THE PRINCESS' SHOE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 29, 4 February 1933, Page 16 (Supplement)

THE PRINCESS' SHOE.

(By Edna Harvey, 69, Howe Street,

Newton, Auckland; age 12 years.)

The Princess had lost her shoe! H<sr own dear little shoe was given to her by the Queen on her birthdav!

There were her red leather shoes for vet days, her fur ones for cold days, Her white garden shoes, and her blue shoes for Sundays; all standing in rows quite safe, with one little silver shoe near thern-but who can dance in one silver shoe?

I The Princess sat in the Talace and | cried, and nobody could comfort her, | not even the Palace cook, who made I her a wonderful jelly castle with a roof | of almonds as a surprise. j "Take it away!" cried the little i Princess. "I want my silver shoe!" Everybody searched everywhere—in j the cupboards, under the table and j chairs, and the King even looked in j the nursery coalbox and nu'de his I fingers all black; hut there was no little : shoe there. i The Queeia went into the kitchen and peeped into the flour bin. aiftl got her royal nose all covered with flour; but she fount! no little silver shoe. "The thief shall be beheaded!" cried the King, and everyone ran about searching harder than ever. Nobody was in the nursery except the crying Princess and Jacky, her pet jackdaw, who snt on the window sill and blinked. Suddenly Jacky flew down, and, ■seizing in his beak the little silver shoe standing all by itself, he darted out of the window. The Princess screamed, and everybody came running to see what could be the matter, and when they heard,j the royal page with the longest legs' followed Jacky tq the old ivy wall in the Palace garden, where the naughty bird had built a nest. It was a beautiful neet, made of twigs and the King's best silk handkerchief, and in. the very middle was the Princessi' silver shoe! But Jacky, the thief, never had his head cut off after all. The Princess forgave him because she was so glad to get back her own little dancing shoe again. She petted him and hugged him, and ordered the Palace cook to give him a dinner that day fit for the jackdaw of an emperor!