FORGET-ME-NOT

FORGET-ME-NOT

“THE MAN IN THE MOON.”

For-get-me-not.

“Marie, Marie, go and make those boys cease their quarrelling.” It was the old housekeeper who ruled over “Sunny Farm” whose voice could be heard calling to Marie, her daughter, and the boys who were quarrelling were the seven sons of King Olaf, who, wishing them to be strong sturdy fellows, had sent them to live at a farm in the country, for they had all been ill, and the sweet fresh air and pure milk and the outdoor life would do more to make them strong and healthy than all the medicine in the world. So said the Court physician (who perhaps was tired of having to doctor such troublesome patients).

At first they enjoyed the free country life, but after a short time they tired of it, and longed for the excitement of town and the palace. At least, six out of the seven princes were tired of it, but the seventh, Prince Charlie, wished he might stay there always. His days were always full and happy, for, unless his brothers insisted upon his joining in their rough games, he followed the farmer at the animals’ feeding time, watched the chaff-cutting, and the hundred and one interesting things at the farm, and when he was tired would go indoors and sit in the big cool kitchen, where he was sure to find Marie, gentle, blue-eyed Marie, busily sewing, or, perchance, reading a book. Marie always greeted his entrance with a smile, and willingly read to him, or told him a story while she plied her needle. To-day, however, the princes had insisted that Charlie must join in their game, which consisted of each throwing up a golden ball at the same time to see which could throw his the highest. They all threw their balls at the same time, so, of course, it was quite impossible to say whose went highest, and a great noise and squabbling ensued. Such a noise that it disturbed the farmer’s wife in the kitchen, so she sent her little daughter Marie to make peace amongst them.

Out ran Marie to do her mother’s bidding, but at the door she saw an old bent man with a bundle of sticks on his back, and a wallet at his side. He was listening to the great hubbub coming from the field where the princes were quarrelling.

“Hey day! where away so fast?” he asked, as Marie was running past him after having made him a deep curtsey.

“Mother sent me to stop that dreadful noise, but I know it will be hard work. They are growing more and more disagreeable every day.”

She ran on, and, when she reached the princes, they were actually fighting with their fists. The only one who would listen to her pleading was Prince Charlie, who readily left his brothers and went with her back to the house.

When they entered the kitchen, the old bent man was enjoying a cup of tea. He looked up and asked how Marie had managed the quarrel, as the noise seemed as great as ever.

“They would not stop, at least, I mean that six of them would not. Of course Prince Charlie came away. He does not care for fights.”

“Ah, I’ll remember that,” said the Old Man, and that night, when the princes were in bed and asleep, the Old Man (who was no less a personage than the Old Man in the Moon, who had come to the earth for various reasons) went to the bedroom where lay the seven brothers, opened the golden ball of each (with the exception of Prince Charlie’s), then, holding each of the six in turn by the hair with his magic tweezers, he kept them suspended in the air until their size had become so small that they could easily be put in their golden balls, popped them in, closed the balls, and placed the six of them in his wallet.

All this had been done without a word being said to the farmer or his wife. The Old Man came back to the room, and sat down again by the fire, remarking that he would go to bed now, as the moon would be level with the earth at four o’clock, and he must be there punctually to step in and do his work. They had all risen to go to their rooms, when great thundering knocks resounded on the door, and a voice cried—

“Open in the King’s name!”

The farmer hastily unlocked the door, and there entered Prince Claude, the cousin of the seven princes. He was followed by several soldiers.

“Where is the King?” he demanded.

“In the palace, I suppose,” answered the farmer.

“The King is here,” said the Prince; “do you not know that the late King, the father of the seven princes, died yesterday, and I have come to take his eldest son back to the palace to be King in his father’s place?”

The farmer started to go to the room where the seven princes had slept, but he was stopped by the Old Man of the Moon.

“You need not go,” said the Old Man, “it is too late. This evening, after they had gone to bed, I did what your wife has so often asked me to do.”

“What was that?” they cried out together.

“Why, I took means to stop their quarrelling.”

Then he told them how he had done it, showed them the tweezers with which he had worked the magic, showed them also the six golden balls containing the six princes.

“There are only six,” said the farmer’s wife.

“Ah, yes, Prince Charlie ceased quarrelling when told to do so, therefore he is still sleeping in bed.”

“He, then, must be King in his father’s place,” said Prince Claude, but he did not mean what he said, for he had quickly formed the wicked plan of doing to Prince Charlie what the Old Man had done to the other princes.

