Maida's Little Shop Part 19

They returned after this breathless work to the living-room.

"Now I'm going to tell you a story," Billy announced.

"Oh! Oh! Oh!" Maida squealed. "Do! Billy tells the most wonderful stories, Rosie-stories he's heard and stories he's read. But the most wonderful ones are those that he makes up as he goes along."

The two little girls settled themselves on the hearth-rug at Billy's feet. Granny sat, not far off, working with double speed at her neglected knitting.

"Once upon a time," Billy said, "there lived a little girl named Klara. And Klara was the naughtiest little girl in the world. She was a pretty child and a clever child and everybody would have loved her if she had only given them a chance. But how can you love a child who is doing naughty things all the time? Particularly was she a great trial to her mother. That poor lady was not well and needed care and attention, herself. But instead of giving her these, Klara gave her only hard words and disobedient acts. The mother used sometimes to punish her little daughter but it seemed as if this only made her worse. Both father and mother were in despair about her. Klara seemed to be growing steadily worse and worse. And, indeed, lately, she had added to her naughtiness by threatening to run away.

"One night, it happened, Klara had been so bad that her mother had put her to bed early. The moment her mother left the room, Klara whipped over to the window. 'I'm going to dress myself and climb out the window and run away and never come back, she said to herself.'

"The house in which Klara lived was built on the side of a cliff, overlooking the sea. As Klara stood there in her nightgown the moon began to rise and come up out of the water. Now the moonrise is always a beautiful sight and Klara stopped for a moment to watch it, fascinated.

"It seemed to her that she had never seen the moon look so big before. And certainly she had never seen it such a color-a soft deep orange. In fact, it might have been an immense orange-or better, a monster pumpkin stuck on the horizon-line.

"The strange thing about the moon, though, was that it grew larger instead of smaller. It rose higher and higher, growing bigger and bigger, until it was half-way up the curve of the sky. Then it stopped short. Klara watched it, her eyes bulging out of her head.

In all her experience she had never seen such a surprising thing.

And while she watched, another remarkable thing happened. A great door in the moon opened suddenly and there on the threshold stood a little old lady. A strange little old lady she was-a little old lady with short red skirts and high, gayly-flowered draperies at her waist, a little old lady with a tall black, sugar-loaf hat, a great white ruff around her neck and little red shoes with bright silver buckles on them-a little old lady who carried a black cat perched on one shoulder and a broomstick in one hand.

"The little old lady stooped down and lifted something over the threshold. Klara strained her eyes to see what it was. It looked like a great roll of golden carpeting. With a sudden deft movement the little old lady threw it out of the door. It flew straight across the ocean, unrolling as swiftly as a ball of twine that you've flung across the room. It came nearer and nearer. The farther it got from the moon, the faster it unrolled. After a while it struck against the sh.o.r.e right under Klara's window and Klara saw that it was the wake of the moon. She watched.

"The little old lady had disappeared from the doorway in the moon but the door did not close. And, suddenly, still another wonderful thing happened. The golden wake lifted itself gradually from the water until it was on a level with Klara's window. Bending down she touched it with both her soft little hands. It was as firm and hard as if it had been woven from strands of gold.

"'Now's my time to run away from my cross mother,' Klara said to herself. 'I guess that nice old lady in the moon wants me to come and be her little girl. Well, I'll go. I guess they'll be sorry in this house to-morrow when they wake up and find they're never going to see me again.'

"Opening the window gently that n.o.body might hear her, she stepped on to the Wake of Gold. It felt cool and hard to her little bare feet. It inclined gently from her window. She ran down the slope until she reached the edge of the sea. There she hesitated. For a moment it seemed a daring thing to walk straight out to the moon with nothing between her and the water but a path of gold. Then she recalled how her mother had sent her to bed and her heart hardened.

She started briskly out.

"From Klara's window it had looked as though it would take her only a few moments to get to the moon. But the farther she went, the farther from her the doorway seemed to go. But she did not mind that the walk was so long because it was so pretty. Looking over the edge of the Wake of Gold, deep down in the water, she could see all kinds of strange sights.

"At one place a school of little fish swam up to the surface of the water. Klara knelt down and watched their pretty, graceful motions.

The longer she gazed the more fish she saw and the more beautiful they seemed. Pale-blue fishes with silver spots. Pale-pink ones with golden stripes. Gorgeous red ones with jewelled black horns.

Brilliant yellow and green ones that shone like phosphorus. And here and there, gliding among them, were what seemed little angel-fish like living rainbows, whose filmy wing-like fins changed color when they swam.

"Klara reached into the water and tried to catch some of these marvelous beings.

"But at her first motion-bing! The water looked as if it were streaked with rainbow lightning. Swis.h.!.+ It was dull and clear again, with nothing between her and the quiet, seaweed-covered bottom.

"A little farther along Klara came across a wonderful sea-grotto.

