ROUND THE YEAR IN
PUDDING LANE
By Sarah Addington
THE BOY WHO LIVED IN PUDDING LANE
THE GREAT ADVENTURE OF MRS. SANTA CLAUS
ROUND THE YEAR IN PUDDING LANE
[Illustration: _The Town Crier was seen coming down Pudding Lane,
ringing his bell._ FRONTISPIECE. _See page 3._]
ROUND THE YEAR
IN PUDDING LANE
BY
SARAH ADDINGTON
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY
GERTRUDE A. KAY
[Illustration]
BOSTON
LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY
1924
_Copyright, 1923, 1924_,
BY SARAH ADDINGTON
_All rights reserved_
Published September, 1924
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I When the Snow Man Sat by the Fire 1
II The Valentine Mistress Mary Found 18
III How Humpty Dumpty Went to the King’s
Party 34
IV Simple Simon Has His Day 52
V Mrs. Claus Has a Great Honor 67
VI The Poodle That Didn’t Know English 81
VII Bo-Peep Finds Out How a Dutch Uncle
Talks 93
VIII The Sand Man’s Scare 110
IX Why Taffy the Welshman Stole Meat 124
X The Crooked Man Gets a Brand-new Reputation 139
XI Mother Goose Settles a Difficulty 155
XII Santa Claus Hangs Up His Stocking 187
ILLUSTRATIONS
The Town Crier was seen coming down Pudding
Lane, ringing his bell _Frontispiece_
PAGE
Everybody was happy, including Mrs. Claus who
dozed by the fire 20
No Lady Wind was that. No dog either. But a
bear that stood before her 43
They were dancing around a Maypole, a beautiful,
flower-covered Maypole 76
On the same stagecoach from Dover came a present
from the King of France to Mrs. Claus 81
“Look here,” he said to the black sheep. “You’re
responsible for all this.” 105
What could Mrs. Blue do? She could do nothing
but climb the fence, skirts and all 111
The next morning at nine o’clock the whole town
started out for Honeysuckle Hill 129
“But it’s too far to walk before dark,” said Santa
Claus. “We live ’way off in Pudding Lane” 148
I
WHEN THE SNOW MAN SAT BY THE FIRE
It had been a poor year for snow men that winter in Pudding Lane.
November had brought not one single flake of snow (though I don’t see
what good one flake would have done, anyway). December had been almost
as bad. Even at Christmas there had been only the thinnest smattering
of snow, which, like bread that has only a little sugar on it, is worse
than none at all.
But here it was January, a gray, moisty, misty day that certainly
looked and felt like nothing else in the world but snow. So that it was
no wonder the children of Pudding Lane kept rolling their eyes at the
world outside as they were having their lessons that morning.
“One, two, buckle my shoe,” recited Santa to Mrs. Claus. The snow would
surely come any minute now. “Three, four, shut the door.” Would it
be big dry flakes or little watery ones? Little watery ones were no
earthly good, of course. “Five, six, pick up sticks--”
“A, B, C, tumble-down D,” chanted Judy to the Old Woman Who Lived in a
Shoe. Was that a flake of snow she saw through a buttonhole of the Shoe
there? No, only a bit of paper drifting by. “E, F, and a pick-him-up
G,” she continued.
Even Simple Simon was having a lesson.
“Thirty days hath September,” he began, but poor Simon never got any
farther than that in the rhyme, for he never could remember that April
came next. April ought not to follow right after September, even in a
poem, he thought.
So they went on, every one of them, for Old King Cole had given
emphatic orders that lessons were to be held at any cost, every single
morning, in every single home in Pudding Lane. And then, right in the
middle of everything, it began to come, the snow that all the children
had been waiting for all the winter long.
Jill saw it first, for Jill was the kind of girl that could see several
things at once, so that, although it looked very much as if Jill had
her eyes nailed down tight to her spelling book, she really was looking
through the window out of the tail of her eye. Some people are like
that, especially girls.
But Jill saw the snow only half a second before the other children saw
it. For the next thing the mothers of Pudding Lane knew, their pupils
were all running to the windows and jumping up and down and shrieking
with delight. It began to look as if school were over for the day,
willy-nilly, as Mrs. Claus said. She, for one, couldn’t manage five
boys during the first snowstorm of the year.
Well, sure enough, school was over for the day, for the next minute
the Town Crier was seen coming down Pudding Lane, ringing his bell and
shouting, “The King says let the children out; the King says let the
children out, the first snow of the year!” Seriously, now, was there
ever such a good king as that merry Old Soul? Or such a wise one? Not
many kings would understand that a snowstorm is more important than
lessons.
You should have seen the Snow Man those children made! Such a fine
figure of manhood as he was, with sturdy, stout legs and a pipe in
his mouth (the candlestick maker wondered where in the world his pipe
had disappeared to!) and a snub nose such as snow men always, always
have. Why is it, do you suppose, that snow men never have handsome
Roman noses like Mother Goose’s, or tip-tilted ones like Jill’s, or
long lean noses like the candlestick maker’s? Merely a family trait, I
suppose. In fact, if I ever met a snow man with a long nose, I’d rather
suspect him of not belonging to the real snow family, wouldn’t you?
But this one was a true descendant of the inner circle of snow men.
Little Boy Blue stuck on his ears. Jack and Jill made his arms--long
arms they were, that fell from his shoulders in a most realistic
manner. Simple Simon put Mr. Claus’s green carpet slippers at the
bottom of the Snow Man’s legs. (And you should have seen Mr. Claus
running around the house in his bare feet that night, poor man.) Simple
Simon got the right shoe on the left leg, and the left shoe on the
right leg, but that only made the Snow Man look funnier than ever,
and Simon was indeed proud that he had done his job so cleverly. Yes,
every child in Pudding Lane had a hand in that Snow Man, except Polly
Flinders.
