the emperor of china was about to choose a bride. from far and near the fairest ladies of the realm came to his palace. they sat on pearly thrones which were borne on the shoulders of hindu slaves or drawn by spotted leopards and some were floated down the great rivers on rafts woven of long-stemmed lotos flowers.
nikko stood sadly by the roadside watching the grand procession pass. she was more beautiful than any of the splendid ladies, but she was poor and humble and had to work in the rice-fields where the muddy water tickled her little bare toes.
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“i cannot work in the rice-fields to-day,” she said to herself, “for the procession is so interesting that i have to stand by the roadside and watch. i had better go into the woods, where i can’t see it, and pick some mushrooms for dinner.”
so she took her basket and went into the woods. but before she had picked the first handful, she saw a tremendous scarlet toadstool spangled all over with silver dots, swaying on a tall silvery stem. it was the most enormous toadstool she had ever seen, so big that nikko could have hidden under its flapping top. she wanted to pull it up and carry it as a parasol, but just then she looked over the edge and noticed that a pearly snail and a golden spider were sitting on top having tea together. the snail turned around and stuck out his eyes at her like opera-glasses.
53
“excuse me,” said nikko. “i almost picked your toadstool for a parasol! i didn’t see you.”
“why should a little girl want a parasol?” asked the snail as solemnly as a great-aunt. “you’re very vain.”
“oh no indeed,” replied nikko. “but i should like to pretend i was a grand lady, going to the emperor’s palace to-day. i should love to see the emperor.”
“so should i,” said the spider.
“well, so should i,” admitted the snail. “why don’t you go?”
54
“ah, but look at me!” cried nikko sadly. “i have on a hempen frock and my feet are bare and i have not a single jewel, only this string of red berries round my neck! but to ride in the procession one must sit on a pearly throne and wear a silken gown and jewelry and carry a pretty parasol. i have none of these things.”
“i will make you a dress more beautiful than silk,” said the spider, “if you will take me along to see the emperor!”
“and i could take the toadstool for a parasol, if you wouldn’t mind having tea somewhere else,” nikko said. “but alas! what should i do for a pearly throne?”
“well, now you mention it,” chimed in the snail, “if i could eat enough tea and toast i might grow big enough to carry you, and my house would make a pretty good throne. yes, perhaps i’ll carry you, if you will get me the tea and toast; for i must confess i should love to see the emperor!”
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as fast as her bare feet could carry her, nikko ran home, took all the tea out of the canister, baked six batches of bread, put them in a bucket and carried them back to the forest. she then laid a fire of sticks and began to make toast so ambitiously that the scent of it could be smelled all over china from the great wall at one end to the yellow sea at the other. and above the fire hung the bucket, filled with water for the snail’s tea.
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the snail filled his acorn-cup a million times that day and ate toast till the sun went down. then he rested for a few minutes, but when night came he began again and you could hear him munching in the dark.
in the morning he was so big that he had to descend from the toadstool for fear of breaking its stem. by evening he was as big as a football, and by the next morning as big as the biggest snow-ball you ever made, and before the third day, he was big enough to carry nikko on his back.
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meanwhile the spider had been very busy. he had spun a wonderful silken gown, all decked with dew-drops and inwrought with the wings of butterflies, and when he had watched nikko put it on and made sure that it fitted perfectly, he fastened himself in front for a brooch. nikko was delighted. but suddenly she exclaimed:
“alas, i have no shoes! the grand ladies all wear tiny beaded shoes. what shall i do with my feet?”
“oh, never mind your feet,” replied the snail. “you’ll be riding all the time so you can keep them tucked under your gown.”
so they picked the scarlet toadstool for a parasol, set nikko a-top the snail with her feet well hidden, and started on their way.
58
the procession was almost over; only a few stragglers hurried along the highroad, and they all overtook poor nikko, for a snail can go just half a mile an hour and no faster. a haughty four-in-hand of peacocks passed her at a strut, tails spread and crests erect; a team of pig-tailed chinamen running for all they were worth and jolting their mistress till she was dizzy, almost stumbled headlong over the snail; four turbaned slaves overtook her and then looked back open-mouthed at the beautiful lady; and a spotted leopard, loping in front of a gorgeous princess’ throne, shied in terror when the snail happened to stick out his eyes, and the leopard, the throne and the gorgeous princess were wrecked in the muddy water of the rice-field beside the road.
when they came to the palace they heard the bells ringing, the big gongs sounding and the conches blowing, and saw great kites and paper lanterns and balloons swinging in the air, for the emperor had just chosen a bride and the procession was all over! the bride was the beautiful lady lu tsing, who now sat beside him on the terrace and smiled down on all the other ladies. her maidens and attendants sat at her feet and told her how fortunate she was.
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“how did you feel when you rode in the procession?” asked one of the maidens.
“weren’t you dreadfully excited till you knew whom his majesty would choose?”
lu tsing yawned behind her fan.
