Laura Richards
Toto's Merry Winter

CHAPTER XI

THE apples and nuts went round again and again, and for a few minutes nothing was heard save the cracking of shells and the gnawing of sharp white teeth. At length the parrot said, meditatively: —

"That was a very stupid cow, though! Are all cows as stupid as that?"

"Well, I don't think they are what you would call brilliant, as a rule," Toto admitted; "but they are generally good, and that is better."

"Hem! possibly!" said Miss Mary, dryly. "That is probably why we have no cows in Central Africa. Our animals being all, without exception, clever and good, there is really no place for creatures of the sort you describe."

"How about the bogghun, Miss Mary?" asked the raccoon, slyly, with a wink at Toto.

The parrot ruffled up her feathers, and was about to make a sharp reply; but suddenly remembering the raccoon's brave defence of her an hour before, she smoothed her plumage again, and replied gently, —

"I confess that I forgot the bogghun, Coon. It is indeed a treacherous and a wicked creature! – a dark blot on the golden roll of African animals." She paused and sighed, then added, as if to change the subject, "But, come! is it too late to have another story? If not, I have a short one in mind, which I will tell you, if you wish."

All assented joyfully, and Miss Mary, without more delay, related the story of

THE THREE REMARKS

There was once a princess, the most beautiful princess that ever was seen. Her hair was black and soft as the raven's wing [here the Crow blinked, stood on one leg and plumed himself, evidently highly flattered by the allusion]; her eyes were like stars dropped in a pool of clear water, and her speech like the first tinkling cascade of the baby Nile. She was also wise, graceful, and gentle, so that one would have thought she must be the happiest princess in the world.

But, alas! there was one terrible drawback to her happiness. She could make only three remarks. No one knew whether it was the fault of her nurse, or a peculiarity born with her; but the sad fact remained, that no matter what was said to her, she could only reply in one of three phrases. The first was, —

"What is the price of butter?"

The second, "Has your grandmother sold her mangle yet?"

And the third, "With all my heart!"

You may well imagine what a great misfortune this was to a young and lively princess. How could she join in the sports and dances of the noble youths and maidens of the court? She could not always be silent, neither could she always say, "With all my heart!" though this was her favorite phrase, and she used it whenever she possibly could; and it was not at all pleasant, when some gallant knight asked her whether she would rather play croquet or Aunt Sally, to be obliged to reply, "What is the price of butter?"

On certain occasions, however, the princess actually found her infirmity of service to her. She could always put an end suddenly to any conversation that did not please her, by interposing with her first or second remark; and they were also a very great assistance to her when, as happened nearly every day, she received an offer of marriage. Emperors, kings, princes, dukes, earls, marquises, viscounts, baronets, and many other lofty personages knelt at her feet, and offered her their hands, hearts, and other possessions of greater or less value. But for all her suitors the princess had but one answer. Fixing her deep radiant eyes on them, she would reply with thrilling earnestness, "Has your grandmother sold her mangle yet?" and this always impressed the suitors so deeply that they retired weeping to a neighboring monastery, where they hung up their armor in the chapel, and taking the vows, passed the remainder of their lives mostly in flogging themselves, wearing hair shirts, and putting dry toast-crumbs in their beds.

Now, when the king found that all his best nobles were turning into monks, he was greatly displeased, and said to the princess: —

"My daughter, it is high time that all this nonsense came to an end. The next time a respectable person asks you to marry him, you will say, 'With all my heart!' or I will know the reason why."

But this the princess could not endure, for she had never yet seen a man whom she was willing to marry. Nevertheless, she feared her father's anger, for she knew that he always kept his word; so that very night she slipped down the back stairs of the palace, opened the back door, and ran away out into the wide world.

She wandered for many days, over mountain and moor, through fen and through forest, until she came to a fair city. Here all the bells were ringing, and the people shouting and flinging caps into the air; for their old king was dead, and they were just about to crown a new one. The new king was a stranger, who had come to the town only the day before; but as soon as he heard of the old monarch's death, he told the people that he was a king himself, and as he happened to be without a kingdom at that moment, he would be quite willing to rule over them. The people joyfully assented, for the late king had left no heir; and now all the preparations had been completed. The crown had been polished up, and a new tip put on the sceptre, as the old king had quite spoiled it by poking the fire with it for upwards of forty years.

