The Emperor of China was about to choose a bride. From far and near the fairest ladies of the realm came to his palace. They sat on pearly thrones which were borne on the shoulders of Hindu slaves or drawn by spotted leopards and some were floated down the great rivers on rafts woven of long-stemmed Lotos flowers.
Nikko stood sadly by the roadside watching the grand procession pass. She was more beautiful than any of the splendid ladies, but she was poor and humble and had to work in the rice-fields where the muddy water tickled her little bare toes.
 
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“I cannot work in the rice-fields to-day,” she said to herself, “for the procession is so interesting that I have to stand by the roadside and watch. I had better go into the woods, where I can’t see it, and pick some mushrooms for dinner.”
 
So she took her basket and went into the woods. But before she had picked the first handful, she saw a tremendous scarlet toadstool spangled all over with silver dots, swaying on a tall silvery stem. It was the most enormous toadstool she had ever seen, so big that Nikko could have hidden under its flapping top. She wanted to pull it up and carry it as a parasol, but just then she looked over the edge and noticed that a pearly Snail and a golden Spider were sitting on top having tea together. The Snail turned around and stuck out his eyes at her like opera-glasses.
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“Excuse me,” said Nikko. “I almost picked your toadstool for a parasol! I didn’t see you.”
“Why should a little girl want a parasol?” asked the Snail as solemnly as a great-aunt. “You’re very vain.”
“Oh no indeed,” replied Nikko. “But I should like to pretend I was a grand lady, going to the Emperor’s palace to-day. I should love to see the Emperor.”
“So should I,” said the Spider.
“Well, so should I,” admitted the Snail. “Why don’t you go?”
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“Ah, but look at me!” cried Nikko sadly. “I have on a hempen frock and my feet are bare and I have not a single jewel, only this string of red berries round my neck! But to ride in the procession one must sit on a pearly throne and wear a silken gown and jewelry and carry a pretty parasol. I have none of these things.”
“I will make you a dress more beautiful than silk,” said the Spider, “if you will take me along to see the Emperor!”
“And I could take the toadstool for a parasol, if you wouldn’t mind having tea somewhere else,” Nikko said. “But alas! what should I do for a pearly throne?”
“Well, now you mention it,” chimed in the Snail, “if I could eat enough tea and toast I might grow big enough to carry you, and my house would make a pretty good throne. Yes, perhaps I’ll carry you, if you will get me the tea and toast; for I must confess I should love to see the Emperor!”
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As fast as her bare feet could carry her, Nikko ran home, took all the tea out of the canister, baked six batches of bread, put them in a bucket and carried them back to the forest. She then laid a fire of sticks and began to make toast so ambitiously that the scent of it could be smelled all over China from the Great Wall at one end to the Yellow Sea at the other. And above the fire hung the bucket, filled with water for the Snail’s tea.
 
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The Snail filled his acorn-cup a million times that day and ate toast till the sun went down. Then he rested for a few minutes, but when night came he began again and you could hear him munching in the dark.
 
