Hints to Pilgrims Part 11

"Then they went down the marble stairs, with flunkies bowing up and down.

"But how worried King Zooks would have been if he had known that at that very moment his enemy, King m.u.f.fin, was coming into the castle, disguised as a jester. n.o.body stopped King m.u.f.fin, for wandering jesters were common in those days.

"And now the party started with all its might.

"King Zooks offered his arm to the wife of the Amba.s.sador, and Queen Zooks offered hers to the General of the army. There was a fight around the Princess, but she said _eenie meenie minie moe, catch a n.i.g.g.e.r by the toe_ and counted them all out but one. And so they went down another marble stairway to the dining-room, where a band was blowing itself red in the face--the trombonist, in particular, seeming to be in great distress.

"And where was King m.u.f.fin?

"King m.u.f.fin came in by the postern--the back stoop, my dear--and he washed his hands and ears at the kitchen sink and went right up to the dining-room. And there he was standing behind the King's chair, where King Zooks couldn't see him but the Princess could. You can see from this what a crafty person King m.u.f.fin was. Queen Zooks, to be sure, could see him, but she was an unsuspicious person, and was very hungry.

There were waffles for dinner, and when there were waffles she didn't even talk very much.

"King m.u.f.fin was very funny. He told jokes which were old at his own castle, but were new to King Zooks. And King Zooks, thinking he was a real jester, laughed until he cried--only his tears did not get into his soup, for by that time the soup had been cleared away. A few of them, however--just a splatter--did fall on his fish, but it didn't matter as it was a salt fish anyway. But all the guests, inasmuch as they were eating away from home, had to be more particular. And when the _rol-de-rol-rol_ choruses came, how King Zooks sang, throwing back his head and forgetting all about his ferocious moustache!

"No one enjoyed the fun more than King m.u.f.fin. Whenever things quieted down a bit he said something even funnier than the last. But during all this time it had not occurred to King Zooks to inquire for Jeppo, or to ask why a new fool stood behind his chair. He just laughed and nudged the wife of the Amba.s.sador with his elbow and ate his waffles and enjoyed himself.

"So the dinner grew merrier and merrier until at last everyone had had enough to eat. They would have pushed back a little from the table to be more comfortable in front, except for their manners. King Zooks was the last to finish, for the dinner ended with ice-cream and he was fond of it. He didn't have it ordinary days. In fact he was so eager to get the last bit that he sc.r.a.ped his spoon round and round upon the dish until Queen Zooks was ashamed of him. When, finally, he was all through, the guests folded their napkins and pushed back their chairs until you never heard such a squeak. A few of them--but these had never been out to dinner before--had spilled crumbs in their laps and had to brush them off.

"And now there was a dance.

"So King Zooks offered his arm to the wife of the Amba.s.sador and Queen Zooks offered hers to the General of the army, and they started up the marble stairway to the ballroom. But what should King m.u.f.fin do but skip up to the Princess while she was still smoothing out her skirts. (Yellow organdie, my dear, and it musses when you sit on it.) m.u.f.fin made a low bow and kissed her hand. Then he asked her for the first dance. It was so preposterous that a jester should ask her to dance at all, that everyone said it was the funniest thing he had done, and they went into a gale about it on the marble stairway. Even Queen Zooks, who ordinarily didn't laugh much at jokes, threw back her head and laughed quite loud--but in a minute, when everybody else was done. And then to everyone's surprise the Princess consented to dance with King m.u.f.fin, although the General of the army stood by in a kind of empty fas.h.i.+on.

But everybody was so merry, and in particular King Zooks, that no one minded.

"King m.u.f.fin, when he danced with the Princess, looked at her very hard and softly, and she looked back at him as if she didn't mind it a bit.

Evidently she knew him despite his disguise. And naturally she knew that he was in love with her.

"Now King m.u.f.fin hadn't had a thing to eat, for jesters are supposed to eat at a little table afterwards. If they ate at the big table they would forget and sing sometimes with their mouths full and you know how that would sound. So he and the Princess went downstairs to the pantry, where he ate seven cream puffs and three floating islands, one after the other, never spilling a bit on his blouse. He called them 'floatin'

Irelands,' having learned it that way as a child, his nurse not correcting him. Then he felt better and they returned to the ballroom, where the dance was still going on with all its might.

"King m.u.f.fin took the Princess out on the balcony, which was the place where young gentlemen, even in those days, took ladies when they had something particular to say. He shut the door carefully and looked all around to make sure that there were no spies about, under the chairs, inside the vases. He even wiggled the rug for fear that there might be a trapdoor beneath.

"Did the Princess love King m.u.f.fin? Of course she did. But she wasn't going to let him know it all at once. Ladies never do things like that.

