, and had said, “Oh, little brook! you are so kind to me!  You are my friend, I know.  I would be so lonely without you!”

When at last the sun did go down, Prince Fairyfoot had wandered so far that he did not know where he was, and he was so tired that he threw himself down by the brook, and hid his face in the flowery moss, and said, “Oh, little brook!  I am so tired I can go no further; and I can never find them!”

While he was lying there in despair, he heard a sound in the air above him, and looked up to see what it was.  It sounded like a little bird in some trouble.  And, surely enough, there was a huge hawk darting after a plump little brown bird with a red breast.  The little bird was uttering sharp frightened cries, and Prince Fairyfoot felt so sorry for it that he sprang up and tried to drive the hawk away.  The little bird saw him at once, and straightway flew to him, and Fairyfoot covered it with his cap.  And then the hawk flew away in a great rage.

When the hawk was gone, Fairyfoot sat down again and lifted his cap, expecting, of course, to see the brown bird with the red breast.  But, in. stead of a bird, out stepped a little man, not much higher than your little finger—­a plump little man in a brown suit with a bright red vest, and with a cocked hat on.

“Why,” exclaimed Fairyfoot, “I’m surprised!”

“So am I,” said the little man, cheerfully.  “I never was more surprised in my life, except when my great-aunt’s grandmother got into such a rage, and changed me into a robin-redbreast.  I tell you, that surprised me!”

“I should think it might,” said Fairyfoot.  “Why did she do it?”

“Mad,” answered the little man—­“that was what was the matter with her.  She was always losing her temper like that, and turning people into awkward things, and then being sorry for it, and not being able to change them back again.  If you are a fairy, you have to be careful.  If you’ll believe me, that woman once turned her second-cousin’s sister-in-law into a mushroom, and somebody picked her, and she was made into catsup, which is a thing no man likes to have happen in his family!”

[Illustration:  “WHY,” EXCLAIMED FAIRYFOOT, “I’M SURPRISED!”]

“Of course not,” said Fairyfoot, politely.

“The difficulty is,” said the little man, “that some fairies don’t graduate.  They learn to turn people into things, but they don’t learn how to unturn them; and then, when they get mad in their families—­you know how it is about getting mad in families—­there is confusion.  Yes, seriously, confusion arises.  It arises.  That was the way with my great-aunt’s grandmother.  She was not a cultivated old person, and she did not know how to unturn people, and now you see the result.  Quite accidentally I trod on her favorite corn; she got mad and changed me into a robin, and regretted it ever afterward.  I could only become myself again by a kind-hearted person’s saving me from a great danger.  You are that person.  Give me your hand.”

Fairyfoot held out his hand.  The little man looked at it.

“On second thought,” he said, “I can’t shake it—­it’s too large.  I’ll sit on it, and talk to you.”

With these words, he hopped upon Fairyfoot’s hand, and sat down, smiling and clasping his own hands about his tiny knees.

“I declare, it’s delightful not to be a robin,” he said.  “Had to go about picking up worms, you know.  Disgusting business.  I always did hate worms.  I never ate them myself—­I drew the line there; but I had to get them for my family.”

Suddenly he began to giggle, and to hug his knees up tight.

“Do you wish to know what I’m laughing at?” he asked Fairyfoot.

“Yes,” Fairyfoot answered.

The little man giggled more than ever.

“I’m thinking about my wife,” he said—­“the one I had when I was a robin.  A nice rage she’ll be in when I don’t come home to-night!  She’ll have to hustle around and pick up worms for herself, and for the children too, and it serves her right.  She had a temper that would embitter the life of a crow, much more a simple robin.  I wore myself to skin and bone taking care of her and her brood, and how I did hate ’em!—­bare, squawking things, always with their throats gaping open.  They seemed to think a parent’s sole duty was to bring worms for them.”

“It must have been unpleasant,” said Fairyfoot.

“It was more than that,” said the little man; “it used to make my feathers stand on end.  There was the nest, too!  Fancy being changed into a robin, and being obliged to build a nest at a moment’s notice!  I never felt so ridiculous in my life.  How was I to know how to build a nest!  And the worst of it was the way she went on about it.”

“She!” said Fairyfoot

“Oh, her, you know,” replied the little man, ungrammatically, “my wife.  She’d always been a robin, and she knew how to build a nest; she liked to order me about, too—­she was one of that kind.  But, of course, I wasn’t going to own that I didn’t know anything about nest-building.  I could never have done anything with her in the world if I’d let her think she knew as much as I did.  So I just put things together in a way of my own, and built a nest that would have made you weep!  The bottom fell out of it the first night.  It nearly killed me.”

