The Frog Who Would Be Prince

This all happened way back when, before Elvis started putting on weight. Back then, there was a county judge who had three daughters. There was the eldest, Olivia, who was as skinny and bony a thing as ever you saw, always and forever on some new diet or other. There was the middle daughter, Netta, who was maybe a little bigger than she should’ve been. You know how some girls wear their jeans so tight folks say they must’ve had to been poured into them? Well, Netta wore hers like that, only more like she’d been put in with a piledriver and shoehorn. And then there was the youngest daughter, Princess she was called. She was as pretty a little blond-haired s’urn girl as ever was, and that’s all there is to say about that.
Now all these girls had done reached marrying age; in fact, Olivia and Netta were past it and still unclaimed, without much in the way of prospects. Princess, on the other hand, had herself plenty of prospects. Hey, she had boys hanging around the house day and night, calling to her from behind the trees and out in the hills like a whole flock of lonesome whipporwills. But our Princess, she didn’t care nothing for marrying. She would just as soon live in the big house all her life and play games in the garden with her sisters, while the three of them kept their sweet little thumbs knuckle-deep into everything that went on in the county by getting their father elected to Congress.
Not that Princess was entirely immune to boys, mind. She had her heart set on a feller all right, only he wasn’t nobody local. No sir, the only one for her was the Man hisself, the King, Mr. Elvis double-Aron Presley. She had every last one of his records to date, she had her bedroom wallpapered with his pictures and movie posters, and she had a little shrine on her dressertop complete with one of the very leis the King wore in Blue Hawaii and a real actual G string he once busted onstage. She was crazy for that man, she was, and there wasn’t a boy up or down the muddy Mississippi could measure up to him in her eyes. So what if he was married already? There was still lots more Elvis to go around.
Anyways, as mentioned aforehand, there was a garden in back of the big house, and being as how it was enclosed with a wall inside of which a very large dog of the half German Shepherd and half silverback grizzly variety kept watch, it was the one place outside the house where Princess could play shut of them hormonically challenged local spudpuppies. So it was in the garden that she and her sisters were playing one fine day, the older two tossing back and forth a genuine gold-plated 45 of “All Shook Up,” trying to keep it away from Princess and the dog, whose name, by the way, was Elmer. There they were, just sailing that record back and forth and cutting up and giggling the way girls do, and what do you think happened but that Olivia up and shot that record right past Princess and into the bottom side of a roof over an old stone well. It banged off the roof and rolled around the rim of the bucket, then teetered for a second as Netta made a grab for it and missed, knocking it off the bucket, and then down it went, clattering off the walls all the way down to the water.
Princess let out such a squeal as you’d think she’d fallen down in that cold slimy water herself. “What?” shot back Olivia, and got that nanabooboo thing in her voice. “Is there some problem, Miss Princess?”
“Yeah, what’s with ee-you?” asked Netta over a cocked-up shoulder with her eyebrows raised funny.
“But, that was my record,” blubbered Princess. “It was my gold 45 of “All Shook Up,” and it’s the only one I got.”
“Well, you can always ask Daddy for another one,” said Olivia. “You know he always gets his little Princessy everything she wants.”
“Yeah,” agreed Netta. “And besides, it never would a gone down there if you’d a caught it like you was supposed to.”
By this time Princess had run up to the well and looked in, but there was nothing to see down there but worn stone walls and shadows, with just a glimmer of something she couldn’t tell was it water or gold way way down. She screeched and banged her little fists on the stones, then stepped back and gave that well such a kick as near about broke her toes. Olivia and Netta were just howling by then, with that fool Netta bouncing on the lawn like Jello in a earthquake.
Just then, Princess heard a tiny little voice peep out from underneath a patch of azalea bushes. It was such a teeny tiny little voice that she might’ve missed it altogether but she had her ears blowed out from sniffling. “Perhaps, maybe, I could help, possibly, perhaps,” peeped that wee bitty voice.
“Say what?” asked Princess, looking all around her every whichaway. “Who said that?”
“It- it was only me,” said the itty bitty voice, adding, “I, uh, I didn’t really mean anything by it. I was just offering to help, sorta, if you wouldn’t mind too terribly.” This time Princess was definitely able to locate the voice, and she had no doubt it was coming from somewhere inside those bushes. “I could go down and get your record back,” the voice continued. “That is, I mean, if you’d let me.”
Now Princess wasn’t about to let her sisters see her talking to no bush, uh-uh, especially when they was already fit to bust their guts from laughing. So she throwed herself down on the ground and took to beating the dirt and wailing and kicking like she was having a conniption, and all the while she was ooching herself over closer to them bushes, ooch by ooch. Her sisters even held up their happies for a moment, thinking maybe they had done pushed her just a bit too far this time. That was when Princess tightened up her fists and shoulders, took a long, deep, rattling, sobby breath, and screamed bloody murder, such a scream as scared the little jimmy dickens out of those other two and sent them running into the house to hide from the judge, in case he should hear all the fuss and come out looking.
Once she was alone with the voice, Princess sat up and brushed herself off, then asked it could it really get her record back. “Oh, I’d be so happy to,” said the voice under the bush. “I know how to get into the spring that feeds the well, and I could easy swim down there and bring it back up, if you wouldn’t mind, that is.”
“Course I wouldn’t mind,” Princess sniffed. “Why, I’d be ever so pleased, I’d do just about anything to show my gratitude.” And she made her eyes all big and round and soft the way she did when she wanted to get something out of the judge.
