diligently trotting the children all the while, "ever since that
morning, I have hated the very sight of all other gold, save this!"
Shadow Brook
_After the Story_
"Well, children," inquired Eustace, who was very fond of eliciting a
definite opinion from his auditors, "did you ever, in all your lives,
listen to a better story than this of 'The Golden Touch'?"
"Why, as to the story of King Midas," said saucy Primrose, "it was a
famous one thousands of years before Mr. Eustace Bright came into the
world, and will continue to be so as long after he quits it. But some
people have what we may call 'The Leaden Touch,' and make everything
dull and heavy that they lay their fingers upon."
"You are a smart child, Primrose, to be not yet in your teens," said
Eustace, taken rather aback by the piquancy of her criticism. "But you
well know, in your naughty little heart, that I have burnished the old
gold of Midas all over anew, and have made it shine as it never shone
before. And then that figure of Marygold! Do you perceive no nice
workmanship in that? And how finely I have brought out and deepened the
moral! What say you, Sweet Fern, Dandelion, Clover, Periwinkle? Would
any of you, after hearing this story, be so foolish as to desire the
faculty of changing things to gold?"
"I should like," said Periwinkle, a girl of ten, "to have the power of
turning everything to gold with my right forefinger; but, with my left
forefinger, I should want the power of changing it back again, if the
first change did not please me. And I know what I would do, this very
afternoon!"
"Pray tell me," said Eustace.
"Why," answered Periwinkle, "I would touch every one of these golden
leaves on the trees with my left forefinger, and make them all green
again; so that we might have the summer back at once, with no ugly
winter in the mean time."
"O Periwinkle!" cried Eustace Bright, "there you are wrong, and would do
a great deal of mischief. Were I Midas, I would make nothing else but
just such golden days as these over and over again, all the year
throughout. My best thoughts always come a little too late. Why did not
I tell you how old King Midas came to America, and changed the dusky
autumn, such as it is in other countries, into the burnished beauty
which it here puts on? He gilded the leaves of the great volume of
Nature."
"Cousin Eustace," said Sweet Fern, a good little boy, who was always
making particular inquiries about the precise height of giants and the
littleness of fairies, "how big was Marygold, and how much did she weigh
after she was turned to gold?"
"She was about as tall as you are," replied Eustace, "and, as gold is
very heavy, she weighed at least two thousand pounds, and might have
been coined into thirty or forty thousand gold dollars. I wish Primrose
were worth half as much. Come, little people, let us clamber out of the
dell, and look about us."
They did so. The sun was now an hour or two beyond its noontide mark,
and filled the great hollow of the valley with its western radiance, so
that it seemed to be brimming with mellow light, and to spill it over
the surrounding hill-sides, like golden wine out of a bowl. It was such
a day that you could not help saying of it, "There never was such a day
before!" although yesterday was just such a day, and to-morrow will be
just such another. Ah, but there are very few of them in a twelvemonth's
circle! It is a remarkable peculiarity of these October days, that each
of them seems to occupy a great deal of space, although the sun rises
rather tardily at that season of the year, and goes to bed, as little
children ought, at sober six o'clock, or even earlier. We cannot,
therefore, call the days long; but they appear, somehow or other, to
make up for their shortness by their breadth; and when the cool night
comes, we are conscious of having enjoyed a big armful of life, since
morning.
"Come, children, come!" cried Eustace Bright. "More nuts, more nuts,
more nuts! Fill all your baskets; and, at Christmas time, I will crack
them for you, and tell you beautiful stories!"
So away they went; all of them in excellent spirits, except little
Dandelion, who, I am sorry to tell you, had been sitting on a
chestnut-bur, and was stuck as full as a pincushion of its prickles.
Dear me, how uncomfortably he must have felt!
THE PARADISE OF CHILDREN
Tanglewood Play-Room
_Introductory to "The Paradise of Children"_
The golden days of October passed away, as so many other Octobers have,
and brown November likewise, and the greater part of chill December,
too. At last came merry Christmas, and Eustace Bright along with it,
making it all the merrier by his presence. And, the day after his
arrival from college, there came a mighty snow-storm. Up to this time,
the winter had held back, and had given us a good many mild days, which
were like smiles upon its wrinkled visage. The grass had kept itself
green, in sheltered places, such as the nooks of southern hill-slopes,
and along the lee of the stone fences. It was but a week or two ago, and
since the beginning of the month, that the children had found a
dandelion in bloom, on the margin of Shadow Brook, where it glides out
of the dell.