So she looked indifferent, as though she might yawn at any moment.

Despite that, King m.u.f.fin told her what was on his mind, and when he was finished, he looked for an answer. But she didn't say anything, but just sat quiet and pretended there was a b.u.t.ton off her dress. So King m.u.f.fin told it again, and moved up a bit. And this time her head nodded ever so little. But he saw it. So he reached down in his side pocket, so far that he had to straighten out his leg to get to the bottom. He brought up a ring. Then he slipped it on her finger, the next to the longest one on her left hand. After that he kissed her in a most affectionate way.

"This was all very well, but of course King Zooks would never consent to their marriage. And if he discovered that the new jester was King m.u.f.fin, his guards would cut him all to slivers. For a minute they were woeful. Then a bright idea came to King m.u.f.fin--

"Meanwhile the dance had been going on with all its might. First the General of the army danced with Queen Zooks. He was a very manly dancer and was quite stiff from the waist up, and she bounced around on tip-toe. Then the Amba.s.sador danced with her, but his sword kept getting in her way. Then both of them, having done their duty, looked around for the Princess. They went to the lemonade room, for that was the first place naturally to look. Then they went to the cardroom, where the older persons were playing casino, and were sitting very solemn, as if it were not a party at all.

"Then they went to King Zooks, who was jiggling on his toes, with his back to the fire, full and happy. 'Where is your daughter, Majestical Majesty?' they asked. But as King Zooks didn't know he joined the search, and Queen Zooks, too. But she wasn't much good at it, for she had a long train and she couldn't turn a corner sharp, although her maids trotted after her and whisked it about as fast as possible.

"But they couldn't find the Princess anywhere inside the castle.

"After a while it occurred to King Zooks that the cook might know. She had gone to bed--leaving her dishes until morning--so up they climbed.

She answered from under the covers, 'Whajuwant?' which shows that she didn't talk English and was probably a Spanish cook or an Indian princess captured very young. So she got up, all excited. My! how she scuffed around, looking for her slippers, trying to find her clothes and getting one or two things on wrong side out! She was so confused that she thought it was morning and brushed her teeth.

"By this time an hour had pa.s.sed and King Zooks was fidgety. He told his red-faced band to lean their trombones and other things up against the wall, so that he could think. Then he stroked his chin, while the court stood by and tried to think also. Finally the King sent a herald to proclaim around the castle how fidgety he was and that his daughter must be brought to him. But the Princess was not found. Meantime the band ate ice-cream and cocoanut macaroons, and appeared to enjoy itself.

"In a tall tower that stands high above the trees there was a great clock, and, by and by, it began to strike the hour. It did not stop until it had struck ten times. So you see it was growing late and the King had the right to be getting fidgety. When the clock had done, those guests who were not in the habit of sitting up so late, began to grow sleepy; only, of course, they did not yawn out loud, but behind fans and things.

"Meanwhile King m.u.f.fin had gone downstairs to the stable. He brought out his horse with the flaring nostrils and another horse also. He took them around to the Princess, who sat waiting for him on a marble bench in the shadow of a tree.

"'Climb up, beautiful Princess,' he said.

"She hopped into her saddle and he into his. They were off like the wind.

"They heard the clock strike ten and they saw the great tower rising above the castle with the silver moon upon it, but they galloped on and on. Through the forest they galloped, over bridges and streams. And the moon climbed off the tower and kept with them--as it does with all good folk--plunging through the clouds like a s.h.i.+p upon the ocean. And still they galloped on. Presently they met Jeppo returning from the tavern with the bra.s.s pull-handles. 'Yo, ho!' called out the King, and they pa.s.sed him in a flash. _Clackety-clack-clack, clackety-clack-clack, clack-clack, clackety-clack!_

"And peasants, who usually slept right through the night, awoke at the sound of their hoofs and although they were very sleepy, they ran and looked out of their windows--being careful to put on slippers so as not to get the snuffles. And King m.u.f.fin and the Princess galloped by with the moonlight upon them, and the peasants wondered who they were. But as they were very sleepy, presently they went back to bed without finding out. One of them did, however, stumble against a chair, right on the toe, and had to light a candle to see if it were worth mending.

"But in the morning the peasants found a bauble near the lodge-gate, a cap and bells on the ravine bridge, and on the long road to the border of King m.u.f.fin's land they found a jester's coat.

"And to this day, although many years have pa.s.sed, their children and their children's children, on the way from school, gather the lilies of the valley which flourish in the woods and along the roads. And they think that they are jesters' bells which were scattered in the flight."

Whereupon the old man, having finished his story, wiped the noses of the children, not forgetting the youngest one with the fat legs, and sent them off to bed.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

The Crowded Curb.