“You would?” squeaked the voice. Just about then Elmer came over and stuck his nose under the bush, snuffling and snorting and making all kinds of a general fuss. Princess grabbed his collar and dragged him off, then tied him to the handrail on the back stairs. When she got back, whatever it was under the bush that she’d been talking to was nowhere to be found, even though she turned over every last leaf looking for it.
“Well, dang that stupid dog!” said Princess, standing there with her hands on her hips and giving the ground one last good lookover. “I guess I won’t never get my genuine gold record back now.”
“I’m over hyyerre!” came that itsy little voice again, and this time it was coming from behind her, out from under a pile of rocks up against the well.
“Oh, so that’s where you got off to,” Princess said as she stepped up and hunkered down next to the rockpile. “Why don’t you come out where I can see you?” she asked real nice. “I got old Elmer tied up so’s you needn’t worry about him.”
“Waaill, okay, I guess, if you say so,” said the voice, and then out from under them rocks came just about the biggest bullfrog anybody ever laid eyes on. I mean, this frog was big; he would’ve made more than a mouthful even for Elmer and put up a heck of a good fight first, he was that big. Princess near about jumped out of her freckles when she seen him, but then this frog had been talking to her, so she was already kind of primed for something different.
And so there they were face to face, Princess and the bullfrog, and now what do you reckon that frog said first thing to her? “Right pleased to make your acquaintance, miss,” he might’ve said, but he didn’t. Or maybe just a pleasant “Pleased to meet you,” but no. That nasty old frog raised up on his front legs and stuck his chin way up and said to that poor little distressed girl who only wanted her record back, “Gimme a great big kiss,” that’s what he said. I ain’t lying.
Princess like to died right then and there, but she held her wits together enough to drop down her eyelids a bit and give that frog such a look as should’ve dried him up on the spot. “You have got to be kidding,” she said, her voice dead level and downright disdainful.
The frog swallowed real hard and looked plumb discomfortable. “Well, I just, you know, I thought you said you’d give anything to get your record back, and that’s all I wants is just a kiss, a really good one I can go back and tell all my friends about.”
“You’re gonna tell your friends?!” Princess fairly screeched.
Now, if a frog can actually duck his head down between his shoulders, that’s what this one did. “Well, I mean, they’re just frogs, you know.”
“Oh,” says Princess. She had to think about this. After all, this frog here, weird as he was, might be the only chance she had to get her gold 45 back. And wouldn’t it be something to come skipping back into the house with it right in front of her two snitty sisters? Besides, this was one special frog all right, but there wasn’t no way she was kissing him no matter what, so there.
“Tell you what,” Princess said sweet as sugar nips. “If you get me my record back, then I’ll give you a kiss. But only one, and you gotta promise never to ask for no more.”
That frog wasn’t as stupid as he looked. He cocked his head sideways for a minute there, just looking at her like he was trying to figure out what she might be up to, then he nodded his head a couple of times. “Oooo, that sounds gooood,” he oozed, his voice not so squeaky now. “Only one thing, though. If I bring you back your record, and you still don’t kiss me, then I get to spend three nights with you. In your bed. Deal?”
Princess shrugged. “Deal,” she said, and spit in her hands to seal it. She knew good and well he was not getting that kiss, and there was no way come hounds or high water the judge was gonna let anybody, much less some frog however smart he was, spend even one night in her bed, uh-uh. So why not?
Well sir, that frog climbed up them rocks and jumped him down into that well, and the instant he splashed into the water Princess run up to the house and unsnapped Elmer’s leash, then back she went. Maybe a minute or two later here come that frog out from under the rocks with her gold record clamped in his mouth. She reached down and snatched that record up, and what do you know but that frog came with it. She tried shaking him off, she tried pulling him off, she even banged him against the well a couple of times, but that frog had some powerful jaws on him and he wasn’t letting go. Finally she set him down on the rim of the well, got down on her knees so as to get eye to eye with him, and asked him just what in the jimdandy was it he wanted.
And that slimy old frog, still holding the record tight in his jaws, winked, puckered up his lips at her and made this sloppy wet smacking sound. Twice.
Princess screwed up her face something awful, but then she rolled her eyes and sighed and nodded her head all agreeable-like, like she was actually going to do it, gonna kiss that frog. So she reached up and took a hold of that record, then leaned close with her eyes almost shut and stuck her lips out as far as they would go, but the moment that frog loosened up his hold the least bit she snatched the record away, jumped back, and yelled “Elllmmerr!” loud enough to put shame to a banshee.
That had to be the most disappointed frog ever. His jaw dropped down between his knees and he looked for all the world like his last bone had turned to mush. Then he saw that dog come bounding across the yard like a hairy thundercloud with teeth, and his eyes got as big around and white as two peeled taters, and he done him the finest backflip one and a half double gainer you ever did see, off the rim and smack down the middle of that wellhole until kasplash! Into the water he went.
Princess bent over the well and looked long and hard, but the most she could make out was the shadows of some ripples waving on the round walls, and that was quite enough, thank you. “Well, old Fudd,” said she, giving the dog’s slobbery jowls a shake, “I reckon that’s the last we’re gone see of that nasty old toad, huh?”
She was wrong, of course. That very evening, as the three sisters and the judge were setting to their dinner, come a wee little voice singing at the front door:

