"As a Princess I think it is my duty to marry this brave shepherd who has delivered my country from this terrible dragon, and--and I think I should want to marry him anyway."

She said the last part of her speech in such a very low voice that only the shepherd himself heard it. But that was right enough because after all it was intended only for him.

So then and there beside the lake before even the shepherd had time to wash his face and hands and put on his smock the Tsar put the Princess's hand in his hand and p.r.o.nounced them betrothed.

After that the shepherd bathed in the lake and then refreshed and clean he sounded his bagpipes and he and the Princess and the Tsar and all the courtiers returned to the city driving the sheep before them.

All the townspeople came out to meet them and they danced to the music of the bagpipes and there was great rejoicing both over the death of the dragon and over the betrothal of the Princess and the brave shepherd.

The wedding took place at once and the wedding festivities lasted a week. Such feasting as the townspeople had! Such music and dancing!

When the wedding festivities were ended, the shepherd told the Tsar who he really was.

"You say you're a Prince!" the Tsar cried, perfectly delighted at this news. Then he declared he wasn't in the least surprised. In fact, he said, he had suspected as much from the first!

"Do you think it likely," he asked somewhat pompously, "that any daughter of mine would fall in love with a man who wasn't a prince?"

"I think I'd have fallen in love with you whatever you were!" whispered the Princess to her young husband. But she didn't let her father hear her!

The Prince told the Tsar about his brothers' captivity and how he must go home to release them, and the Tsar at once said that he and his bride might go provided they returned as soon as possible.

They agreed to this and the Tsar fitted out a splendid escort for them and sent them away with his blessing.

So the Prince now traveled back through the towns and villages of three kingdoms, across rivers and over mountains, no longer a humble shepherd on foot, but a rich and mighty personage riding in a manner that befitted his rank.

When he reached the deserted mill, his friend the old woman was waiting for him.

"I know, my Prince, you have succeeded for the monster has disappeared."

"Yes, granny, you are right: I have succeeded. I found the dragon in the lake, and the boar in the dragon, and the rabbit in the boar, and the pigeon in the rabbit, and the sparrow in the pigeon. I took the sparrow and killed it. So you are free now, granny, to return to your home. And soon all those other poor captives will be free."

He went behind the mill and found the three willow saplings. He cut them off and struck the old root. Sure enough a heavy iron door opened. This led down into a deep dungeon which was crowded with unfortunate prisoners. The Prince led them all out and sent them their various ways.

He found his own two brothers among them and led them home to his father.

There was great rejoicing in the King's house, and in the King's heart, too, for he had given up hope of ever seeing any of his sons again.

The King was so charmed with the Princess that he said it was a pity that she couldn't marry his oldest son so that she might one day be Queen.

"The Youngest Prince is a capable young man," the King said, "and there's no denying that he managed this business of killing the dragon very neatly. But he is after all only the Youngest Prince with very little hope of succeeding to the kingdom. If you hadn't married him in such haste one of his older brothers might easily have fallen in love with you."

"I don't regret my haste," the Princess said. "Besides he is now my father's heir. But that doesn't matter for I should be happy with the Youngest Prince if he were only a shepherd."

THE LITTLE SINGING FROG

[Ill.u.s.tration]

_The Story of a Girl Whose Parents Were Ashamed of Her_

THE LITTLE SINGING FROG

There was once a poor laborer and his wife who had no children. Every day the woman would sigh and say:

"If only we had a child!"

Then the man would sigh, too, and say:

"It would be pleasant to have a little daughter, wouldn't it?"

At last they went on a pilgrimage to a holy shrine and there they prayed G.o.d to give them a child.

"Any kind of a child!" the woman prayed. "I'd be thankful for a child of our own even if it were a frog!"

G.o.d heard their prayer and sent them a little daughter--not a little girl daughter, however, but a little frog daughter. They loved their little frog child dearly and played with her and laughed and clapped their hands as they watched her hopping about the house. But when the neighbors came in and whispered: "Why, that child of theirs is nothing but a frog!" they were ashamed and they decided that when people were about they had better keep their child hidden in a closet.

So the frog girl grew up without playmates of her own age, seeing only her father and mother. She used to play about her father as he worked.

He was a vine-dresser in a big vineyard and of course it was great fun for the little frog girl to hop about among the vines.

Every day at noontime the woman used to come to the vineyard carrying her husband's dinner in a basket. The years went by and she grew old and feeble and the daily trip to the vineyard began to tire her and the basket seemed to her to grow heavier and heavier.

"Let me help you, mother," the frog daughter said. "Let me carry father's dinner to him and you sit home and rest."

So from that time on the frog girl instead of the old woman carried the dinner basket to the vineyard. While the old man ate, the frog girl would hop up into the branches of a tree and sing. She sang very sweetly and her old father, when he petted her, used to call her his Little Singing Frog.

Now one day while she was singing the Tsar's Youngest Son rode by and heard her. He stopped his horse and looked this way and that but for the life of him he couldn't see who it was who was singing so sweetly.

"Who is singing?" he asked the old man.

But the old man who, as I told you before, was ashamed of his frog daughter before strangers, at first pretended not to hear and then, when the young Prince repeated his question, answered gruffly:

"There's no one singing!"

But the next day at the same hour when the Prince was again riding by he heard the same sweet voice and he stopped again and listened.

"Surely, old man," he said, "there is some one singing! It is a lovely girl, I know it is! Why, if I could find her, I'd be willing to marry her at once and take her home to my father, the Tsar!"

"Don't be rash, young man," the laborer said.

"I mean what I say!" the Prince declared. "I'd marry her in a minute!"

"Are you sure you would?"

"Yes, I'm sure!"