But no more green grass and dandelions now. This was such a snow-storm!
Twenty miles of it might have been visible at once, between the windows
of Tanglewood and the dome of Taconic, had it been possible to see so
far among the eddying drifts that whitened all the atmosphere. It seemed
as if the hills were giants, and were flinging monstrous handfuls of
snow at one another, in their enormous sport. So thick were the
fluttering snow-flakes, that even the trees, midway down the valley,
were hidden by them the greater part of the time. Sometimes, it is
true, the little prisoners of Tanglewood could discern a dim outline of
Monument Mountain, and the smooth whiteness of the frozen lake at its
base, and the black or gray tracts of woodland in the nearer landscape.
But these were merely peeps through the tempest.
Nevertheless, the children rejoiced greatly in the snow-storm. They had
already made acquaintance with it, by tumbling heels over head into its
highest drifts, and flinging snow at one another, as we have just
fancied the Berkshire mountains to be doing. And now they had come back
to their spacious play-room, which was as big as the great drawing-room,
and was lumbered with all sorts of playthings, large and small. The
biggest was a rocking-horse, that looked like a real pony; and there was
a whole family of wooden, waxen, plaster, and china dolls, besides
rag-babies; and blocks enough to build Bunker Hill Monument, and
nine-pins, and balls, and humming tops, and battledores, and
grace-sticks, and skipping-ropes, and more of such valuable property
than I could tell of in a printed page. But the children liked the
snow-storm better than them all. It suggested so many brisk enjoyments
for to-morrow, and all the remainder of the winter. The sleigh-ride; the
slides down hill into the valley; the snow-images that were to be shaped
out; the snow-fortresses that were to be built; and the snowballing to
be carried on!
So the little folks blessed the snow-storm, and were glad to see it come
thicker and thicker, and watched hopefully the long drift that was
piling itself up in the avenue, and was already higher than any of their
heads.
"Why, we shall be blocked up till spring!" cried they, with the hugest
delight. "What a pity that the house is too high to be quite covered up!
The little red house, down yonder, will be buried up to its eaves."
"You silly children, what do you want of more snow?" asked Eustace,
who, tired of some novel that he was skimming through, had strolled into
the play-room. "It has done mischief enough already, by spoiling the
only skating that I could hope for through the winter. We shall see
nothing more of the lake till April; and this was to have been my first
day upon it! Don't you pity me, Primrose?"
"Oh, to be sure!" answered Primrose, laughing. "But, for your comfort,
we will listen to another of your old stories, such as you told us under
the porch, and down in the hollow, by Shadow Brook. Perhaps I shall like
them better now, when there is nothing to do, than while there were nuts
to be gathered, and beautiful weather to enjoy."
Hereupon, Periwinkle, Clover, Sweet Fern, and as many others of the
little fraternity and cousinhood as were still at Tanglewood, gathered
about Eustace, and earnestly besought him for a story. The student
yawned, stretched himself, and then, to the vast admiration of the small
people, skipped three times back and forth over the top of a chair, in
order, as he explained to them, to set his wits in motion.
"Well, well, children," said he, after these preliminaries, "since you
insist, and Primrose has set her heart upon it, I will see what can be
done for you. And, that you may know what happy days there were before
snow-storms came into fashion, I will tell you a story of the oldest of
all old times, when the world was as new as Sweet Fern's bran-new
humming-top. There was then but one season in the year, and that was the
delightful summer; and but one age for mortals, and that was childhood."
"I never heard of that before," said Primrose.
"Of course, you never did," answered Eustace. "It shall be a story of
what nobody but myself ever dreamed of,--a Paradise of children,--and
how, by the naughtiness of just such a little imp as Primrose here, it
all came to nothing."
