THE REST OF THE STORY.
"So the Fairy Set-'em-right waved her hand over the troop of
children. 'You shall all feel like grown-up people,' she said.
"In a few minutes a strange change began to come over them all. A
great game of 'blind-man's-buff' was going on, when suddenly several
of the girls put themselves into very stiff, solemn attitudes, just
like old maids, and said, 'Really, they thought they were almost
afraid they could not play any more. Such games, especially at their
time of life, were hardly quite proper.' So they would not go on.
Others, again, declared that there was nothing they so thoroughly
enjoyed as watching people playing at these kind of amusements; but
for themselves--well, if the others did not mind, they would like
just to sit quietly and watch. So they did, and presently some of
the boys began stroking that part of their faces where a mustache
might some day grow, and remarking that 'Haw! don't know, you
know--a--this sort of thing was all very well for schoolboys, but
really--a--we could not, you know.'"
This sentence Uncle Jack brought out with a very funny drawl, the
boys being turned in to dreadfully fashionable fellows.
"The crowning point," continued Uncle Jack, "was reached when the
blind man, pushing down his bandage, stood still, and addressed this
altered crowd very seriously indeed. 'What miserable folly is this?'
he asked. 'Shall we mortals waste our precious flying moments in--in
what, my brethren?'
"You see he had turned into a preacher," explained Uncle Jack.
"'In what a miserable, frivolous occupation! catching each
other!--nay, only _trying_ to catch each other! Poor fools and
blind! let us cease, I say--' But he had no one to say it to, for
the whole audience had gone off in different directions, and the
preacher had only his little brother of five left to listen to his
wise words. 'Come along, Tommy,' said he, 'I will try and find some
one for you to play with, little man.'
"'Play with!' answered the little brother in a tone of utter
surprise. 'My dear sir, I have no time to play. Letters, telegrams,
appointments by scores fill my time. Let me tell you, sir, there is
no busier man than your humble servant in the whole country.'
"With which he turned about and strode off with the longest strides
his little legs in their blue sailor trousers could take; for he had
become a man of business.
"'This is too absurd,' muttered the elder, and went off to look for
the church of which he was vicar.
"The same remarkable change came over all the children. One little
brat who was busy teasing an unfortunate kitten stopped suddenly, and
rushed off in search of pen and paper, with which he returned, and
began at once to compose an ode 'To Tabitha.'
"'Fairest pussy ever seen!
With mine eyes of clearest green,
Fly me not.'
That was how it began, for he had become a poet."
[Illustration: Tommy had now become a poet.]
"I thought poets wrote about knights and ladies, and green fields and
the moon," remonstrated Bryda.
"So they do. But sometimes they want a new subject, and this young
genius thought he had found one.
"Well, all the children, without losing their child faces and
figures, turned into the sort of people they would be when they were
grown up. So of course their games seemed very dull, and they wanted
grown-up occupations. But not knowing quite how to set to work, they
were all lounging vaguely about, when the clear notes of a bugle
sounded through the city.
"This was the well-known signal for the assembling of the whole
population in the park, and off went all these queer grown-up
children to the place of meeting. Here they were met by Queen May,
who sat on a garden-chair with her court around her, all looking very
solemn.
"'My faithful subjects,' said the queen, 'I have sent for you to
consider a very grave question. I regret to state that the affairs
of this kingdom are in a condition which will, perhaps, be best
described as unsatisfactory.'
"'Hear, hear!' said a gentleman of four, bowing gravely.
"'Hear, hear!' echoed many voices.
"'Perhaps the most unsatisfactory point is,' went on Queen May, who,
you see, talked in very grown-up language, 'is, I say, the banishment
of a large portion of the population; that portion, in fact, which we
were formerly accustomed to call our elders and betters.'
"Cries of 'No, no!'
"Queen May went on to explain that after all they got on badly
without these elders. With all their efforts the young folks had not
strength or skill to do a variety of things, without which the round
of life seemed likely soon to come to a standstill. So she proposed
that she and all who would go should start at once for the mountain
and fetch home the exiles.
"There was some murmuring at this. The old law might be carried out,
and the children made wretched again.
"'And--why, bless me,' said an elderly person of nine, as he fixed on
a double eyeglass with gold rims, 'they might actually want to send
me, me! to bed at eight o'clock!'
"'Proper conditions would be made,' the queen said.
"One after another all the objections were overcome, and a long
procession started, with Queen May, mounted on a white pony, at its
head.
"On arriving at the mountain they were greatly surprised to meet the
king, that stern tyrant who wanted to stop all fun, running as hard
as his legs could carry his fat body, with his crown on the back of
his head, and a green net-bag tied on to the end of his scepter,
chasing a white butterfly.
"'Please, your majesty,' began Queen May shyly; but the king only
looked round for a moment, and ran on, then tumbled over a furze
bush, so that his crown rolled far away, and the butterfly escaped,
while he lay there kicking.
"The children were very much surprised at this, and thought the king
must have gone mad, and, in fact, they felt very penitent, for they
supposed his hurried flight must have been too much for the brain, so
they were to blame for this terrible alteration.
"A little further on, however, they were still more surprised to see
a circle of the most serious old maids in the whole capital, ladies
whose time was mostly spent in making flannel garments for the poor,
or sitting at neat tea-tables with neat curls on each side of their
faces, and a neat cat, curled on a neat cushion, in a neat chair,
close at hand, and these old ladies were all screaming and laughing
like children.
