Three bags of gold don’t grow on the bushes every day and instantly all the youths and men and old men who had stories that their sweethearts and their wives and their daughters laughed at hurried to the castle.
One by one they were admitted to the Princess’s chamber. They entered hopefully but when they saw the Tsar sitting at one side of the door muttering, “Wow! Wow!” in his beard, and the old first lady-in-waiting at the other side of the door watching them scornfully, and the Princess herself in bed with her lovely hair spread out like a golden fan on the pillow, they forgot their funny stories and hemmed and hawed and stammered and had finally, one after another, to be turned out in disgrace.
One day went by and two and three and still the Princess refused to eat. In despair the Tsar sent out his heralds again. This time he said that to any one who would make the Princess laugh he would give the Princess’s hand in marriage and make him joint heir to the kingdom.
“I had expected to wed her to the son of some great Tsar,” he sighed, “but I’d rather marry her to a farmer than see her die of starvation!”
The heralds rode far and wide until every one, even the people on the most distant farms, had heard of the Tsar’s offer.
“I won’t try again,” said Mihailo, the oldest son of the farmer I’ve already told you about. “When I went there the day before yesterday I began telling her a funny story out of my Latin book but instead of laughing she said: ‘Oh, send him away!’ So now she’ll have to starve to death for all of me!”
“Me, too!” said Jakov, the second son. “When I tried to tell her that funny story of how I traded the moldy oats for the old widow’s fat pig, instead of laughing she looked me straight in the face and said: ‘Cheat!’”
“Stefan ought to go,” Mihailo suggested. “Maybe she’d laugh at him! Everybody else does!”
He spoke sneeringly but Stefan only smiled.
“Who knows? Perhaps I will go. If I do make her laugh then, O my brothers, the laugh will be on you for I shall become Tsar and you two will be known as my two poor brothers. Ho! Ho! Ho! What a joke that would be!”
Stefan laughed loud and heartily and his little sister joined him, but his brothers looked at him sourly.
“He grows more foolish all the time!” they told each other.
When they were gone to bed, Militza slipped over to Stefan and whispered in his ear:
“Brother, you must go to the Princess. Tell her the story that begins: In my young days when I was an old, old man.... I think she’ll just have to laugh, and if she laughs then she can eat and she must be very hungry by this time.”
At first Stefan said no, he wouldn’t go, but Militza insisted and finally, to please her, he said he would.
So early the next morning he dressed himself in his fine Sunday shirt with its blue and red embroidery. He put on his bright red Sunday sash and his long shiny boots. Then he mounted his horse and before his brothers were awake rode off to the Tsar’s castle.
There he awaited his turn to be admitted to the Princess’s chamber. When he came in he was so young and healthy and vigorous that he seemed to bring with him a little of the freshness of outdoors. The first lady-in-waiting looked at him askance for without doubt he was a farmer lad and his table manners probably were not good. Well, he was a farmer lad and for that reason he didn’t know that she was first lady-in-waiting. He glanced at her once and thought: “What an ugly old woman!” and thereafter he didn’t think of her at all. He glanced likewise at the Tsar and the Tsar reminded him of a bull of his own. He wasn’t afraid of the bull, so why be afraid of the Tsar?
Suddenly he saw the Princess lying in bed with her lovely hair spread out on the pillow like a golden fan and for a moment he couldn’t speak. Then he knelt beside the bed and kissed her hand.
“Princess,” he said, “I’m not learned and I’m not clever and I don’t suppose I can succeed where so many wise men have failed. And even if I do make you laugh you won’t have to marry me unless you want to because the reason I really came was to please Militza.”
“Militza?”
“Yes, Princess, my little sister, Militza. She loves me very much and so she thinks the stories I tell are funny and she laughs at them. Last night she said to me: ‘Stefan, you must go to the Princess and tell her the story that begins: In my young days when I was an old, old man.... I think she’ll just have to laugh and if she laughs then she can eat and she must be very hungry by this time.’”
“I am,” the Princess said, with a catch in her voice. Then she added: “I think I like that little sister of yours and I think I like you, too. I wish you would tell me the story that begins: In my young days when I was an old, old man....”
“But, Princess, it’s a very foolish story.”
“The foolisher, the better!”
Just here the first lady-in-waiting tried to correct the Princess for of course she should have said: “The more foolish, the better!” but the Tsar shut her up with a black frown and one fierce, “Wow!”
“Well, then,” Stefan began:
In my young days when I was an old, old man I used to count my bees every morning. It was easy enough to count the bees but not the beehives because I had too many hives. One day when I finished counting I found that my best bee was missing. At once I saddled a rooster and set out to find him.
“Father!” cried the Princess. “Did you hear what Stefan said? He said he saddled his rooster!”
“Umph!” muttered the Tsar, and the first lady-in-waiting said severely:
“Princess, do not interrupt! Young man, continue.”
His track led to the sea which I rode across on a bridge. The first thing I saw on the other side of the sea was my bee. There he was in a field of millet harnessed to a plow. “That’s my bee!” I shouted to the man who was driving him. “Is that so?” the man said, and without any words he gave me back my bee and handed me a bag of millet to pay for the plowing. I took the bag and tied it securely on the bee. Then I unsaddled the rooster and mounted the bee. The rooster, poor thing, was so tired that I had to take him by the hand and lead him along beside us.
“Father!” the Princess cried, “did you hear that? He took the rooster by the hand! Isn’t that funny!”
“Umph!” grunted the Tsar, and the first lady-in-waiting whispered:
“Hush! Let the young man finish!”
Whilst we were crossing the bridge, the string of the bag broke and all my millet spilled out. When night came I tied the rooster to the bee and lay down on theseashore to sleep. During the night some wolves came and killed my bee and when I woke up I found that all the honey had run out of his body. There was so much honey that it rose up and up until it reached the ankles of the valleys and the knees of the mountains. I took a hatchet and swam down to a forest where I found two deer leaping about on one leg. I shot at the deer with my hatchet, killed them, and skinned them. With the skins I made two leather bottles. I filled these with the honey and strapped them over the rooster’s back. Then I rode home. I no sooner arrived home than my father was born. “We must have holy water for the christening,” I said. “I suppose I must go to heaven to fetch some.” But how was I to get there? I thought of my millet. Sure enough the dampness had made it grow so well that its tops now reached the sky. So all I had to do was to climb a millet stalk and there I was in heaven. Up there they had mown down some of my millet which they baked into a loaf and were eating with boiled milk. “That’s my millet!” I said. “What do you want for it?” they asked me. “I want some holy water to christen my father who has just been born.” So they gave me some holy water and I prepared to descend again to earth. But on