And Polly, of course, would not come out. Not that she was not invited.
Santa Claus, who was the most polite boy in Pudding Lane, made a
special trip to the Flinderses’ to get her, for it was thought that
Polly, being a newcomer to the village, might feel a little shy.
But although Polly liked Santa Claus very much and was really most
anxious to play with the other children, and most anxious, too, to get
acquainted with the Snow Man, still, on account of her toes, Polly had
to refuse Santa’s invitation. So Santa ran back to his little friends
and Polly, after waving them good-by, returned to her cinders.
She did not stay by the fire long, however, for the shouts and laughter
of the children rang out like chimes through Pudding Lane that day, and
she could not keep herself from going to the window to watch them. For
the truth about Polly Flinders was that, though she did choose to stay
close by her fire rather than to play outdoors with the children, she
really was a very lonely little girl. She got tired of herself and she
got tired of her dolls and books. She even got tired of her cinders. So
Polly really was not very happy by her fireside, after all. It was too
bad about her toes, really.
When the children saw Polly at the window on this day, they waved and
laughed and beckoned her to come out. Polly waved back and smiled, too,
but still she could not bear the thought of the cold, so she shook
her head sadly and presently they forgot all about her as they went
on playing. And finally the lonely little Polly went back to the fire
again.
It was dark and cold when the children of Pudding Lane at last left
their Snow Man and went home. They had fought snow battles and built
snow houses and dug snow tunnels. They had plowed up the fields of snow
until it looked like some winter planting time. But the day closed at
last and they had to go home to supper and to bed.
Only Polly Flinders, as night came on, remembered the poor Snow Man who
was left there in the ruins alone on the cold winter night. She could
hardly eat her supper for thinking about him, and she shivered closer
to the fire, as she considered how cold it must be out there for the
Snow Man, who himself was not a very warm fellow to begin with.
So Polly thought about him all evening, and still she could not forget
him when it came time for bed and her mother came in to take her
upstairs. Polly begged to stay up longer.
“But it’s very late,” objected her mother.
In the end, however, she went off to bed without Polly, shaking her
head and saying to Mr. Flinders that she never did see such a girl for
the cinders.
As Polly sat by the fire, she kept thinking of the Snow Man and kept on
feeling so sorry for him that she even cried a little to herself, as
the clock ticked and the cinders clinked in the grate. She went to the
window to look out at him. There he stood in the cold light of a frosty
moon, alone, neglected, freezing. Oh, dear, how unhappy he looked.
He wasn’t funny any more, but pitiable and pathetic, like any other
outcast.
Polly stood by the window a long time, watching him tearfully. Then
through her tears, she saw, or thought she saw, the Snow Man move. He
seemed to raise his arms to her in a gesture of pleading. The Snow Man
was motioning to her to come to him! The Snow Man wanted her help!
Quick as a flash Polly turned from the window and rushed to the door.
Quick as a wink she had flung the door open and was running down the
path to Pudding Lane and across the lane to the Snow Man. She quite
forgot her toes, did Polly. She forgot the cold and the snow. She
forgot everything except that the poor Snow Man needed somebody to help
him and that she was the somebody. When she got to the Snow Man, she
spoke to him breathlessly.
“I’ve come to take you in to the fire,” she told him. “I know how
wretched it is to be cold and lonely. I suffer from the cold myself,
Mr. Snow Man, and I’m rather lonely too.”
The Snow Man did not reply, but stood there immovable, his long arms
hanging listlessly, his pipe askew, his hat set rakishly on one ear.
Polly surveyed him and spoke again.
“Can you walk?” she asked him. He was still silent.
Polly touched him softly. He was hard and as solid as rock. She never
would be able to budge him. She put her arms around him. Ooooh, how
cold he was! She really must hurry and get him in to the fire, or he
would be frozen past all help.
What should she do? He was freezing, freezing! She must not leave him
there another minute. But he was too big to carry and too stiff to
walk. Polly looked around desperately. There was only that icy moon
above and the fields of snow about her and the still cold of night. No
help was in sight. Not a candle shone out from a single window. Not a
soul was awake in that respectable little village. Alas, Polly began to
think that her visit to the Snow Man was all in vain, that she could
not rescue him, after all.
And then, just as she was despairing of her mission, she spied Jack
Horner’s little red sled near one of the snow forts. It was the very
thing! She would take the Snow Man home on that sled. She would take
him to her own fire and there warm him until he was quite comfortable.
Hastily she began to drag the sled over to the Snow Man. Quickly she
commenced the delicate operation of putting the Snow Man on the sled.
And it was a delicate operation, indeed. For the Snow Man’s joints, if
he ever had any, were as stiff as sticks, and the Snow Man’s muscles,
if he had muscles, were as useless as a doll’s. He was very heavy and
hard to move, as Polly put her arms around him and tried it. Moreover,
the Snow Man, although so frozen and hard, had a tendency to break at
places. Polly was very, very careful as she tugged and pulled at him,
but there! his left arm snapped off clear up to the shoulder, and--oh,
dear, there went his right thumb, plunged into the snow at his feet.
“Excuse me, excuse me,” whispered Polly to the Snow Man in distress. “I
didn’t mean to, really.”
But it did not seem to hurt the Snow Man very much to lose an arm and
a thumb, for he did not bat an eyelash, though maybe that was because
he didn’t have an eyelash to bat.
At last Polly had him on the sled, lying on his back, feet foremost,
pipe in the air. Only the green carpet slippers were left behind in
the snow, for somehow they wouldn’t stick. At last, after much hard
pulling, Polly had the sled with the Snow Man right in front of her
very door. And at last, after more tugging and working, she had him
standing upright in front of her own warm cinders, which she now poked
up into a fine bright blaze again. Then she smiled radiantly at the
Snow Man.