When every one was in bed, and the house quite still and silent, Prince Claude went to the room where the Old Man slept, quietly took the magic tweezers and the wallet, and in a very few minutes had secured poor Prince Charlie in his own golden ball, and placed it with the other six in the wallet which he then placed by the Old Man’s side again.

At six o’clock, when the farmer roused the household, it was discovered that not only had the Old Man gone, but Prince Charlie had disappeared. Prince Claude pretended he knew nothing about it, and soon gladly set off for the palace, for he was the one who must now be King. Poor little Marie went about her work very sadly, taking long walks when she had time to do so, and asking every one she met if they had seen any one answering to the description of Prince Charlie.

Almost a year had gone by, when, one day, as she wandered about further from home than usual, she heard some one moaning, and going towards the spot from whence the sound came, she saw a man tied to a tree, his face all swollen and looking full of agony.

“Water, water, for the love of heaven, a few drops of water!”

“Poor man,” said tender-hearted Marie, and she soon brought him some water in her hat from the stream near by.

“You do not know me,” moaned the man, “but I know you, you are Marie of ‘Sunny Farm.’”

“MARIE FINDING THE MAN.”

Of course Marie asked her usual question, and this time she got an answer. The man told her that he was Prince Claude. This she could not believe at first, for he was dressed in rags. He told her what he had done to Prince Charlie, how he had also gone to the palace, and had been crowned King, but that his conscience had troubled him so much that he had done many wicked and foolish things to try and forget his sin. He told her, too, how his subjects had rebelled against him, and had driven him away from the palace, and that robbers had set upon him, robbed and beaten him, taken away his good clothes, and put those rags upon him, and had then tied him to a tree, where, all through the hot day, he had been in sight of the water, and could not get a drop.

“You have been very wicked,” said Marie, “but at least you have told me where to look for dear Prince Charlie. I cannot cut the leather which binds you to the tree, so, before I set out to find Prince Charlie, I shall run back to the farm, and get my father to come and set you free.”

The farmer came, but long before he arrived Prince Claude was dead, and all that could be done for the wretched man was to bury him.

“MARIE GOING TO THE MOON.”

Not another instant did Marie lose. At once she set off on her long journey to the point where the moon touches the earth. For days and days she walked, begging food at houses by the way, and at last she reached the desired point; but, alas! when she saw the Old Man and asked him to give her back Prince Charlie’s ball, he told her that the balls were not in his keeping, and the only one to help her was the boatman who ferried a boat across daily from the moon to the stars, for the seven balls had been placed in the sky as seven stars. They waited until the queer boat came alongside the moon, and the Old Man helped Marie into the boat.

When the boatman heard Marie’s story and her request, he at once steered towards a point where shone seven stars in this fashion.

The one in the centre shone brightly, but those around it were dim and gave but little light. “That is Prince Charlie’s, I am sure,” said Marie, “the one in the middle;” and when she looked closely at it, she found a little mark that Prince Charlie had made upon it one day. How she thanked the boatman! But the boatman smiled at her sadly, for he knew that any one once touched by the magic tweezers and enclosed in the golden ball, could never be brought to life again.

The boatman rowed her back to the moon, and the Old Man helped her out gently and lovingly. “Kind little girl,” he said, “you can never see bonnie Prince Charlie again in this world, but take the ball to the earth, bury it in your garden, weep tears of loving sorrow over the tiny grave, and you will be rewarded.”

Marie clasped the ball lovingly. When she reached the earth again, she set off at once for home, hardly stopping to rest or eat by the way, for she wished to see what would happen when she buried the golden ball.

“Oh, my dear! my dear!” cried her mother, when Marie returned, “how I have missed you!”

“Little one, you must never go away again; we cannot spare you,” said her father.

“I shall never leave you again, dear mother and father; for all I love is here now.”

She buried the golden ball in her garden just under her bedroom window, and indeed she did water the little grave with the tears of love, as the Old Man had told her to do, and the next time he came to visit the farm, she led him to the little grave, and, lo, it was covered with a pretty blue flower which had a tiny golden centre.

“Ah!” said the Old Man, “did I not tell you you would be rewarded?”

“The blue eyes and the golden hair of Prince Charlie will never be forgotten now; they seem to say to me, ‘Forget-me-not, forget-me-not,’” answered Marie.

And ever since that time the tiny flower has been called “Forget-me-not.”