you. Don’t I wish every night that I had back that good hen and that red tablecloth in place of you?”
He did not wait for Mig to guess the answer to this question. “I do,” he said. “I wish it every night. That tablecloth was the color of blood. That hen could lay eggs like nobody’s business.”
“I want to be a princess,” said Mig. “I want to wear a crown.”
“A crown.” Uncle laughed. “She wants to wear a crown.” He laughed harder. He took the empty kettle and put it atop his head. “Look at me,” he said. “I’m a king. See my crown? I’m a king just like I always wanted to be. I’m a king because I
He danced around the hut with the kettle on his head. He laughed until he cried. And then he stopped dancing and took the kettle from his head and looked at Mig and said, “Do ye want a good clout to the ear for such nonsense?”
“No, thank you, Uncle,” said Mig.
But she got one anyway.
“Look here,” said Uncle after the clout had been delivered. “We will hear no more talk of princesses. Besides, who ever asked you what you wanted in this world, girl?”
The answer to that question, reader, as you well know, was absolutely no one.
28
YEARS PASSED. Mig spent them scrubbing the kettle and tending the sheep and cleaning the hut and collecting innumerable, uncountable, extremely painful clouts to the ear. In the evening, spring or winter, summer or fall, Mig stood in the field as the sun set, hoping that the royal family would pass before her again.
“Gor, I would like to see that little princess another time, wouldn’t I? And her little pony, too, with his tippy- toed feet.” This hope, this wish, that she would see the princess again, was lodged deep in Mig’s heart; lodged firmly right next to it was the hope that she, Miggery Sow, could someday become a princess herself.
The first of Mig’s wishes was granted, in a roundabout way, when King Phillip outlawed soup. The king’s men were sent out to deliver the grim news and to collect from the people of the Kingdom of Dor their kettles, their spoons, and their bowls.
Reader, you know exactly how and why this law came to pass, so you would not be as surprised as Uncle was when, one Sunday, a soldier of the king knocked on the door of the hut that Mig and Uncle and the sheep shared and announced that soup was against the law.
“How’s that?” said Uncle.
“By royal order of King Phillip,” repeated the soldier, “I am sent here to tell you that soup has been outlawed in the Kingdom of Dor. You will, by order of the king, never again consume soup. Nor will you think of it or talk about it. And I, as one of the king’s loyal servants, am here to take from you your spoons, your kettle, and your bowls.”
“But that can’t be,” said Uncle.
“Nevertheless. It is.”
“What’ll we eat? And what’ll we eat it with?”
“Cake,” suggested the soldier, “with a fork.”
“And wouldn’t that be lovely,” said Uncle, “if we could afford to eat cake.”
The soldier shrugged. “I am only doing my duty. Please hand over your spoons, your bowls, and your kettle.”
Uncle grabbed hold of his beard. He let go of his beard and grabbed the hair on his head. “Unbelievable!” he shouted. “I suppose next the king will be wanting my sheep and my girl, seeing as those are the only possessions I have left.”
“Do you own a girl?” said the soldier.
“I do,” said Uncle. “A worthless one, but still, she is mine.”
“Ah,” said the soldier, “that, I am afraid, is against the law, too; no human may own another in the Kingdom of Dor.”
“But I paid for her fair and square with a good laying hen and a handful of cigarettes and a blood-red tablecloth.”
“No matter,” said the soldier, “it is against the law to own another. Now, you will hand over to me, if you please, your spoons, your bowls, your kettle,
And that is how Miggery Sow came to be sitting in a wagon full of soup-related items, next to a soldier of the king.
“Do you have parents?” said the soldier. “I will return you to them.”
“Eh?”
“A ma?” shouted the soldier.
“Dead!” said Mig.
“Your pa?” shouted the soldier.
“I ain’t seen him since he sold me.”
“Right. I’ll take you to the castle then.”
“Gor,” said Mig, looking around the wagon in confusion. “You want me to paddle?”
“To the castle!” shouted the soldier. “I’ll take you to the castle.”
“The castle? Where the itty-bitty princess lives?”
“That’s right.”
“Gor,” said Mig, “I aim to be a princess, too, someday.”
“That’s a fine dream,” said the soldier. He clucked to the horse and tapped the reins and they took off.
“I’m happy to be going,” said Mig, putting a hand up and gently touching one of her cauliflower ears.
“Might just as well be happy, seeing as it doesn’t make a difference to anyone but you if you are or not,” said the soldier. “We will take you to the castle and they will set you up fine. You no longer will be a slave. You will be a paid servant.”
“Eh?” said Mig.
“You will be a servant!” shouted the soldier. “Not a slave!”
“Gor!” said Mig, satisfied. “A servant I will be, not a slave.”
She was twelve years old. Her mother was dead. Her father had sold her. Her Uncle, who wasn’t her uncle at all, had clouted her until she was almost deaf. And she wanted, more than anything in the world, to be a little princess wearing a golden crown and riding a high-stepping white horse.
Reader, do you think that it is a terrible thing to hope when there is really no reason to hope at all? Or is it (as the soldier said about happiness) something that you might just as well do, since, in the end, it really makes no difference to anyone but you?
29
MIGGERY SOW’S LUCK CONTINUED. On her first day on the job as a castle servant, she was sent to deliver a spool of red thread to the princess.
“Mind,” said the head of the serving staff, a dour woman named Louise, “she is royalty, so you must make sure you curtsy.”
“How’s that?” shouted Mig.
“You must curtsy!” shouted Louise.
“Gor,” said Mig, “yes’m.”
She took the spool of thread from Louise and made her way up the golden stairs to the princess’s room,