Princess dear, do open the door,
it’s chilly out here on this stone cold floor.
I bumped up the steps til my bottom is sore
to ask for what’s mine, and not never no more.

The judge, who was in the process of saying grace, looked up from his plate and just as calm as a storm in the next county asked “What is that?” The judge, you see, held as a general rule that one never raised one’s voice, for the simple reason that there was no one no where on this whole round world worth raising one’s voice to.
Princess sat there a moment, looking down at her plate with her lower lip between her teeth, until the judge said, “Princess, you know we don’t leave people waiting at the door in this house.”
“I know, Daddy,” she replied with an offhanded shrug. “But it’s probably just that frog I met this afternoon.”
“Ah,” said the judge. “A frog.”
Olivia and Netta were looking funny at each other now, both wondering if maybe their little game this afternoon had done drove their poor little sister wobbly. Then there came a sound of something slapping at the door, and again that wee little voice.

Three nights with you,
that’s what I’m paid up for.
Three nights with you,
and I’ll be round no more.

“Paid up?” asked the judge just as cool.
“Well, see, my record, my gold one, you know,” Princess began, twirling her hair and looking all wronged and misunderstood, and the judge nodded patiently. “It fell down the well, and this frog, he got it out for me, but first he made me promise to kiss him, like I would, and then. . .”
“Kiss a frog? Oooeee!” squealed Netta, throwing up her hands and jumping around like something on her plate had growed wings and spit at her.
“Kiss whut?” yelped Olivia, leaning halfway across the table. “Girl, you cain’t be kissing no frog! You got any idea what they do with their tongues?”
“Hush, the both of you,” said the judge in his courthouse voice. “We will have some semblance of order here.” The elder sisters set back down and went to smirking and cutting their eyes this way and that, but the judge ignored them and turned to Princess. “Now, my dear, about this frog?”
“But, Daddy, he was so tacky!” Princess fussed. “Soon as I had my record back, I sicced Elmer on him. And it served him right too, the way he carried on.”
“Ah,” said the judge. He deliberated a moment, and then some. Then he nodded his head real thoughtful, and pondered a bit. “I take it, however,” he began, after careful considering, “that there was some provision made regarding measures to be taken should you renege on your promise?” Upon which Princess reared back and blinked her eyes a few times, confused. “The three nights, being paid up?” the judge quizzed.
“Oh,” Princess said, adding, “Oh my.”
The judge turned to Olivia. “Do go and open the door for our guest,” he told her, and up she got, almost making it to the dining room door before she busted out laughing.
“A nasty old bug sucky frog!” she whooped. And at this Netta had to run for the hallway herself, from which for the next minute or so came such a howl of giggles, with them two scritching and sliding down the walls and rolling on the floor, as was probably just this side of toxic.
“So,” the judge said to Princess, setting a fatherly hand on her shoulder. “You agreed to allow this, umm, frog person to spend three nights here?” Princess nodded. “In your bed?” “Ah,” the judge said. “Do you have to be in the aforesaid bed at the time?”
Now, you got to give the girl credit. Her head might’ve been empty as a bad luck horseshoe, but she didn’t lie to her Pappy. Fact is, I don’t think that man ever heard a lie in his life. Just one look from him, and even the most hardest type criminals went to confession. She just nodded her head, enough as to say she reckoned maybe it was so.
Just then the front door creaked open, and a fresh fit of foolishness blew up from the foyer. “Why, froggy’s come acourtin’!” yelped Olivia, and then here come that frog waddling into the dining room, with Olivia and Netta behind him in the hall with their teeth in their arms and snorting like horses.
The judge and that frog regarded each other for a very long moment indeed. At last the judge set down his fork and turned sidewise in his chair. “One would think,” he began in his best across the bench voice, “you would at least have the decency to bring pajamas for a sleepover.”
