say that they were six inches tall, or that they were about as big as
a man's thumb, or it would tell about their sitting in flowers. And
then I would look at the pictures and they would appear to be as high
as a man's knees, or even higher. And I could not understand it. But I
made up my mind to find out about it. That is what you must do, when
there is anything that you don't understand. There are very few things
that you can't do, if you make up your mind to them, except things
that are too hard for you. I hate to have morals getting into a story
as much as you do, but that is such a good one that it might as well
go in.
Now I will tell you. Fairies can be of any size they like, and you
never can tell what size they are going to be, from one minute to
another. They can be giants, if they like. And as soon as they had
Kathleen with them they could make her of any size they liked too. So
as long as she was among them they could keep her and themselves just
the same size, or as near to it as they liked.
But when fairies are not taking the trouble to be of any particular
size--when they are letting themselves alone, as you might say--then
they are about six inches tall. And I think that is a very good size
to be. It would be better if you were of that size. You wouldn't eat
so much and you wouldn't be so much in the way, and you would be much
better-looking. Just think: if your face were only three-quarters of
an inch long, all those features of it that are so disagreeable
wouldn't show so plainly. You might even look rather pretty. You
wouldn't need to be so, but you might look so.
And it would be so much easier to know where you were, if you were of
that size, that it would save your mother a good deal of trouble. All
she would have to do would be to put you on the mantelpiece, and then
you could not get off without breaking your necks--and that would be
such an advantage. I don't mean that it would be an advantage to break
your necks, because then who would read this book, and why should I
take all this trouble to write it? I mean, it would be an advantage
that you could not get off. Well, now you see how much better off you
would be if you were only six inches tall, and now you understand
about the fairies.
* * * * *
While Kathleen was still wondering at the place that she was in, a man
whom she had not seen before came up to her. He wore a crown, and she
guessed at once that he was some sort of king. It did not surprise her
to see a man with a crown. A man with a church steeple on his head
would not have surprised her, by this time. "Come with me," he said;
"you're wanted at once."
Kathleen followed him to the opposite side of the hall and through a
door, into another room. It was much smaller than the hall, but it was
just as beautiful, in its own way. There was a woman in this
room--another of the beautiful girls, Kathleen would have said--lying
on a gold couch. Her hair was hanging down over the pillow on which
her head lay, so that Kathleen could scarcely tell which was the hair
and which was the gold of the couch. There was a crown lying on a
little table beside her, and so Kathleen guessed that she was the
Queen. "Kathleen," said the Queen, "do you know why they have brought
you here?"
"No, Your Majesty," said Kathleen. She was not a bit frightened, any
more than she had been all along, and she knew that that was the way
to speak to a queen, just as well as if she had never spoken to
anybody else in her life.
"They brought you here, then," said the Queen, "to take care of my
baby; but he'll not need you long, and then you can be going back
home."
"I'm afraid," Kathleen said, "that I don't know how to take care of a
baby very well. I might do something wrong with it. You see my mother
died when I was born, and so I was the only baby that there ever was
at our house, and I have hardly ever had anything to do with a real
live baby."
"You've had something to do with them that was not alive, haven't
you?" the Queen asked.
Kathleen smiled a little at that. "There were fifteen of them, I
think," she said.
"Well, you'll be having no more trouble with this one," the Queen
said, "than with any of those fifteen. Only do as you're told. I can't
take care of it myself, because it's the law that it must have a nurse
that's a mort--I mean it must have a nurse from outside this place.
There's the baby in the cradle there. Try can you make him go to
sleep."
Kathleen went to the cradle and looked at the baby. It was wide awake
and it stared at her like a little owl. Except for that, it looked
like any other baby. The way that the baby stared at her came nearer
to making Kathleen afraid than anything that she had seen yet. But she
took him out of the cradle, sat down on a low seat that she found,
began to rock him gently, and sang an old song that her grandmother
used to sing to her and that she had sung to her own fifteen babies
many a time.
It was scarcely an instant before the baby was asleep. She put him
back into the cradle and then turned to the Queen and said: "Shall I
do anything more?"
"Not now," said the King; "come now and have something to eat and
drink with us."
