this afternoon!"
"Why shouldn't I look cheerful when I have been offered feasts of hot bar iron, frozen quicksilver, a dewdrop and a gnat's leg, and seven cartloads of mud?" laughed Knut.
"Why, that is a good many courses for one day," said Mr. Peterman. "One ought not to think much about food. When any one constantly thinks of what he can get to eat, he is in danger of encountering trolls and such like, who only fool him. But perhaps you are hungry, my boy?"
Knut blinked in embarrassment, squeezed his cap between his hands and said that he was not yet exactly starved to death.
"Now that rejoices me!" exclaimed Mr. Peterman. "I ate a late breakfast and the servants have not yet had time to pluck all the birds. You just wait until eight o'clock and then you shall have some supper."
This was worse than hot bar iron and seven cartloads of mud, Knut thought; but he bit his nails and answered that he could wait, of course, adding to himself, however, "I had better say the Catechism over again to pass the time."
Now this Mr. Peterman was a great joker and was only teasing Knut. He had himself been a poor boy and knew well enough what it meant, when famished, to wait four hours more for food.
"Knut Spelevink," said he, "I perceive that you can do more than think about things to eat. Do you realize that conquering one's self and being able to give up, even to the very necessities of life, what one craves here in this world is a kind of heroism? You can conquer yourself like a hero and keep your merry humor through everything. I like you, my boy, and I am sure you will make a fine man if you have enough to eat and go to school as I mean you shall; for I am going to look after you from this time on.
"But what does that mean?" continued Mr. Peterman, sniffing. "It seems to me I smell roast bird! Walk in, my boy. You shall sit with me, at my own table, and for once in your life eat all you want."
When Mr. Peterman said "What does that mean?" Knut thought it sounded as if catechising were going to begin; but the door to the dining-room was thrown open at that moment, and there stood a dinner-table laden with smoking-hot savory food awaiting the hungry guests.
Mr. Peterman led Knut in by the hand and Knut sat at the table like a lord; and there he might have been sitting yet if he had not long since carried home the promised piece of cheese to his grandmother, and been sent to school.
As for the magic pipe, he had used that three times and once more, and it had served him well in Kiikkala Forest; but try as he might he could never again get the magic tones from it, and one day he lost it. The Catechism, however, stayed in his mind, and Knut could recite it from end to end any time he was asked.
—Z. Topelius.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Pronounced K'nūt Spā-lě-veenk.
[2] "Spelevink" may be translated "Merrymouth."
THE PRINCESS LINDAGULL[3]
Come, boys and girls, let us fly on the wings of the wind to the land of a thousand tales, to the home of roses and tulips! to the land where beautiful fairies build their castles in the red sunrise, and black gnomes flit around in the darkness of midnight; where the sun shines like fire over the blue mountains in Afghanistan, and the quiet water-lilies are reflected in the deep lakes; where tigers' eyes gleam between the reeds by the shore, and where sun-browned, dark-eyed people glow with hate and burn with love. Let us fly to Persia!
CHAPTER I
The Palace of Shah Nadir
There was once a Persian king whose name was Shah Nadir, and who was exceedingly rich. Large and beautiful countries with many millions of people were under his sway. Great rooms in his palace were filled with gold and precious stones; and his ships, laden with the riches of India, sailed over every sea. When he appeared in his capital city, Ispahan, he was surrounded by a life guard of a thousand men dressed in silver armor which glistened in the sun; and fifty thousand knights on most beautiful horses, with golden saddles and harnesses glittering with jewels, stood ready to speed away and conquer the world at his bidding.
But the mighty Shah Nadir was old and had no longer any desire for war and conquest. He had won many battles; many hostile cities had perished in ashes before his wrath; and many, many a knight had been pierced through by his sword in the days when his arm was young and none could withstand him.
But now he was old and weary, and liked best to recline on the luxurious purple divans of his gorgeous palace. Occasionally, however, when golden-edged clouds shielded the burning Persian sun, and a delightful breeze blew down from Mt. Zagrosch, the old Shah would seat himself in his richly ornamented palanquin borne by eight black slaves clad in silver tissue, and allow himself to be carried out that he might review his troops or watch the wild animals fighting in the arena.
Shah Nadir had many sons, because he had also many wives, as is the custom in eastern lands; but his sons brought him little joy. They were thankless and full of selfish ambition, thinking that their father lived too long, and plotting against his life and his throne. Therefore the king drove them all away from his court to distant provinces which they ruled over as viceroys. But he kept at home with himself his dear and only daughter, the Princess Lindagull, because he loved her more than all else on earth—yes, more than all his treasures and all his riches.
Now it is well known that such a name as "Lindagull" had never before been heard in Persia, nor could it indeed be rightly pronounced by the Persians. The mother of the princess had come from the far North, no one knew exactly whence. She had been captured in her youth by African pirates, and after many adventures had been sold to the king of Persia, who, on account of her extreme beauty, took her in wedlock and loved her more than all his other wives.
This beautiful sultana, who was now dead, had called her only daughter "Lindagull," signifying that the princess was as lovely and pure as the gold of the sun, shimmering through the lindens of the North.
And it is true that a more beautiful or purer being could not be found if you searched the wide world over than the Princess Lindagull. She had the royal bearing of her father; but in form and disposition she was like her mother. With a complexion as dazzling as Scandinavian snow and eyes as soft as August stars on a moonless night, she had also a heart noble, tender and good; and so there was no one in Shah Nadir's whole kingdom who did not love the Princess Lindagull; for the fame of her beauty and goodness had spread through all Persia. This the old king knew full well, and his proud heart melted like wax every time he looked upon
