There were many roads and streets that went up and down through the
kingdom, none of them much wider than the stalk of a daisy. There were
many little houses along the streets and there was the castle of the
little red princess with more windows than one could count, and more
winding passages than she could walk through.
The castle was full of other busy little people in red who waited on
the princess. They milked her cows, and played with her, and managed
the house-keeping so that she did not have to do a bit of work. She
was the only one, though, in the whole kingdom who did not work.
As the little red princess looked from her highest window she saw her
subjects hurrying to and fro. They were always bringing sand for
building, whole lines of them, and putting up new houses, and making
better roads. Sentinels watched the gates of the city, and hundreds of
workers in red brought in food from the meadow.
If one could have heard so tiny a person as the little red princess
speak, she would have said,
"Why should I work when I have so many subjects to wait upon me? I was
intended to look pretty, and sit in my doorway, and keep the whole
kingdom working for me!"
One day something wonderful happened. The little red princess felt a
strange pricking on her shoulders.
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