The Queen started at this and cried: "No, no!" but Kathleen did not
know what she meant. She knew that she was very hungry, and she
followed the King out of the room, back into the hall. Tables had been
brought into the hall now, and they were all covered with things to
eat that looked very good, and the men and women were sitting at the
tables, eating and drinking and talking and laughing. They all stood
up as the King came in, and waited till he had taken his place at the
head of the table, and then they all sat down again, and the eating
and drinking and talking and laughing went on.
One of the men led Kathleen to a seat and put something to eat and
drink before her. She did not know what it was, but it looked good.
She was just going to taste it, when somebody touched her on the
shoulder and somebody said: "Don't eat that; don't taste a bit of it."
She looked around and saw a boy--perhaps she would have said a young
man--standing behind her. He was very different from all the other
men. He did not look old, as they did. She thought that he was of
about her own age, and he was taller than she, while all the others
were shorter. "Don't eat anything or drink anything that they give
you," he said again. "I will give you something to eat."
He sat down beside her and put a little package on the table before
them. He opened it and took out some bread and meat, some
strawberries, a little flask full of cream, and a larger one full of
water. He gave Kathleen a part of all these and kept a part for
himself. "I am not sure," Kathleen said, "that I ought to let you talk
to me, because, you see, I don't know who you are."
She had let several people talk to her that evening, without knowing
who they were, but this boy seemed to be somehow altogether different.
"My name is Terence," he said. "Now I know you are going to ask
'Terence what?' It's Terence nothing; I have no name at all except
Terence."
"I know a boy named Terence," Kathleen said, "and I don't like him a
bit."
"I hope that won't make any difference about your liking me," said the
boy.
"Oh, not at all," said Kathleen. "It isn't his name that I don't like;
it's himself. He is only just as old as I am, and he looks--" Kathleen
stopped, surprised at herself, for she had not thought of it before.
"He looks a little like these men here, who all seem to be so old;
and, besides, he isn't nice at all."
"Then let's not talk about him," said the boy. "Will you tell me what
your name is?"
"Oh, yes; didn't I tell you? My name is Kathleen O'Brien."
"And must I call you Kathleen or Miss O'Brien? You see you will have
to call me by my first name, because it is the only one I have, and so
I think you ought to let me call you by your first name."
"But if you have only one name," Kathleen said, "it is your last name
just as much as it is your first, so perhaps you ought to call me by
my last one."
"Oh, no," Terence answered; "you see my name ought to be a first name,
only I haven't any last one, so I think I ought to call you by your
first one."
Kathleen did not say that he might, but he afterward did. She thought
that it would be better to change the subject. "It's just as if we
were at a picnic and had brought our own luncheon, isn't it?" she
said. "And all these other people are eating just as if they were at
home. Why don't we do the same way they do?"
"Because," Terence said, "we are not like them. We mustn't talk about
it aloud. You see they are the Good People, and we are not. I don't
know what I am at all, but you are like the people outside. I knew
that as soon as I saw you, and I saw that they were going to let you
eat their food. I almost wish I had let you do it now--no, I don't
wish so, either. It would be mean to let you, and I don't want you to,
anyway. You did come from outside, didn't you? Well, then, you must
not eat or drink the least bit of anything while you are here, except
what I bring you. All that I bring you is from outside. If you eat a
crumb or drink a drop of anything that they have here, you can never
get out again."
"But they all get out," said Kathleen. "They were all outside when I
saw them first."
"Oh, yes," Terence answered, "they are different. They can go out and
come in whenever they like; but if anybody from outside eats anything
here, he can never go out again. It is that way with me, too, for I am
different from the Good People, though I don't know whether I came
from outside or not."
"You don't know whether you came from outside or not?"
"No. I came here when I was a little baby. I have often asked them how
I came here, but they never would tell me. I have lived here ever
since I can remember. Have you a father and a mother?"
"My mother is dead," Kathleen answered; "I have a father."
"Yes," said Terence, as if he were trying to work out a puzzle.