When the people saw the beautiful princess, they welcomed her with many bows, and insisted on leading her before the new king.

"Who knows but that they may be related?" said everybody. "They both came from the same direction, and both are strangers."

Accordingly the princess was led to the market-place, where the king was sitting in royal state. He had a fat, red, shining face, and did not look like the kings whom she had been in the habit of seeing; but nevertheless the princess made a graceful courtesy, and then waited to hear what he would say.

The new king seemed rather embarrassed when he saw that it was a princess who appeared before him; but he smiled graciously, and said, in a smooth oily voice, —

"I trust your 'Ighness is quite well. And 'ow did yer 'Ighness leave yer pa and ma?"

At these words the princess raised her head and looked fixedly at the red-faced king; then she replied, with scornful distinctness, —

"What is the price of butter?"

At these words an alarming change came over the king's face. The red faded from it, and left it a livid green; his teeth chattered; his eyes stared, and rolled in their sockets; while the sceptre dropped from his trembling hand and fell at the princess's feet. For the truth was, this was no king at all, but a retired butterman, who had laid by a little money at his trade, and had thought of setting up a public house; but chancing to pass through this city at the very time when they were looking for a king, it struck him that he might just as well fill the vacant place as any one else. No one had thought of his being an impostor; but when the princess fixed her clear eyes on him and asked him that familiar question, which he had been in the habit of hearing many times a day for a great part of his life, the guilty butterman thought himself detected, and shook in his guilty shoes. Hastily descending from his throne, he beckoned he princess into a side-chamber, and closing the door, besought her in moving terms not to betray him.

"Here," he said, "is a bag of rubies as big as pigeon's eggs. There are six thousand of them, and I 'umbly beg your 'Ighness to haccept them as a slight token hof my hesteem, if your 'Ighness will kindly consent to spare a respeckable tradesman the disgrace of being hexposed."

The princess reflected, and came to the conclusion that, after all, a butterman might make as good a king as any one else; so she took the rubies with a gracious little nod, and departed, while all the people shouted, "Hooray!" and followed her, waving their hats and kerchiefs, to the gates of the city.

With her bag of rubies over her shoulder, the fair princess now pursued her journey, and fared forward over heath and hill, through brake and through brier. After several days she came to a deep forest, which she entered without hesitation, for she knew no fear. She had not gone a hundred paces under the arching limes, when she was met by a band of robbers, who stopped her and asked what she did in their forest, and what she carried in her bag. They were fierce, black-bearded men, armed to the teeth with daggers, cutlasses, pistols, dirks, hangers, blunderbusses, and other defensive weapons; but the princess gazed calmly on them, and said haughtily, —

"Has your grandmother sold her mangle yet?"

The effect was magical. The robbers started back in dismay, crying, "The countersign!" Then they hastily lowered their weapons, and assuming attitudes of abject humility, besought the princess graciously to accompany them to their master's presence. With a lofty gesture she signified assent, and the cringing, trembling bandits led her on through the forest till they reached an open glade, into which the sunbeams glanced right merrily. Here, under a broad oak-tree which stood in the centre of the glade, reclined a man of gigantic stature and commanding mien, with a whole armory of weapons displayed upon his person. Hastening to their chief, the robbers conveyed to him, in agitated whispers, the circumstance of their meeting the princess, and of her unexpected reply to their questions. Hardly seeming to credit their statement, the gigantic chieftain sprang to his feet, and advancing toward the princess with a respectful reverence, begged her to repeat the remark which had so disturbed his men. With a royal air, and in clear and ringing tones, the princess repeated, —

"Has your grandmother sold her mangle yet?" and gazed steadfastly at the robber chief.

He turned deadly pale, and staggered against a tree, which alone prevented him from falling.

"It is true!" he gasped. "We are undone! The enemy is without doubt close at hand, and all is over. Yet," he added with more firmness, and with an appealing glance at the princess, "yet there may be one chance left for us. If this gracious lady will consent to go forward, instead of returning through the wood, we may yet escape with our lives. Noble princess!" and here he and the whole band assumed attitudes of supplication, "consider, I pray you, whether it would really add to your happiness to betray to the advancing army a few poor foresters, who earn their bread by the sweat of their brow.[195][196] Here," he continued, hastily drawing something from a hole in the oak-tree, "is a bag containing ten thousand sapphires, each as large as a pullet's egg. If you will graciously deign to accept them, and to pursue your journey in the direction I shall indicate, the Red Chief of the Rustywhanger will be your slave forever."

