So the prince was cast out, but he went 

 forth with his nose in the air. In the 

 back of his head he had an idea through 

 which he hoped to play a trick on the old 

 man. 



THEN what do you think happened? 

 The king rode one day beyond the 

 line that marked where the prince 

 could not return, and there he 

 found a great house, beamed with strong 

 oak and paneled with fragrant cedar. 

 Roofs were covered with shingles or 

 with thatches of leaves; rich hangings 

 were there, made of beaten-out wood 

 fibers and dyed with the sap of other 

 "^f-ja^-^i woods, like the tapa cloths from the 

 South Sea Islands. 



That night the king got a note asking 

 him to visit this big wooden house; and 

 the note, of course, was signed by the 

 prince, as you have already guessed. 

 This great house was the prince's new 

 palace. The note paper was made from 

 wood, just as this paper is, and the word- 

 ing on it was written with a cleft and 

 sharpened wooden stick dipped in ink 

 made from oak galls. At first the old 

 king thought that he would not go, but 

 he wanted to see just what the prince 

 had been able to do without running into 

 any of the curses. So he made up his 

 mind that he would go and would find 

 out for himself how the prince had gotten 

 around him. 



When he got to the new palace he 

 found that it was brilliantly lighted with 

 the oil of tallow-tree nuts burning away 

 merrily in bowls made of cocoanut shells, 

 in which wicks of twisted wood fiber 

 were floated by disks of cork made 

 from the bark of the cork oak. 



The tables were loaded with tree 

 fruits. You can guess that there were 



cherries, and apples, and oranges, and 

 all such good things. But there was 

 guava jelly, also, and roast plantains - 

 somewhat like bananas, and more 

 kinds of nuts than you ever had at 

 Christmas. Some were eaten raw, just 

 as they were, and others were made into 

 roasts or stews, exactly as you can find 

 them to-day in the health-food eating- 

 places. Besides chestnuts and chinka- 

 pins, pecans and hazel nuts, there were 

 nuts from foreign lands. For example, 

 there were the Brazil nuts, or " nigger- 

 toes " that are packed every-which-way 

 in a round hard husk. If you once get 

 them out you can't pack them in again 

 any more than the prince could get all 

 the wheels back into the big clock on the 

 palace stairs when, as a boy, he had 

 taken it to pieces. Cocoanuts furnished 

 milk and food besides, to say nothing of 

 candy. Maple sugar was there in 

 creamy chunks. For those who might 

 like them there were betel nuts, pis- 

 tachios, water caltrops, and cashew. The 

 king hadn't even heard their names 

 before. 



He found some of these were very 

 good, and he learned, while eating, that 

 there were more kinds of nuts than he 

 ever dreamed about. He nearly made 

 himself sick from eating date-and-wal- 

 nut loaf, it was so rich. He drank as 

 much birch beer as if he had been a 

 small boy at a New England circus. He 

 ate persimmon bread for the first time, 

 and he topped off on Chinese li-chi and 

 pi-li nuts; but he did not much care for 

 gingko kernels as a relish. 



Musicians played soft-sounding wood- 

 en instruments,— the flute, the clarinet, 

 the oboe and bassoon, and there were 

 tunes on the xylophone, the very name 

 of which means " the sound of wood." 



(Continued on next page) 



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