The Princess Who
Learned to Smile
by Evelyn Van Gilder Creekmore
Once upon a time there was a little princess who
lived with her father the king in a
beautiful kingdom by the sea. Now the little princess
would have been very beautiful if it had
not been that she usually looked so cross and
ill-tempered. There was almost always a frown on
her face, and she seemed to find fault with everything.
In the morning when her good nurse brought her
breakfast on a golden tray she would fly
into a rage, no matter how many good things were on the
tray.
"Take it away!" she would cry, stamping her
foot, and pushing the tray away, "I do not want
oatmeal. Why did you not bring me boiled wheat? And look
at that toast. It is not brown enough.
I do not like that dish that my egg is in. Take it all
away and bring what I want."
All day long she said mean things to everyone
around her and complained of everything.
Even when the king would give her a present, instead of
thanking him, she would grumble and ask
why he had not brought something more.
In the same kingdom there lived some little
brown dwarfs who loved the king very much.
They saw how sad it made him for the princess to behave
so badly, for he loved his little girl and
wanted her to be happy. So the dwarfs decided that every
time the princess was cross or unkind,
or thought a mean ugly thought they would plant a, seed
on the hillside not far from their camp.
The seeds grew up quickly into tall trees and
before long the hillside was covered with a
dense forest.
One day the princess became very angry about
something and decided to go out for a walk
all by herself. She walked and walked, and before she
knew it was lost in the deep thick forest on
the hillside. Night came on and the little princess
began to cry for she could not find the way out
of the forest. How she wished now for home, and for all
of the things she so often complained of
before. She was hungry but she could find nothing to eat
in the woods except some bitter berries
on one of the bushes. Finally, being so very tired, she
curled up on the hard ground and went to
sleep.
Early the next morning she was awakened by
someone calling her name. Sitting up quickly,
she looked around and beheld the dwarfs. "Princess," said
the leader of the dwarfs, "we have
come to tell you how you may get out of the forest."
The princess clapped her hands, "Oh, do," she
cried. "Please tell me how I can find the way
home, for I do not like it here in the forest, and want
to go home as soon as possible."
"How quickly you can leave will depend on how
well you follow our instructions, " said the
dwarf, for there is only one way to get out.
"Oh, I will do anything," replied the princess.
"Well, then," said the dwarf, "first let us
tell you where you are. Each tree in this forest is a
cross word or unkind act of yours. These thick, tangled
vines are the complaints that you have
made. Now the first thing that you must do is to stop
complaining and to praise everything. You
must learn to smile, to look for the good in everything,
and to feel happy. Try to make other
people happy and do kind things for them. As soon as you
do these things, the trees will disappear
one by one, and then you can get back to the kingdom
where your home is."
It was very hard for the little princess to
do as the dwarfs had advised, but she disliked
the forest so much that she decided to try. She stopped
complaining about the forest and started
praising it. Beginning by praising the bush where the
bitter berries grew, she was amazed to find
that at her words of praise the berries which had been so
bitter changed to big and luscious ones
before her very eyes.
Astounded and happy at the result of the
first experiment she began to smile. She
remembered the instructions to do something kind for
other people, and decided that since the
dwarfs had been kind in telling her how to find her way
home, she would do something for them.
After much thought she decided to build
them some beautiful little houses where they
could live. Gathering rocks and sticks, and using clay
for mortar she built some of the most
attractive rock houses imaginable, and carefully lined
the inside of them with soft leaves. Outside
she made rock gardens and planted in them all sorts of
wild flowers.
The princess was so happy in her work of
building that she did not notice that many days
had passed since she had first come into the forest.
At last the houses were finished, and they
were so lovely that she could scarcely wait for
the dwarfs to come and see their new homes.
The next morning she woke up with the sun
shining very brightly in her eyes, and sitting
up quickly she looked around. To her surprise the dense
forest had disappeared, and the brown
dwarfs were standing before her smiling, and looking very
happy.
"Hail, Princess," they cried, all
saluting her. "You have dissolved the forest. Look, you
can see the palace on the next hill. Go, for the king
awaits you."
The princess jumped up joyfully, and after
thanking the dwarfs for teaching her how
much more fun it is to smile than it is to frown, she ran
happily home, determined that she would
never be cross or unkind again.
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