“Did you fall out, too?” inquired Fairyfoot.

“Oh, no,” answered the little man.  “I meant that it nearly killed me to think the eggs weren’t in it at the time.”

“What did you do about the nest?” asked Fairyfoot.

The little man winked in the most improper manner.

“Do?” he said.  “I got mad, of course, and told her that if she hadn’t interfered, it wouldn’t have happened; said it was exactly like a hen to fly around giving advice and unsettling one’s mind, and then complain if things weren’t right.  I told her she might build the nest herself, if she thought she could build a better one.  She did it, too!” And he winked again.

“Was it a better one?” asked Fairyfoot.

The little man actually winked a third time.  “It may surprise you to hear that it was,” he replied; “but it didn’t surprise me.  By-the-by,” he added, with startling suddenness, “what’s your name, and what’s the matter with you?”

“My name is Prince Fairyfoot,” said the boy, “and I have lost my master’s swine.”

“My name,” said the little man, “is Robin Goodfellow, and I’ll find them for you.”

He had a tiny scarlet silk pouch hanging at his girdle, and he put his hand into it and drew forth the smallest golden whistle you ever saw.

“Blow that,” he said, giving it to Fairyfoot, “and take care that you don’t swallow it.  You are such a tremendous creature!”

Fairyfoot took the whistle and put it very delicately to his lips.  He blew, and there came from it a high, clear sound that seemed to pierce the deepest depths of the forest.

“Blow again,” commanded Robin Goodfellow.

Again Prince Fairyfoot blew, and again the pure clear sound rang through the trees, and the next instant he heard a loud rushing and tramping and squeaking and grunting, and all the great drove of swine came tearing through the bushes and formed themselves into a circle and stood staring at him as if waiting to be told what to do next.

“Oh, Robin Goodfellow, Robin Goodfellow!” cried Fairyfoot, “how grateful I am to you!”

“Not as grateful as I am to you,” said Robin Goodfellow.  “But for you I should be disturbing that hawk’s digestion at the present moment, instead of which, here I am, a respectable fairy once more, and my late wife (though I ought not to call her that, for goodness knows she was early enough hustling me out of my nest before daybreak, with the unpleasant proverb about the early bird catching the worm!)—­I suppose I should say my early wife—­is at this juncture a widow.  Now, where do you live?”

Fairyfoot told him, and told him also about the swineherd, and how it happened that, though he was a prince, he had to herd swine and live in the forest.

“Well, well,” said Robin Goodfellow, “that is a disagreeable state of affairs.  Perhaps I can make it rather easier for you.  You see that is a fairy whistle.”

“I thought so,” said Fairyfoot.

“Well,” continued Robin Goodfellow, “you can always call your swine with it, so you will never be beaten again.  Now, are you ever lonely?”

“Sometimes I am very lonely indeed,” ananswered the Prince.  “No one cares for me, though I think the brook is sometimes sorry, and tries to tell me things.”

“Of course,” said Robin.  “They all like you.  I’ve heard them say so.”

“Oh, have you?” cried Fairyfoot, joyfully.

“Yes; you never throw stones at the birds, or break the branches of the trees, or trample on the flowers when you can help it.”

“The birds sing to me,” said Fairyfoot, “and the trees seem to beckon to me and whisper; and when I am very lonely, I lie down in the grass and look into the eyes of the flowers and talk to them.  I would not hurt one of them for all the world!”

“Humph!” said Robin, “you are a rather good little fellow.  Would you like to go to a party?”

“A party!” said Fairyfoot.  “What is that?”

“This sort of thing,” said Robin; and he jumped up and began to dance around and to kick up his heels gaily in the palm of Fairyfoot’s hand.  “Wine, you know, and cake, and all sorts of fun.  It begins at twelve to-night, in a place the fairies know of, and it lasts until just two minutes and three seconds and a half before daylight.  Would you like to come?”

“Oh,” cried Fairyfoot, “I should be so happy if I might!”

“Well, you may,” said Robin; “I’ll take you.  They’ll be delighted to see any friend of mine, I’m a great favourite; of course, you can easily imagine that.  It was a great blow to them when I was changed; such a loss, you know.  In fact, there were several lady fairies, who—­but no matter.”  And he gave a slight cough, and began to arrange his necktie with a disgracefully consequential air, though he was trying very hard not to look conceited; and while he was endeavouring to appear easy and gracefully careless, he began accidentally to hum, “See the Conquering Hero Comes,” which was not the right tune under the circumstances.

