STORIES AND STORY-TELLING
he could not carry out his task that he sank down on the step and sobbed bitterly, and there he remained sobbing till the Kaiser came out.
The Kaiser's little daughter was with her father. When she saw the boy sobbing, she asked what ailed him, and learned it was another boy from Bürs come to insult the Kaiser with a basket of refuse. And the servants asked her whether they should not take the boy off to prison straightway. The Kaiser left the question to his daughter.
"But I have pears," sobbed the boy; "and my father says there are no finer in the empire."
"Yes, yes," jeered the servants, "we know that by heart;" and they attempted to drag him away.
"But won't you look at my pears first, fair princess? The pears that I have brought all this way for the Kaiser? My father will be so sorry."
The princess was struck with the earnestness with which he spoke, and decided to see the basket herself. The moment she said so the boy walked straight up to her with his krattle, so strong in the truth that he felt no fear of the whole troop of lackeys.
The princess removed the leaves and—there indeed were golden pears, not merely yellow with ripeness, but really gold, each, large as it was, a shining pear of solid gold!
"These are pears fit for a king," she said, and presented them to her father. The Kaiser was greatly pleased. He ordered the gold fruit to be