"Nearly all the people outside seem to have fathers and mothers. I
never had either. I have always lived here, but nobody here is my
father or my mother, and I don't know how I came here. I have been
here so long, and yet it seems so strange to me. This is my only home,
and yet I never feel at home in it. I always feel as if I belonged
somewhere else. I see the people outside and I feel as if I belonged
with them more than here, yet I have never been outside this place one
single night."
"You go out often in the daytime, then?" Kathleen asked.
"Oh, yes; I go out every day, almost, and I go to school. Have you
been to school?"
"Why, of course," Kathleen answered; "doesn't everybody have to go to
school?"
"These people here never go to school," Terence said. "I am the only
one who goes, and then I have to try to teach them what I have
learned. Do you go home from school and try to teach your father what
you have learned?"
"Why, no, indeed," said Kathleen; "what a funny idea!"
"Sometimes it seems funny to me too," Terence said, "but you see I
can't tell whether it is funny or not, because I know so little about
the people outside. I don't like to ask them, because they would think
it was so strange that I didn't know; but it is different with you.
You have come in here, and I can ask you things that I wouldn't ask of
people outside."
"If they want to know things," said Kathleen, "why don't they go to
school themselves?"
"I don't know that, either," said Terence, "but they seem to expect me
to go to school for all of them. I think that is what I am here for.
Before I was old enough to go to school at all they used to bring me
things to eat from outside, because, you know, if I ate anything of
theirs I never could go out. Then as soon as I was old enough to go to
school, they sent me, and I came back every night, and they gave me
money to buy all my own food outside, and I have done that ever since,
and I have never eaten a bit of the Good People's food."
"And don't you like to stay here?" Kathleen asked. "It seems to me a
very beautiful place."
"No," said Terence; "they are very kind to me, but I think that I
should like to live outside better, and I hope that I shall some time.
And then, you see, if I ate anything here I could not go out to go to
school, and so I could not teach them. And it is all so strange. It
almost makes me cry, it is such a bother sometimes, and then they are
so sorry about it themselves and I am so sorry for them, and it almost
makes me laugh sometimes, because they can never learn anything. You
will see. I think it is time now."
Some of the men were taking away the tables. "It is time for the
lesson," the King called out. Some of the other men brought in a big
blackboard and set it up. Everybody stopped talking and laughing and
stood near the blackboard. Terence made some lines and some letters on
the board, with a piece of chalk.
"I shall have to try again," said Terence, "to prove to you the same
thing that I tried to prove to you last night. But I'll try a
different way, and maybe you'll see it better. Now mind, what I am to
prove is this: if any triangle has two sides equal, the angles
opposite those sides are also equal."
"And what difference does it make if they're equal or not?" said one
of the men who stood near Kathleen.
"Be still there," the King said; "do we want to make telephones or do
we not? And sure we can't make telephones without geometry. Hasn't
Terence told you that?"
Terence went on: "Let ABC be any triangle in which the sides AB and AC
are equal."
"How can it be any triangle, when it's only one triangle?" said
another of the men.
"Keep your silly head shut," said the King. "Terence didn't say it was
any triangle; he said let it be. Now will you let that triangle be, or
will I come over there and make you let it be?"
The man said nothing more and Terence went on: "Now, consider this
triangle as two triangles, BAC and CAB."
"How can it be two triangles," another of the men said, "when it's
only one triangle?"
"Will you be still there?" the King said. "Terence doesn't say it's
two triangles; he says you're to consider it. Will you consider that
triangle two triangles, or will I come over there and make you
consider it two triangles?"
"I'll consider it seven triangles, if you like, Your Majesty," the
man answered, "but I dunno what good it'll do me."
"Then consider it," said the King, "and don't talk about it. Go on,
Terence."
"Now, you see that since the sides AB and AC in each triangle are
equal, AB and AC in the first are respectively equal to AC and AB in
the second, and the angles between these sides are equal. So the two
triangles are equal, by previous proposition. And so the angles of one
are equal to the angles of the other, where they are opposite the
equal sides; that is, the angle ABC is equal to the angle ACB, being
opposite the equal sides AC and AB, by the same previous proposition,
and that is what I was to prove."
The King looked at the men with triumph in his eye. "There, you
blackguards," he said, "do you understand it at all, now that Terence
has made it clear to you?"