"These very respectable old ladies now looked anything but neat!
Their curls were flying in all directions, and they were screaming
with laughter, pinching each other, and making all sorts of silly
jokes over a furious game of 'hunt the slipper.' For you see they
had gone back to what they used to like when they were children.
"Queen May looked at them gravely.
"'Dear friends,' she said, 'at your age, is this decorous? Is it
proper? Is it even ladylike?'
"'There it is! Catch it! Catch it!' cried one of the old ladies.
"'Come and play with us!' cried another.
"None of the rest paid any attention to the serious looks of the
grown-up children, who went sadly on toward the fort, hoping to find
some one more reasonable.
"The next person they saw was the lord chancellor, a bald, stout old
gentleman, who was sitting on the woolsack, which, you remember, he
had carried away on his back. He was very busy with a pipe, and the
children thought he was smoking, and grew more hopeful. He might
have some trace of good sense left, they thought, if he could care
for such a grown-up pursuit."
Here Uncle Jack offered his cigar to Bryda politely; but she made a
face and turned her head away.
"I don't want to be so grown-up as _that_," she said.
"Oh!" said Uncle Jack, with his funny face, that he always put on to
tease Bryda. "Oh, I thought you wanted to grow up all of a sudden."
"Well--only for some things," answered she, feeling that Uncle Jack
was taking a mean advantage in remembering her sayings, and bringing
them up again. "Please go on," she added hastily.
Uncle Jack winked at her very slowly and solemnly; then took a good
puff at his cigar, and went on.
"When they came up he was found to be blowing soap-bubbles!
"'A-ah!' he spluttered, trying to talk with the pipe in his mouth.
'D-don't break it, please! There!' as the bubble burst and vanished;
'it's too bad, I declare! Directly I get a really good one, big and
bright, that always happens. Have a try,' he added, offering Queen
May the pipe.
"'I say, my lord,' said the major-general commanding the royal army,
coming up at the moment, 'can you tell me how to mend lead soldiers?
I've tried gum and glue, and one of the maids of honor tried to sew
one, but somehow they don't join properly. It's a horrid bore, and
that fellow, the speaker, won't let me have a ride on his
rocking-horse. I'd punch him, only he's six feet three, and as broad
as he's long. So I don't know what to play at.'
"'It _is_ slow,' answered the lord chancellor, pityingly. 'Never
mind, old chap, come up to the fort and we'll make some toffee.'
"So the elderly gentlemen went off arm-in-arm, and Queen May shook
her head sadly.
"'They are all mad, poor things! What are we to do?'
"'Hi! hi!' cried a voice, and looking round they saw that tall,
handsome nobleman, the master of the horse, running toward them as
fast as he could. At last, perhaps, they had found some one to speak
sensibly to.
"'Hi! you fellows,' he cried breathlessly; 'stop a minute, will you?
Is that a circus pony? and can he do tricks? Sit up with a hat on,
and drink out of teacups, I mean.'
"'Certainly not,' replied Queen May, with her utmost dignity. 'I
hardly understand, Lord Moyers, how you can ask such a strange
question. Did you ever see a lady, especially if she were a crowned
queen, riding a circus pony?'
"Lord Moyers giggled, and turned head-over heels on the spot, after
which he rushed off again to join the rest of the House of Lords, who
were playing 'hi! cockalorum,' close by.
"The procession went on very sorrowfully toward the fort. It grieved
them to see this frivolity in those to whom they had been taught to
look up.
"'Alas, my country!' sighed Eric, the boy who, you remember, had
proposed to kill the pig before he was touched with the fairy wand.
"Perhaps it was on arriving at the gates of the fort that the very
strangest sight was seen. The queen was a very stout and middle-aged
person, of rather stern countenance, and here she was busy with a
skipping rope--her hair loose, her royal robes tucked up, and her
crown on one side.
"'It's the best fun and the finest exercise in the world,' she
gasped, 'If I could only skip twice to one turn of the rope!'
"And on she went, while the children watched. But there was
something so utterly ridiculous about the sight that Queen May and
her followers, after various vain efforts to suppress their mirth,
burst into one peal of laughter, which rang merrily through the old
fort, and over the hillside.
"It broke the charm, and in a moment the children became children
again, and the grown people became as they were before.
"There was a large flat field on the mountain top, in front of the
gates of the old fort, and here all the exiles were in a few minutes
assembled.
"The king was about to address them, when in a moment, no one knowing
how she came there, the Fairy Set-'em-right stood among them, close
beside his majesty.
"'You have all learned a lesson, and I will put it into words for
you,' she said."
"Oh, dear!" interrupted Bryda, "here comes the moral! Don't make a
very hard one, Uncle Jack, please!"
He laughed. "I must finish this truthful story truthfully, miss.
"She said, turning to the king and queen:
"'Your fault was that you forgot you once were young yourselves.'"
Bryda nodded her head very wisely.
"'And you, children, forgot that you could not do without old people.
That wicked law is at once repealed.'
"'Certainly, ma'am,' said the king, bowing.
"'Children are to be children, and behave as such, and be treated as
such. Parents are parents, the children are not to forget that. Now
go home all of you, and don't forget this one one caution, _I've got
my eye on you_.'
"With these awful words the fairy vanished. And that's the end of
the story."
"And a very nice ending, too!" said Bryda.