account of not throwing back the queen up-stairs, who was fast
getting well, and said, 'Hold your tongues, you wicked little
monkeys, every one of you, while I examine baby!' Then she
examined baby, and found that he hadn't broken anything; and she
held cold iron to his poor dear eye, and smoothed his poor dear
face, and he presently fell asleep in her arms. Then she said to
the seventeen princes and princesses, 'I am afraid to let him down
yet, lest he should wake and feel pain; be good, and you shall all
be cooks.' They jumped for joy when they heard that, and began
making themselves cooks' caps out of old newspapers. So to one she
gave the salt-box, and to one she gave the barley, and to one she
gave the herbs, and to one she gave the turnips, and to one she
gave the carrots, and to one she gave the onions, and to one she
gave the spice-box, till they were all cooks, and all running about
at work, she sitting in the middle, smothered in the great coarse
apron, nursing baby. By and by the broth was done; and the baby
woke up, smiling, like an angel, and was trusted to the sedatest
princess to hold, while the other princes and princesses were
squeezed into a far-off corner to look at the Princess Alicia
turning out the saucepanful of broth, for fear (as they were always
getting into trouble) they should get splashed and scalded. When
the broth came tumbling out, steaming beautifully, and smelling
like a nosegay good to eat, they clapped their hands. That made
the baby clap his hands; and that, and his looking as if he had a
comic toothache, made all the princes and princesses laugh. So the
Princess Alicia said, 'Laugh and be good; and after dinner we will
make him a nest on the floor in a corner, and he shall sit in his
nest and see a dance of eighteen cooks.' That delighted the young
princes and princesses, and they ate up all the broth, and washed
up all the plates and dishes, and cleared away, and pushed the