He was going to ask some child from the village to
come up the hill to the castle and eat dinner with the Prince and
Princess. It was rumored, too, that this child would be given good
gifts by the King. But it must be a very special kind of child indeed.
That they all knew.
Then the village children remembered everything that had been told
them by their mothers, and their grandmothers, and their
great-grandmothers about the castle kitchen. Scores of cooks and
scullery boys were kept busy there night and day. The fires always
glowed to roast the rich fowls that turned on the spits. The cake
bowls and the soup pots were never empty. Spices and herbs from far
countries, strawberries when the ground was covered with snow, ices of
all the rainbow colors, and cream so thick that a knife could cut
it--all these were to be found in the King's kitchen.
There were dishes of gold and silver upon which to serve the fine
foods, and a hothouse of rare flowers with which to deck the table,
and linen as fine as a cobweb and as beautiful in pattern as
snowflakes to cover it. Oh, a thanksgiving day in the castle would be
very wonderful indeed, the children thought, and each hoped that he or
she would be chosen to go.
The day before this day of thanksgiving the messenger of the King came
down from the castle and went from door to door of the homes in the
village.
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