The Admiral's Caravan Part 9

"What is it?" asked Dorothy, eagerly.

"Hush!" said the Admiral, in an agitated whisper. "We think it's where Bob Scarlet changes himself"--and as he said this there was a tremendous flapping of wings, and down came Bob Scarlet through the branches and landed with a thump a little way from where they were standing. He was as big as a goose again, and his appearance was so extremely formidable that the Caravan, as one man, threw themselves flat on their faces in a perfect frenzy of terror, and Dorothy herself hid in the gra.s.s, with her heart beating like a little eight-day clock. But Bob Scarlet fortunately paid no more attention to any of them than if they had been so many flies, and, after strutting about for a moment with his usual important air, strolled away in the direction of the toy-shop.

"Now what do you make of _that_?" said the Admiral, lifting up his head. "He went in at a little door not five minutes ago, and he wasn't any bigger than an every-day bird."

"I'm sure I don't know _what_ to make of it," said Dorothy. "But where is the door?" she added, running around the tower and looking at it on all sides.

"It went up after him," said the Admiral, "like a corkscrew."

"And it's coming down again, like a gimlet!" shouted the Highlander; and, as they all looked up, sure enough there was the little door slowly coming down, around and around, as if it were descending an invisible staircase on the outside of the tower. They all watched this performance with much interest, and as the door touched the ground it opened, and, to Dorothy's amazement, out came the little field-mouse.

"What is it?" cried Dorothy, as they all crowded around the little creature. "Do tell us what it all means."

"It's a Sizing Tower," said the Mouse, its little voice trembling with agitation. "You get big at the top, and little at the bottom. I wouldn't go up there again--not for a bushel of nuts."

"Were you pretty big?" inquired Sir Walter.

"Monstrous!" said the Mouse, with a little shudder; "I was as big as a squirrel; and while I was up there, Bob Scarlet flew up and came down with the door, and there I was."

"_That_ was a precious mess!" remarked the Highlander.

"Wasn't it now!" said the Mouse. "And if he hadn't taken it into his head to come up again and _fly down_, I'd 'a' been there yet."

"Why, it's the very thing for us!" cried Dorothy, clapping her hands with delight as a happy thought occurred to her. "Let's all go up and get back our regular selves."

"You go first," said the Admiral, suspiciously, "and call down to us how it feels." But Dorothy wouldn't hear of this; and after a great deal of arguing and pushing and saying "_You_ go in first," the whole party at last got squeezed in through the little doorway. Then the Mouse sat up on its hind legs and waved a little farewell with its paws, and the door softly closed.

"If we begin to grow _now_," said the Admiral's voice in the dark, "we'll all be squeegeed, _sure_!"

"What an extraordinary thing!" exclaimed Dorothy; for they had come out into a street full of houses.

"What _I_ want to know is what's become of the door," said Sir Walter, indignantly, staring at a high wall where the door had been, and which was now perfectly blank.

"I'm sure I don't know," said Dorothy, quite bewildered. "It's really quite mysterious, isn't it?"

"It makes my stomach tickle like anything," said the Highlander, in a quavering voice.

"What _shall_ we do?" said Dorothy, looking about uneasily.

"Run away!" said the Admiral, promptly; and without another word the Caravan took to their heels and disappeared around a corner. Dorothy hurried after them, but by the time she turned the corner they were quite out of sight; and as she stopped and looked about her she discovered that she was once more in the Ferryman's street, and, to her great delight, quite as large as she had been when she left the Blue Admiral Inn.

CHAPTER XI

THE DANCING ANIMALS

It seemed to be evening again, and, although the Ferryman was nowhere in sight, Dorothy knew the place the moment she looked up and saw the peaked roofs outlined against the sky. The houses were quaint, old-fashioned-looking buildings with the upper parts jutting far out beyond the lower stories and with dark little doorways almost hidden in the shadows beneath; and the windows were very small cas.e.m.e.nts filled with diamond-shaped panes of shining green gla.s.s. All the houses were brilliantly lighted up, and there were great iron lamps swung on chains across the street, so that the street itself was almost as bright as day, and Dorothy thought she recognized it as a place she had once read about where n.o.body but astrologers lived. There was a confused sound of fiddling going on somewhere, and as Dorothy walked along she could hear a scuffling noise inside the houses as if the inhabitants were dancing about on sanded floors. Presently, as she turned a corner, she came upon a number of storks who were dancing a sort of solemn quadrille up and down the middle of the street. They stopped dancing as she came along, and stood in a row gazing gravely at her as she pa.s.sed by and then resumed their quadrille as solemnly as before.

