Justly Story Ch. 3 1/2: The Priest

The Priest

By Kristen S. Sandoz

2012

Our last Justly Story told us about the day of Pearl’s birth, where she was stolen from her royal parents by a Thief and a Lying Beggar. They in turn got tired of her after one day and promptly left her on the doorstep of the church. It would be a discredit to the Priest at this fine establishment if I did not mention his part in this whole story so I will give a short account of it now.

People were always leaving babies at the church. This was quite a disturbing problem for the priest in charge there for he was a young bachelor and had no idea what to do with babies. You can imagine his surprise at finding the bundle on the step. He at first was overjoyed when he saw the basket. “Oh, how lovely!” he said. “Someone has left me a gift!” People were often doing that, too. “I do hope it is a basket of apples. I’m dying for a warm, delicious apple pie!” He whisked the basket up, sure it was full of apples because of its weight, and set it in the front pew. He reached in, expecting to grab a cold, firm apple, and instead felt a warm, soft, wet, sticky mess! “Dear heavens!” exclaimed the priest, to which the Princess inside responded with a very loud hungry wail. Not knowing anything else to do he ran out the front of the church, with basket in one hand and pooh in the other and took it all directly to his neighbor, Hazel, who had not yet been outcast as a witch. “She will know what to do with a crying baby,” he thought. And she did.

So there it is, the story of how Pearl came to be poor and to have Hazel as an Auntie. Hazel kept Pearl as if she were her own. She knew from the beginning that there was something special about this baby she had been given and she took it as her own personal mission to see to it that Pearl had a chance to grow properly into her own calling--a calling which will not come easy for her. And in this way, Pearl, despite being a princess, is much like the rest of us. For, as the Witch Hazel reminds us, “Even a princess must choose to answer the one who calls her.”


1…Now my story is done.
2…I love you!
3…Please kiss me.