Ting a Ling by Frank R. Stockton — Read

Ting-a-ling, for some weeks after the death of his young companion, Ling-a-ting, seemed quite sad and dejected. He spent nearly all his time lying in a half-opened rose-bud, and thinking of the dear little creature who was gone. But one morning, the bud having become a full-blown rose, its petals fell apart, and dropped little Ting-a-ling out on the grass. The sudden fall did not hurt him, but it roused him to exertion, and he said, "O ho! This will never do. I will go up to the palace, and see if there is anything going on. " So off he went to the great palace; and sure enough something was going on. He had scarcely reached the court-yard, when the bells began to ring, the horns to blow, the drums to beat, and crowds of people to shout and run in every direction, and there was never such a noise and hubbub before.

Ting-a-ling slipped along close to the wall, so that he would not be stepped on by anybody; and having reached the palace, he climbed up a long trailing vine, into one of the lower windows. There he saw the vast audience-chamber filled with people, shouting, and calling, and talking, all at once. The grand vizier was on the wide platform of the throne, making a speech, but the uproar was so great that not one word of it could Ting-a-ling hear. The King himself was by his throne, putting on the bulky boots, which he only wore when he went to battle, and which made him look so terrible that a person could hardly see him without trembling. The last time that he had worn those boots, as Ting-a-ling very well knew, he had made war on a neighboring country, and had defeated all the armies, killed all the people, torn down all the towns and cities, and every house and cottage, and ploughed up the whole country, and sowed it with thistles, so that it could never be used as a country any more.