Again she knelt down on the Wake of Gold and watched. At the bottom the sand was so white and s.h.i.+ny that it might have been made of star-dust. Growing up from it were beds of marvelous seaflowers, opening and shutting delicate petals, beautiful seafans that waved with every ripple, high, thick shrubs and towering trees in which the fishes had built their nests. In and out among all this undergrowth, frisked tiny sea-horses, ridden by mischievous sea-urchins. They leaped and trotted and galloped as if they were so happy that they did not know what to do. Klara felt that she must play with them. She put one little foot into the water to attract their attention. Bing! The water seemed alive with scuttling things.

Swis.h.!.+ The grotto was so quiet that she could not believe that there was anything living in it.

"A little farther on, Klara came upon a sight even more wonderful than this-a village of mer-people. It was set so far down in the water that it seemed a million miles away. And yet the water was so clear that she felt she could touch the housetops.

"The mer-houses seemed to be made of a beautiful, sparkling white coral with big, wide-open windows through which the tide drifted.

The mer-streets seemed to be cobbled in pearl, the sidewalks to be paved in gold. At their sides grew mer-trees, the highest she had ever seen, with all kinds of beautiful singing fish roosting in their branches. Little mer-boats of carved pink coral with purple seaweed sails or of mother-of-pearl with rosy, mer-flower-petal sails, were floating through the streets. In some, sat little mer-maidens, the sunlight flas.h.i.+ng on their pretty green scales, on their long, golden tresses, on the bright mirrors they held in their hands. Other boats held little mer-boys who made beautiful music on the harps they carried.

"At one end of the mer-village Klara could see one palace, bigger and more beautiful than all the others. Through an open window she caught a glimpse of the mer-king-a jolly old fellow with a fat red face and a long white beard sitting on a throne of gold. At his side reclined the mer-queen-a very beautiful lady with a skin as white as milk and eyes as green as emeralds. Little mer-princes and little mer-princesses were playing on the floor with tiny mer-kittens and tinier mer-puppies. One sweet little mer-baby was tiptailing towards the window with a pearl that she had stolen from her sister's coronet.

"It seemed to Klara that this mer-village was the most enchanting place that she had ever seen in her life. Oh, how she wanted to live there!

"'Oh, good mer-king,' she called entreatingly, 'and good mer-queen, please let me come to live in your palace.'

"Bing! The water rustled and roiled as if all the birds of paradise that the world contained had taken flight. Swis.h.!.+ It was perfectly quiet again. The mer-village was as deserted as a graveyard.

"'Well, if they don't want me, they shan't get me, Klara said. And she walked on twice as proud.'

"By this time she was getting closer and closer to the moon. The nearer she came the bigger it grew. Now it filled the entire sky.

The door had remained open all this time. Through it she could see a garden-a garden more beautiful than any fairy-tale garden that she had ever read about. From the doorway silvery paths stretched between hedges as high as a giant's head. Sometimes these paths ended in fountains whose spray twisted into all kinds of fairy-like shapes. Sometimes these paths seemed to stop flush against the clouds. Nearer stretched flower-beds so brilliant that you would have thought a kaleidoscope had broken on the ground. Birds, like living jewels, flew in and out through the tree-branches. They sang so hard that it seemed to Klara they must burst their little throats. From the branches hung all kinds of precious stones, all kinds of delicious-looking fruits and candies.

"Klara could not scramble through the door quickly enough.

"But as she put one foot on the threshold the little old lady appeared. She looked as if she had stepped out of a fairy-tale. And yet Klara had a strange feeling of discomfort when she looked at her. It seemed to Klara that the old lady's mouth was cruel and her eyes hard.

"'Are you the little girl who's run away?' the old lady asked.

"'Yes,' Klara faltered.

"'And you want to live in the Kingdom of the Moon?'

"'Yes.'

"'Enter then.'

"The old lady stepped aside and Klara marched across the threshold.

She felt the door swinging to behind her. She heard a bang as it closed, shutting her out of the world and into the moon.

"And then-and then-what do you think happened?"

Billy stopped for a moment. Rosie and Maida rose to their knees.

"What happened?" they asked breathlessly.

"The garden vanished as utterly as if it were a broken soap-bubble.

Gone were the trees and the flowers; gone were the fountains and the birds; gone, too, were the jewels, the candies and the fruits.

"The place had become a huge, dreary waste, stretching as far as Klara could see into the distance. It seemed to her as if all the trash that the world had outgrown had been dumped here-it was so covered with heaps of old rubbish.

"Klara turned to the old lady. She had not changed except that her cruel mouth sneered.

"Klara burst into tears. 'I want to go home,' she screamed. 'Let me go back to my mother.'

"The old lady only smiled. 'You open that door and let me go back to my mother,' Klara cried pa.s.sionately.

"'But I can't open it,' the old lady said. 'It's locked. I have no keys.'

"'Where are the keys?' Klara asked.