So Eustace Bright sat down in the chair which he had just been skipping
over, took Cowslip upon his knee, ordered silence throughout the
auditory, and began a story about a sad naughty child, whose name was
Pandora, and about her playfellow Epimetheus. You may read it, word for
word, in the pages that come next.
The Paradise of Children
Long, long ago, when this old world was in its tender infancy, there was
a child, named Epimetheus, who never had either father or mother; and,
that he might not be lonely, another child, fatherless and motherless
like himself, was sent from a far country, to live with him, and be his
playfellow and helpmate. Her name was Pandora.
The first thing that Pandora saw, when she entered the cottage where
Epimetheus dwelt, was a great box. And almost the first question which
she put to him, after crossing the threshold, was this,--
"Epimetheus, what have you in that box?"
"My dear little Pandora," answered Epimetheus, "that is a secret, and
you must be kind enough not to ask any questions about it. The box was
left here to be kept safely, and I do not myself know what it contains."
"But who gave it to you?" asked Pandora. "And where did it come from?"
"That is a secret, too," replied Epimetheus.
"How provoking!" exclaimed Pandora, pouting her lip. "I wish the great
ugly box were out of the way!"
"Oh come, don't think of it any more," cried Epimetheus. "Let us run out
of doors, and have some nice play with the other children."
It is thousands of years since Epimetheus and Pandora were alive; and
the world, nowadays, is a very different sort of thing from what it was
in their time. Then, everybody was a child. There needed no fathers and
mothers to take care of the children; because there was no danger, nor
trouble of any kind, and no clothes to be mended, and there was always
plenty to eat and drink. Whenever a child wanted his dinner, he found it
growing on a tree; and, if he looked at the tree in the morning, he
could see the expanding blossom of that night's supper; or, at eventide,
he saw the tender bud of to-morrow's breakfast. It was a very pleasant
life indeed. No labor to be done, no tasks to be studied; nothing but
sports and dances, and sweet voices of children talking, or carolling
like birds, or gushing out in merry laughter, throughout the livelong
day.
What was most wonderful of all, the children never quarrelled among
themselves; neither had they any crying fits; nor, since time first
began, had a single one of these little mortals ever gone apart into a
corner, and sulked. Oh, what a good time was that to be alive in? The
truth is, those ugly little winged monsters, called Troubles, which are
now almost as numerous as mosquitoes, had never yet been seen on the
earth. It is probable that the very greatest disquietude which a child
had ever experienced was Pandora's vexation at not being able to
discover the secret of the mysterious box.
This was at first only the faint shadow of a Trouble; but, every day, it
grew more and more substantial, until, before a great while, the cottage
of Epimetheus and Pandora was less sunshiny than those of the other
children.
"Whence can the box have come?" Pandora continually kept saying to
herself and to Epimetheus. "And what in the world can be inside of it?"
"Always talking about this box!" said Epimetheus, at last; for he had
grown extremely tired of the subject. "I wish, dear Pandora, you would
try to talk of something else. Come, let us go and gather some ripe
figs, and eat them under the trees, for our supper. And I know a vine
that has the sweetest and juiciest grapes you ever tasted."
"Always talking about grapes and figs!" cried Pandora, pettishly.
[Illustration: PANDORA]
"Well, then," said Epimetheus, who was a very good-tempered child, like
a multitude of children in those days, "let us run out and have a merry
time with our playmates."
"I am tired of merry times, and don't care if I never have any more!"
answered our pettish little Pandora. "And, besides, I never do have any.
This ugly box! I am so taken up with thinking about it all the time. I
insist upon your telling me what is inside of it."
"As I have already said, fifty times over, I do not know!" replied
Epimetheus, getting a little vexed. "How, then, can I tell you what is
inside?"
"You might open it," said Pandora, looking sideways at Epimetheus, "and
then we could see for ourselves."
"Pandora, what are you thinking of?" exclaimed Epimetheus.
And his face expressed so much horror at the idea of looking into a box,
which had been confided to him on the condition of his never opening it,
that Pandora thought it best not to suggest it any more. Still, however,
she could not help thinking and talking about the box.
"At least," said she, "you can tell me how it came here."
