shoemaker’s wax was very much puzzled. He had more business on his hands
than he knew what to do with. He saw that he must now rescue his brother
as well as his father, and he didn’t know how to go about it. He had the
awl and the axe and the shoemaker’s wax. He also had the shoe-pegs and
leather that he found together. But what was he to do with them? He sat
on the log and thought about it a long time.
“While he was sitting there, and just as he was about to go forward on
his journey, he heard some one coming briskly down the road singing. He
heard enough of the song to be very much interested in it. It ran thus:—
“‘With the awl and the axe
And the shoemaker’s wax,
And the pegs and the leather
That were found close together
Where the old man had fling’d ’em,
We’ll bore through and roar through;
We’ll cut down, we’ll put down,
This king and his kingdom.’
“Of course, it was the Man in the Moon who was coming along the road
singing the song, and he seemed to be in high good humor. He caught
sight of the solemn face of the young man and began to laugh.
“‘There you are!’ cried Mum, the Man in the Moon, ‘and I’m glad to see
you; but I’d feel a great deal better if you didn’t look so lonesome. I
don’t know what to do about it. Your face is as long as a hind quarter
of beef.’
“‘I can’t help it,’ replied the young man. ‘I am in deeper trouble than
ever. My brother has been carried off by the same people that captured
my father.’
“‘What of it?’ exclaimed the Man in the Moon. ‘If you knew as much about
that brother of yours as I do, you’d go on about your business, and let
him stay where he is.’
“‘No,’ said the young man. ‘I couldn’t do that. I know he is my brother,
and that is enough. And then there’s my father.’
“The Man in the Moon looked at the young man a long time, and finally
said:—
“‘Since we are to have a sort of holiday together, maybe you won’t mind
telling me your name.’
“‘Why, of course not,’ replied the young man. ‘My name is Smat.’
“The Man in the Moon scratched his head and then laughed. ‘It is a queer
name,’ he said; ‘but I see no objection to it. I suppose it just
happened so.’
“‘Now, I can’t tell you anything about that,’ replied Smat. ‘I was too
young when the name was given to take any part in the performance. They
seized me, and named me at a time when I had to take any name that they
chose to give me. They named me Smat, and that was the end of it so far
as I was concerned. They never asked me how I liked it, but just slapped
the name in my face, as you may say, and left it there.’
“‘Well,’ said the Man in the Moon, ‘they’ll put another letter in the
name when you get back home. Instead of calling you Smat, they’ll say
you are Smart, and there’s some consolation in that.’
“‘Not much as I can see,’ remarked Smat. ‘It’s all in your mouth, and
what is in your mouth is pretty much all wind and water, if you try to
spit it out. What I want now is to get my father and my brother out of
the trouble that my mischief has plunged them in. Please help me. They
ought to be at home right now. There’s the corn to grind, and the cows
are waiting to be milked, and the grain is to be gathered. Times are
pretty hard at our house when everybody is away.’
“‘Very well,’ said the Man in the Moon. He had hanging by his side the
horn of the new Moon, and on this he blew a loud blast. Immediately
there was a roaring noise in the woods, and very soon there swarmed
about them a company of little men, all bearing the tiniest and the
prettiest lanterns that were ever seen. It was not night, but their
lanterns were blazing, and as they marched around the Man in the Moon in
regular order, it seemed as though the light of their lanterns had
quenched that of the sun, so that Smat saw the woods in a different
light altogether. He had not moved, but he seemed to be in another
country entirely. The trees had changed, and the ground itself. He was
no longer sitting on a log by the side of the big road, but was now
standing on his feet in a strange country, as it seemed to him.
“He had risen from his seat on the log when the little men with their
lanterns began marching around, but otherwise he had not moved. And yet
here he was in a country that was new to him. He rubbed his eyes in a
dazed way, and when he opened them again, another change had taken
place. Neither he nor the Man in the Moon had made any movement away
from the big road and the log that was lying by the side of it, but now
they were down in a wide valley, that stretched as far as the eye could
see, between two high mountain ranges.
“‘Now, then,’ said the Man in the Moon, ‘you must be set up in business.
On the side of the mountain yonder is the palace of King Stuff, and
somewhere not far away you will find your father and your brother, and
perhaps some one else.’