“no,” she replied, “i wasn’t a bit excited, for i knew of course that he would choose me.”
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just then the big snail came plodding along the road, and they all got a glimpse of nikko’s face under the scarlet parasol. she was so lovely to behold that everybody gasped. but the emperor did more than gasp; he jumped up from his ivory chair and cried,
“friends, courtiers, chinamen! i have changed my mind! i am not going to marry lu tsing after all, but this unknown damsel whose name has never been heard in the land!”
then the bells were tolled and the gongs sounded and the conches blown louder than ever, as a hundred slaves hurried down the steps to pick up nikko’s throne and carry her up to the terrace. then the snail withdrew into his house, for he was ticklish, and the spider whispered to nikko under cover of all the noise:
“you must not be found with a real spider on your breast! i will leave you now, and you can say you have lost your pin.”
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with these words he dropped to the ground and ran when he thought no one would notice. but one person did notice; that was the lady lu tsing. she tried to kill him with her foot, but he escaped again and again, till suddenly she picked up a cup from the tea-table, turned it up-side down and trapped him under it.
the emperor greeted nikko with honeyed words, but the lady lu tsing having caught the spider, retreated to the furthest, darkest chamber of the palace, where she tore up all the curtains and bed-spreads and bureau-scarfs in her wrath till the room looked like a rag-man’s house. then she sat down among the wreckage and plotted revenge.
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nikko would have been quite happy if she had not been so worried about her bare feet. sooner or later they would be discovered and oh, what would the emperor think of her then? just now he took her hand and said to her:
“my dear, you must tell me what you would like for a wedding gift!” and nikko almost cried out: “shoes, your majesty, shoes!” but she did not want to give herself away, so she replied,
“well, i do not know which i would rather have, a bright brocaded shawl or a new pair of slippers!”
“you shall have both,” declared the emperor, and ordered a maiden to fetch them. nikko donned the shawl and slipped on the little shoes but they were so small that they hurt her feet dreadfully.
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“ah well,” she said to herself, biting back tears of pain. “i shall have to get used to some discomforts now that i am to be an empress!”
she had been empress for about a week, when her husband the emperor fell very ill. it really was indigestion after the wedding-feast, but of course the doctors wanted to make it something more dignified, so they said:
“he must have been bitten by a poisonous insect!”
“yes, and i know who it was,” said lu tsing to her attendants. “it was the golden spider who sat on nikko’s breast when she came! everybody thought it was a pin, but it really was a spider, for i saw him creep away!” and the attendants went about the palace telling everybody how nikko had worn a live spider for a pin.
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nikko was very anxious about her husband. he lay on a couch in the parlor because he was too ill to sit on his throne, and twenty doctors stood around and told him that a poisonous insect must have bitten him. just then lu tsing came in, with a tea-cup in her hand.
“behold what the maid found in his majesty’s bed when she turned the mattress!” she cried, and showed them the golden spider, who sat in the tea-cup and looked at them with great surprise.
“why, it is the spider that nikko wore when she came,” said the emperor. “we all thought it was a pin. and she said she had lost it. nikko, you were fibbing!”
“yes, i was fibbing,” nikko admitted.
“friends, courtiers, chinamen! i have changed my mind”
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“and then she put the spider into your majesty’s bed!” cried all the people. “she is a wicked woman!”
in vain nikko protested. lu tsing’s attendants had told the story so often that everybody was ready to believe it now that they saw the spider.
“the spider shall be killed, and nikko be put into the highest, strongest, darkest tower, with a moat around it, and kept there all her life,” said the emperor in great anger, “and lu tsing shall be empress of china!”
so they set the spider down on the floor and called a hundred slaves to come with brooms and kill him. but the hundred slaves all hit each other’s brooms and got so mixed up that they did not hit the spider at all, so he hid under the emperor’s couch and when nobody was looking he ran away. he ran to the back-yard where the extra thrones and the emperor’s beasts were kept.
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here the snail was just having an argument with a quick-tempered dragon about which was better, tea or toast. the dragon said tea. the snail said toast.
“stop arguing,” said the spider. “the best food is rice anyway.” and while the dragon was still switching his tail and shouting: “tea, tea, tea!” the snail stopped and listened to the story of nikko’s trouble.
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“this is awful,” he said, looking forward with one eye and back with the other to make sure nobody was listening. “have they put nikko in the tower?”
“yes, they have,” wept the spider.
“can’t she let herself out of the window? you could creep in and spin a rope for her. she’s not very heavy.”
“but there is a deep moat around the tower,” said the spider. “i couldn’t get to her, and besides if she let herself down she would drop into the moat.”
“i’ll help you below,” replied the snail. “you be ready to do your part. meet me to-night at the edge of the moat!”
just then one of the slaves appeared with a broom, so the little spider ducked out of sight under a throne. the snail sat in deep thought for a while; then he went and found the dragon again, and told him that toast was better than tea.