The princess, who of course knew that there was no army in the neighborhood, and who moreover did not in the least care which way she went, assented to the Red Chief's proposition, and taking the bag of sapphires, bowed her farewell to the grateful robbers, and followed their leader down a ferny path which led to the farther end of the forest. When they came to the open country, the robber chieftain took his leave of the princess, with profound bows and many protestations of devotion, and returned to his band, who were already preparing to plunge into the impenetrable thickets of the midforest.

The princess, meantime, with her two bags of gems on her shoulders, fared forward with a light heart, by dale and by down, through moss and through meadow. By-and-by she came to a fair high palace, built all of marble and shining jasper, with smooth lawns about it, and sunny gardens of roses and gillyflowers, from which the air blew so sweet that it was a pleasure to breathe it. The princess stood still for a moment, to taste the sweetness of this air, and to look her fill at so fair a spot; and as she stood there, it chanced that the palace-gates opened, and the young king rode out with his court, to go a-catching of nighthawks.

Now when the king saw a right fair princess standing alone at his palace-gate, her rich garments dusty and travel-stained, and two heavy sacks hung upon her shoulders, he was filled with amazement; and leaping from his steed, like the gallant knight that he was, he besought her to tell him whence she came and whither she was going, and in what way he might be of service to her.

But the princess looked down at her little dusty shoes, and answered never a word; for she had seen at the first glance how fair and goodly a king this was, and she would not ask him the price of butter, nor whether his grandmother had sold her mangle yet. But she thought in her heart, "Now, I have never, in all my life, seen a man to whom I would so willingly say, 'With all my heart!' if he should ask me to marry him."

The king marvelled much at her silence, and presently repeated his questions, adding, "And what do you carry so carefully in those two sacks, which seem over-heavy for your delicate shoulders?"

Still holding her eyes downcast, the princess took a ruby from one bag, and a sapphire from the other, and in silence handed them to the king, for she willed that he should know she was no beggar, even though her shoes were dusty. Thereat all the nobles were filled with amazement, for no such gems had ever been seen in that country.

But the king looked steadfastly at the princess, and said, "Rubies are fine, and sapphires are fair; but, maiden, if I could but see those eyes of yours, I warrant that the gems would look pale and dull beside them."

At that the princess raised her clear dark eyes, and looked at the king and smiled; and the glance of her eyes pierced straight to his heart, so that he fell on his knees and cried:

"Ah! sweet princess, now do I know that thou art the love for whom I have waited so long, and whom I have sought through so many lands. Give me thy white hand, and tell me, either by word or by sign, that thou wilt be my queen and my bride!"

And the princess, like a right royal maiden as she was, looked him straight in the eyes, and giving him her little white hand, answered bravely, "With all my heart!"

CHAPTER XII

NOW, if we had looked into the hermit's cave a few days after this, we should have seen a very pleasant sight. The good old man was sitting up on his narrow couch, with his lame leg on a stool before him. On another stool sat our worthy friend Bruin, with a backgammon-board on his knees, and the two were deep in the mysteries of Russian backgammon.

"Doublets!" said the hermit, throwing the dice.

"Dear, dear, what luck you do have!" said the bear. "Double sixes again! That takes you out, doesn't it?"

"Yes," said the hermit, "this finishes the game and the rubber. But just remember, my friend, how you beat me yesterday. I was gammoned over and over again, with never a doublet to save me from ruin."

"To be sure!" said Bruin, with a chuckle. "To be sure! yesterday was one of my good days. And so to-day you have gammoned me back again. I suppose that is why the game is called back-gammon, hey?"

"Possibly!" replied the hermit, smiling.

"And how have you been in the habit of playing?" continued the bear. "You spoke of playing last winter, you know. Whom did you play with, for example?"

"With myself," said the hermit, – "the right hand against the left. I taught my crow the game once, but it didn't work very well. He could not lift the dice-box, and could only throw the dice by running against the box, and upsetting it. This was apt to disarrange the pieces, you see; and as he would not trust me to throw for him, we gave it up."

