The Flying Trunk

'Why should we listen to a foreign bird? Is that patriotic? Let the market basket make the decision.

" 'I am most annoyed,' said the market basket. 'I am more annoyed than anyone can imagine. Is this any way to spend an evening? Wouldn't it be better to call the house to order? Everyone take his appointed place, and I shall run the whole game. That will be something quite different.'

" 'Yes. Let us all make a noise,' they clamored.

"Just then the servant opened the door, and they stood stock-still. Not one had a word to say. But there was not a pot among them who did not know what he could do, and how well qualified he was. 'If I had wanted to,' each one thought, 'we could have a gay evening. No question about it!'

" 'The servant girl took the matches and struck a light with them. My stars, how they sputtered and flared!

" 'Now,' they thought, 'everyone can see we are the first. How brilliant we are! What a light we spread.' Then they burned out."

"That was a delightful story," said the Sultan's wife. "I felt myself right in the kitchen with the matches. My dear prophet, thou shalt certainly marry our daughter."

"Yes indeed," said the Sultan. "Thou shalt marry her on Monday." They said "Thou" to him now, for he was soon to be one of the family.

So the wedding day was set, and on the evening that preceded it the whole city was gay with lights. Cookies and cakes were thrown among the people. The boys in the street stood on tiptoe. They shouted, "Hurrah!" and whistled through their fingers. It was all so grand.

"I suppose I really ought to do something too," said the merchant's son. So he bought firecrackers, and rockets, and fireworks of every sort, loaded his trunk with them, and flew over the town.

Pop! went the crackers, and swoosh! went the rockets. The Turks jumped so high that their slippers flopped over their ears. Such shooting stars they never had seen. Now they could understand that it was the prophet of the Turks himself who was to marry their Princess.