The strangest thing about the fiddling was that it seemed to be going on somewhere in the air, and the sound appeared to come from all directions at once. At first the music was soft and rather slow in time, but it grew louder and louder, and the fiddles played faster and faster, until presently they were going at such a furious rate that Dorothy stopped and looked back to see how the storks were getting on in their dancing; and she could see them in the distance, scampering up and down the street, and b.u.mping violently against one another in a frantic attempt to keep time with the music. At any other time she would have been vastly amused at this spectacle; but just then she was feeling a little afraid that some of the astrologers might come out to see what was going on, and she was therefore quite relieved when the storks presently gave up all hope of finishing their quadrille, and rising in the air with a tremendous flapping of wings, flew away over the tops of the houses and disappeared. Strangely enough, the sound of the fiddling followed them like a traveling band, and grew fainter and fainter until it finally died away in the distance.

But the scuffling noise in the houses continued, and Dorothy did just what you'd suppose such a curious little child would have done--that is, she stole up and peeped in at one of the windows; but she could see nothing through the thick gla.s.s but some strange-looking shadows bobbing confusedly about inside. Of course you know what she did _then_. In fact, after hesitating a moment, she softly opened the door of the house and went in.

The room was full of animals of every description, dancing around in a ring with the greatest enthusiasm; and as Dorothy appeared they all shouted, "Here she is!" and, before she could say a single word, the two nearest to her (they were an elephant and a sheep, by the way) seized her by the hands, and the next moment she was dancing in the ring. She was quite surprised to see that the elephant was no bigger than the sheep; and, as she looked about, it seemed to her, in the confusion, that all the animals in the room were of precisely the same size.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "AN ELEPHANT AND A SHEEP SEIZED HER BY THE HANDS, AND THE NEXT MOMENT SHE WAS DANCING IN THE RING."]

"Isn't it rather unusual--" she said to the Sheep (it seemed more natural, somehow, to speak to the Sheep)--"isn't it rather unusual for different animals to be so much alike?"

"Not in _our_ set," said the Sheep, conceitedly. "We all know who's who.

Of course we have to mark the pigs, as they're so extremely like the polar-bears;" and Dorothy noticed that two pigs, who were dancing just opposite to her, had labels with "PIG" on them hung around their necks by little chains, as if they had been a couple of decanters--"only," she thought, "it would have been 'SHERRY' or 'MADEIRA' instead of 'PIG,' you know."

"I suppose you all came out of a Noah's Ark," she said presently, at a venture.

"Of course. Largest size, I believe. How _very_ clever you are!" said the Sheep, admiringly. "By the way," she added, confidentially, "do you happen to know what a tapir is?"

"I believe it's something to light, like a candle," said Dorothy.

"Does it ever go out of its own accord?" inquired the Sheep.

"It _ought_ not to," said Dorothy.

"Then that accounts for the trouble we've had," said the Sheep, with a satisfied air. "Those two tapirs dancing over there are always in everybody's way, and we've had to _put_ them out over and over again."

This sounded like a joke; but the Sheep was so serious that Dorothy didn't dare to laugh, so she said, by way of continuing the conversation, "I don't see any birds here."

"Oh dear, no!" exclaimed the Sheep; "you see, this is really a quadrupedrille. Of course _you're_ all right, because it's precisely as if you were dancing on your hind feet. In fact," she added, nodding approvingly, "you look almost as well as if you were."

"Thank you!" said Dorothy, laughing.

"There was a seal that wanted to join," the Sheep went on. "He pressed us very hard, but he never made the slightest impression on us;" and there was a twinkle in the Sheep's eyes as she said this, so that Dorothy felt morally certain it _was_ a joke this time; but, before she could make any reply, the Elephant called out "Recess!" and the animals all stopped dancing and began walking about and fanning themselves with little portfolios which they produced in such a mysterious manner that Dorothy couldn't see where in the world they came from.

"Now, look here," said the Elephant,--he seemed to be a sort of Master of Ceremonies, and the animals all cl.u.s.tered about him as he said this,--"why can't _she_ dance with the Camel?" and he pointed out Dorothy with his portfolio.

"She can!" shouted the animals in chorus. "Come on, Sarah!"--and the Camel, who had been moping in a corner with her head against the wall, came forward with a very sulky expression on her face.

"Her name is Sahara," whispered the Sheep, plucking at Dorothy's frock to attract her attention, "but we call her Sarah to save time. She's kind of grumpy now because the other Camel stayed away, but she'll t.i.tter like a turtle when she gets to dancing."

"I don't know what relation she is to Humphrey," thought Dorothy, as the Camel took her by the hand, "but she's certainly big enough to be his great-grandmother ten times over." Before she had time to think any more about it, however, the Elephant called out, "Ladies change!" and the dancing began again harder than ever.

It was a very peculiar dance this time, and, as near as Dorothy could make it out, consisted princ.i.p.ally in the animals pa.s.sing her along from one to another as if they were each anxious to get rid of her; and presently she discovered that, in some unaccountable manner, she had been pa.s.sed directly through the fireplace into the next house; but as this house was quite as full of dancing animals as the other, this didn't help matters much except that it got Sarah out of the way--"and _that_," said poor little Dorothy to herself, "is certainly _something_!"

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE ANIMALS CROSSING OVER.]