One by one the men and women began slowly to shake their heads. Not
one of them understood it. "Well, Terence," said the King, shaking his
own head, "I dunno how it is; nobody could be asking you to make it
any clearer than you have, and yet I'm obliged to say there's never a
bit of it I understand myself. Maybe to-morrow night you'll be able to
make us see it clearer."
Terence had come back to where Kathleen was. "Isn't it funny," he
said, "and yet isn't it a pity? I try to teach them as well as I can,
but they never can understand at all."
"And do you mean to say," said Kathleen, "that you haven't got any
farther in geometry than that? Why, that's only the fifth proposition
of the first book."
"Of course I've got farther than that," Terence answered, "but they
haven't, and they never will. I have been trying to teach them that
proposition--oh, I don't know how long--and they never will learn it
in the world. They want to learn to build railways and bridges and all
sorts of things, but how can anybody even get ready to build a railway
or a bridge till he's got over this bridge and the rest of the
geometry? I don't know whether I can ever learn it all myself, but I'm
going to the School of Engineering up at the University, next spring,
to learn chemistry, and qualitative analysis, and calculus, and
analytical mechanics, and graphical statics, and metallurgy, and
thermodynamics, and hydraulics, and a lot of other things. But these
people here will still be at work on this same triangle years after I
am dead, if they have anybody to teach them."
"Now, Terence, my boy," said the King, "there's one thing you can do
for us we can understand. Give us a tune out of the fiddle."
Kathleen was startled to hear this boy named Terence asked to play on
the fiddle, just as if he had been the other Terence whom she knew.
She wondered if he played like the other Terence. She scarcely dared
wait to hear, and she felt as if she should like to run away, only she
did not know where to run.
But she did not think any more about running after Terence began to
play. This was different. And yet in one way it was the same. For the
music that Terence was playing was just the music that the other
Terence often played and just what most people liked to hear him play
best, though Kathleen had always liked it as little as anything else
that he did. She had never heard anyone else play it till now. And now
it was so different. She could scarcely tell the difference, and yet
she could feel it in every clear note that Terence drew out with his
bow.
When she was a little girl, almost as long ago as she could remember,
she used to say, when the other Terence played this very music, that
it did not mean anything. But now it meant something. Meant something!
It meant--everything, Kathleen thought, and yet she could not tell at
all what it meant. It was not happiness that it meant, and it was not
sorrow; it was not merry, and it was not grave. Sometimes it was light
and gentle and sweet, and flowed along as if it were a little
fountain of music, bubbling and bubbling out of a hidden place; then
it would be slower, but fine and firm, and full and free and true. It
seemed to Kathleen to mean so much, and yet she could not tell what,
except that there was something like a deep longing that went all
through it.
And that made her think of the other Terence's music again, for she
remembered now, though she had never thought of it before, that there
was a longing in his music too. Perhaps she had done wrong, she
thought, to say that it did not mean anything. Still, this was so
different. If the other Terence's fiddle had ever seemed to be longing
for anything, it had seemed to be hopeless, and the fiddle always
seemed to be bitterly laughing at those who were listening to it and
thinking that it was so fine. She had never thought of anything like
this before, but it seemed clear to her now, listening to the same
music played so differently. For now, below all the longing and
sounding through it, there were strength and hope and life and faith
in something good.
I do not say that Kathleen thought all this out while she was
listening. She only felt the most of it. But she felt it so much that
she scarcely knew what she was doing, and she moved by little and
little toward Terence, till she was nearer to him than anybody else,
and looked at him as if he were something more wonderful than she had
ever seen before, till she found that she could not look at him,
because her eyes were wet. And then the music stopped.
Then said the King: "I said that was something that we could
understand, Terence, but I dunno if it is. It's the wonderful player
you are all out, but I never heard you play like that before, and I
think there's something in it that's more than I can find out. That's
enough of it for to-night."
Terence had already come back to Kathleen. She could scarcely speak to
him even yet. "Who taught you to play like that?" she said.
"I don't quite know," he answered, "whether anybody taught me. They
taught me to play here, and the music that I just played is their
music, but I don't play it the way they do. I don't know why that is.
