THE FERRY TO NOWHERE
The rain had stopped, and the moon was shining through the breaking
clouds, and as Dorothy looked up at the little stone house she saw that
it had an archway through it with "FERRY" in large letters on the wall
above it. Of course she had no idea of going by herself over a strange
ferry; but she was an extremely curious little girl, as you will
presently see, and so she immediately ran through the archway to see
what the ferry was like and where it took people, but, to her surprise,
instead of coming out at the water side, she came into a strange,
old-fashioned-looking street as crooked as it could possibly be, and
lined on both sides by tall houses with sharply peaked roofs looming up
against the evening sky.
There was no one in sight but a stork. He was a very tall stork with red
legs, and wore a sort of paper bag on his head with "FERRYMAN" written
across the front of it; and as Dorothy appeared he held out one of his
claws and said, "Fare, please," in quite a matter-of-fact way.
Dorothy was positively certain that she hadn't any money, but she put
her hand into the pocket of her apron, partly for the sake of
appearances, and partly because she was a little afraid of the Stork,
and, to her surprise, pulled out a large cake. It was nearly as big as a
saucer, and was marked "ONE BISKER"; and as this seemed to show that it
had some value, she handed it to the ferryman. The Stork turned it over
several times rather suspiciously, and then, taking a large bite out of
it, remarked, "Very good fare," and dropped the rest of it into a little
hole in the wall; and having done this he stared gravely at Dorothy for
a moment, and then said, "What makes your legs bend the wrong way?"
"Why, they don't!" said Dorothy, looking down at them to see if anything
had happened to them.
"They're entirely different from mine, anyhow," said the Stork.
"But, you know," said Dorothy very earnestly, "I couldn't sit down if
they bent the other way."
"Sitting down is all very well," said the Stork, with a solemn shake of
his head, "but you couldn't collect fares with 'em, to save your life,"
and with this he went into the house and shut the door.
[Illustration: "'THEY'RE ENTIRELY DIFFERENT FROM MINE, ANYHOW,' SAID THE
STORK."]
"It seems to me this is a very strange adventure," said Dorothy to
herself. "It appears to be mostly about people's legs," and she was
gazing down again in a puzzled way at her little black stockings when
she heard a cough, and looking up she saw that the Stork had his head
out of a small round window in the wall of the house.
"Look here," he said confidentially, "I forgot to ask what your fare was
for." He said this in a sort of husky whisper, and as Dorothy looked up
at him it seemed something like listening to an enormous cuckoo-clock
with a bad cold in its works.
[Illustration: "IT SEEMED LIKE LISTENING TO AN ENORMOUS CUCKOO-CLOCK."]
"I don't think I know exactly _what_ it was for," she said, rather
confusedly.
"Well, it's got to be for _something_, you know, or it won't be fair,"
said the Stork. "I suppose you don't want to go over the ferry?" he
added, cocking his head on one side, and looking down at her,
inquiringly.
"Oh, no indeed!" said Dorothy, very earnestly.
"_That's_ lucky," said the Stork. "It doesn't go anywhere that it ever
gets to. Perhaps you'd like to hear about it. It's in poetry, you know."
"Thank you," said Dorothy politely. "I'd like it very much."
"All right," said the Stork. "The werses is called 'A Ferry Tale'"; and,
giving another cough to clear his voice, he began:
Oh, come and cross over to nowhere,
And go where
The nobodies live on their nothing a day!
A tideful of tricks is this merry
Old Ferry,
And these are the things that it does by the way:
It pours into parks and disperses
The nurses;
It goes into gardens and scatters the cats;
It leaks into lodgings, disorders
The boarders,
And washes away with their holiday hats.
It soaks into shops, and inspires
The buyers
To crawl over counters and climb upon chairs;
It trickles on tailors, it spatters
On hatters,
And makes little milliners scamper up-stairs.
It goes out of town and it rambles
Through brambles;
It wallows in hollows and dives into dells;
It flows into farm-yards and sickens
The chickens,
And washes the wheelbarrows into the wells.
It turns into taverns and drenches
The benches;
It jumps into pumps and comes out with a roar;
It pounds like a postman at lodges--
Then dodges
And runs up the lane when they open the door.
It leaks into laundries and wrangles
With mangles;
It trips over turnips and tumbles down-hill;
It rolls like a coach along highways
And byways,
But never gets anywhere, go as it will!
Oh, foolish old Ferry! all muddles
And puddles--
Go fribble and dribble along on your way;
We drink to your health with molasses
In glasses,
And waft you farewell with a handful of hay!
"What do you make out of it?" inquired the Stork anxiously.
"I don't make anything out of it," said Dorothy, staring at him in great
perplexity.
"I didn't suppose you would," said the Stork, apparently very much
relieved. "I've been at it for years and years, and I've never made
sixpence out of it yet," with which remark he pulled in his head and
disappeared.
"I don't know what he means, I'm sure," said Dorothy, after waiting a
moment to see if the Stork would come back, "but I wouldn't go over that
ferry for _sixty_ sixpences. It's altogether too frolicky"; and having
made this wise resolution, she was just turning to go back through the
archway when the door of the house flew open and a little stream of
water ran out upon the pavement. This was immediately followed by
another and much larger flow, and the next moment the water came
pouring out through the doorway in such a torrent that she had just time
to scramble up on the window-ledge before the street was completely
flooded.
[Illustration: "'DEAR ME!' SHE EXCLAIMED, 'HERE COMES ALL THE
FURNITURE!'"]
Dorothy's first idea was that there was something wrong with the pipes,
but as she peeped in curiously through the window she was astonished to
see that it was raining hard inside the house--"and dear me!" she
exclaimed, "here comes all the furniture!" and, sure enough, the next
moment a lot of old-fashioned furniture came floating out of the house
and drifted away down the street. There was a corner cupboard full of
crockery, and two spinning-wheels, and a spindle-legged table set out
with a blue-and-white tea-set and some cups and saucers, and finally a
carved sideboard which made two or three clumsy attempts to get through
the doorway broadside on, and then took a fresh start, and came through
endwise with a great flourish. All of these things made quite a little
fleet, and the effect was very imposing; but by this time the water was
quite up to the window-ledge, and as the sideboard was a
fatherly-looking piece of furniture with plenty of room to move about
in, Dorothy stepped aboard of it as it went by, and, sitting down on a
little shelf that ran along the back of it, sailed away in the wake of
the tea-table.