"I see!" said Bruin, thoughtfully. "And what else did you do in the way of amusement?"

"I read, chiefly," replied the old man. "You see I have a good many books, and they are all good ones, which will bear reading many times."

"Humph!" said the bear. "That is one thing about you people that I cannot understand, – the reading of books. Seems so senseless, you know, when you can use your eyes for other things. But, tell me," he added, "have you never thought of trying our way of passing the winter? It is certainly much the best way, when one is alone. Choose a comfortable place, like this, for example, curl yourself up in the warmest corner, and there you are, with nothing to do but to sleep till spring comes again."

"I am afraid I could not do that," said the hermit with a smile. "We are made differently, you see. I cannot sleep more than a few hours at a time, at any season of the year."

"Not if you sucked your paw?" inquired the bear, eagerly. "That makes all the difference, you know. Have you ever tried sucking your paw?"

The hermit was forced to admit that he never had.

"Ah! well, you really must try it some day," said Bruin. "There is nothing like it, after all. Nothing like it! I will confess to you," he added in a low tone, and looking cautiously about to make sure that they were alone, "that I have missed it sadly this winter. In most respects this has been the happiest season of my life, and I have enjoyed it more than I can tell you; but still there are times, – when I am tired, you know, or the weather is dull, or Coon is a little trying, as he is sometimes, – times when I feel as if I would give a great deal for a quiet corner where I could suck my paw and sleep for a week or two."

"Couldn't you manage it, somehow?" asked the hermit, sympathetically.

"Oh, no! no!" replied the good bear, decidedly. "Coon thinks the Madam would not like it. He is very genteel, you know, – very genteel indeed, Coon is; and he says it wouldn't be at all 'the thing' for me to suck my paw anywhere about the place. I never know just what 'thing' he means when he says that, but it's a favorite expression of his; and he certainly knows a great deal about good manners. Besides," he added, more cheerfully, "there is always plenty of work to do, and that is the best thing to keep one awake. But now, Mr. Baldhead, it is time for your dinner, sir; and here am I sitting and talking, when I ought to be warming your broth!"

With these words the excellent bear arose, put away the backgammon board, and proceeded to build up the fire, hang the kettle, and put the broth on to warm, all as deftly as if he had been a cook all his life. He stirred and tasted, shook his head, tasted again, and then said, —

"You haven't the top of a young pine-tree anywhere about the house, I suppose? It would give this broth such a nice flavor."

"I am afraid not!" said the hermit, laughing. "I don't generally keep a large stock of such things on hand. But I fancy the broth will be very good without it, to judge from the last I had."

The bear still looked dissatisfied. "Do you ever put frogs in your broth?" he asked, presently. "Whole ones, you know, rolled in a batter, just like dumplings?"

"No!" said the hermit, quickly and decidedly. "I am quite sure I should not like them, thank you, – though it was very kind of you to make the suggestion!" he added, seeing that Bruin looked disappointed.

"You have no idea how nice they are," said the good bear, rather sadly. "But you are so strange, you people! I never could induce Toto or Madam to try them, either. I invented the soup myself, – at least the frog-dumpling part of it, – and made it one day as a little surprise for them. But when I told them what the dumplings were, Toto choked and rolled on the floor, and Madam was quite ill at the very thought, though she had not begun to eat her soup. So Coon and Cracker and I had it all to ourselves, and uncommonly good it was. It's a pity for people to be so prejudiced."

The good hermit was choking a little himself, for some reason or other, but he looked very grave when Bruin turned toward him for assent, and said, "Quite so!" which is a safe remark under most circumstances.

The broth being now ready, the bear proceeded to arrange a tray neatly, and set it before his patient, who took up his wooden spoon and fell to with right good-will. The good bear stood watching him with great satisfaction; and it was really a pity that there was no one there to watch the bear himself, for as he stood there with a clean cloth over his arm, his head on one side, and his honest face beaming with pride and pleasure, he was very well worth looking at.

