A poor beggar-man was sitting by the path and the young man changed clothes with him, and went clad in that wise into the king’s courtyard.  Nobody knew him, but the bird began to chirp, and the horse began to feed, and the beautiful princess ceased weeping.

“What does this mean?” said the king, astonished.

The princess answered: 

“I cannot tell, except that I was sad and now I am joyful; it is to me as if my rightful bridegroom had returned.”

Then she told him all that happened, although the two brothers had threatened to put her to death if she betrayed any of their secrets.  The king then ordered every person who was in the castle to be brought before him, and with the rest came the young man like a beggar in his wretched garments; but the princess knew him and greeted him lovingly, falling on his neck and kissing him.  The wicked brothers were seized and put to death, and the youngest brother was married to the princess and succeeded to the inheritance of his father.

But what became of the poor fox?  Long afterward the king’s son was going through the wood and the fox met him and said: 

“Now, you have everything that you can wish for, but my misfortunes never come to an end, and it lies in your power to free me from them.”  And once more he prayed the king’s son earnestly to slay him and cut off his head and feet.  So at last he consented, and no sooner was it done than the fox was changed into a man, and was no other than the brother of the beautiful princess; and thus he was set free from a spell that had bound him for a long, long time.

And now, indeed, there lacked nothing to their happiness as long as they lived.

FOOTNOTES: 

[Footnote 2:  This is a fairy tale, pure and simple, but we must have a little nonsense now and then, and it does us no harm, but on the contrary much good.]

Harry Pemberton’s Text.

BY ELIZABETH ARMSTRONG.

“He that hath clean hands and a pure heart.”

Harry Pemberton went down the street whistling a merry tune.  It was one I like very much, and you all know it, for it has been played by street bands and organs, and heard on every street corner for as many years as you boys have been living on the earth.  “Wait till the clouds roll by, Jenny, wait till the clouds roll by.”  The lads I am writing this story for are between ten and fourteen years old, and they know that the clouds do once in a while roll around a person’s path, and block the way, because fogs and mists can block the way just as well as a big black stone wall.

At the corner of the street a red-headed, blue-eyed lad, a head taller than Harry, joined the latter.  He put his hand on Harry’s shoulder and walked beside him.

“Well,” said this last comer, whose name was Frank Fletcher, “will your mother let you go, Harry, boy?  I hope she doesn’t object.”