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at night, when the temple-bells had stopped ringing and everyone in the palace was fast asleep, the snail and the spider met at the edge of the moat.
“hop on my back,” whispered the snail, and slid into the water with the spider aboard. softly he floated across the black moat to the tower where nikko was imprisoned.
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poor nikko sat weeping by the window. it was cold and dusty and untidy in the tower-room. she had pulled the brocaded shawl tight about her shoulders and had taken off her tiny shoes, for now that she was no longer an empress she thought she might as well be comfortable. her parasol lay up-side-down in a corner for she never expected to use it again. the sun never shone in the tower where she was to stay all her life.
how surprised she was when a small voice called: “nikko, empress of china!” and looking up, she discovered the golden spider sitting on the window-sill!
“we must hurry,” he said, and began to spin a rope. he was all out of breath from running up the high steep wall of the tower. when he had finished the rope, nikko put on her shoes and picked up the parasol, the spider hopped on her shoulder, and together they let themselves carefully out of the window. the rope was very slippery and they slid down a little faster than they intended.
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splash! they landed on the back of the snail and ducked him completely under water, but he bobbed right up again. they floated across the moat in the moonlight and the spider climbed on top of the parasol and kept the watch, for the snail kept getting his eyes full of water, and nikko was so busy holding on that she could not look around at all.
“take care,” said the spider, “someone is coming! thank goodness, here we are ashore. but i’m afraid somebody has seen us!”
the snail crawled out of the water and shook himself, stretched his eyes and paused for breath.
“run away, nikko,” he said. “i should like to carry you, but my pace is too slow. you had better trust to your feet. hurry, hurry and flee from the land of china, or the emperor’s soldiers will catch you!”
“but i won’t leave you,” protested nikko.
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“yes, you must leave me. i will follow by and by and meet you in the big world beyond china, for no one will think about me or try to catch me. take the spider with you. buddha preserve you!”
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so nikko and the spider kissed him goodbye and ran away together, over muddy fields of rice and big dry fields of black poppies, past temples and villages till they came to the furthest end of the country. it was lucky they had not waited for the snail, for no sooner were they out of sight of the palace than they heard the emperor’s soldiers coming after them. somebody really had seen them in the moat; it was the dragon, who had drunk so much tea the day before that he could not sleep that night and was prowling through the yard looking for the snail. he wanted to have another argument to pass the time. but when he discovered the snail in the moat, carrying nikko away from the tower, he did not stop to argue—he ran straight to the emperor’s room, and told him what he had seen.
nikko ran as fast as she could, ducking under the tea-plants whenever she had to stop and rest. she lost one shoe in the deep mud, so she took off the other one too and carried it in her hand, glad to be barefoot again. the tea-plants tore her gown, but every time there was a fresh rent the spider promptly mended it.
thus they came to the great wall of china, and there they had to stop. the gates were locked and the wall was much, much too high to climb over.
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“ha, we have you now!” shouted the soldiers, catching up and swinging their swords most grandly.
but just then there came a mighty puff of wind that pulled hard at nikko’s parasol. she held on with all her might, and the wind picked her up and wafted her high, high into the air, and carried her clean over the wall! the soldiers dropped their swords in amazement, and stood with mouths agape, but there was nothing they could do for the gate was locked and nikko escaped under their very noses. they could only pick up their swords and go home again, with their pig-tails dangling foolishly behind.
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in a great forest outside the land of china, the parasol came to earth. nikko planted it in the ground to let it grow as a toadstool once more. when it rained she sat underneath it, and by and by the spider made curtains all around, so that she had a lovely little house to live in.
about three months later, when they had given up all hope of ever seeing the snail again and the spider had hung a black crepe on the door in his memory, they heard a rustle among the tea-plants, and saw his pearly shell plodding through the forest!
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“well,” said the snail, sitting down heavily, “i’m sure i never want to go travelling again! the roads are really dreadful in china, and the baggage problem is terrible!” it had taken him two months to make the trip, and he had to wait another month for the great gate to be opened, for it is only opened once a year, and anyone who wants to come in or go out has to wait for that day.
but they were so happy to be reunited again that they soon forgot all their troubles. the snail lived in his house and nikko in hers, and the spider had nikko’s old shoe for a bungalow. every afternoon nikko received her friends on the little lawn between the three houses, where she spread the bright brocaded shawl and served them tea in the most imperial fashion. when it was time to go they would make a bow and say:
“goodnight, empress, buddha preserve your majesty!”
“but i am not an empress any more!” said nikko sadly. “lu tsing is empress of china.”
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“oh well,” replied the snail, “lu tsing may be empress of china, but i’m sure you are empress of everywhere else!”
“where is that?” asked the spider.
“lazybones,” said the snail with his great-auntliest air, “look it up on the map!”
so they continued to bow, and the spider (who didn’t look it up) embroidered a little sampler with these words on it and fastened it over nikko’s door:
“here under curtains magnificent dwells
nikko, the empress of everywhere else!”