At this moment a sharp cry of terror was heard outside, then a quick whirr of wings, and the next moment the wood-pigeon darted into the cave, closely pursued by a large hawk. Poor Pigeon Pretty! She was quite exhausted, and with one more piteous cry she fell fainting at Bruin's feet. In another instant the hawk would have pounced upon her, but that instant never came for the winged marauder. Instead, something or somebody pounced on him. A thick white covering enveloped him, entangling his claws, binding down his wings, well-nigh stifling him. He felt himself seized in an iron grasp and lifted bodily into the air, while a deep, stern voice exclaimed, —

"Now, sir! have you anything to say for yourself, before I wring your neck?"

Then the covering was drawn back from his head, and he found himself face to face with the great bear, whom he knew perfectly well by sight. But he was a bold fellow, too well used to danger to shrink from it, even in so terrible a form as this; and his fierce yellow eyes met the stern gaze of his captor without shrinking.

"Have you anything to say?" repeated the bear, "before I wring your ugly neck?"

"No!" replied the hawk, sullenly, "wring away."

This answer rather disconcerted our friend Bruin, who, as he sometimes said sadly to himself, had "lost all taste for killing;" so he only shook Master Hawk a little, and said, —

"Do you know of any reason why your neck should not be wrung?"

"None in life!" answered the hawk. "Wring away, I tell you! Are you afraid, you great clumsy monster?"

"I'll soon show you whether I am afraid or not!" said the bear, sternly. "Why did you chase my pigeon?"

"'Cause I wanted to eat her!" was the defiant reply. "If you had had nothing to eat for a week, you'd have eaten her long before this, I'll be bound!"

"Nothing to eat for a week!" repeated the bear, incredulously. "Why was that?"

"'Cause there wasn't anything, stupid!" said the other.

Here Bruin began to rub his nose with his disengaged paw, and to look helplessly about him, as he always did when disturbed in mind.

"Now – now – now!" he exclaimed, "you hawk, what do you mean by that? Couldn't you dig for roots?"

The hawk stared. "Dig for roots?" he repeated, contemptuously. "Look at my beak! Do you think I can dig with that?"

"It is rather short," said Bruin; "but – yes! why, of course, any one can dig, if he wants to."

"Ask that old thing," said the hawk, nodding toward the hermit, "whether he ever dug with his beak; and it's twice as long as mine."

"Of course he has!" replied Bruin, promptly; but then he faltered, for it suddenly occurred to him that he had never seen either Toto or the Madam dig with their noses; and it was with some hesitation that he asked:

"Mr. Baldhead – excuse me! but – a – have you ever tried digging for roots in the ground – with your beak – I mean, nose?"

The hermit looked up gravely, as he sat with Pigeon Pretty on his knee. "No, my friend," he said with great seriousness, "I have never tried it, and doubt if I could do it. I can dig with my hands, though," he added, seeing the good bear look more and more puzzled.

"Ah, yes!" said Bruin. "But you see this bird has no hands, though he has very ugly claws; so that doesn't help – Well!" he cried, breaking off short, and once more addressing the hawk. "I don't see anything for it but to wring your neck, do you? After all, it will keep you from being hungry again."

But here the soft voice of the wood-pigeon interposed. "No, no! Bruin, dear," cried the gentle bird. "Give him something to eat, and let him go. If he had eaten nothing for a week, I am sure he was not to blame for pursuing the first eatable creature he saw. Remember," she added in a lower tone, which only the bear could hear, "that before this winter, any of us would have done the same."

Bruin scratched his head helplessly; the hawk turned his yellow eyes on Pigeon Pretty with a strange look, but said nothing. But now the hermit saw that it was time for him to interfere.

"Pigeon Pretty," he said, "you are right, as usual. Bruin, my friend, bring your prisoner here, and let him finish this excellent broth, into which I have crumbled some bread. I will answer for Master Hawk's good behavior, for the present at least," he added, "for I know that he comes of an old and honorable family."

Wonder of wonders! In five minutes the hawk was sitting quietly on the hermit's knee, sipping broth, pursuing the floating bits of bread in the bowl, and submitting to have his soft black plumage stroked, with the best grace in the world. On the good man's other knee sat Pigeon Pretty, now quite recovered from her fright and fatigue, her soft eyes beaming with pleasure; while Bruin squatted opposite them, looking from one to the other, and assuring himself over and over again that Pigeon Pretty was "a most astonishing bird! 'pon my word, a most astonishing bird!"

