There was a certain white sugar bear and a red candy strawberry which we had been charged not to eat, because the strawberry was a nameless scarlet and the bear, left from Christmas, was a very soiled bear. We had all looked at these two things longingly, had even on occasion nibbled them a bit. There came a day when I crept under my bed and ate them both.  
It was a bed with slats. In the slat immediately above my head there was a knot-hole. Knot-hole, slat, the pattern of the ticking on the mattress, all remain graven on the moment. It was the first time that I had actually been conscious of—indeed, had almost heard—the fighting going on within me.
 
Something was saying: “Oh, eat it, eat it. What do you care? It won’t kill you. It may not even make you sick. It is good. Eat it.”
 
And something else, something gentle, insistent, steady, kept saying over and over in248 exactly the same tone, and so that I did not know whether the warning came from within or without:—
 
“It must not be eaten. It must not be eaten. It must not be eaten.”
 
But after a little, as I ate, this voice ceased.
 
Nobody knew that I had eaten the forbidden bear and strawberry. Grandmother Beers squeezed my hand just the same. Mother was as tender as always. And Father—his kind eyes and some little jest with me were almost more than I could bear. I remember spending the evening near them, with something sore about the whole time. From the moment that it began to get dark the presence of bear and strawberry came and fastened themselves upon me, so that I delayed bed-going even more than usual, and interminably prolonged undressing.
 
Then there came the moment when Mother sat beside me.
 
“Don’t ask God for anything,” she always said to me. “Just shut your eyes and think of his lovingness being here, close, close, close—breathing with you like your breath. Don’t ask him for anything.”
 
But that night I scrambled into bed.
 
249 “Not to-night, Mother,” I said.
 
She never said anything when I said that. She kissed me and went away.
 
Then!
 
There I was, face to face with it at last. What was it that had told me to eat the bear and the strawberry? What was it that had told me that these must not be eaten? What had made me obey one and not the other? Who was it that spoke to me like that?
 
I shut my eyes and thought of the voice that had told me to eat, and it felt like the sore feeling in me and like the lump in my throat, and like unhappiness.
 
I thought of the other gentle voice that had spoken and had kept speaking and at last had gone away—and suddenly, with my eyes shut, I was thinking of something like lovingness, close, close, breathing with me like my breath.
 
So now I have made a story for that night. It is late, I know. But perhaps it is not too late.
 
Once upon a time a beautiful present was given to a little boy named Hazen. It was not a tent or a launch or a tree-top house or a pretend aeroplane, but it was a little glass casket. And250 it was the most wonderful little casket of all the kinds of caskets that there are.
 
For in the casket was a little live thing, somewhat like a fairy and somewhat like a spirit, and so beautiful that everyone wanted one too.
 
Now the little fairy (that was like a spirit) was held fast in the casket, which was tightly sealed. And when the casket was given to Hazen, the Giver said:—
 
“Hazen dear, until you get that little spirit free, you cannot be wise or really good or loved or beautiful. But after you get her free you shall be all four. And nobody can free her but you yourself, though you may ask anybody and everybody to tell you how.”
 
Now Hazen’s father was a king. And it chanced that while Hazen was yet a little boy, the king of a neighbour country came and took Hazen’s father’s kingdom, and killed all the court—for that was the way neighbour countries did in those days, not knowing that neighbours are nearly one’s own family. They took little Hazen prisoner and carried him to the conquering king’s court, and they did it in such a hurry that he had not time to take anything with him. All his belongings—his tops, his251 football, his books, and his bank, had to be left behind, and among the things that were left was Hazen’s little glass casket, forgotten on a closet shelf, upstairs in the castle. And the castle was shut up and left as it was, because the conquering king thought that maybe he might like sometime to give to his little daughter, the Princess Vista, this castle, which stood on the very summit of a sovereign mountain and commanded a great deal of the world.
 