“He then called to the leaders of the little men with the lanterns, and
gave each one a task to do. Their names were Drift and Sift, Glimmer and
Gleam, and Shimmer and Sheen. These six leaders waved their lanterns
about, called their followers about them, and at once began to build a
house.”
“And they so little, too,” remarked Mrs. Meadows sympathetically.
“Why, it was no trouble in the world to them,” said Little Mr.
Thimblefinger. “It didn’t seem as if they were building a house. Did you
ever see a flower open? You look at it one minute, turn your head away
and forget about it, and the next time you look, there it is open wide.
That was the way with this house the little men built. It just seemed to
grow out of the ground. As it grew, the little men climbed on it, waved
their lanterns about, and the house continued to grow higher and higher,
and larger and larger, until it was finished. Not a nail had been
driven, not a board had been rived, not a plank had been planed, not a
sill had been hewn, not a brick had been burned. And yet there was the
house all new and fine, with a big chimney-stack in the middle.
“‘Now,’ said the Man in the Moon, when everything was done, ‘here is
your house, and you may move in with bag and baggage.’
“‘That is quickly done,’ replied Smat. ‘What then?’
“‘Why, you must set up as a shoemaker,’ said the Man in the Moon.
“‘But I never made a shoe in my life,’ the young man declared.
“‘So much the more reason why you should make ’em before you die,’ the
Man in the Moon remarked. ‘The sooner you begin to make shoes, the
sooner you’ll learn how.’
“‘That’s so true,’ said Smat, ‘that I have no reply to make. ‘I’ll do as
you say, if I can.’
“‘That’s better,’ cried the Man in the Moon. ‘If you do that, you’ll
have small trouble. If you don’t, I wouldn’t like to tell you what will
happen. Now listen! There is in this kingdom a person (I’ll not say who)
that goes about with only one shoe. When you see that person, no matter
when or where,—no matter whether it’s man, woman, or child,—you must let
it be known that you are ready to make a shoe.’
“Then the Man in the Moon called to the leaders of his army of lantern
bearers, and waved his hands. They, in turn, waved their tiny lanterns,
and in a moment all were out of sight, and Smat was left alone. For some
time afterwards he felt both lonely and uneasy, but this feeling passed
away as soon as he went into his house. He was so astonished by what he
saw in there that he forgot to feel uneasy. He saw that, although the
house was newly built,—if it had been built,—it was in fact old enough
inside to seem like home. Every room was finely furnished and carpeted,
and in one part of the house, in a sort of shed-room, he found that a
shoemaker’s shop had been fixed up. There he saw the awl and the axe,
and the shoemaker’s wax, with the pegs and the leather that were found
close together.
“He thought to himself that all that was very nice, but he knew, too,
that he was not much of a shoemaker, and this bothered him not a little.
Anyhow, he made himself comfortable and waited to see what was going to
happen.
“One day a head officer of the kingdom chanced to pass that way. He saw
the house and rubbed his eyes. He was so astonished that he went and
told another officer, and this officer told another, and finally all the
officers in the kingdom knew about it. Now, if you’ve ever noticed,
those who hold government offices have less to do and more time to do it
in than any other day laborers. So they went about and caucussed among
themselves, and examined into the books, and found that no taxes had
ever been gathered from the owner of such a house. There was great
commotion among them. One of them, more meddlesome than the rest, took a
big book under his arm and went to Smat’s house to make inquiries. The
first question he asked was the last.
“Says he, ‘How long have you been living in this precinct?’
“Says Smat, ‘Ever since the house was built and a little while before.’
“The officer looked at the house and saw that it was a very old one, and
then he tucked his big book under his arm and went off home. At last the
king—the same King Stuff whose name you’ve heard me mention—heard about
the new house that was old, and of the shoemaker who didn’t know how to
make shoes. So he concluded to look into the matter. He summoned his
high and mighty men, and when they had gathered together they went into
a back room of the palace and shut the door, and had a long talk
together. All this took time; and while the king and his high and mighty
men were confabbing together, other things were happening, as you shall
presently see.
“It seems that in that kingdom there was a beautiful girl who went
wandering about the country. If she had any kinsfolk, nobody knew
anything about it, and, indeed, nobody cared. She had lost one of her
shoes, and she went about from place to place hunting for it. Some
pitied her, and some laughed at her, which is the way of the world, as
you’ll find out; but nobody tried to help her. Some said that one shoe
was better than no shoe, and others said that a new shoe would do just
as well as an old shoe.”
