Topic: Lost and Found

NorseLady

Date: 2008-12-08 18:01 EST
Once upon a time a little girl found an old chess set in the attic. All the figures had long since been lost, except for a knight on a lame horse and a sad queen. The little girl played with them, but the queen grew sadder every day, and the knight looked so unhappy that the girl herself burst into tears.

"It is raining!" said the downcast queen, and she opened a little umbrella over her head. "Oh dear, raining," said the downfallen knight, and hurried to hide beneath an umbrella, too.

The queen strutted up and down in the salty rain of tears, accompanied by her faithful knight, who reminded her of the good old days, when he and her lost husband would ride out into battle together. The more they remembered, the more abandoned they felt. The little girl did not know how to cheer them up.

Then one snowy winter's day the young child found the lost chess figures in an old cupboard in the cellar, and laid them out on the squares of the game board. Soon there was the sound of joyful trumpet calls from the castle battlements; the queen smiled and she and the king embraced, sat down on their thrones, and ordered a magnificent tournament to begin.

When the jousting was over, the old knight and the queen bowed graciously to the little girl, and gave her their two little umbrellas as a keepsake. They never needed them again.