In the court of the conquering king poor little Hazen grew up, and he was not wise or really good or loved or beautiful, and he forgot about the casket or thought of it only as a dream, and he did not know that he was a prince. He was a poor little furnace boy and kitchen-fire builder in the king’s palace, and he slept in the basement and did nothing from morning till night but attend to drafts and dampers. He did not see the king at all, and he had never even caught a glimpse of the king’s little daughter, the Princess Vista.
 
One morning before daylight Hazen was awakened by the alarm-in-a-basin at the head of his cot—for he was always so tired that just an alarm never wakened him at all, but set in252 a brazen basin an alarm would waken anybody. He dressed and hurried through the long, dim passages that led to the kitchens, and there he kindled the fires and tended the drafts and shovelled the coal that should cook the king’s breakfast.
 
Suddenly a Thought spoke to him. It said:—
 
“Hazen, you are not wise, or really good, or loved, or beautiful. Why don’t you become so?”
 
“I,” Hazen thought back sadly, “I become these things? Impossible!” and he went on shovelling coal.
 
But still the Thought spoke to him, and said the same thing over and over so many times that at last he was obliged to listen and even to answer.
 
“What would I do to be like that?” he asked almost impatiently.
 
“First go up in the king’s library,” said the Thought.
 
So when the fires were roaring and the dampers were right, Hazen went softly up the stair and through the quiet lower rooms of the palace, for it was very early in the morning, and no one was stirring. Hazen had been so seldom253 above stairs that he did not even know where the library was and by mistake he opened successively the doors to the great banquet room, the state drawing rooms, a morning room, and even the king’s audience chamber before at last he chanced on the door of the library.
 
The king’s library was a room as wide as a lawn and as high as a tree, and it was filled with books, and the shelves were thrown out to make alcoves, so that the books were as thick as leaves on branches, and the whole room was pleasant, like something good to do. It was impossible for little Hazen, furnace boy though he was, to be in that great place of books without taking one down. So he took at random a big leather book with a picture on the cover, and he went toward a deep window-seat.
 
Nothing could have exceeded his surprise and terror when he perceived the window-seat to be occupied. And nothing could have exceeded his wonder and delight when he saw who occupied it. She was a little girl of barely his own age, and her lovely waving hair fell over her soft blue gown from which her little blue slippers were peeping. She, too, had a great book in her arms, and over the top of this she was254 looking straight at Hazen in extreme disapproval.
 
“Will you have the goodness,” she said—speaking very slowly and most freezing cold—“to ’splain what you are doing in my father’s library?”
 
At these words Hazen’s little knees should have shaken, for he understood that this was the Princess Vista herself. But instead, he was so possessed by the beauty and charm of the little princess that there was no room for fear. Though he had never in his life been taught to bow, yet the blood of his father the king, and of his father the king, and of his father the king, and so on, over and over, stirred in him and he bowed like the prince he was-but-didn’t-know-it.
 
“Oh, princess,” he said, “I want to be wise and really good and loved and beautiful, and I have come to the king’s library to find out how to do it.”
 
“Who are you, that want so many ’surd things?” asked the princess, curiously.
 
“I am the furnace boy,” said the poor prince, “and my other name is Hazen.”
 
At this the princess laughed aloud—for when he had bowed she had fancied that he might be255 at least the servant to some nobleman at the court, too poor to keep his foot-page in livery.
 
“The furnace boy indeed!” she cried. “And handling my father’s books. If you had what you ’serve, you’d be put in pwison.”
 
At that Hazen bowed again very sadly, and was about to put back his book when footsteps sounded in the hall, and nursery governesses and chamberlains and foot-pages and lackeys and many whose names are as dust came running down the stairs, all looking for the princess. And the princess, who was not frightened, was suddenly sorry for little Hazen, who was.
 
“Listen,” she said, “you bow so nicely that you may hide in that alcove and I will not tell them that you are there. But don’t you come here to-morrow morning when I come to read my book, or I can’t tell what will happen.”
 