“Now you’ll be all right,” she assured him. “You’ll get all warm and
happy again, Mr. Snow Man.”
But, my goodness, was the Snow Man crying? It certainly looked like it.
Those were surely drops of water on his face. It looked, too, as if he
needed a handkerchief. Polly hastily got out hers and applied it to the
Snow Man’s nose.
“You ought to learn to use your handkerchief yourself,” she told him
rather severely. “I learned to use mine when I was a very little girl.
But don’t cry. Oh, don’t cry so _hard_!”
By this time the tears were streaming down the Snow Man’s face like
rain. In fact, he hardly had a face any more; the snub nose had
vanished almost completely; his eyes had cried themselves out; his ears
were just little nubs now and were fast becoming even smaller nubs.
More than that, the Snow Man’s arms and shoulders seemed to be raining
tears too, and from his feet and body ran rivers of water.
Oh, dear, how frightened Polly was!
“Please don’t cry all over like that!” she begged him. “Oh, please
don’t!”
But the water continued to flow from every pore of the Snow Man’s body.
“Perhaps,” thought Polly, “it’s just perspiration. But if it is, it’s a
pretty bad case of it.”
Whatever the malady, it was fast reducing the unfortunate Snow Man into
a mere pillar of slush and streaming water. His pipe fell away from his
face and dropped to the floor with a dismal sound. His poor old hat
fell off too. His legs were rapidly giving way. And as Polly watched
the Snow Man approaching his sad end, she cried heart-brokenly. Such a
beautiful Snow Man as he had been! How she had worked to help him out
of his difficulty! And now he was going, going, going. He would soon
be gone. He _was_ gone. She looked at the floor where a pond of water
lay, an old black pipe floating desolately around in it. It was the
saddest sight that Polly had ever seen.
She cried until her mother, hearing her from upstairs, came down to her.
“Why,” began Mrs. Flinders, “what in the world--”
Polly sobbed.
“What was it?” her mother asked again.
Polly choked as she tried to answer.
“The Snow Man--” she began, then sobbed aloud again.
Then Mrs. Flinders, seeing the water, understood.
“Oh, that’s too bad,” she said sympathetically. Then, “But didn’t you
know he would melt?” she asked.
It seemed unbelievable that a child of hers would make such a foolish
mistake.
“I forgot,” confessed Polly. “It was silly of me, but I honestly
forgot. I was so anxious--”
“Well,” said Mrs. Flinders, “it’s too bad. But come, let us mop up the
Snow Man before he spreads all over the house.”
So Mrs. Flinders in her nightcap and Polly, sniffling loudly, mopped up
the Snow Man, who an hour before had been a beautiful creature and was
now mere dirty water. Polly was indeed very sad about the whole affair,
and more than that she was ashamed, for she realized now how silly she
had been and she dreaded what the children of Pudding Lane would say
the next day.
But to Polly’s everlasting surprise, the children of Pudding Lane,
instead of being angry with her, instead of laughing at her, were most
sympathetic, when she told them what she had done.
“I think it was very nice of you to want to be kind to the poor Snow
Man,” said Jill.
“And of course you forgot he was made of snow,” put in Miss Muffett.
“For he was such a friendly fellow.”
At this Polly began to sniffle.
“There, there!” Jumbo patted her shoulder. (You remember Jumbo, don’t
you, the oldest son of the Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe?) “We’ll build
another Snow Man,” he said. “And we’ll wrap this Snow Man up in a
blanket to-night so he won’t get cold.”
So the children began to build another Snow Man, and even Polly, whose
toes were warmly done up in leggings and overshoes, stayed out to help
them. For Polly felt responsible for the damage she had done, and she
felt grateful, too, to the children for their kindly attitude toward
her silly mistake. And so, although it was bitter cold, and she did
mind it terribly, she worked on and on until finally the Snow Man was
finished. But oh, how miserable she was, and how glad she was when
the Snow Man stood there complete, and she was free to return to her
cinders. Yet, as she started to say good-by, her heart sank a little.
She would be lonely again when she went back into the house by herself.
If her toes only did not trouble her so much!
The children were astonished when she told them she was going indoors.
“Why, Polly, we thought you liked us now,” cried Judy.
“We thought you were having a good time with us,” said Tom, Tom, the
piper’s son.
Poor Polly shook her head. “I do like you,” she protested. It was
dreadful to have such toes as she had, but she couldn’t help it.
“But you don’t like to play out here with us,” said Little Boy Blue.
“No,” confessed Polly in a small ashamed voice. “You can’t enjoy things
when your toes ache, can you?”
“I suppose not,” Boy Blue answered politely, though his toes never had
ached.
But Jumbo went up to Polly and took her arm.
“Then I think it was very brave of you to go out to get the Snow Man
last night,” he said. “And it was brave of you to stay out here to-day
and help us make a new one, when your toes ached all the time.”
He expected the rest of the children to say, “Yes, indeed, it was,” but
somehow they did not say it, nor did they say anything, not being used
to pretty speeches. But they thought it, anyway, and they looked it,
every one of them smiling at Polly in the friendliest fashion possible,
so that Polly was a little bit comforted.
Her real comfort, however, came later from Jumbo, as he sat before her
cherished cinders with her. He looked at her pretty little toes, which
were shiny patent leather with silver buckles, and smiled.
“Judy has big square brown shoes,” he said. “And Jill has copper toes
on her boots.”
Polly looked at him gratefully.
“And I rather like the cinders myself,” he went on. “Do you see that
little dwarf in there with the hood over his head?”
Polly looked deep into the fire.
“Oh, yes,” she said. “Isn’t he funny? And do you see that princess with
the long flames of hair?”
“Red hair,” Jumbo grinned. He looked at Polly’s fair curls. “I like
yellow better myself.”