“But for you,” he said next, “I couldn’t have given them the relief and pleasure of seeing me this evening.  And what ecstasy it will be to them, to be sure!  I shouldn’t be surprised if it broke up the whole thing.  They’ll faint so—­for joy, you know—­just at first—­that is, the ladies will.  The men won’t like it at all; and I don’t blame ’em.  I suppose I shouldn’t like it—­to see another fellow sweep all before him.  That’s what I do; I sweep all before me.”  And he waved his hand in such a fine large gesture that he overbalanced himself, and turned a somersault.  But he jumped up after it quite undisturbed.

“You’ll see me do it to-night,” he said, knocking the dents out of his hat—­“sweep all before me.”  Then he put his hat on, and his hands on his hips, with a swaggering, man-of-society air.  “I say,” he said, “I’m glad you’re going.  I should like you to see it.”

“And I should like to see it,” replied Fairyfoot.

“Well,” said Mr. Goodfellow, “you deserve it, though that’s saying a great deal.  You’ve restored me to them.  But for you, even if I’d escaped that hawk, I should have had to spend the night in that beastly robin’s nest, crowded into a corner by those squawking things, and domineered over by her!  I wasn’t made for that!  I’m superior to it.  Domestic life doesn’t suit me.  I was made for society.  I adorn it.  She never appreciated me.  She couldn’t soar to it.  When I think of the way she treated me,” he exclaimed, suddenly getting into a rage, “I’ve a great mind to turn back into a robin and peck her head off!”

“Would you like to see her now?” asked Fairyfoot, innocently.

Mr. Goodfellow glanced behind him in great haste, and suddenly sat down.

“No, no!” he exclaimed in a tremendous hurry; “by no means!  She has no delicacy.  And she doesn’t deserve to see me.  And there’s a violence and uncertainty about her movements which is annoying beyond anything you can imagine.  No, I don’t want to see her!  I’ll let her go unpunished for the present.  Perhaps it’s punishment enough for her to be deprived of me.  Just pick up your cap, won’t you? and if you see any birds lying about, throw it at them, robins particularly.”

“I think I must take the swine home, if you’ll excuse me,” said Fairyfoot, “I’m late now.”

“Well, let me sit on your shoulder and I’ll go with you and show you a short way home,” said Goodfellow; “I know all about it, so you needn’t think about yourself again.  In fact, we’ll talk about the party.  Just blow your whistle, and the swine will go ahead.”

Fairyfoot did so, and the swine rushed through the forest before them, and Robin Goodfellow perched himself on the Prince’s shoulder, and chatted as they went.

It had taken Fairyfoot hours to reach the place where he found Robin, but somehow it seemed to him only a very short time before they came to the open place near the swineherd’s hut; and the path they had walked in had been so pleasant and flowery that it had been delightful all the way.

“Now,” said Robin when they stopped, “if you will come here to-night at twelve o’clock, when the moon shines under this tree, you will find me waiting for you.  Now I’m going.  Good-bye!” And he was gone before the last word was quite finished.

Fairyfoot went towards the hut, driving the swine before him, and suddenly he saw the swineherd come out of his house, and stand staring stupidly at the pigs.  He was a very coarse, hideous man, with bristling yellow hair, and little eyes, and a face rather like a pig’s, and he always looked stupid, but just now he looked more stupid than ever.  He seemed dumb with surprise.

“What’s the matter with the swine?” he asked in his hoarse voice, which was rather piglike, too.

“I don’t know,” answered Fairyfoot, feeling a little alarmed.  “What is the matter with them?”

“They are four times fatter, and five times bigger, and six times cleaner, and seven times heavier, and eight times handsomer than they were when you took them out,” the swineherd said.

“I’ve done nothing to them,” said Fairyfoot.  “They ran away, but they came back again.”

The swineherd went lumbering back into the hut, and called his wife.

“Come and look at the swine,” he said.

And then the woman came out, and stared first at the swine and then at Fairyfoot.

“He has been with the fairies,” she said at last to her husband; “or it is because he is a king’s son.  We must treat him better if he can do wonders like that.”

[Illustration:  “WHAT’S THE MATTER WITH THE SWINE?” HE ASKED.]