#81, November 28, 2001
Once upon a time there was a land where nobody smiled.
It was a beautiful land-- great mountains and valleys, green
forests and blue rivers, well-kept farms and villages.
The people who lived there were much like you and me. They
had good homes and families.
They had everything to make them happy. But there was no
happiness.
And nobody smiled.
Once it had been very different. The land was ruled by a
great queen, very wise, and kind. Her people lived in peace and prosperity. A
more perfect world you could not imagine.
The queen lived to be old beyond old. When she died, it was
more than her subjects could bear. They weeped and wailed and sniffled and
sobbed for hours into days. They mourned and grieved for weeks, upon months,
upon years.
For so long they did not smile, they forgot how. Life went
on, yes, but happiness was just a gray memory.
The Great Queen had two grandsons. After the Queen died,
they could not agree on who should rule. In anger, they split the Kingdom in
two, dividing it East and West along the crest on the mountains that ran the
length of the Cold Forest.
It was many, many years later, in the deep of a long winter
night, when the baby was born.
She was born in a cottage, just beyond the shadow of the
castle of the East King. After a turning of the moon, on a gray, snowy day, the
baby looked up at her mother, and smiled.
This was nothing unusual. Every baby smiled, as new babies
do. But as their smiles were not returned, they, too, no longer tried.
But this smile was different. This smile you could feel,
the way you feel a rising sun warm your face on a frosty morning.
And when she smiled, something wonderful happened: her
mother smiled back. Then her brother smiled. And her father -- who could not
remember ever smiling -- he smiled, too. Soon, the ice of one family's
sadness was melted by smiles and laughter.
Every day, the baby smiled. She smiled everywhere she went.
She smiled at everyone she saw. And no one could resist her magic. By summer’s
end, she had shared her smile with everyone in the Kingdom of the East.
Happiness had returned to the land... and with it, prosperity.
"My people are working hard, and gladly paying their
taxes," said the East King. “Soon, my Kingdom will be the most powerful in
the land.”
In time, the West King learned of the strange and wonderful
happenings in the land of his rival. Being as suspicious as he was jealous, he
sent his master spy Seezle to discover the secret of his brother's sudden
success.
Mean-spirited Seezle was almost overcome by the happiness he
found in the East Kingdom. But he resisted, and learned of the baby and her
magical smile. He returned quickly to inform his master.
"We must have this baby," roared the West King. He
ordered Seezle back across the Cold Forest to kidnap the child.
Seezle took on the guise of a Cold Forest bear. Moving
through the night like smoke, he slipped into the baby's cottage and quietly
carried her away. The baby's mother awoke only to see a bear disappear into the
trees with her little one. Without a second thought, she ran off in pursuit.
Seezle was as sneaky as he was mean, and he left the mother
wandering the Cold Forest in search of her child. He returned to the castle of
the West King.
"This IS a magical child," Seezle sneered,
"for she has not cried a whit since I snatched her."
"Nor has she smiled," grumbled the West King.
"It is her smile that will bring us gold. Seezle, I command you: Make her
smile."
Seezle and his men tried for hours, but all the finest toys
and sweetcakes in the city could not make the baby smile.
It was not long before the East King's spies learned of the
kidnapping. When the East King heard the news, he flew into a rage. "We
will mount an army, recover the baby, and put an end to our rivalry with the
treacherous West King... even if we must burn his evil kingdom to the
ground!"
All abled-bodied men were called to join the battle. The
streets of the castle city were filled with men wearing armor and carrying
weapons. Women stood among them, carrying small children, and wearing faces of
sadness and fear.
As you would expect,
the West King quickly discovered these war preparations. He, too, ordered his
men to war.
"The baby does not yet smile," Seezle told his
King, "but I believe her magic will protect us."
"Good," replied the West King. "We shall
carry her with us into battle."
At dawn the next day, the two armies set out toward the Cold
Forest. They marched in grave silence, despite the rallying cries of their
Kings.
Shadows were long when the armies reached Middlewood, a vast
meadow on the border of the East and West Kingdoms. A storm cloud was spreading
into the corners of the sky, and when it reached the sun, all the shadows faded
into one.
The two Kings led their their horses to the center of the
meadow to parley.
"That child belongs in the East," said the East
King, pointing his sword at the baby.
"She has brought you your riches," answered his
brother. "Now, by the spears and arrows of the West, she shall be
mine!"
The Kings and their escorts began to shout at each other,
then they raised their weapons. The armies roared and charged across the
meadow, meeting like two waves at the middle.
At that moment, a blinding flash and deafening crash filled
the air. A tree at the edge of the meadow exploded into flames.
Every man froze.
Thunder echoed, rumbling slowly across the forest. When its
voice was lost to absolute silence, a new sound began.
The baby began to cry.
It was not a loud nor a harsh cry, but it was of such deep
sadness that it pierced the heart of every man on the battlefield.
The soldiers began to weep. They wept for the frightened
baby who wanted her mother. They wept for the men who would die in this battle,
and for their widowed wives and orphaned children. They wept for the years and
years of living in sadness, anger, and fear. Even the Kings cried, each falling
into the comfort of the other’s arms.
Through miles of forest, the baby's mother heard a sound
both sad and sweet. Through the woods and the sobbing of ten thousand men, she
heard but one sound. And in a time that is best measured by heartbeats, she was
beyond the trees and the soldiers, at the baby's side, sweeping her daughter
into a loving embrace.
The crying stopped.
The baby smiled.
And a wonderful thing happened. The Kings smiled. Their
escorts and bodyguards smiled. Even Seezle smiled! Like the ripple from a tiny
stone dropped into the center of a pond, smiles spread out among the soldiers,
until everyone forgot why they had come to battle.
In the days that followed, the brother Kings declared an end
to their rivalry, and agreed to rule the land as one. A magnificent celebration
was held in Middlewoold, the new home of the baby and her family.
Now everyone, East and West, north and south, lives in
happiness. And no one ever forgets to smile.