Polly sighed. Perhaps she wasn’t quite hopeless, after all, in spite
of her terrible affliction. Then a coal fell in the grate with a soft
cluck of a noise.
“Oh!” she exclaimed excitedly. “The dwarf got thumped. Who did it, did
you see?”
“I didn’t see a thing,” replied Jumbo, “so it must have been a fairy.
And there, the Princess is disappearing.”
“Going home to the Prince, I guess,” murmured Polly contentedly.
“Yes.” Jumbo nodded. “Wow! But that fairy came just in time. In another
minute the dwarf would have had her.”
And that was the way that Polly Flinders had her one and only
experience with a Snow Man, a rather unhappy experience it was too.
That was the way the children of Pudding Lane found out what a
courageous girl Polly was. And that was the way Jumbo became Polly’s
daily playmate, so that she was never lonely by her cinders any more,
but was both happy and warm thereafter. For Jumbo liked the fire, too,
especially when he and Polly sat before it spinning fairy tales, as
they did on that first day.
II
THE VALENTINE MISTRESS MARY FOUND
It was past eight o’clock on that St. Valentine’s Eve, and yet from
every window in Pudding Lane shone forth the yellow light of a candle,
a phenomenon which made all the clocks in the town wonder whether
they hadn’t skipped an hour somewhere or other. For every timepiece
in the village, from Mrs. Flinders’ fine old grandfather’s clock to
Mrs. Dumpty’s pert little cuckoo, had good reason to know that one
of old King Cole’s strictest rules was, “Early to Bed and Early to
Rise”; and yet here it was eight o’clock and nobody abed yet. Queer,
thought the cuckoo, as he stepped smartly out of his box and cuckoo’ed
eight times with a significant look at Humpty Dumpty. Odd, thought the
grandfather’s clock, as he rumbled his eight strokes in Polly Flinders’
ear.
Silly clocks, they had forgotten what night it was, or they never would
have been so mystified. For we know what was going on that night in
Pudding Lane, don’t we? We do it ourselves on St. Valentine’s Eve. So
we can just see Boy Blue addressing an envelope to Judy, The Shoe,
Pudding Lane, and another to Bessie, The Candlestick-Maker’s, Pudding
Lane. And we can see Jill writing a verse to Jack:
“Jack, Jack, the funny fellow,
Got bruised black and got bruised yellow,
When he came tumbling down the hill,
With his loving friend, whose name is Jill.”
Yes, they were all making Valentines that night. The children of the
Old Woman had the Shoe cluttered up with paper and ribbon and paints.
Simple Simon was busy copying a verse for Mistress Mary. It was hardly
a delicate sentiment, reading as it did:
“Hum, hum, Harry,
If I weren’t engaged, I should never marry.”
But it was the only poem Simple Simon knew. Besides, it is doubtful
whether Mistress Mary would be able to read it, anyway, for Simple
Simon’s handwriting, as you know, was highly individual.
At the Clauses’, Santa and the two batches of twins were busy making
Valentines. Santa was good at cutting and pasting, and Matthew, Mark,
Luke and John were good at getting in his way and cluttering things
up, so everybody was happy, including Mrs. Claus, who dozed by the
fire, Mr. Claus, who was reading the _Banbury Cross Weekly_ over his
spectacles, and Misery, the cat, who sat solemnly watching them all.
Indeed, everybody in Pudding Lane was busy making Valentines,
except--guess who--Cross-Patch. You know Cross-Patch, that unpleasant
old woman who lived down at the end of Pudding Lane. Of course,
Cross-Patch was not making Valentines. She didn’t believe in such
foolishness!
[Illustration: _Everybody was happy, including Mrs. Claus who dozed by
the fire. Page 20._]
Yet somebody was making a Valentine for her, and that person
was--you’ll never believe it, but it’s true--the candlestick-maker. Now
although you have known the candlestick-maker quite intimately, would
you ever have guessed that he Nursed a Secret Passion for Cross-Patch?
Of course you wouldn’t. But that’s the sort of thing that comes out
on St. Valentine’s Day. He may seem like a queer kind of lover, the
toothless, bent-over old man, yet he was an earnest one, nevertheless,
and he cackled gleefully as he pasted a yellow paper rose on a pink
paper heart and wrote:
“Needles and pins, needles and pins,
When a man marries his trouble begins.”
When he tried to say this verse, the candlestick-maker always said,
“Peedles and nins, peedles and nins”, but it seemed to go all right
with a pencil. However, it did not sound very loving, he thought, after
he had written it, so he added a little verse like this:
“P.S. But when a man’s married
His wife is his own,
And when a man’s single
He’s living alone.”
It may not seem very clear to us, but the candlestick-maker was charmed
with it, and said to himself he could be a poet as well as anybody else
if he’d just take the time to it. And then, with one last delighted
cackle, he called Jack, his nephew, and bade him be nimble and be quick
about delivering that Valentine to Cross-Patch. Jack hastily jumped
over the candlestick as directed and ran down Pudding Lane with the
pink paper heart in his hand.
Jack had gone but a few steps when he heard a little squeaking noise
which sounded like--well, it sounded to Jack like a mouse with a cold
in its nose. He stopped to listen. Yes, there it was, a choked little
squeak of a noise. Then, to Jack’s surprise, up started somebody from
behind the winter hedge near by. It was Mistress Mary, Quite Contrary,
and it was she who was making the noise. Mistress Mary was crying.
Of course, she pretended she wasn’t. When she saw Jack, she giggled in
a silly little desperate way to cover up her sobs, the way girls often
do when they’re caught in tears.
“Hello,” said Jack. He was glad she had stopped crying.
“Hello,” said Mistress Mary gayly, quite as if she had never shed a
tear in her life. “Where are you going?”