Recently I came on an urchin in the crowded city, pitching pennies by himself, in the angle of an abutment. Three feet from his patched seat--a gay pattern which he tilted upward now and then--there moved a thick stream of shoppers. He was in solitary contest with himself, his evening papers neglected in a heap, wrapped in his score, unconscious of the throng that pressed against him. He was resting from labor, as a greater merchant takes to golf for his refreshment. The curb was his club. He had fetched his recreation down to business, to the vacancy between editions. Presently he will scoop his earnings to his pocket and will bawl out to his advantage our latest murder.

How mad--how delightful our streets would be if all of us followed as unreservedly, with so little self-consciousness or respect of small convention, our innocent desires!

Who of us even whistles in a crowd?--or in the spring goes with a skip and leap?

A lady of my acquaintance--who grows plump in her early forties--tells me that she has always wanted to run after an ice-wagon and ride up town, bouncing on the tail-board. It is doubtless an inheritance from a childhood which was stifled and kept in starch. A singer, also, of bellowing ba.s.s, has confided to me that he would like above all things to roar his tunes down town on a crowded crossing. The trolley-cars, he feels, the motors and all the shrill instruments of traffic, are no more than a sufficient orchestra for his l.u.s.ty upper register. An old lady, too, in the daintiest of lace caps, with whom I lately sat at dinner, confessed that whenever she has seen hop-scotch chalked in an eddy of the crowded city, she has been tempted to gather up her skirts and join the play.

But none of these folk obey their instinct. Opinion chills them. They plod the streets with gray exterior. Once, on Fifth Avenue, to be sure, when it was barely twilight, I observed a man, suddenly, without warning, perform a cart-wheel, heels over head. He was dressed in the common fas.h.i.+on. Surely he was not an advertis.e.m.e.nt. He bore no placard on his hat. Nor was it apparent that he practiced for a circus. Rather, I think, he was resolved for once to let the stiff, censorious world go by unheeded, and be himself alone.

On a night of carnival how greedily the crowd a.s.sumes the pantaloon! A day that was prim and solemn at the start now dresses in cap and bells.

How recklessly it stretches its charter for the broadest jest! Observe those men in women's bonnets! With what delight they swing their merry bladders at the crowd! They are hard on forty. All week they have bent to their heavy desks, but tonight they take their pay of life. The years are a sullen garment, but on a night of carnival they toss it off. Blood that was cold and temperate at noon now feels the fire. Scratch a man and you find a clown inside. It was at the celebration of the Armistice that I followed a sober fellow for a mile, who beat incessantly with a long iron spoon on an ash-can top. Almost solemnly he advanced among the throng. Was it joy entirely for the ending of the war? Or rather was he not yielding at last to an old desire to parade and be a band? The glad occasion merely loosed him from convention. That lady friend of mine, in the circ.u.mstance, would have bounced on ice-wagons up to midnight.

For it is convention, rather than our years--it is the respect and fear of our neighbors that restrains us on an ordinary occasion. If we followed our innocent desires at the noon hour, without waiting for a carnival, how mad our streets would seem! The bellowing ba.s.s would pitch back his head and lament the fair Isolde. The old lady in lace cap would tuck up her skirts for hop-scotch and score her goal at last.

Is it not the French who set aside a special night for foolery, when everyone appears in fancy costume? They should set the celebration forward in the day, and let the blazing sun stare upon their mirth.

Merriment should not wait upon the owl.

The d.i.c.key Club at Harvard, I think, was fas.h.i.+oned with some such purpose of release. Its initiation occurs always in the spring, when the blood of an undergraduate is hottest against restraint. It is a vent placed where it is needed most. Zealously the candidates perform their pranks. They exceed the letter of their instruction. The streets of Boston are a silly spectacle. Young men wear their trousers inside out and their coats reversed. They greet strangers with preposterous speech.

I once came on a merry fellow eating a whole pie with great mouthfuls on the Court House steps, explaining meantime to the crowd that he was the youngest son of Little Jack Horner. And, of course, with such a hardened gourmand for an ancestor, he was not embarra.s.sed by his ridiculous posture.

But it is not youth which needs the stirring most. Nor need one necessarily play an absurd antic to be natural. And therefore, here at home, on our own Soldiers' Monument--on its steps and pediment that mount above the street--I offer a few suggestions to the throng.

Ladies and gentlemen! I invite you to a carnival. Here! Now! At noon! I bid you to throw off your solemn pretense. And be yourself! That sober manner is a cloak. Your dignity scarcely reaches to your skin. Does no one desire to play leap-frog across those posts? Do none of you care to skip and leap? What! Will no one accept my invitation?