The Sun's Babies Part 22

"Such common-looking little things! Whatever are you?" asked the Paling Fence.

He was new and very proud. He stood up so straight that he could see all over the garden. Indeed, he thought himself the master of it. The seeds had been planted close to his feet, so he felt he had the right to question them.

The biggest seed spoke up from her place in the ground. "Just now we are only seeds," she said; "but we think we shall be something bigger and finer some day. We have a feeling inside us."

"Feeling, indeed!" snapped the Fence. "Ugly little black things that you are, what feelings can you have? I can't think why the gardener put you near me." He stood straighter than ever, and would not look down again.

The little seeds felt shy and rather sad, but they said nothing. Day after day they lay quietly in the ground, waiting for something to happen.

And something did happen, for by-and-by they all began to swell.

Bigger they grew, and rounder and softer. One fine day several of them cracked open, and the next day several more. From every crack a little white shoot pushed itself out. It pushed and it grew, and it turned down and burrowed into the earth, for all it wanted was water and darkness.

From the top of each little shoot another shoot peeped out. It pushed and it grew, and it turned up and peeped through the top of the ground, for all it wanted was fresh air and sunshine. At last a long row of white little shoots looked out through their holes in the ground.

The Sun looked down and saw them. "Dear me!" he said. "This won't do.

Go down, Sunbeams, and tell those shoots to change their colour."

The Sunbeams came flying down. "You must change your colour, little shoots," they said. "Hurry up and turn green. The great Sun cannot bear to see white shoots above the ground."

The shoots turned green at once.

The Paling Fence was angry. "The idea of the Sun taking notice of such common things!" he grumbled. "He has never yet sent a message to me, though I have been here quite two months. I hope those shoots are not going to grow tall. They will hide me if they do."

Now that is just what the little shoots did. They grew taller every day; they sent out leaves and branches on every side; soon they stretched out waving hands towards the Fence.

"Please allow us to hold to you," they begged. "We are not strong enough to grow so tall alone."

The Fence stood more stiffly than ever. "No! don't you dare to touch me!" he cried.

They turned themselves this way and that, they tried to cling to him; but he would not help them. "This is dreadful," they sighed.

"Whatever shall we do?"

Next day the gardener came. He brought a hammer and nails and cord.

He drove the nails into the fence and tied the cord up and down and across. Now the waving hands had something to cling to.

The Fence was so angry that it really could not speak. "Then I am to be hidden," he thought. "So new and handsome as I am, too! The gardener must be mad."

The sun shone, the birds sang, the green plants grew; only the Fence was unhappy and cross. At last he was almost hidden from sight. "Oh, well, it is everybody's loss!" he said loudly--only n.o.body was listening.

Buds formed on the plants. They burst open. Out sprang bright flowers like fairy boats to sail on the summer winds. Rose and blue and purple and lilac, how their soft colours glowed in the sunshine! Tiny yellow-hatted ladies sat in each boat to spread the sails. They scattered scent about, and invited the bees to afternoon tea. The tea was delicious, and the bees went away, buzzing their thanks. "Such beautiful boats! Such dainty little ladies!" they said.

The Paling Fence could hardly bear it. "Stupid things!" he muttered.

"But wait till the gardener comes. He will surely cut them down when he sees how I am hidden."

The gardener came. A friend walked with him. "How beautiful your sweet-peas are!" he said. "They make a splendid covering for the Fence."

"Yes," the gardener said. "The Fence was necessary, but it was very ugly. Now the sweet-peas have made it beautiful."

The Fence heard the words. At last it understood, and its foolish pride was broken. For a long time it stood thoughtful and silent.

"Well, well," it said slowly; "I have been very much mistaken. But if I can't be beautiful I can at least be kind and friendly to those who are beautiful." And from that day the Paling Fence and the sweet-peas stood happily together.

TAIL-UP

Tail-up was the queerest-looking caterpillar in the garden. He would persist in walking on his front three pairs of legs and sticking all the rest of his long body into the air. n.o.body could help laughing at him. He had several pairs of legs at the back, but after one look at them he refused to use them.

"n.o.body could call them legs," he said scornfully. "They are only suckers." So he walked on the front legs, with his tail stuck high in the air. No wonder everybody called him Tail-up.

Before he was a day old he started off to see the world. His mother had never left the little basket-house in her life, but Tail-up was different. He wanted to see everything there was to be seen, and also to eat everything there was to be eaten.

What an appet.i.te he had! Nothing came amiss to him. He had no teeth, but his strong jaws could do quite enough damage to the plants in the garden.

"What a greedy fellow you are!" said a woolly brown caterpillar one day. "I have a good appet.i.te, I know, but your life is one long meal."

"Let him alone," said a pa.s.sing bee. "Let him eat all he can. The time will come when he will live quite without food."

Both caterpillars stared. "Whatever do you mean?" asked Tail-up.

"Wait and see," said the Bee.

"I believe you are talking nonsense," said Tail-up. He hurried away to find another meal.

He was never at a loss for food, for when he had devoured all the choicest bits off one tree, he dropped to the ground by a silk rope and made his way to a fresh one.

This silk rope was another of his oddities. He kept whole coils of it in his body. When he wanted to reach the ground he brought the end of one of the coils out of his mouth and gummed it on to the branch where he sat. He then slid off the branch, hanging by the rope. Slowly and carefully he came down, letting out more rope as he needed it, until he reached the ground. There he broke the rope and hurried away to climb the next tree.

After a day or two he thought: "I will make a house. It shall be just like mother's, smooth and cosy inside, but so strong that nothing can break its way in."

He set to work to weave a basket-house, doing a little each day between his many meals. He drew the silk thread out of his own body, and wove the house round and round his upreared tail. "It would be tiresome to have to go back to it each night," he said, so he carried it with him.

He looked more comical than ever now, going about with his partly-built house on his tail.

He fastened tiny twigs here and there on the outside, to deceive the birds. "They will think it is a stick," he said, "and thus I shall be safe." He put a strong silk thread round the wide end as a draw-cord.

Now the little house was finished. He could crawl in, pull the cord to shut the door, and safely go to sleep.

Just about this time he began to lose his appet.i.te. "Dear me! this is very remarkable," he thought. "I wonder if that bee was right, after all? I certainly feel queer. I think I'll have a good long sleep."

He hung his house to a branch of a tree, crept into it, tied the front door securely, and went to sleep. And there he slept on and on, day after day, night after night, without ever waking to eat.

While he slept, skin and little legs shrivelled up and fell away from him, and a new skin, hard and thick and scaly, took their place.

"This is a queer state of affairs," he said, waking for a moment. "I feel quite different."

He slept again. Another change came. Six long, thin legs grew, tightly packed away under him; softly feathered wings and feelers slowly came.

He woke again. "I must go out into the world," he said.

Wriggling and pushing, he worked himself half out through the back door of his house. Wriggling and pushing still, he cracked the hard chrysalis skin and sprang on to the top of his house.