Just as soon as they had taught me so that I could play at all, I
began to play in my own way. Their music is sweet and bright and merry
and sparkling, and sometimes it seems to be sad, but it never means
anything."
Kathleen was startled again to hear Terence say the very words that
she had said so many times about the other Terence's music. "But I
never played before in my life," Terence went on, "the way I have
been playing just now. I think it was because you were here. You
understood, and so I thought of nothing but you all the time that I
was playing, and I think it made me play better. They never
understand. They love music and they hate geometry, but they
understand one just as well as the other."
The King came up to Kathleen and said: "It is time for you to come and
be looking after the child again."
Kathleen went with him and he led her back into the room where the
Queen was. "Where is the box of ointment?" the King said to the Queen.
"I have it here under my pillow," the Queen answered; "come here and
get it, Kathleen."
The Queen took something from under her pillow and held it so that
Kathleen had to come close to her to get it. "Did you eat anything?"
the Queen asked, as Kathleen bent over her.
Kathleen did not quite know whether she ought to answer or not, but
the Queen looked at her so kindly that she thought that there could be
no harm, and she said: "Only what Terence gave me."
"That was right," said the Queen, and then she went on, speaking
louder, so that the King could hear: "Take this box of ointment. In
the morning, as soon as the baby is awake, take him out of the cradle
and wash him, and then just touch his eyes with this ointment; but be
careful that you do not touch your own eyes with it."
Kathleen took the box, which seemed to be of solid gold, and looked at
it. What was in it looked like a soft, green salve. She slipped it
into the pocket of her gown. "How shall I know when it is morning?"
she asked. It seemed to her that here under the hill there would not
be much difference between night and day.
"You'll know it's morning when the child wakes up," the Queen said;
"or when you wake up yourself, for that matter. You can go to bed now.
There's your bed, next to the cradle."
The King left them, and Kathleen, who was really very tired, lay down
on another gold couch, almost like the Queen's, that had been placed
near the cradle, and in a minute she was asleep.
It seemed scarcely another minute before she was awake again. She
remembered that the Queen had said that when she awoke it would be
morning, and she looked to see if the baby was awake too. He was, and
she took him out of the cradle. Then she saw a large gold basin full
of water. She washed the baby in it, and he stared at her all the
time, with big, owlish eyes. Then she took the box of ointment out of
her pocket. She touched it with her finger and then touched each of
the baby's eyes with it. Instantly his eyes looked brighter and
deeper, and instead of staring at her stupidly, as they had done
before, they seemed to look straight through her. Nothing had
frightened her at all, and now she was getting so that nothing
startled her. So she only laid the baby back in his cradle and put the
box of ointment into her pocket.
In a moment the King came in and said it was time for breakfast. He
and the Queen went out into the hall together and Kathleen followed
them. As soon as she was in the hall she saw Terence. He was looking
for her and they sat down and ate breakfast together. Then Terence
went away.
All day, except when it was time for meals, Kathleen sat with the
Queen or looked after the baby, though there was really nothing to do
for him. Whenever it was time for a meal they went out into the hall,
and there Kathleen always found Terence, and she always ate with him,
and ate only what he brought her.
In the evening the King came to her and said, "Kathleen, it is time
for us to go and dance again; come with us."
Then Terence took her by both hands and said, "Don't go with them;
don't go; if you do, I am afraid that you will never come back."
"Of course I shall come back," she said; "you have been very kind to
me, and I would come back to see you again, if it was for nothing
else. And then I don't know whether I must do anything more for the
baby. And then--" Kathleen stopped short as she thought. "I ought not
to come back--not to-night! I ought to go home! Oh, how anxious my
father and my grandmother must be about me! I have been here all night
and all day, and they must think that I am dead. And I have not
thought of them the whole time. I am wicked to have stayed here so
long."
"Then you will not come back," Terence said. "You know why I brought
you all that you have had to eat and to drink. It was so that you
might leave this place. I might have let you eat their food, and then
you could never leave it, unless to go out with them and dance on
their green and then come back again. I made it so that you could go,
and now you will go and you will not come back."