"It was left at the door," replied Epimetheus, "just before you came, by
a person who looked very smiling and intelligent, and who could hardly
forbear laughing as he put it down. He was dressed in an odd kind of a
cloak, and had on a cap that seemed to be made partly of feathers, so
that it looked almost as if it had wings."
"What sort of a staff had he?" asked Pandora.
"Oh, the most curious staff you ever saw!" cried Epimetheus. "It was
like two serpents twisting around a stick, and was carved so naturally
that I, at first, thought the serpents were alive."
"I know him," said Pandora, thoughtfully. "Nobody else has such a
staff. It was Quicksilver; and he brought me hither, as well as the box.
No doubt he intended it for me; and, most probably, it contains pretty
dresses for me to wear, or toys for you and me to play with, or
something very nice for us both to eat!"
"Perhaps so," answered Epimetheus, turning away. "But until Quicksilver
comes back and tells us so, we have neither of us any right to lift the
lid of the box."
"What a dull boy he is!" muttered Pandora, as Epimetheus left the
cottage. "I do wish he had a little more enterprise!"
For the first time since her arrival, Epimetheus had gone out without
asking Pandora to accompany him. He went to gather figs and grapes by
himself, or to seek whatever amusement he could find, in other society
than his little playfellow's. He was tired to death of hearing about the
box, and heartily wished that Quicksilver, or whatever was the
messenger's name, had left it at some other child's door, where Pandora
would never have set eyes on it. So perseveringly as she did babble
about this one thing! The box, the box, and nothing but the box! It
seemed as if the box were bewitched, and as if the cottage were not big
enough to hold it, without Pandora's continually stumbling over it, and
making Epimetheus stumble over it likewise, and bruising all four of
their shins.
Well, it was really hard that poor Epimetheus should have a box in his
ears from morning till night; especially as the little people of the
earth were so unaccustomed to vexations, in those happy days, that they
knew not how to deal with them. Thus, a small vexation made as much
disturbance then, as a far bigger one would in our own times.
After Epimetheus was gone, Pandora stood gazing at the box. She had
called it ugly, above a hundred times; but, in spite of all that she had
said against it, it was positively a very handsome article of furniture,
and would have been quite an ornament to any room in which it should be
placed. It was made of a beautiful kind of wood, with dark and rich
veins spreading over its surface, which was so highly polished that
little Pandora could see her face in it. As the child had no other
looking-glass, it is odd that she did not value the box, merely on this
account.
The edges and corners of the box were carved with most wonderful skill.
Around the margin there were figures of graceful men and women, and the
prettiest children ever seen, reclining or sporting amid a profusion of
flowers and foliage; and these various objects were so exquisitely
represented, and were wrought together in such harmony, that flowers,
foliage, and human beings seemed to combine into a wreath of mingled
beauty. But here and there, peeping forth from behind the carved
foliage, Pandora once or twice fancied that she saw a face not so
lovely, or something or other that was disagreeable, and which stole the
beauty out of all the rest. Nevertheless, on looking more closely, and
touching the spot with her finger, she could discover nothing of the
kind. Some face, that was really beautiful, had been made to look ugly
by her catching a sideway glimpse at it.
The most beautiful face of all was done in what is called high relief,
in the centre of the lid. There was nothing else, save the dark, smooth
richness of the polished wood, and this one face in the centre, with a
garland of flowers about its brow. Pandora had looked at this face a
great many times, and imagined that the mouth could smile if it liked,
or be grave when it chose, the same as any living mouth. The features,
indeed, all wore a very lively and rather mischievous expression, which
looked almost as if it needs must burst out of the carved lips, and
utter itself in words.
Had the mouth spoken, it would probably have been something like this:
"Do not be afraid, Pandora! What harm can there be in opening the box?
Never mind that poor, simple Epimetheus! You are wiser than he, and have
ten times as much spirit. Open the box, and see if you do not find
something very pretty!"
The box, I had almost forgotten to say, was fastened; not by a lock, nor
by any other such contrivance, but by a very intricate knot of gold
cord. There appeared to be no end to this knot, and no beginning. Never
was a knot so cunningly twisted, nor with so many ins and outs, which
roguishly defied the skilfullest fingers to disentangle them. And yet,
by the very difficulty that there was in it, Pandora was the more
tempted to examine the knot, and just see how it was made. Two or three
times, already, she had stooped over the box, and taken the knot between
her thumb and forefinger, but without positively trying to undo it.
