The Story of Humpty Dumpty

by: Mary Jenkins


     In the wonderful land of fairy tales there was a very  important 
egg who had a very special job.  His name was Humpty Dumpty and he was 
the only guard at the wall of an enchanting kingdom.

     The king was such a loving person who worked very hard to 
make his kingdom a  pleasant and peaceful place to live. He asked the 
people to be kind, to love one another, to always see the good in others 
and to talk out disagreements with a soft quiet voice.  Being faithful to 
their king, the people triedvery hard to please him, and did as he ask.  
In a short time the king realized that his kingdom was perfect.

     He was bubbling over with joy when he had a disturbing thought.  His
people were never rude, impolite, or selfish, which could cause others to be
unhappy....but what if Unhappiness came into the kingdom?  How could he
possible keep Unhappiness away from those he cherished?  "I'll have a wall
built completely around the kingdom and have trustworthy guards posted
every minute," he thought.  When he told the people of his idea, every one,
young and old came to helped build the wall.

     Humpty Dumpty was the first in a long line to volunteer to be a guard. 
He was so confident that when he saw the king he assured him there was a
need for only "one" guard.  "How can this be? The kingdom is large and the
wall is extremely long", the king asked.  "As you can see, I am an egg.
  
Since
I don't eat or sleep, I can roll along the wall constantly and be around the
whole kingdom in a very short time," Humpty replied.  The king quickly
decided Humpty was the perfect person...er....egg for the job.

     All the people agreed with the king's decision and cheered loudly as the
king set Humpty on the high brick wall.  "Please be careful, this wall is
terribly high and you are such a fragile thing.  If you should fall there may
not be someone to catch you", the concerned king told Humpty.  Once he
assured the king he would be cautious, Humpty went merrily on his way. 
     
     With his winning smile and well-rounded personality, it was
understandable why everyone soon loved Humpty and respected him for the
job he was performing.  He did his work as promised and Unhappiness was
not let beyond the wall.

     Many times Humpty had heard Unhappiness as he made his rounds of the
kingdom. Unhappiness had many sounds, and Humpty eventually heard them
all.  There were the angry sounds of fighting - hateful sounds of sarcasm -
and the mournful sounds of weeping.   With his hard solid shell, the sounds
bounced off and he was not affected by them, but he was concerned.
     
     Humpty made many friends in his travels, and  Katy, the king's young
daughter, became his closest companion.  There were many servants in the
palace to do things for Katy, so she had plenty of time to talk and play with
Humpty.  During the time they we together, neither of them ever forgot
Humpty's responsibilities.  "Running and Rolling" was their favorite game. 
They laughed and shouted, as they played, but the two never failed to speak
to whoever in the kingdom came close by.

     Over the years, Humpty learned the exact location of every crack and
bump of the wall and could hurry along at great speeds.  Katy, who had
grown into a beautiful young lady, was taller and could run faster than when
they first started the game.

     During their game, one hot sunny day, tragedy struck, or so Katy thought,
and it was all her fault.   As she was chasing Humpty, she noticed a cute
brown squirrel scurry across the wall and jump into a nearby tree.  Instead of
stopping to watch the squirrel play, she turned her head and just kept
running.  Realizing she wasn't paying attention to Humpy, she turned her
head  just in time to see him sitting on the wall talking to a subject.
     
     Unable to stop in time, she crashed into the unsuspecting egg.  Startled by
the sudden impact, Humpty lost his balance and fell off the wall. 
 The subject
saw the accident, but was unable to catch the poor egg and immediately ran
to the palace to tell the king of the terrible accident.

    Because of his great fall, Humpty lay at the bottom of the wall all cracked
and broken.  Katy jumped from the wall with tears flowing from her eyes. 
Leaning over her longtime friend, she sobbed, "Oh Humpty I'm so sorry I
made you fall!"  Humpty looked into her sad face and after assuring her he
was all right, told her, "It wasn't your fault at all.  It was mine.  I forgot about
our game and stopped to talk to a friend.  I should have let you know I was
going to stop for a while."  "I was distracted, and wasn't paying attention,
now you will never roll along the wall again, " Katy replied.  After some
thought, Humpty being a good egg, said, "We were both responsible for the
accident, and I'm not really hurt, so neither of us should feel badly".  They
knew their friendship had grown, because they found that forgiveness and
accepting responsibilities for what happened came so easily.

     When the king heard of the unfortunate accident, he hurried to the wall. 
New travels fast in fairly land and the king found the whole kingdom
surrounding Humpty when he arrived at the wall.  To his surprise, he heard
laughter.  Not until he saw Humpty, did he understand.  There in the midst of
the crowd lay a small yellow yolk among a pool of shattered shell and 
quivering egg white.  No one had ever seen the inside of an egg before and
found this to be  a hilarious sight.

     Of course, the king was sincerely sorry about Humpty's fall, but seeing the
tears on his daughters face told him that because of one small crack in the
armor of a loved one, Unhappiness had come into the kingdom.

     What was the king to do now?  His only guard had just fallen apart. 
Immediately, he called all his horses and all his men to 
put Humpty Dumpty back together again.
 
Oh! they tired, but nothing worked. Those who used
glue, only stuck to each other and those who used tape - well, lets just say
they will be very close for a long while.

     Seeing the predicament the king's horses and men were in, Humpty
laughingly told them all, "It is impossible to put me back together, but I'm
just as happy in this scrambled state as I was before."  Then he turned to the
king saying, "Please forgive me for not heeding your advice of long ago. 
Because I was not paying attention, I fell and now there is no one guarding
the kingdom." Seeing the forgiving look on the kings face, Humpty quickly
ask if someone would help him into the shade before he became fried.
     
     Everyone knew that Humpty had done a fantastic job of guarding the
kingdom, keeping Unhappiness out, and would be very hard to replace. 
Once again the crowd roared with excitement as the king pick the broken egg
up and instantly announced that from that moment on, Humpty would sit on
a pedestal, in the shade of the palace door, and announce the visitors who
came to see the king.  Being the palace guard was the highest position a
subject could hold, and since he already knew everyone in the kingdom, he
was positive he could do an extraordinary job.

     Upon hearing the announcement, Humpty was so delighted his yoke
started to giggle with excitement.  Carrying a raw egg around in your hands
is not an easy task, and the king knew that with just one wrong move the yolk
would be on him.  Humpty's friends were so pleased with his new position
that everyone, young and old alike, volunteered to take turns guarding the
kingdom until permanent replacements could be found.

     Unhappiness came into a perfect land through a broken and dedicated
loving egg and the warm heart of a child.  Unhappiness, looking in from
beyond the wall, could not understand why no one blamed the child for
knocking the eggish guard off the wall, or why no one yelled at the egg for
playing instead of doing his job properly.  Unhappiness was so confused.  
"Why didn't your king leave the old rotten egg on the ground to fry?" a
curious Unhappiness ask the guard.  The guard gave a lot of thought to this
question before he gave his short answer.  "Love", was all the guard said
before he turned and walked on along the wall.

     The guard knew that Unhappiness would never understand. As he
continued his walk, he thought, "Had Unhappiness not slipped into our life
for just a minute, we would never have known what a witty sense of humor
Humpty Dumpty has......now that he has come out of his shell.

The End






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