Hazen had just time to slip in the alcove when all the nursery governesses, chamberlains, foot-pages, and those whose names are as dust burst in the room.
 
“I was just coming,” said the princess, haughtily.
 
But when she was gone, Hazen, in his safe alcove, did not once look at his big leather book.256 He did not even open it. Instead he sat staring at the floor, and thinking and thinking and thinking of the princess. And it was as if his mind were opened, and as if all the princess thoughts in the world were running in, one after another.
 
Presently, when it was time for the palace to be awake, he stirred and rose and returned the book to its place, and in the midst of his princess thoughts he found himself face to face with a great mirror. And there he saw that, not only was he not beautiful, but that his cheek and his clothes were all blackened from the coal. And then he thought that he would die of shame; first, because the princess had seen him looking so, and second, because he looked so, whether she had seen him or not.
 
He went back to the palace kitchen, and waited only to turn off the biggest drafts and the longest dampers before he began to wash his face and give dainty care to his hands. In fact, he did this all day long and sat up half the night trying to think how he could be as exquisitely neat as the little princess. And at last when daylight came and he had put coal in the kitchen ranges and had left the drafts right and had taken another bath after, he257 dressed himself in his poor best which he had most carefully brushed, and he ran straight back up the stair and into the king’s library.
 
The Princess Vista was not there. But it was very, very early this time and the sun was still playing about outside, and so he set himself to wait, looking up at the window-seat where he had first seen her. As soon as the sun began to slant in the latticed windows in earnest, the door opened and the princess entered, her waving hair falling on her blue gown, and the little blue slippers peeping.
 
When she saw Hazen, she stood still and spoke most freezing cold.
 
“Didn’t I tell you on no ’count to come here this morning?” she wished to know.
 
Generations of kings for ages back bowed in a body in little Hazen.
 
“Did your Highness not know that I would come?” he asked simply.
 
“Yes,” said the princess to that, and sat down on the window-seat. “I will punish you,” said she, “but you bow so nicely that I will help you first. Why do you wish to be wise?”
 
“I thought that I had another reason,” said Hazen, “but it is because you are wise.”
 
258 “I’m not so very wise,” said the princess, modestly. “But I could make you as wise as I am,” she suggested graciously. “What do you want to know?”
 
There was so much that he wanted to know! Down in the dark furnace room he had been forever wondering about the fires that he kindled, about the light that he did not have, about everything. He threw out his arms.
 
“I want to know about the whole world!” he cried.
 
The princess considered.
 
“Perhaps they haven’t teached me everything yet,” she said. “What do you want to know about the world?”
 
Hazen looked out the window and across the palace garden, lying all golden-green in the slow opening light, with fountains and flowers and parks and goldfish everywhere.
 
“What makes it get day?” he asked. For since he had been a furnace boy, Hazen had been taught nothing at all.
 
“Why, the sun comes,” answered the princess.
 
“Is it the same sun every day?” Hazen asked.
 
“I don’t think so,” said the princess. “No—sometimes it is a red sun. Sometimes it is259 a hot sun. Sometimes it is big, big, when it goes down. Oh, no. I am quite sure a different sun comes up every day.”
 
“Where do they get ’em all?” Hazen asked wonderingly.
 
“Well,” the princess said thoughtfully, “suns must be like cwort (she never could say “court”) processions. I think they always have them ready somewheres. What else do you want to know about?”
 
“About the Spring,” said Hazen. “Where does that come from? Where do they get it?”
 
“They never teached me that,” said the princess, “but I think Summer is the mother, and Winter the father, and Autumn is the noisy little boy, and Spring is the little girl, with violets on.”
 
“Of course,” cried Hazen, joyfully. “I never thought of that. Why can’t they talk?” he asked.
 
“They ’most can,” said the princess. “Some day maybe I can teach you what they say. What else do you want to know?”
 
