The Jar of Rosemary: A Christmas Story

From the book The Story-Teller by Maud Lindsay (1874-1941)

This book is no longer copyrighted and is available full-text online in several places. This particular story is a Christmas story, and may be useful for some of you who are looking for new stories to tell, or tales suitable for use with your Sunday school classes.

I found my copy of the book at a friend's antique shop in Weston, WV. How could I not buy it with a title like that! The stories are a bit on the "sweet" side, as many children's story books were during the time Lindsay was writing, but they are well written tales. Several copies are available for sale at Abebooks.

There was once a little prince whose mother the queen was sick. All summer she lay in bed, and everything was kept quiet in the palace. But when the autumn came, she grew better. Every day brought color to her cheeks and strength to her limbs, and by and by the little prince was allowed to go into her room and stand beside her bed to talk to her.
He was very glad of this, for he wanted to ask her what she would like for a Christmas present. As soon as he had kissed her and laid his cheek against hers, he whispered his question in her ear. 'What should I like for a Christmas present?' said the queen. 'A smile and a kiss and a hug around the neck. These are the dearest gifts I know.'

But the prince was not satisfied with this answer. 'Smiles and kisses and hugs you can have every day,' he said. 'But think, Mother, think. If you could choose the thing you wanted most in all the world, what would you take?' So the queen thought and thought.

At last she said, 'If I might take my choice of all the world, I believe a little jar of rosemary like that which bloomed in my mother's window when I was a little girl would please me better than anything else.' The little prince was delighted to hear this.

As soon as he had gone out of the queen's room, he sent a servant to his father's greenhouses to inquire for a rosemary plant. But the servant came back with disappointing news. There were carnation pinks in the king's greenhouses and roses with golden hearts and lovely lilies, but there was no rosemary.

Rosemary was a common herb and grew mostly in country gardens, so the king's gardener said. 'Then go into the country for it,' said the little prince. 'No matter where it grows, my mother must have it for a Christmas present.'

So the messengers went into the country here, there and everywhere to seek the plant. But each one came back with the same story to tell. There was rosemary enough and to spare in the spring, but the frost had been in the country. There was not a green sprig left to bring to the little prince for his mother's Christmas present.

Two days before Christmas, however, news was brought that rosemary had been found-a lovely, green plant growing in a jar right in the very city where the prince himself lived. 'But where is it?' said he. 'Why have you not brought it with you? Go and get it at once.'

'Well, as for that,' said the servant who had found the plant, 'there is a little difficulty. The old woman to whom the rosemary belongs did not want to sell it, even though I offered her a handful of silver for it.'

'Then give her a purse of gold,' said the little prince.

So a purse filled so full of gold that it could not hold another piece was taken to the old woman, but presently it was brought back. She would not sell her rosemary; no, not even for a purse of gold.

'Perhaps if your little highness would go yourself and ask her, she might change her mind,' said the prince's nurse.

So the royal carriage drawn by six white horses was brought and the little prince and his servants rode away to the old woman's house. When they got there, the first thing they spied was the little green plant in a jar standing in the old woman's window.

The old woman herself came to the door, and she was glad to see the little prince. She invited him in and bade him warm his hands by the fire and gave him a cookie from her cupboard to eat. She had a little grandson no older than the prince, but he was sick and could not run about and play like other children. He lay in a little white bed in the old woman's room. The little prince, after he had eaten the cookie, spoke to him, took out his favorite plaything, which he always carried in his pocket, and showed it to him.'

I wonder if you can guess what the prince's favorite plaything was?

"It was a ball, which was like no other ball that had ever been made. It was woven of magic stuff as bright as the sunlight, as sparkling as the starlight, and as golden as the moon at the harvest time. When the little prince threw it into the air or bounced it on the floor or turned it in his hands, it rang like a chime of silver bells.

The sick child laughed to hear it and held out his hands for it. The prince let him hold it, which pleased the grandmother as much as the child. But pleased though she was, she would not sell the rosemary. She had brought it from the home where she had lived when her little grandson's father was a boy, she said, and she hoped to keep it till she died. So the prince and his servants had to go home without it.

No sooner had they gone than the sick child began to talk of the wonderful ball. 'If I had such a ball to hold in my hand,' he said, 'I should be contented all the day.' 'You may as well wish for the moon and the sky,' said his grandmother.

But she thought of what he said, and in the evening when he was asleep she put her shawl around her. Taking the jar of rosemary with her, she hastened to the king's palace. When she got there, the servants asked her errand, but she would answer nothing till they had taken her to the little prince.

'Silver and gold would not buy the rosemary,' she said when she saw him. 'But if you will give me your golden ball for my little grandchild, you may have the plant.'

'But my ball is the most wonderful ball that was ever made!' cried the little prince. 'And it is my favorite plaything. I would not give it away for anything.' And so the old woman had to go home with her jar of rosemary under her shawl.

The next day was the day before Christmas, and there was a great stir and bustle in the palace. The queen's physician had said that she might sit up to see the Christmas tree that night and have her presents with the rest of the family. Everyone was running to and fro to get things in readiness for her.
The queen had so many presents, and very fine they were, too, but the Christmas tree could not hold them all. So they were put on a table before the throne and wreathed around with holly and with pine. The little prince went in with his nurse to see them and to put his gift, which was a jewel, among them.

'She wanted a jar of rosemary,' he said as he looked at the glittering heap. 'She will never think of it again when she sees these things, you may be sure of that,' said the nurse.

But the little prince was not sure. He thought of it himself many times that day. Once when he was playing with his ball, he said to the nurse, 'If I had a rosemary plant, I'd be willing to sell it for a purse full of gold, wouldn't you?' 'Indeed, yes,' said the nurse, 'and so would anyone else in his right senses. You may be sure of that.'

The little boy was not satisfied, though. Presently, when he had put his ball up and stood at the window watching the snow, which had come to whiten the earth for Christ's birthday, he said to the nurse, 'I wish it were spring. It's easy to get rosemary then, isn't it?' 'Your little highness is the king's parrot that knows but one word, with your rosemary, rosemary, rosemary,' said the nurse, who was a little out of patience by this time. 'Her majesty the queen only asked for it to please you, you may be sure of that.'
But the little prince was not sure. When the nurse had gone to her supper and he was left by chance for a moment alone, he put on his coat of fur. Taking the ball with him, he slipped away from the palace." And where do you think he was going? I think you've guessed.

"He hastened toward the old woman's house. He had never been out at night by himself before, and he might have felt a little afraid had it not been for the friendly stars that twinkled in the sky above him. 'We'll show you the way,' they seemed to say. He trudged on bravely in their light, till by and by he came to the house and knocked at the door.

Now the little sick child had been talking of the wonderful ball all evening. 'Did you see how it shone, Grandmother? Did you hear how the little bells rang?' he said. It was just then that he heard the little prince knocking at the door.

The old woman made haste to answer the knock, and when she saw the prince she was too astonished to speak. 'Here is the ball!' he cried, putting it into her hands. 'Please give me the rosemary for my mother.'

And so it happened that when the queen sat down before her great table of gifts, the first thing she spied was a jar of sweet rosemary, like that which had bloomed in her mother's window when she was a little girl.

'I should rather have it than all the other gifts in the world,' she said. And she took the little prince in her arms and kissed him."