Free The King of the Hummingbirds by John Gardner Page A

the owls he’d allowed to roost on the rafters flew down to him and fanned Olaf’s fire with their wings; the wolves he’d allowed to hide under his bench when there were hunters about came and helped him to line up the pots when he’d finished with the mending; and the huge, burly thieves he’d allowed into the cellar when they escaped from the sheriff (who’d gotten trapped in conversation with the mayor) sang him barbershop quartets. So the work went quickly, and when he was through Olaf stretched out by the fire and wondered what he could do, now that he was king, for his people. “I wonder if I should assemble my parliament,” he mused. However, since he wasn’t certain what a parliament was, he let it go and fell sound asleep. Immediately the mice began chasing the ants, and the owls began chasing the mice, the wolves began chasing the owls, and the huge, burly thieves began hitting at the wolves with their big heavy clubs. Such was the world whenever Olaf turned his back. Soon the room was completely empty, except for Olaf, and the fire had shriveled to an ash.
    Now as luck would have it, the king of the kingdom where Olaf lived had one great passion, and that was walking in the garden with his daughter the princess. Everything was all right until one day when, as he closed the garden gate, the thorn of a rose got caught in the lock in just such a way that not even wizardry could open it. As the thorn got stiffer and stiffer, for lack of moisture, the lock got more and more difficult to open. And the more days that passed with the gate unopened, the more the blowing sand sealed up the crack. The more the sand sealed up the crack, the darker that part of the wall became, and the more the honeybees who lived in the garden began to build their hives there. That wouldn’t have been so bad, but the more the honeybees built hives on that wall, the more the bears from the surrounding woods began to climb over the wall for the honey. The king tried everything, but nothing worked. The wall was too high for a man to climb and also too covered with honeybees; the gate wouldn’t budge, and any excessive commotion would stir up the bears into a dangerous wrath. It was bad enough that the king could no longer walk in his garden, but that was not the worst of it. He had inadvertently closed the gate before the princess was out. She was therefore still in there, and she was deathly afraid of bears.

    The king sent out a proclamation that whoever could open the garden gate would have half the kingdom and his daughter’s hand in marriage.
    Everyone came from miles around, from knights to cobblers, but no one had any luck. At last the coppersmith sent his two eldest sons. This, he thought, would be his big chance. If one of his sons became a king, he himself would become, surely, at least a knight. Olaf, however, he refused to allow to go. Olaf hung his head, understanding exactly how his father felt. But he muttered to his mother in privacy, “Just the same, I may be more important than some people think.” His mother smiled sadly and patted him on the shoulder and felt depressed.
    â€œYour Majesty,” said the eldest son of the coppersmith when he got to the castle, “I’ve come to unlock that gate.”
    â€œTalk’s cheap,” said the king. He waved the young man off in the general direction of the garden, and he did not even bother to go with him. He’d seen many a failure these past few weeks, and he was losing interest.
    Now the coppersmith’s eldest son had one great virtue, which was that he always saw through to the heart of a problem. And so he did in this case. He packed dynamite all around the gate and unwound the fuse till he could place the plunger in the middle of the castle yard, a hundred feet away. Then he called out, “Stand back, princess.” But at the sound of his voice, a huge bear came over the wall and began to chase him,