“About people,” said Hazen. “Why are some folks good and some folks bad? Why is the king kind and the cook cross?”
 
260 “Oh, they never teached me that!” the princess cried, impatiently. “What a lot of things you ask!”
 
“One more question, your Highness,” said Hazen, instantly. “Why are you so beautiful?”
 
The princess smiled. “Now I’ll teach you my picture-book through,” she said.
 
She opened the picture-book and showed him pictures of castles and beasts and lawns and towers and ladies and mountains and bright birds and pillars and cataracts and wild white horses and, last, a picture of a prince setting forth on a quest. “Prince Living sets out to make his fortune,” it said under the picture, and Hazen stared at it.
 
“Why shouldn’t I set out to make my fortune?” he cried.
 
The princess laughed.
 
“You are a furnace boy,” she explained. “They don’t make fortunes. Who would mind the furnace if they did?”
 
Hazen sprang to his feet.
 
“That can’t be the way the world is!” he cried. “Not when it’s so pretty and all stuck full of goldfish and fountains and flowers and parks. If I went, I would make my fortune!”
 
261 The princess crossed her little slippered feet and looked at him. And when he met her eyes, he was ashamed of his anger, though not of his earnestness, and he bowed again; and all the kings of all the courts of his ancestors were in the bow.
 
“After all,” said the princess, “we don’t have the furnace in Summer. And you bow so nicely that I b’lieve I will help you to make your fortune. Anyhow, I can help you to set out.”
 
Hazen was in the greatest joy. The princess bade him wait where he was, and she ran away and found somewhere a cast-off page boy’s dress and a cap with a plume and a little silver horn and a wallet, with some bread. These she brought to Hazen just as footsteps sounded on the stairs, and nursery governesses and chamberlains and foot-pages and many whose names are as dust came running pell-mell down the stairs, all looking for the princess.
 
“Hide in that alcove,” said the princess, “till I am gone. Then put on this dress and go out at the east gate which no one can lock. And as you go by the east wing, do not look up at my window or I will wave my hand and somebody may see you going. Now good-bye.”
 
But at that Hazen was suddenly wretched.
 
262 “I can’t leave you!” he said. “How can I leave you?”
 
“People always leave people,” said the princess, with superiority. “Play that’s one of the things I teached you.”
 
At this Hazen suddenly dropped on one knee—the kings, his fathers, did that for him too—and kissed the princess’s little hand. And as suddenly she wished very much that she had something to give him.
 
“Here,” she said, “here’s my picture-book. Take it with you and learn it through. Now good-bye.”
 
And Hazen had just time to slip in the alcove when all the n. g.’s, c.’s, f. p.’s, and l.’s, whom there wasn’t time to spell out, as well as all those whose names are now dust, burst in the room.
 
“I was just coming,” said the princess, and went.
 
Hazen dressed himself in the foot-page’s livery and fastened the wallet at one side and the little silver horn at the other, and put on the cap with a plume; and he stole into the king’s garden, with the picture-book of the princess fast in his hand.
 
He had not been in a garden since he had left263 his father’s garden, which he could just remember, and to be outdoors now seemed as wonderful as bathing in the ocean, or standing on a high mountain, or seeing the dawn. He hastened along between the flowering shrubs and hollyhocks; he heard the fountains plashing and the song-sparrows singing and the village bells faintly sounding; he saw the goldfish and the water-lilies gleam in the pool and the horses cantering about the paddock. And all at once it seemed that the day was his, to do with what he would, and he felt as if already that were a kind of fortune in his hand. So he hurried round the east wing of the palace and looked up eagerly toward the princess’s window. And there stood the Princess Vista, watching, with her hair partly brushed.
 
When she saw him, she leaned far out.
 
“I told you not to look,” she said. “Somebody will see you going.”
 
“I don’t care if anyone does,” cried Hazen. “I had to!”
 
“How fine you look now,” the princess could not help saying.
 
“You are beautiful as the whole picture-book!” he could not h............