His meal ended, the stranger wiped his beak politely on his feathers, plumed himself, and thanked his hosts for their hospitality, with a stately courtesy which contrasted strangely with his former sullen and ferocious bearing. The fierce glare was gone from his eyes, which were, however, still strangely bright; and with his glossy plumage smooth, and his head held proudly erect, he really was a noble-looking bird.

"Long is it, indeed," he said, "since any one has spoken a kind word to Ger-Falcon. It will not be forgotten, I assure you. We are a wild and lawless family, – our beak against every one, and every one's claw against us, – and yet, as you observed, Sir Baldhead, we are an old and honorable race. Alas! for the brave, brave days of old, when my sires were the honored companions of kings and princes! My grandfather seventy times removed was served by an emperor, the obsequious monarch carrying him every day on his own wrist to the hunting. He ate from a golden dish, and wore a collar of gems about his neck. Ah, me! what would be the feelings of that noble ancestor if he could see his descendant a hunted outlaw, persecuted by the sons of those very men who once courted and caressed him, and supporting a precarious existence by the ignoble spoils of barn-yards and hen-roosts!"

The hawk paused, overcome by these recollections of past glory, and the good bear said kindly, —

"Dear! dear! very sad, I'm sure. And how did this melancholy change come about, pray?"

"Fashion, my dear sir!" replied the hawk, "ignoble fashion! The race of men degenerated, and occupied themselves with less lofty sports than hawking. My family, left to themselves, knew not what to do. They had been trained to pursue, to overtake, to slay, through long generations; they were unfitted for anything else. But when they began to lead this life on their own account, man, always ungrateful, turned upon them, and persecuted them for the very deeds which had once been the delight and pride of his fickle race. So we fell from our high estate, lower and lower, till the present representative of the Ger-Falcon is the poor creature you behold before you."

The hawk bowed in proud humility, and his hearers all felt, perhaps, much more sorry for him than he deserved. The wood-pigeon was about to ask something more about his famous ancestors, when a shadow darkened the mouth of the cave, and Toto made his appearance, with the crow perched on his shoulder.

"Well, Mr. Baldhead!" he cried in his fresh, cheery voice, "how are you to-day, sir? Better still? I have brought you some – hello! who is this?" And catching sight of the stranger, he stopped short, and looked at the bear for an explanation.

"This is Mr. Ger-Falcon, Toto," said Bruin. "My friend Toto, Mr. Falcon." Toto nodded, and the hawk made him a stately bow; but the two looked distrustfully at each other, and neither seemed inclined to make any advances. Bruin continued, —

"Mr. Falcon came here in a – well, not in a friendly way at all, I must say. But he is in a very different frame of mind, now, and I trust there will be no further trouble."

"Do you ever change your name, sir?" asked Toto, abruptly, addressing the hawk.

"I do not understand you, sir!" replied the latter, haughtily. "I have no reason to be ashamed of my name."

"Perhaps not!" said the boy. "And yet I am tolerably sure that Mr. Ger-Falcon is no other than Mr. Chicken Hawkon, and that it was he who tried to carry off my Black Spanish chickens yesterday morning."

"You are right, sir!" said the hawk. "You are quite right! I was starving, and the chickens presented themselves to me wholly in the light of food. May I ask for what purpose you keep chickens, sir?"

"Why, we eat them when they grow up," said Toto; "but – "

"Ah, precisely!" murmured the hawk. "You eat them also. I thought so."

"But we don't steal other people's chickens," said the boy, "we eat our own."

"Precisely!" said the hawk, again. "You eat the tame, confiding creatures who feed from your hand, and stretch their necks trustfully to meet their doom. I, on the contrary, when the pangs of hunger force me to snatch a morsel of food to save me from starvation, snatch it from strangers, not from my friends."

Toto was about to make a hasty reply, but the bear, with a motion of his paw, checked him, and said gravely to the hawk, —

"Come, come! Mr. Falcon, I cannot have any dispute of this kind. There is some truth in what you say, and I have no doubt that emperors and other disreputable people have had a large share in forming the bad habits into which you and all your family have fallen. But those habits must be changed, sir, if you intend to remain in this forest. You must not meddle with Toto's chickens; you must not chase quiet and harmless birds. You must, in short, become a respectable and law-abiding bird, instead of a robber and a murderer."