“Taking a Valentine,” began Jack, when Mistress Mary unexpectedly began
to cry again in that little squealing way. Jack, much disturbed, asked
Mistress Mary what was the matter. Whereupon, the poor girl, still
weeping, explained the cause of her woe. She was crying, she said,
because she had no Valentine for Santa Claus, of whom she was so very
fond.
“But why haven’t you a Valentine?” asked Jack.
“Just because I was so contrary, I guess,” admitted Mistress Mary. “My
mother told me to get one ready, but I didn’t want to then--and now
it’s too late. Oh, dear, it’s often very uncomfortable to be contrary,
Jack.”
“It must be,” thought Jack to himself. But to Mistress Mary he said,
“Well, what are you going to do about it?”
“I don’t know,” answered Mistress Mary mournfully. “I’m afraid there’s
nothing to do now. And, oh, Santa Claus will think I don’t love him.
And I love him better than anybody else in Pudding Lane.”
“Why don’t you send Santa Claus a flower from your garden, Mistress
Mary?” Jack suggested. “Flowers make fine Valentines, you know.”
Mistress Mary shook her head sorrowfully.
“Alas,” she said, “my crocuses are contrary, too, Jack. They ought to
be out now, but somehow they just won’t bloom.”
“I see,” said Jack gravely. Truly this was pretty bad, he thought to
himself, that a girl should set such an unhappy example to the very
flowers in her garden.
Then he thought of Mother Goose, who always knew how to get people out
of trouble.
“Let’s ask Mother Goose what to do,” he said to Mistress Mary.
“But Mother Goose is not here.”
“Yes, she is,” Jack told her. “She’s spending the week-end with old
King Cole. Let’s run right up to the palace and ask her.”
“Oh!” cried Mistress Mary, “that’s the very thing.” For once in her
life the contrary girl agreed with somebody, so the two children ran
off hand in hand toward the palace of Old King Cole.
Mistress Mary was not the only person in Pudding Lane that night who
was in trouble. Meanwhile, something had happened at the Clauses’.
It happened so quickly too. The children had all gone to bed and
Santa Claus and his mother were sitting up addressing the last of the
Valentines and Misery was watching them. Then the next minute, while
they were still busily scratching away with their pens, Misery _wasn’t_
watching them.
“Where’s that cat?” asked Mrs. Claus, as she looked up. She always
called Misery “that cat” and she always pretended that she did not like
him a bit, yet it was Mrs. Claus who had given Misery so much cream
when he was a kitten that it made him fearfully sick, and it was Mrs.
Claus who now had to be watched lest she give him more meat and gravy
than was good for his digestion.
So now she said, “Where’s that cat?” in a tone of great asperity, and
she frowned blackly at the place by the stove where Misery had been but
a moment before.
“Perhaps he’s gone to bed,” said Santa Claus, as he carefully drew a
great flourish under Humpty-Dumpty’s name.
Mrs. Claus got up and went over to the box where Misery slept.
“Not here,” she reported, after rummaging around in it. “Where is that
cat?”
She looked under the stove and in her workbasket and behind the baby’s
cradle. No Misery! She went into Mr. Claus’s bedroom and looked in the
drawer where he kept his best blue shirt. No Misery! She finally went
out into the woodshed and prowled around there in the dark, calling
for Misery. No green eyes appeared. No purring black shape came to rub
against her feet. By this time Mrs. Claus was really alarmed. She flew
back to the kitchen and Santa.
“He’s gone!” she told her little boy.
“Misery?” Santa asked, staring.
“Misery himself,” answered Mrs. Claus.
Santa jumped to his feet and ran around the room, calling the cat.
He ran all over the whole house, looking for Misery. No cat was to
be found, but the twins and Mr. Claus and even the baby woke up at
his racket, and they set up a horrible din at the news of Misery’s
departure. The four boys howled with grief; the baby screamed to keep
them company; Mr. Claus kept shouting, “Great snakes, great snakes,
great snakes,” and, oh, dear, such a time as there was in the Claus
household at that late hour on St. Valentine’s Eve.
Of course, the Clauses kept right on looking for the cat. Mr. Claus,
good soul, even went outdoors in his bare feet (he never had got his
green slippers back since the time of the first Snow Man that year). He
went out into the yard, calling the cat so loudly that if the creature
had been within ear-shot, he would have been frightened away by the
noise. He went into the shop with a candle and poked around in the
shelves and drawers there. (They _had_ found Misery sleeping sweetly
there in a nest of buns one time.) But although they all hunted high
and low for that cat, it soon became apparent that Misery was not to be
found.
It was a sad and sober company that gathered around the kitchen stove
when the search had been abandoned.
“He’s gone,” spoke Mr. Claus in a hollow tone. Mr. Claus looked rather
peculiar in his nightcap and overcoat and bare feet, but nobody noticed
that.
The twins howled again. Santa Claus blinked. Mrs. Claus was seen to rub
her eyes impatiently.
“I knew that cat would get us into some kind of a bother,” she said.
“And the mice,” said Mr. Claus. “I’m afraid that when the cat’s away,
the mice will play.”
“Of course they will,” spoke up Mrs. Claus sharply. “Anybody knows
that.” Then Mrs. Claus looked at the clock and jumped energetically out
of her chair.
“Mercy on us, Mr. Claus,” she exclaimed. “Here it is after nine! What
can we be thinking of to let the children stay up like this?”
With which she gathered her six children up and packed them all off to
bed.
But if you think Santa Claus could go to sleep that night, well, you
just never were the owner of a runaway cat. For Santa could think
of nothing but Misery as he lay in bed. He could see nothing but
Misery’s beautiful green eyes and swaying tail. He could hear nothing
but Misery’s purr, “the bee buzzing inside him,” as he called it. The
Valentines were forgotten, all the fun of the next day was forgotten,
as Santa mourned his lost Misery that night.
