The Other Side of the Sun Part 16

"Where are we going, Jerry?" asked Chubby, when she had finished her sum and joined him.

"We are going out into the world, to discover the reason why my kite won't fly," answered Jerry; and between them they picked up the biggest kite in the village and carried it out into the world.

"How are we going to discover why your kite won't fly?" asked Chubby, when they had walked a good way. She had had no tea, to tell the truth, and was beginning to feel remarkably hungry.

"We will ask everybody we meet," said Jerry, who had had his tea and was therefore not at all hungry. "There is sure to be some one in the world who can tell us, and we will not rest until we find him."

"We haven't met anybody yet," remarked Chubby, rather dolefully. "How long do you think we shall have to go on walking before we find the right person?"

"Perhaps for years and years," answered Jerry, cheerfully. "But if we are quick, we may meet him sooner than that."

He quickened his steps as he spoke, and Chubby had to run a little to keep up with him. It was beginning to grow dark now, and the country seemed more and more desolate.

"The world is not so full of people as I expected to find it," said Jerry, in a disappointed tone. "I do hope we shall soon meet some one who will know why my kite won't fly."

Just then, he thought he heard something from behind that sounded like a sob. Sure enough, there was Chubby, wiping her eyes with the corner of her pinafore.

"I'm so hungry," she sobbed. "I want my tea. Can't we go home, Jerry, and put off seeing the world until to-morrow?"

Jerry looked at her and sighed. If it had been any one but Chubby, he would most certainly have grumbled at her. As it was, he only propped up the kite against the hedge and made her sit down beside it.

"I am afraid I don't know the way home," he said; "but if you will wait here, I will go and get you something to eat."

He was not at all sure where he was going to find it, but he hastened along the road as fast as he could and hoped he would soon come to a house. Long before he came to a house, however, he came to a man, a little old man, who was carrying a large sack on his shoulder. Directly he saw Jerry, he swung the sack on to the ground and began untying the mouth of it.

"Well, my little fellow," he said in a friendly tone, "what do you want out of my bag?"

"That depends on what you have got in your bag," answered Jerry, promptly.

"I have everything in the world in my bag," replied the little old man, "for everything is there that everybody wants. I have laughter and tears and happiness and sadness; I can give you riches or poverty, sense or nonsense; here is a way to discover the things that you don't know, and a way to forget the things that you do know. Will you have a toy that changes whenever you wish, or a book that tells you stories whenever you listen to it, or a pair of shoes in which you can dance from boyhood into youth? Choose whatever you like and it shall be yours; but remember, I can only give you one thing out of my bag, so think well before you make up your mind."

Jerry did not stop to think at all. "Have you something to eat in your bag, something that will please a hungry little girl who has had no tea?" he asked.

The little old man smiled and pulled out a small cake about the size of Jerry's fist. It did not look as though it would satisfy any one who was as hungry as Chubby; but as the old man disappeared, sack and all, the moment he had given Jerry the cake, it was not much good complaining about it. So back trotted Jerry to the place where he had left Chubby; and greatly to his relief her face beamed with joy directly she had eaten one mouthful.

"What a beautiful cake!" she cried; "it tastes like strawberry jam and toffee and ices, and all the things I like best. And see! as fast as I eat it, it comes again, so that I shall never be able to finish it. Take some, Jerry."

"Why," said Jerry, as soon as he had taken a bite, "it tastes like currant buns and ginger-beer and all the things _I_ like best. It is certain that we shall never starve as long as we have a fairy cake like this." Then he told her how he had come by it.

"Perhaps," remarked Chubby, "the little old man could have told you why your kite wouldn't fly."

"Perhaps he could," said Jerry, carelessly, "but I didn't think to ask him. We'll come along and ask the next person instead."

When, however, they looked round for the kite, it was nowhere to be seen. The moon came out obligingly from behind a cloud and helped them as much as it could; but although they searched for a long time, not a trace could they find of the biggest kite in the village.

"Oh dear, oh dear!" sighed Chubby. "Perhaps I went to sleep while you were away, and somebody came along and took it. But I did think I stopped awake, Jerry; I did indeed!"

"And so you did, to be sure!" cried a voice from the hedge; "but you would have to be very wide awake to keep _that_ kite from giving you the slip, as soon as the moon came up!"

