The Jar Of Rosemary
by
There was once a little prince whose mother, the queen, was sick. All summer she lay in bed, and everything was kept quiet in the palace; but when the autumn came she grew better. Every day brought color to her cheeks, and strength to her limbs, and by and by the little prince was allowed to go into her room and stand beside her bed to talk to her.
He was very glad of this for he wanted to ask her what she would like for a Christmas present; and as soon as he had kissed her, and laid his cheek against hers, he whispered his question in her ear.
“What should I like for a Christmas present?” said the queen. “A smile and a kiss and a hug around the neck; these are the dearest gifts I know.”
But the prince was not satisfied with this answer. “Smiles and kisses and hugs you can have every day,” he said, “but think, mother, think, if you could choose the thing you wanted most in all the world what would you take?”
So the queen thought and thought, and at last she said:
“If I might take my choice of all the world I believe a little jar of rosemary like that which bloomed in my mother’s window when I was a little girl would please me better than anything else.”
The little prince was delighted to hear this, and as soon as he had gone out of the queen’s room he sent a servant to his father’s greenhouses to inquire for a rosemary plant.
But the servant came back with disappointing news. There were carnation pinks in the king’s greenhouses, and roses with golden hearts, and lovely lilies; but there was no rosemary. Rosemary was a common herb and grew, mostly, in country gardens, so the king’s gardeners said.
“Then go into the country for it,” said the little prince. “No matter where it grows, my mother must have it for a Christmas present.”
So messengers went into the country here, there, and everywhere to seek the plant, but each one came back with the same story to tell; there was rosemary, enough and to spare, in the spring, but the frost had been in the country and there was not a green sprig left to bring to the little prince for his mother’s Christmas present.
Two days before Christmas, however, news was brought that rosemary had been found, a lovely green plant growing in a jar, right in the very city where the prince himself lived.
“But where is it?” said he. “Why have you not brought it with you? Go and get it at once.”
“Well, as for that,” said the servant who had found the plant, “there is a little difficulty. The old woman to whom the rosemary belongs did not want to sell it even though I offered her a handful of silver for it.”
“Then give her a purse of gold,” said the little prince.
So a purse filled so full of gold that it could not hold another piece was taken to the old woman; but presently it was brought back. She would not sell her rosemary; no, not even for a purse of gold.
“Perhaps if your little highness would go yourself and ask her, she might change her mind,” said the prince’s nurse. So the royal carriage drawn by six white horses was brought, and the little prince and his servants rode away to the old woman’s house, and when they got there the first thing they spied was the little green plant in a jar standing in the old woman’s window.
The old woman, herself, came to the door, and she was glad to see the little prince. She invited him in, and bade him warm his hands by the fire, and gave him a cooky from her cupboard to eat.
She had a little grandson no older than the prince, but he was sick and could not run about and play like other children. He lay in a little white bed in the old woman’s room, and the little prince, after he had eaten the cooky, spoke to him, and took out his favorite plaything, which he always carried in his pocket, and showed it to him.