But presently he heard a slight noise outside the house. It sounded as
if it were right there by his window. He thought he heard a whisper,
then a tiptoe, then a little hushed-up laugh. For a moment, he was
afraid. It might be Taffy, for Taffy was a Welshman, Taffy was a thief,
and came around at night quite often to steal a round of beef. Then he
jeered at himself for being a scaredy-cat and climbed bravely out of
bed. He looked out of the window and saw there--what do you think? Four
hands, two green eyes, and a curly head. It was Jack and Mistress Mary
with Misery in their hands!
“Hey!” screamed Santa Claus excitedly.
Mistress Mary laughed and Jack called out softly “Hello!”
“Hey!” screamed Santa Claus again. He reached out his hands and took
Misery in them. Oh, how nice and warm Misery felt to him. And was the
bee buzzing inside him? Santa Claus put his ear down to the silky black
body. Yes, there it was. Misery was happy too, glad to get home again.
Then the rest of the Clauses came rushing in. A boy can’t shout “Hey!”
in the middle of the night, as Santa Claus had done, without waking
folks up, you know. When they saw the cat, they cried out too. And when
they looked out of the window and saw Mistress Mary and Jack standing
there laughing, they cried out again. At least, Mrs. Claus did.
“Good gracious!” she exclaimed. “Where did you children come from?”
“From old King Cole’s palace,” they told her.
“And what are you doing here?” she asked them.
“We brought Misery back,” they explained.
“Name of goodness,” was all Mrs. Claus could say.
Then Jack and Mistress Mary went around to the front door, came into
the parlor, and the Clauses all gathered around them to hear the story
of the discovery.
“Well, there isn’t much of a story,” said Mistress Mary. “Jack and I
just went up to the palace to see Mother Goose a minute. We wanted to
ask her--something.” She looked warningly at Jack. “And when we got
there, we found them having a party in the throne room. The King and
Mother Goose were dancing a polka, the fiddlers three were playing
their fiddles, and the Queen of Hearts, well, the Queen was asleep, but
her ladies in waiting weren’t, for they were playing games with the
King’s Men--oh, it was quite a party!”
“It must have been,” said Mrs. Claus. She wondered how often the King
indulged in such goings-on while his people were asleep in their beds.
“But the cat,” prompted Santa. “Where did you find the cat?”
“Why, right there,” said Mistress Mary. “Right there.”
“In the King’s palace?” asked Mrs. Claus incredulously. “Our Misery up
at King Cole’s?”
“Yes,” responded Mistress Mary.
“Why, a cat may look at a King, Mrs. Claus,” the baker reminded her.
But Mrs. Claus was flabbergasted.
“Little did I ever think that our cat would go amongst royalty,” she
said.
“Well, he did, anyway,” said Mistress Mary. “And he was having a lovely
time too. I never heard of a cat doing that before, running away to the
king’s, but that’s where your cat was, just the same, for we found him
right there, didn’t we, Jack?”
“We did that,” said Jack.
“Well,” said Mrs. Claus, “I suppose it was too dull for him here, Santa
Claus, with just you and me here in the kitchen. Misery loves company,
you know.”
Then she got up and went to the door.
“I don’t wish to seem unmannerly,” said Mrs. Claus, “but I know you two
children ought to be home and asleep. Does your mother know where you
are, Mistress Mary?”
“We stopped and told her on the way,” replied Mistress Mary, “but we
ought to go now, I know.” Then Mistress Mary went over to Santa. “I
meant to give you a Valentine, Santa Claus,” she said. “I did mean to,
but here it is St. Valentine’s Eve and I haven’t any for you, after
all. I was contrary about it--”
“Why, Mistress Mary,” exclaimed Santa Claus, “you brought Misery back
to me. And Misery’s the very best Valentine I could possibly have.”
Mistress Mary, happy as could be at this, beamed at Santa Claus. Mother
Goose had told her that same thing--that if she took Misery back to his
master, it would be the best Valentine he could have. And now Santa
Claus had said so himself, and everything was all right. She went home
overjoyed, and as Jack walked beside her, he thought what a nice girl
Mistress Mary was when she forgot to be contrary.
It was not until Jack got clear inside the candlestick-shop that
he remembered the Valentine his uncle had given him to take to
Cross-Patch. Then what a sinking feeling he had in his heart. What
would the old candlestick-maker say? How could he have forgotten to
deliver the Valentine when it was the very thing he had been sent out
for? Poor Jack, usually so nimble, so quick, so obedient, could have
thrashed himself for his forgetfulness. He turned around to the door.
Perhaps he could go back now and slip the Valentine under Cross-Patch’s
door. But the candlestick-maker, who had looked as if he were dozing
there on the bench, opened his eyes and spoke to Jack.
“Did ye leave her the Valentine?” he asked.
Jack grew red and began to stammer.
“I’m going--I’m going back--now--” he said.
“Then ye didn’t leave it?” asked the old man.
Oh, dear, how Jack hated to admit his disobedience. The old
candlestick-maker was really such a good uncle to him, and now he had
just gone off and forgotten to do his errand. But he had to answer, for
the old man had his little eyes pinned on him.
“No, sir,” he said hesitatingly. “No, sir, I forgot it, somehow. But
I’ll go back now.”
The old man closed his eyes again for another doze.
“Never ye mind,” he said. “It’s just as well. Don’t believe me and that
old woman would get along very well, anyway.”
III
HOW HUMPTY DUMPTY WENT TO THE KING’S PARTY
It was the fourteenth of March and there was a great stir and bustle
in Pudding Lane. The ladies, in curl papers, were washing and ironing
and mending like women possessed; the men hustled about their work
at topmost speed; even the children had no time for play, but were
busy running errands, taking baths, helping their mothers, fast and
furiously.