Of course, no one but a wymp would have appeared like that, just in time to say the right thing; so the children were not at all surprised when a particularly wympish wymp came tumbling out of the hedge and perched himself on a thistle and wimpled at them.

"Do you mean to say you know where the kite has gone?" asked both the children, breathlessly.

"Look up there and see," answered the wymp, pointing to the sky.

The sky was covered with stars, hundreds and thousands of them, all twinkling round the moon just as Chubby had painted them on the kite.

Only, she could not help thinking that her stars had more shape and were decidedly more like stars than the real stars were; but this, she supposed, might be because the real stars were such a long way off. One of them was different from all the others; it had a long bright tail that glittered like a cracker at Christmas time, and it was scurrying across the sky at such a pace that the rest of the stars had to get out of its way as best they could. Most of the people who looked out of their windows that night thought they saw a comet; but Jerry and Chubby knew better.

"Oh," they cried, clapping their hands with excitement. "There is our kite, and it _is_ flying to the moon after all!"

"There's no doubt about that," said the wymp, who was still wimpling at them from the top of the thistle.

"But why did it not fly to the moon this afternoon, when all the other boys were looking on?" asked Jerry, regretfully.

"Because there wasn't a moon to fly to, of course!" answered the wymp.

"You shouldn't expect too much, even from the biggest kite in the village. Directly there _was_ a moon, you see, away it flew."

"Then, if I had painted the sun on it, instead of the moon, it would have flown away this afternoon!" exclaimed Chubby.

"Exactly so," said the wymp. "Now, what ever induced you to paint a thing like the moon on anybody's kite, eh?"

"Well, you see, the moon is so nice and easy," explained Chubby. "All you have to do is to draw a circle round the biggest soup plate you can find; and then you take away the soup plate, and you paint in the eyes and the nose and the mouth, and there you are! You can't do much more than that with three paints and a brush that's got hardly any hairs, can you?"

"Yes, you can," retorted the wymp, "you can paint the sun, and that's ever so much better than painting the moon--nasty, silly, chilly thing!"

"Oh, but you can't paint the sun when you've only got three paints,"

objected Chubby. "It takes ever so many more paints than that to make it shine properly; and even then, it doesn't always."

"Shine!" repeated the wymp. "Who said anything about shining? When I say the sun, I mean the other side of the sun, of course. _That_ doesn't shine,--knows better, indeed!"

He seemed so hurt about it that Chubby hastened to pacify him. "I'm very sorry," she said. "Of course, I should like to paint your side of the sun very much, but it is a little difficult when I haven't ever been there, isn't it?"

"Perhaps it is," admitted the wymp; "but if that is all, I'll take you there this very minute. Will you come?"

Chubby looked round; and there was Jerry still gazing up at the star with the long tail, that was causing so much commotion among the countries of the sky. Just then, it reached the moon and went straight into it with a big splash; and Jerry heaved a deep sigh.

That decided Chubby. "If you please," she said, turning to the wymp in a great hurry, "I think we would rather go to the moon."

The wymp instantly flew into the most violent pa.s.sion. "What!" he exclaimed, shaking all over with indignation. "You would sooner go to the moon than the back of the sun? Well, I _am_ sorry for you."

Chubby was just going to be frightened, when Jerry came and put his arm round her protectingly. "You see," he explained to the wymp, "it's not the moon we want, it's the kite. And the kite has gone to the moon, unfortunately. I suppose I am glad it has gone," he added rather doubtfully, "but I do wish it had waited to take me with it."

"Oh, well," said the wymp, calming down a little, "if you are quite sure you don't _want_ to go to the moon, I shall have the greatest pleasure in taking you there. I'll call a comet at once." He put his fingers to his mouth and blew a whistle that was long enough to reach the countries of the sky. "Now I come to think of it," he continued thoughtfully, "it is a very good thing you did not want to go to Wympland, because we should have been obliged to wait until the morning."

"Why couldn't we go to-night?" asked Jerry.

"Because there isn't a Wympland to go to," answered the wymp, promptly.

"When the sun goes down it takes the back of itself with itself, and there isn't a Wympland again till next morning. I shouldn't be here now, if I hadn't missed the last sunbeam this evening. That is the worst of living in a place that disappears every night."