Celia's ill temper wavered and went down before the row of bright faces.
"Well, perhaps you may help if you really want to, but it is tiresome
work."
They did not seem to find it so, as they sat around the table on the
porch, carefully done up in checked aprons, three of them at work on the
raspberries, and two helping Celia with the currants.
Each wore a fresh oak leaf, and nothing would do but Rosalind must run
back to get one for Miss Celia; and there must have been magic in it, so
suddenly did Celia's courage revive.
"I feel better," she said, stopping to turn the leaves of the cook-book.
"Let me see,--'boil several hours till the juice is well out of the
fruit,'--Sally always lets it drip over night into the big stone jar. I
shall have these currants out of the way by dinner-time. You are really a
great help. I wish there was something I could do for you."
"Tell us a story, Miss Celia," Belle suggested promptly.
"I don't know any."
"Something about when you were a little girl," said Katherine.
Celia hesitated. "The only story I know is about a magician and a tiger,
Rosalind's calling Morgan 'the magician' reminded me of it."
"I love magicians and tigers," Rosalind remarked. "Do you remember the
picture I told you about, Maurice? Do tell it to us, Miss Celia."
Celia wondered afterward how she could have done it, but now she thought
of nothing but her desire to please the children, so she began:--
"Once there was a little girl who loved fairy tales and believed with all
her heart in fairies, magicians, and ogres. In the town where she had
recently come to live she had a playmate, a boy, who laughed at her for
thinking there were such creatures in the world, and the two often argued
the matter.
"One day this little girl was sitting on the fence looking up at the sky
and wishing something would happen, when she heard the boy calling her.
She answered, and he came running across the grass and climbed up beside
her, and with an air of great mystery told her he knew a secret. Of course
the little girl was anxious to hear it, and of course the boy tried to
tease her by refusing to tell. But by and by he could keep it no longer,
and in tones of awe he whispered that he knew a magician who lived in
their very town.
"The little girl clapped her hands; for if her playmate believed in
magicians, he must surely come to believe in fairies too.
"The boy went on to explain that this magician appeared exactly like other
men, so that few guessed his mysterious power. He lived in a house quite
like other houses except that its door was painted black; but behind this
door lay a tiger, always ready to spring upon any one who tried to enter.
On this great tiger in some way depended the magician's power.
"There had been a fire in the village recently, which, the boy said, had
been caused by the magician, as well as certain other calamities, such as
scarlet-fever and measles, and the time had come when this must be
stopped. The boy claimed to have discovered--he did not say how--that the
magician's tiger had three white whiskers, all the rest being black, and
in these white whiskers resided all his power. If in any way they could be
removed, he and his master would be harmless forevermore.
"But how was this to be done? the little girl wanted to know, feeling
deeply impressed meanwhile by the tragedy of the situation.
"The only way, the boy replied, was to catch the tiger while he slept, and
then--a snip of the scissors, and he could do no more harm. The little
girl had some round-pointed scissors hanging from a ribbon around her
neck, for she was fond of cutting things; she took them in her hand now
and looked at them with a shiver as the boy added in a tragic whisper,
'_We_ must do it!'
"Although she was very much afraid, she never thought of objecting. It was
her duty, and she had great confidence in her companion. He could do many
things she couldn't do, and he was ten and she only six; so when he
examined the scissors and said they would answer, without a word of
objection she slipped down from the fence and trotted beside him.
"It seemed quite natural that the way should be over fences and through
back yards instead of along the street. They climbed rails and squeezed
through hedges until the little girl was breathless and had not the least
idea where she was, when she found herself in a narrow garden-path, on
either side of which grew hollyhocks and sunflowers.
"'There is the door,' the boy whispered; and--yes--at the end of the path
she saw the black door.
"'This is the hour when he sleeps,' the boy said, in thrilling tones,
looking at an imaginary watch. 'We have timed it well. I will open the
door softly, and you have your scissors ready; I will hold him while you
cut off the whiskers.' The little girl's heart almost stopped beating, but
she had no thought of running away.
"They reached the door; the boy had his hand on the knob. He was opening
it very gently--when something happened! He stumbled, or his hand slipped.
It flew open and there before them stood the magician, brandishing a
glittering sword, and beside him were the gleaming eyes of a tiger.
"With a cry of terror the little girl fell all in a heap, grasping her
scissors, shutting her eyes tight till all should be over. Then some one
picked her up and asked if she was hurt, and slowly gaining courage she
opened her eyes and looked into the kind face of Morgan, the
cabinet-maker. At his side was Tiger, the great striped cat, and on the
work-bench lay his shining saw. The boy stood by, laughing."
"I thought he must be fooling her," remarked Katherine, in a tone of
relief.
"You don't mean it!" said Maurice, with fine sarcasm.
"But finish, Miss Celia," begged Rosalind. "What did the little girl
think?"
"I believe for a long time she was greatly puzzled. There seemed to have
been magic somewhere. She examined Tiger's whiskers and found them all
black, and this made her think it possible that some one else had cut out
the white ones, and thus turned him into a harmless cat. She felt a little
uneasy at times, for fear the cabinet-maker would turn again into the
wicked magician, but it never happened."
"And did she go on believing in fairies?" Rosalind asked.
"Oh, yes, for a while. I am not sure she doesn't yet."
"Cousin Louis says that is one of the advantages of the 'Forest of Arden,'
you can believe in all those delightful things."
"Were there fairies there?" asked Belle. "I don't remember any."
"There would have been if occasion had called for them," Celia answered.
"But you don't want to believe things if they aren't true, do you?"
Katherine looked puzzled. "I wish there were fairies now, but I know there
aren't."
"You can't prove there aren't," asserted Jack, mischievously.
"Why, Jack, you know there aren't any fairies really."
"I said you couldn't prove it."
"How can you say they do not exist unless you have seen one not existing?
Isn't that the argument in 'Water Babies'?" laughed Celia, as she carried
the currants into the kitchen. "It is the difference between fact and
fancy, Katherine," she said, coming back.
"I love to pretend things," said Rosalind.
"So do I," echoed Belle.
"Fancy does more than that, it really makes things beautiful. For
instance, it makes the difference between a plain, straight letter such as
you see in the newspaper and such a letter as I was embroidering
yesterday. Some one's fancy saw the plain S ornamented with curving lines
and sprays of flowers, and so it came to be made so."
"That makes me think of those beautiful books the monks used to make,"
said Maurice.
"The illuminated manuscripts, you mean? That word expresses what fancy
does for us,--it illuminates the plain facts, and fills them with beauty."
"Oh, Miss Celia, that is a lovely idea," cried Rosalind. "I must remember
it to tell Cousin Louis."
"I fear be wouldn't find it very new," Celia answered, smiling.
By noon the fruit was all picked over, and as Celia stood at the gate
watching her helpers out of sight, old Sally came laboring up the walk.
"Law, honey, look like I couldn't rest from studyin' how you was gwine to
git them berries done, an' I 'lowed, misery or no misery, I was comin' to
help you," she announced.