And what was the reason for all this industry? Why, the day of the
month was the reason. But perhaps you don’t know what the fourteenth
of March stands for; I have met children who didn’t. The fourteenth
of March is Old King Cole’s birthday, and on this particular day the
merry old soul was going to have a party in the palace, to which he had
invited every single person in Pudding Lane.
“I declare,” said Mrs. Claus suddenly, as she rushed about her tiny
house with even more energy than ever, “I declare, I forgot all about
Humpty Dumpty!”
She looked up at the baker, who was baking--well, it’s a secret what
Mr. Claus was baking, and a surprise, so I think I’d better not tell
even you what it was. “Well,” went on Mrs. Claus, “I _am_ be-twittered,
or I never should have forgotten Humpty Dumpty, Mr. Claus.”
“Of course you wouldn’t,” agreed Mr. Claus, adding an extra flourish to
the--well, to _it_.
Mrs. Claus ran to the door.
“Santa,” she called, “run right down to the Dumpties’ and see who’s
going to sit up with Humpty to-night. I clean forgot about him. Tell
Mrs. Dumpty I’ll sit myself, if nobody else has offered.”
Mr. Claus looked up in alarm.
“You’d never miss the birthday party to sit up with Humpty Dumpty,
would you?” he asked.
“I would if there was nobody else to sit up with him,” replied his wife
stoutly, though in her heart she did hope she would not have to miss
the King’s birthday party, for she had made herself a fine new yellow
waist, had Mrs. Claus, and she was expecting to make quite a sensation
in it.
“Dear me,” said Mr. Claus, “I don’t want to go to the party alone with
five children, Mrs. Claus.”
“Well, you may have to,” was his wife’s comforting reply. “Poor Humpty
Dumpty! He’s a public charge, Mr. Claus, what with having no father,
and I’m not the one to neglect him, I’m really not.”
Mrs. Claus, for all her tart speech, _was_ a good soul, wasn’t she?
It’s not hard to see where Santa Claus got his kind heart.
But when Santa came back from the Dumpties’, it was to report that
Jack and Jill, who lived in the Dumpty block, had offered to stay
with the invalid while Mrs. Dumpty disported herself with royalty for
one evening. Jack, who still had his crown bandaged up, and Jill, who
wore a patch on her cheek even now, had painful memories of their own
tumble, you see, and so naturally felt most sympathetic toward poor
Humpty in his misfortune.
“Why, bless their little hearts,” said Mrs. Claus, “aren’t they good
children? I never would have thought it of that tomboy Jill, to be
frank with you.”
After which display of candor, Mrs. Claus went on with her ironing
and mending, to the end that the Clauses should make a respectable
appearance before Old King Cole and the Queen of Hearts.
But even if Mrs. Dumpty were going to the party, her heart felt heavy
about it, poor soul. For there sat her Humpty, confined to his chair,
the most dejected of boys. And who wouldn’t have been dejected under
those circumstances? This was the first time that Old King Cole had
ever celebrated his birthday with the humble people of Pudding Lane.
Once the King of France had come for that great occasion, and Mother
Goose was often invited to share his birthday cake, but until to-day
the people of Pudding Lane had never been invited for the festivity.
And such an occasion as this was going to be too! There was to be a
supper two hours long; there was to be music from London; there was to
be a Punch-and-Judy show; but wonder of all wonders, there was to be
a trained bear! All this, not to mention the surprise that Mr. Claus
was baking. Oh, dear, Humpty Dumpty did wish he could walk up the hill
to the palace. If he just could! Or if somebody could carry him. But,
alas, it was impossible. Humpty was too heavy, the hill was too steep.
So that all the poor boy could do was to sit in his chair and think,
think, think and wish, wish, wish.
Mrs. Dumpty came in when she was dressed and looked at him anxiously.
“You know Jack and Jill are only going to stay until you fall asleep,”
she told him. “It wouldn’t be right to ask them to miss all of the
party.”
“Oh, no,” replied Humpty, but he could not, for the life of him, look
as cheerful as he wanted to.
“Poor boy,” said Mrs. Dumpty. Then she added with sudden conviction,
“I’m not going at all. I’m not going. I shall stay right here with you.”
But Humpty protested so vigorously that Mrs. Dumpty finally yielded to
his entreaties. It _would_ be disrespectful to the King to stay home,
she admitted, though she certainly didn’t feel very partyfied, she
added. Then she asked Humpty if he liked her beads, and Humpty told her
he liked them very much, though what that boy knew about beads was very
little, I suspect.
“I always did like a red bead,” said Mrs. Dumpty. “Good-by, darling
Humpty. I’ll bring you a piece of birthday cake, whether or no.”
I don’t believe Pudding Lane ever saw anything half so grand as that
party at Old King Cole’s palace. There were flowers and music, fruits
and confections, jewelry and satins, all mixed up, until it made your
head swim.
The King and Queen stood up to receive their guests in the most cordial
manner possible. It was true that the Queen of Hearts could think
of nothing else to say but “And how are you this evening?” and then
didn’t listen as the good, honest people of Pudding Lane started to
tell her in great detail just exactly how they were that evening. It
is equally true that Old King Cole laughed immoderately, no matter
what anybody said, and that he even laughed at Mrs. Dumpty when she
tearfully offered Humpty’s regrets,--behavior that made that devoted
mother highly indignant. But that was just Old King Cole’s way of
being pleasant; and it was certainly much better than folding your
arms and frowning prodigiously, as the butcher did; or pulling a
long, melancholy face, like the baker; or bowing and jerking forward
incessantly, as the candlestick-maker seemed to think it necessary to
do. There are all kinds of ways of being polite, but it does seem as
if the butcher and the baker and the candlestick-maker might have
selected more winning methods.
“Dear me, Mr. Claus,” said Mrs. Grundy, coming up to him as he stood
between his neighbors, the picture of dismal woe, “is it such a sad
occasion as that?”