That frog didn’t even blink, just sat there like he was some sort of doorstop.
“Ah, said the judge, making a little roof of his fingers and staring through them for a minute. Then he leaned forward, his hands on his legs. “You are aware, are you not, that my daughter as a minor is not legally liable to honor a contract, especially one entered into under a state of emotional duress?”
That frog just shrugged like all that big talk didn’t impress him in the least. Princess, however, sat back up in her chair and snooted her nose at him like she’d smelled something unmentionable.
“Of course,” the judge continued, “Princess, as my daughter, is very much aware of the supreme importance I place upon the necessity of keeping one’s promises. To further impress that upon her, therefore, it is the judgment of this court, for so I consider our little gathering, that she must hold up her end of this sordid little bargain. She must either kiss this frog person, hereupon entered into the record as plaintiff. . . By the way, how should one refer to you?”
Princess’s face near about dropped into her plate, she was that put out. The frog, with a sly little sneer and a wink, spoke up now in a breathy sort of voice that simpered and sniggered at the same time. “Well, I was at one time very well known as Prince, but that was evolutions ago and quite another person entirely. My name now is, well, I’ve really gone beyond having a name. What I am is quite unpronounceable, and I’m afraid there’s just no way the court could enter it into the record. You’d need a whole new alphabet.”
“Ah.” The judge thought about this for a moment, sucking at a hollow tooth like he was sipping hot soup up a straw, then declared his earlier judgment in favor of the plaintiff null and void. “For,” he continued, “if there is no means of identifying the plaintiff, the court can in no wise be certain exactly who is receiving the award. Any old frog could walk in here claiming to be you and sleep with my daughter, is that not so?”
“Technicality!” yelled the frog formerly known as Prince. “It will never hold up on appeal. None of my frog friends could claim to be me, for the simple reason that none of them can speak. So there!”
“Ah,” said the judge with a sly wink to his daughter. “But how does the court know that?” At the frog’s confused look, he explained: “One cannot prove a negative, sir. They could simply be refusing to talk. Taking the Fifth, as is their right.”
Oh, but that frog was some kind of furious. He blustered, he gnashed his gums, he stomped his little webbed feet, he rolled on the floor and waved his legs in the air, and then he started sucking up real deep breaths and holding them, swelling up bigger and bigger until his eyes were all red and popped out and his skin starting to curl off his bones. And then, kabang! That nasty old thing blew up into about a million pieces going all over.
“Oh yuck!” yelped Olivia and Netta, thoroughly slimed.
“Daddy!” squealed Princess, and wiped the stuff out of her eyes and there, in the middle of the floor, right where that frog was before, was just the cutest little feller she’d ever seen, wearing nothing but his jockeys and a simple stud earring. Immediately she saw him Princess’s cold cold heart set fire, and she knew that even if he wasn’t the King he was a Prince, and that was a start.
Now this young man had done set his heart on Princess a long time before. In fact, that was why he’d got him a witch to turn him into a frog in the first place, so’s he could get into the garden and trick his way into Princess’s bed. The plan was that he would change back into his real self that first night, of course, only the old witch wasn’t no match for the judge’s sharp legal mind.
Anyway, the slime got cleaned up, and Princess and her young feller was married soon after. They lived right nice as man and wife too, except for sometimes now and again when he missed the simple joys of his former amphibilous ways. But Princess would just cook him up a hot, buttery mess of grits and crickets, and that fixed him up right fine.

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Tags:

fairy, frog, humor, prince, southern and tale