In the morning he was so big that he had to descend from the toadstool for fear of breaking its stem. By evening he was as big as a football, and by the next morning as big as the biggest snow-ball you ever made, and before the third day, he was big enough to carry Nikko on his back.
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Meanwhile the Spider had been very busy. He had spun a wonderful silken gown, all decked with dew-drops and inwrought with the wings of butterflies, and when he had watched Nikko put it on and made sure that it fitted perfectly, he fastened himself in front for a brooch. Nikko was delighted. But suddenly she exclaimed:
“Alas, I have no shoes! The grand ladies all wear tiny beaded shoes. What shall I do with my feet?”
“Oh, never mind your feet,” replied the Snail. “You’ll be riding all the time so you can keep them tucked under your gown.”
So they picked the scarlet toadstool for a parasol, set Nikko a-top the Snail with her feet well hidden, and started on their way.
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The procession was almost over; only a few stragglers hurried along the highroad, and they all overtook poor Nikko, for a Snail can go just half a mile an hour and no faster. A haughty four-in-hand of peacocks passed her at a strut, tails spread and crests erect; a team of pig-tailed Chinamen running for all they were worth and jolting their mistress till she was dizzy, almost stumbled headlong over the Snail; four turbaned slaves overtook her and then looked back open-mouthed at the beautiful lady; and a spotted leopard, loping in front of a gorgeous princess’ throne, shied in terror when the Snail happened to stick out his eyes, and the leopard, the throne and the gorgeous princess were wrecked in the muddy water of the rice-field beside the road.
When they came to the palace they heard the bells ringing, the big gongs sounding and the conches blowing, and saw great kites and paper lanterns and balloons swinging in the air, for the Emperor had just chosen a bride and the procession was all over! The bride was the beautiful lady Lu Tsing, who now sat beside him on the terrace and smiled down on all the other ladies. Her maidens and attendants sat at her feet and told her how fortunate she was.
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“How did you feel when you rode in the procession?” asked one of the maidens.
“Weren’t you dreadfully excited till you knew whom his Majesty would choose?”
Lu Tsing yawned behind her fan.
“No,” she replied, “I wasn’t a bit excited, for I knew of course that he would choose me.”
 
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Just then the big Snail came plodding along the road, and they all got a glimpse of Nikko’s face under the scarlet parasol. She was so lovely to behold that everybody gasped. But the Emperor did more than gasp; he jumped up from his ivory chair and cried,
“Friends, Courtiers, Chinamen! I have changed my mind! I am not going to marry Lu Tsing after all, but this unknown damsel whose name has never been heard in the land!”
Then the bells were tolled and the gongs sounded and the conches blown louder than ever, as a hundred slaves hurried down the steps to pick up Nikko’s throne and carry her up to the terrace. Then the Snail withdrew into his house, for he was ticklish, and the Spider whispered to Nikko under cover of all the noise:
“You must not be found with a real spider on your breast! I will leave you now, and you can say you have lost your pin.”
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With these words he dropped to the ground and ran when he thought no one would notice. But one person did notice; that was the lady Lu Tsing. She tried to kill him with her foot, but he escaped again and again, till suddenly she picked up a cup from the tea-table, turned it up-side down and trapped him under it.
The Emperor greeted Nikko with honeyed words, but the lady Lu Tsing having caught the Spider, retreated to the furthest, darkest chamber of the palace, where she tore up all the curtains and bed-spreads and bureau-scarfs in her wrath till the room looked like a rag-man’s house. Then she sat down among the wreckage and plotted revenge.
 
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Nikko would have been quite happy if she had not been so worried about her bare feet. Sooner or later they would be discovered and oh, what would the Emperor think of her then? Just now he took her hand and said to her:
“My dear, you must tell me what you would like for a wedding gift!” And Nikko almost cried out: “Shoes, your Majesty, shoes!” but she did not want to give herself away, so she replied,
“Well, I do not know which I would rather have, a bright brocaded shawl or a new pair of slippers!”
“You shall have both,” declared the Emperor, and ordered a maiden to fetch them. Nikko donned the shawl and slipped on the little shoes but they were so small that they hurt her feet dreadfully.
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“Ah well,” she said to herself, biting back tears of pain. “I shall have to get used to some discomforts now that I am to be an Empress!”
She had been Empress for about a week, when her husband the Emperor fell very ill. It really was indigestion after the wedding-feast, but of course the doctors wanted to make it something more dignified, so they said:
“He must have been bitten by a poisonous insect!”
 
“Yes, and I know who it was,” said Lu Tsing to her attendants. “It was the golden Spider who sat on Nikko’s breast when she came! Everybody thought it was a pin, but it really was a Spider, for I saw him creep away!” and the attendants went about the palace telling everybody how Nikko had worn a live Spider for a pin.
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Nikko was very anxious about her husband. He lay on a couch in the parlor because he ............