Free The Little Bookroom by Eleanor Farjeon Page B

beckoned Joe nearer. ‘What do you want, Woodman? Name it, and it is yours.’
    The Princess looked at Joe, and he looked at the Princess, with her white dress and her lemon-coloured locks. But he knew he must not ask for what he wanted most. So he put it out of his mind, and said, ‘I would be glad of an extra mattress, so that I could lie on it instead of on the floor.’
    â€˜You shall have the best in the kingdom,’ said the King.
    But the Princess cried quickly, ‘He must have something besides, for last year he also gave me what I wanted!’ And she held up the old brass wedding-ring.
    The King, being as good as his word, turned again to Joe, and asked, ‘What else do you want?’
    Joe clasped the Clumber Pup to his heart, but of course he could not ask for it, for the Princess would die of longing if he took his dog away. So he put the thought from him, and said, ‘When I came to this place, I left behind me, in my dwelling far away, my father’s old chair. I should like to have that chair to sit in of a night, if it was doing nobody a bad turn.’
    The King smiled graciously, and said, ‘The chair shall be brought to you this very night, and in its place we will leave the best chair in the kingdom.’
    He made a sign that the audience was ended, but the Princess cried still quicker than before, ‘No, father! he must ask for a third thing, because two years ago he gave me this.’ And she pulled out of her dress the old blotted love-letter, which was now older and more blotted than ever. The King took it from her, opened it curiously, and read aloud for all the court to hear:
    Â 
    â€˜M y L ove !
    â€˜I love you because you are lovely like my Pup.
    â€˜Joe Jolly.’
    The Princess hid her face in her honey cat.
    â€˜Are you Joe Jolly!’ asked the King.
    â€˜Yes, sir,’ said Joe.
    â€˜Did you write this?’
    â€˜Yes, sir.’
    â€˜And is it true?’
    Joe looked from his white pup, with its lemon head, to the white-robed Princess with her lemon hair, and said for the third time, ‘Yes, sir.’
    â€˜Then,’ said the King, ‘you must ask for the thing you want most in the world.’
    Joe looked longingly at the Clumber Pup, and kissed it hard between the eyes. Then he looked at the Princess, but she wouldn’t look at him. He had to say something, and at last said slowly, ‘As I can’t have my pup, I’ll have the honey cat.’
    â€˜Oh!’ cried the Princess quickly, ‘you can’t have my cat without me!’
    â€˜Then,’ said Joe, quicker still, ‘you can’t have my dog without me!’
    â€˜So let it be!’ said the King. ‘One half of the year you shall live in the Woodman’s hut, and the other half in the palace; and wherever you live, the dog and the cat must live with you.’
    That very evening Joe Jolly took his bride back to the hut, the honey cat purring in her arms like an aeroplane, and the Clumber Pup leaping round them, being a happy nuisance. A bright fire burned on the hearth, supper was spread on the table, a soft mattress lay on the bed, and by the fire stood old John Jolly’s armchair. But the Clumber spaniel had disappeared for ever, and Daddy was gone too. When Joe came to inquire about him, he was told that the old Royal Woodman had died a month before Joe Jolly had come that way, and that the post had been left vacant till the right man appeared to fill it.

THE MIRACLE OF THE POOR ISLAND

    The Queen had a Pleasure Island, a little out to sea. When she wanted to make merry, she sailed there from her palace on the mainland, in a gilded barque, with silk flags flying. Her Court accompanied her, there were musicians on deck too, and she came to her Pleasure Island amid flowers and music. There she spent her days picnicking and dancing under the trees. Everything that could make her island rich and prosperous was brought there in