Half-Past Seven Stories Part 32

So he explained to the Queen all about them, about Longfellow and Whittier and all the rest. He really didn't know so very much about them, you see, but he had played the game so often that he knew the cards and names "'most by heart."

"Gracious!" exclaimed the Queen--in Chinese, of course. "Whittier and Longfellow--what _pretty_ names! But haven't you got Confucius there, somewhere?" Confucius, you see, was a man who wrote in Chinese long years ago, and he was one of her pet authors.

Marmaduke shuffled the cards all over, but couldn't seem to find that name.

"I guess he's been lost," he said politely, so as not to hurt her feelings and lose his head, "but I'll tell you what"--he added, pointing to a picture of d.i.c.kens--"we can call this man Confoundit just as well."

"_Confucius, not Confoundit_," the Queen corrected him crossly, then she looked at the card. "That'll do, I suppose. That author has a kind face and a real long beard. It's not half bad."

She chose Marmaduke for her partner, and they played against the two tallest mandarins in the red dragon coats.

The Queen and Marmaduke beat the old mandarins badly, due to Marmaduke's fine playing. And the Queen was so pleased that she exclaimed,--

"After all, I won't cut off your head. You see, it might stain that pretty rug. I guess we'd better have tea and a party instead." Then she added,--"By the way, do you drink tea?"

"Yes, thank you," he replied, "but make it '_cambric_.'"

"All right if you prefer it," she remarked, "but I call it silly to spoil a good drink that way."

Then she clapped her hands, and her servants came running in, with huge trays of wonderful foods in their arms. And the Queen and the mandarins, Marmaduke and Wienerwurst, and Ping Pong, Sing Song, and Ah See, all sat around the throne, drinking out of the little blue cups and eating the strange food. It made Marmaduke's eyes almost pop out of his head to see the way the Queen and her mandarins, and his three little yellow friends, devoured those dishes,--the stewed rats, the frica.s.seed shark's fins, and the old birds' nests. Now Wienerwurst didn't seem to object to that sort of food at all, but "licked it right up" like the Chinamen. Marmaduke chose other things instead,--some pickled goldfish, candied humming-birds' tongues, some frozen rose-petals, whipped cloud pudding, and a deep dish of spiced air from the sky, with dried stars for raisins. And, to wash it all down, he had a little blue cup of tea, "cambric" of course, quite as his mother would have wished.

Seeing that he was growing drowsy from such a big meal, the Queen took pity on him and said he could lean back against the golden throne and take a nap.

But first she called the mandarin who was in charge of the Fire-cracker Treasury, where they kept all the finest fire-crackers in the world, and ordered him to bring Marmaduke some. Soon the mandarin came back, and, with him, six servants, with trays heaped high with the prettiest and the fanciest fire-crackers ever boy or man saw. They were wrapped in rose-colored silk paper, with gold letters on the paper, and dragons, too, with great eyes and fiery forked tongues.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "Then the Queen clapped her hands and the servants came running in with trays piled high with wonderful foods."]

The six servants and the mandarin filled all Marmaduke's seven pockets with the packs of fire-crackers, and tied one on Wienerwurst's tail.

Then they handed him some bundles of extra-fine punk sticks. It wasn't at all like ordinary punk, but very sweet-smelling.

He lighted one stick, and it smelled so like incense, and he felt so drowsy and nice, that he started to fall asleep. The lighted punk fell lower and lower until it touched one of the fire-cracker-packs. The silk paper began to curl and grow black, then it burst into flames.

There was a sputter, then a crackle like the firing of many rifles, and then a great roar. My! but those were powerful fire-crackers. One pack exploded--and he was blown through the palace. Another--and over the Peppermint PaG.o.da he flew. Still another went off, and he was tossed clean over the Great Wall to the mouth of the hole down which he had come that very same day.

Then the last pack went--_bang_! and he was blown through the hole, Wienerwurst after him, up, up, up, past the Coal Giant and the Furnace Pit, and up, up, up, until he saw, just above him, the little circle of light again.

Out of it he flew--and--all of a sudden his head cleared, and he saw he was sitting back at home once more, sitting against the cedar post, and the Toyman was rubbing his head.

"Never mind," the Toyman was saying, "It'll feel better soon. And how did you like China?"

The head did feel better "pretty soon." Anyway, he didn't mind it a bit. It was worth a headache, as the Toyman said, to have seen the wonderful land of China.

XVI

HE THAT TOOK THE CITY

Marmaduke trudged up the road. And the road went up, up, up the hill.

First he thought that road was like a great worm, always squirming ahead of him, but then he decided that, although it twisted, it didn't _squirm_, it was too still for that. After all, it was more like a ribbon, a wide brown ribbon, tied around the green shoulder of the hill.

