determined to go out into the world and seek his fortune, so he
climbed out of bed and quietly dropped to the ground.

"Oh, dear me!" cried Cucu; "it is too mean that I should have to stay up
on this old trellis."

"Naughty boy!" scolded his mother. "What are you talking about? That
ever I should be afflicted with such a fractious child; 'tis enough to
turn me yellow;" and she spread out her pretty green apron, and waved
her ribbons in the air, while she took a firmer hold upon the poor
little Prince's cap.

"Don't you know that if I were to let go, off you would fall flat on
your back upon the nasty wet ground, and very likely lie there all the
rest of your life, growing wrinkled and yellow and sickly, while great
ugly worms crawled over you, and everybody blamed me for a careless
parent? No! no! I shall take good care you don't get away from me, you
may be sure."

So, Cucu had to accept his fate as best he might, and amused himself
watching his neighbors. Every day, now, one or more of them left home
and disappeared among the grass and flowers below. Cucu imagined them as
traveling off around the garden, but if he had seen them lying half
buried in the earth, their bright brown faces dirty and streaked with
tears, their merry little hearts nearly broken with woe, he would not
have envied them so much.

Day after day passed, and the month of October came with its clear and
cool nights. Queen Cucurbita did not relish this at all, and, every
morning, when the sun peeped at her, he wondered how he ever could have
admired such a dried-up yellow old creature. Cucu's heart, on the
contrary, grew happier all the time, he lifted up his heavy head that
seemed to be lighter each day, and when the wind blew, he rattled
against the trellis and wondered how it was he could move so easily.
"Poor Prince!" the Cat-bird whistled, as she perched above him, "your
face is getting as brown and shining as one of those little Filberts,
your cap is no longer green and pretty, and you look so light that a
breath might blow you away."

"I don't care," returned Cucu, "for I feel delighted, and so long as I
can't see my own face, what's the odds?"

The next night was clear and very cold. The people to whom the garden
belonged brought out sheets and covered over the tender heliotropes and
other flowers they valued, but they couldn't have cared much for Queen
Cucurbita, for they never gave her a thought. When Cucu woke up bright
and early