Mr. Claus jumped and looked at her even more solemnly than ever, and
the butcher glared ferociously at her, and the candlestick-maker,
bowing low, bumped the good lady’s fan out of her hand.
“Mercy on us!” ejaculated Mrs. Grundy. “Somebody rescue me from these
creatures.”
Whereupon up came Jack Spratt to offer her his arm.
“There’s lean meat on the banquet table,” he whispered. “Come, let’s
have some of it.”
So Mrs. Grundy disappeared on the arm of the accomplished Jack Spratt
as Mr. Claus watched them enviously.
“I wonder how he does it,” thought the baker to himself. Poor Mr.
Claus, he was but a humble fellow, more at home with his pies and cakes
than in such brilliant company as this.
Mrs. Claus, however, was no dullard in society, for she could speak her
mind to anybody, and was even now telling the Queen of Hearts how she
had made that yellow waist she wore out of just one yard and an eighth
of cloth, not counting the cuffs. Santa, too, was having a fine time
with all the other children, Bo-Peep, Jack Horner, Little Miss Muffett,
Matthew, Mark, Luke and John and all the rest.
Yes, they were all having a delightful time at Old King Cole’s party.
Even Simple Simon felt at home in the palace, as he went happily about,
eating and drinking, smiling and nodding. He even danced a bit, did
Simple Simon, and did not seem to mind at all that while he was doing
the polka, everybody else, including his partner, was dancing a waltz.
But his partner minded, I can tell you, and if any little girl wants to
have her toes stepped on and her shoes completely spoiled, just let her
try to dance with Simple Simon as Polly Flinders did on that night of
the fourteenth of March.
At last, when everybody had danced a little, and eaten and drunk
quite a lot, and talked some, and stared at all the trappings of
the palace a great deal, at last it came time for the trained bear.
At the announcement the little boys yelled with delight, the little
girls shivered, the mothers and fathers sat up importantly and looked
exceedingly brave.
For this was no common bear, but a noted beast from London who had
made that great city laugh and gasp many a night with his antics and
tricks. And here he came! Oh, how funny he was, that bear. The way he
walked was funny, as he ambled slowly in, straight past the King and
Queen without so much as a glance at their royal personages. The way
he looked was funny, as his little eyes glimmered from their depth of
brown fur, and he yawned softly in the most bored fashion possible. The
way he acted was funny, too, and the children screamed as he put up one
paw and slowly rubbed his nose, for all the world like a meditative old
man.
But his tricks were funnier still, and as Tubby Tim, the old bear
trainer, cracked his whip and shouted his commands, the children of
Pudding Lane, and the grown-ups, too, thought they had never seen such
a remarkable bear. As indeed, they had not, never having seen any bear
at all before.
“Up, Bumbo, old boy!” shouted Tubby Tim, and the bear stood on his hind
legs.
“Waltz, Bumbo! One, two, three!” ordered Tubby Tim, and lo, the bear
was swaying around on his hind feet in a waltz that nobody would
have been ashamed of. In truth, Polly Flinders was thinking to herself
that she’d a great deal rather dance with the bear than with Simple
Simon.
[Illustration: _No Lady Wind was that. No dog either. But a bear that
stood before her. Page 43._]
But at last, when the old bear had roared loud and alarmingly at the
children (who stopped laughing then), when he had stood on his head
and shown his teeth and rolled a hoop and done a great many other
astounding things, Tubby Tim said abruptly, “That’s all”, and led him
out. But the party wasn’t over yet by a good deal, for there was still
the puppet show, which Tubby Tim now started to make ready.
Jack and Jill and Humpty Dumpty down in the Dumpty house meanwhile were
having a quiet little game of “Button, button” when they heard a noise
at the door.
“What’s that?” asked Jack.
“The Lady Wind,” answered Jill. “March is her month, you know.”
“It sounds more like a dog than a lady,” said Jack.
“Ho, ho,” scoffed Jill, “you don’t even know wind when you hear it.”
With which Miss Jill flounced to the door and flung it wide open.
But goodness, what was that in the doorway? No Lady Wind was that.
No dog either. But a _bear_ that stood before her, yellow-eyed and
open-mouthed!
“Oh!” gasped Jill faintly.
“Oh, oh!” breathed Jack and Humpty together.
The bear ambled into the room.
“Run,” cried Jack to Jill. “Run upstairs and shut the door tight, or
he’ll eat you!”
“But he’ll eat you too! Come along,” whispered Jill.
Then they both looked at Humpty Dumpty, who sat quaking and white in
his chair. For Humpty could not run, of course, and he saw himself a
fine meal for that open mouth.
“No, we must stay with Humpty,” said Jill, shivering with fear.
“Of course,” answered Jack, trembling.
“Perhaps if we all fight him, we can get him out,” suggested Jill.
“Yes, come on, let’s fight him,” replied Jack.
“I can’t fight,” said Humpty from his chair, “but I can glare mighty
hard. I’ll glare at him, Jill.”
“Yes, you glare, Humpty Dumpty,” said Jill encouragingly.
Jack by this time had rolled up his sleeves, ready for battle, and
Jill, flinging back the hair from her eyes, rushed at the bear
headlong. But what was that bear doing, anyway, if he were not rubbing
against Jill’s knees with the affection of an old family cat? What
was he pawing at her so softly, so gently for, if it were not because
he wanted her to play with him? Why did he look up at her with those
funny little yellow eyes, if it were not to reassure her as to his good
intentions?
“Why,” cried Jill, “I believe he’s a pet bear!”
“I think he is!” answered Jack.
“I wonder if he’d like to be patted,” ventured Humpty, putting a timid
hand on Bumbo’s back. The bear dropped on his back and pawed playfully
in the air.
“He does want to play,” cried Humpty Dumpty.