He wondered where that ribbon road went--over the hill and far away--perhaps clear round the World! But, no, it couldn't do that, for there was the Sea between, and it must stop at the Sea. Anyway, he would have liked to have travelled over it, to the very end, to see all the people and animals that walked over it, and the cities and churches that stood by its side.

But first he must find the Toyman. That is what he had come for. And the Toyman had just gone over that very road. Marmaduke had seen him from the valley below, his long legs climbing up that hill and the little boy had hurried after him, calling and calling.

"'Llo, Toyman, 'llo, Toyman!" he shouted.

He heard an answer and put his hand to his ear to hear more clearly.

"'Llo, Toyman, 'llo, Toyman!" came the mocking answer, faint and far-away.

But it wasn't the Toyman. It was Echo, calling back from the hills.

Marmaduke had always wanted to meet Echo, but so far he never had. He thought she must be something like the Star-Lady, whom he _had_ met, only not quite so bright. Her voice sounded a little sadder, too, like the Bluebird's in the Fall when he says "Goodbye" to the fields and flies to the South. Often he had run after Echo, but he never could catch up with her, nor even see a glimpse of her silver and green dress. She always played Hide-and-Seek with him, and he was always "it."

However, he didn't worry long about friend Echo this morning. He was thinking of the Toyman. For the Toyman's face had looked worried--far away and sad. It had _looked_ somehow as Echo's voice always _sounded_. What was it Mother had said? "Poor Frank!"--that's what she called him; "he's in trouble," she had whispered to Father.

Marmaduke didn't know what he could do, but he wanted to catch up with him, and put his hand in his, and tell him not to worry at all, and say, if he needed money he could have all there was in Marmaduke's bank--every last penny, even the bright ones.

Across the road a big jack-rabbit jumped--jumped _sping--sping--sping_--like a toy animal made of steel springs.

Wienerwurst ran after the rabbit, but his master didn't stop to chase Jack. He was afraid if he wasted any time he would never catch up with the Toyman.

At last the ribbon road reached the top of the hill and wound along it a little way before it started twisting down the other side. For a moment Marmaduke's eyes followed it down hill, and he wanted to follow it with his legs too, there were so many wonderful and mysterious places where it went, but just then he caught sight of the Toyman.

He was sitting right on the top of the hill, sitting with his chin in his hands, and his eyes on the West far away. And he said never a word.

So Marmaduke just stole up softly, and put his face against the Toyman's, and sat down beside him.

And then the Toyman's eyes came back from far away and looked down on the little boy and smiled again.

"Don't you worry, Toyman," the little boy said to him, "don't you worry about _anything_. It'll all come out in the wash."

The Toyman didn't ask what he meant by that, for he knew it was a proverb, a boy's proverb that was as good as any King Soloman ever made.

"Sure, sonny," he repeated, "it'll all come out in the wash." And he patted the hand beside him.

You see, Marmaduke never asked the Toyman what his trouble really was, or anything at all. And that is always the very best way--when a friend's in trouble, don't bother him with a lot of questions--and pester the life out of him--but just take his mind off his troubles by suggesting some nice game to play--like marbles or "Duck-on-the-Rock,"

or going fishing, or something; and if you can't do that, just sit beside him, "quiet-like," and be his friend.

For a while they sat so, drinking in the cool air, and looking down at the valley, and the white houses, and red barns, and the yellow haystacks, and the horses and people like ants crawling here and there. There were two ribbons in the valley now, one brown and one silver, the Road and the River. And from the Church with the Long White Finger Pointing at the Sky, came the sound of bells--pealing --pealing--up the hill to the Sky.

All else was still. But after they had listened for a while they discovered that it wasn't so still as it had seemed. Every bird and insect, each leaf and blossom, was busy, preparing its dinner, or else just growing. A twig rustled as a little garter snake squirmed into the thicket. A little gray nuthatch looked for its lunch on a locust tree, crawling over the trunk head-downwards, while, on a branch overhead, a crested flycatcher perched watching, watching, then all-of-a-sudden swooped down and pounced on a fly, swallowed him, flew back to its perch, and watched again.

In the tall gra.s.ses which rose like a miniature forest around his head, green katydids jumped, as spry as monkeys. And, as he lay on his back, he could see, way up in the middle of the sky, and right on a line with his eye, Ole Robber Hawk himself, or else one of his relatives or friends. He was brown, of course, but against the blue of the sky he looked like a little black speck with a couple of thin wavy lines for wings.

There was music, too, for a woodthrush sang, oh ever so sweet, and the oriole whistled as clear as a flute, while a locust rattled away like the man who plays the drum and all the noisy things in the theatre-orchestra. But, busiest of all, at his feet an army of black ants hurried around a little hole in the ground, seeming quite as big as the people and horses in the valley below.

"It's just like a little city here, isn't it, Toyman?" Marmaduke said, "all the katydids, and bugs, and snakes, and things, workin' an'