"I really believe," said she to herself, "that I begin to see how it was
done. Nay, perhaps I could tie it up again, after undoing it. There
would be no harm in that, surely. Even Epimetheus would not blame me for
that. I need not open the box, and should not, of course, without the
foolish boy's consent, even if the knot were untied."
It might have been better for Pandora if she had had a little work to
do, or anything to employ her mind upon, so as not to be so constantly
thinking of this one subject. But children led so easy a life, before
any Troubles came into the world, that they had really a great deal too
much leisure. They could not be forever playing at hide-and-seek among
the flower-shrubs, or at blind-man's-buff with garlands over their eyes,
or at whatever other games had been found out, while Mother Earth was in
her babyhood. When life is all sport, toil is the real play. There was
absolutely nothing to do. A little sweeping and dusting about the
cottage, I suppose, and the gathering of fresh flowers (which were only
too abundant everywhere), and arranging them in vases,--and poor little
Pandora's day's work was over. And then, for the rest of the day, there
was the box!
After all, I am not quite sure that the box was not a blessing to her in
its way. It supplied her with such a variety of ideas to think of, and
to talk about, whenever she had anybody to listen! When she was in
good-humor, she could admire the bright polish of its sides, and the
rich border of beautiful faces and foliage that ran all around it. Or,
if she chanced to be ill-tempered, she could give it a push, or kick it
with her naughty little foot. And many a kick did the box--(but it was a
mischievous box, as we shall see, and deserved all it got)--many a kick
did it receive. But, certain it is, if it had not been for the box, our
active-minded little Pandora would not have known half so well how to
spend her time as she now did.
For it was really an endless employment to guess what was inside. What
could it be, indeed? Just imagine, my little hearers, how busy your wits
would be, if there were a great box in the house, which, as you might
have reason to suppose, contained something new and pretty for your
Christmas or New-Year's gifts. Do you think that you should be less
curious than Pandora? If you were left alone with the box, might you not
feel a little tempted to lift the lid? But you would not do it. Oh, fie!
No, no! Only, if you thought there were toys in it, it would be so very
hard to let slip an opportunity of taking just one peep! I know not
whether Pandora expected any toys; for none had yet begun to be made,
probably, in those days, when the world itself was one great plaything
for the children that dwelt upon it. But Pandora was convinced that
there was something very beautiful and valuable in the box; and
therefore she felt just as anxious to take a peep as any of these little
girls, here around me, would have felt. And, possibly, a little more so;
but of that I am not quite so certain.
On this particular day, however, which we have so long been talking
about, her curiosity grew so much greater than it usually was, that, at
last, she approached the box. She was more than half determined to open
it, if she could. Ah, naughty Pandora!
First, however, she tried to lift it. It was heavy; quite too heavy for
the slender strength of a child, like Pandora. She raised one end of the
box a few inches from the floor, and let it fall again, with a pretty
loud thump. A moment afterwards, she almost fancied that she heard
something stir inside of the box. She applied her ear as closely as
possible, and listened. Positively, there did seem to be a kind of
stifled murmur, within! Or was it merely the singing in Pandora's ears?
Or could it be the beating of her heart? The child could not quite
satisfy herself whether she had heard anything or no. But, at all
events, her curiosity was stronger than ever.
As she drew back her head, her eyes fell upon the knot of gold cord.
"It must have been a very ingenious person who tied this knot," said
Pandora to herself. "But I think I could untie it nevertheless. I am
resolved, at least, to find the two ends of the cord."
So she took the golden knot in her fingers, and pried into its
intricacies as sharply as she could. Almost without intending it, or
quite knowing what she was about, she was soon busily engaged in
attempting to undo it. Meanwhile, the bright sunshine came through the
open window; as did likewise the merry voices of the children, playing
at a distance, and perhaps the voice of Epimetheus among them. Pandora
stopped to listen. What a beautiful day it was! Would it not be wiser,
if she were to let the troublesome knot alone, and think no more about
the box, but run and join her little playfellows, and be happy?