Laboulaye's Fairy Book

SHE FOUND HERSELF IN FRONT OF A WRETCHED HUT AT THE DOOR OF WHICH STOOD AN OLD WOMAN, OF WHOM SHE BEGGED SHELTER FOR THE NIGHT " 26 AT NIGHT THE GRANDMOTHER ALWAYS GAVE HIM GOOD COUNSELS FOR HIM TO FOLLOW WHEN SHE WAS GONE " 48 PRETTY DOBRUNKA WAS OBLIGED TO DO ALL THE WORK OF THE HOUSE " 88 TURNED OUT BY HER MOTHER, DOBRUNKA WENT UNHAPPILY INTO THE FOREST " 92 HE BEGAN TO PLAY, AND NEVER HAD HIS MUSIC PRODUCED SUCH AN EFFECT " 100 AS THE MOTHER GAZED LOVINGLY AT HER BEAUTIFUL DAUGHTER, MARIENKA LAUGHED IN HER SLEEP " 106 HE RAN TO THE TREE AND SHOOK IT WITH ALL HIS MIGHT, WHEN, BEHOLD! A YOUNG GIRL FELL FROM THE BRANCHES " 112 HE INSTANTLY GAVE HER THE WATER, WHEN, LO! A BEAUTIFUL, SLENDER YOUNG GIRL STOOD BEFORE HIM " 126 PAZZA, THOUGH SHE LOVED THE PRINCE, WAS A VERY STERN SCHOOLMISTRESS " 154 THE MOST RENOWNED PHYSICIANS OF THE FACULTY MET ONE EVENING IN CONSULTATION AT THE PALACE " 178 INTRODUCTION By KATE DOUGLAS WIGGIN There was once a green book, deliciously thick, with gilt-edged pages and the name of the author in gilt script on the front cover. Like an antique posy ring, it was a "box of jewels, shop of rarities"; it was a veritable Pandora's box, and if you laid warm, childish hands upon it and held it pressed close to your ear, you could hear, as Pandora did, soft rustlings, murmurings, flutterings, and whisperings from the fairy folk within. For this was a fairy book—Edouard Laboulaye's "Tales," and its heroes and heroines became first the daily companions, and then the lifetime possession, of the two little girls to whom it belonged. From the New England village where it was originally given to them, it traveled to the far West and its tales were told to countless immigrant children of San Francisco, whose great eyes opened wider still as they listened, breathless, to stories beloved by their ancestors. In later years the green volume journeyed by clumsy, rattling stage and rawboned nags to Mexico, and the extraordinary adventures of "Yvon and Finette," "Carlino," and "Graceful" were repeated in freshly learned Spanish, to many a group of brown-cheeked little people on the hillsides of Sonora. And now, long, long afterward, there stands on a shelf above my desk the very selfsame worn…