“That’s where they made a big mistake,” said Mrs. Meadows. “I’ve tried
it, and I ought to know. A new shoe is bound to hurt you a little at
first, I don’t care how well it fits.”
“Well, I’m only telling you what they said,” replied little Mr.
Thimblefinger. “From all I can hear, new shoes hurt the ladies a great
deal worse than they do the men. But that’s natural, for their toes and
their heels are a good deal tenderer than those of the men folks.
Anyhow, this beautiful girl had lost one of her shoes, and, rather than
buy another one or a new pair, she went hunting it everywhere. One day
she came by Smat’s house. He, sitting by one of the windows, and wishing
that he could see his father and brother, paid no attention to the
passers-by. But this beautiful girl saw him at the window and spoke to
him.
[Illustration:
“HAVE YOU SEEN ANYTHING OF A STRAY SHOE?”
]
“‘Kind sir,’ she said, ‘have you seen anything of a stray shoe? I have
lost one of mine, and I’m in great trouble about it.’
“Smat looked at the girl, and she was so beautiful that he couldn’t help
but blush. Seeing this, the girl began to blush. And so there they were,
two young things a-blushing at one another, and wondering what was the
matter.
“‘I have seen no stray shoe,’ said Smat; ‘but if you’ll come in and show
me the one you have on, I think I’ll know its fellow when I see it.’
“The girl went into the house and sat on a chair, and showed Smat the
shoe that she hadn’t lost. She had the smallest and the neatest foot he
had ever seen.
“‘I hope you are no kin to Cinderella,’ said Smat, ‘for then you
couldn’t get a shoe to fit your other foot until some kind fairy made
it.’
“‘I never heard of Cinderella,’ the girl replied. ‘I only know that I
have lost my shoe, and I’m afraid I’ll never get another just like it.’
“Smat scratched his head, and then he thought about the awl and the axe
and the shoemaker’s wax, and the pegs and the leather that were found
close together. So he said to the beautiful girl:—
“‘Just sit here a little while, and I’ll see if I can’t get you a shoe
to fit your foot. But I must have the other shoe as a pattern to work
by.’
“At first the girl didn’t want to trust him with the shoe, but she saw
that he was in earnest, and so she pulled off the only shoe she had and
placed it in Smat’s hands. He saw at once that the leather he had was a
match for that in the shoe, and he set to work with a light heart,—with
a light heart, but his hand was heavy. And yet, somehow or other, he
found that he knew all about making shoes, although he had never learned
how. The leather fitted itself to the last, and everything went
smoothly. But the beautiful girl, instead of feeling happy that she
would soon have a mate to her shoe, began to grow sad. She sat in a
corner with her head between her hands and her hair hanging down to her
feet, and sighed every time Smat bored a hole in the leather with his
awl or drove in a peg. Finally, when he handed her the shoe entirely
finished, she looked at it, sighed, and let it fall from her hands.
“‘Of course,’ said Smat, ‘I don’t feel bad over a little thing like
that. But you don’t have to pay anything for the shoe, and you don’t
have to wear it unless you want to.’
“‘Oh, it is not that,’ cried the beautiful girl. ‘The shoe will do very
well, but the moment I put it on, your troubles will begin.’
“‘Well,’ replied Smat, ‘we must have troubles of some sort anyhow, and
the sooner they begin, the sooner they’ll be ended. So put on your
shoe.’
“Now, it happened that just as the girl put on the shoe, which fitted
her foot exactly, King Stuff and his councilors came driving up to the
door. King Stuff was not a large man, but he was very fierce-looking. He
called out from his carriage of state and asked what sort of a person
lived in that house that he couldn’t come out and salute when the king
and his councilors went riding by. Smat went to the door and bowed as
politely as he could, and said that he would have been glad to bow and
salute, if he had known his royal highness and their excellent
excellencies intended to honor his poor house even so much as to pass by
it. The king and his councilors looked at one another and shook their
heads.
“‘This man is none of us,’ said the oldest and wisest of the councilors.
‘We must be careful.’
“‘How long have you lived here?’ asked the king.
“‘Longer than I wanted to,’ replied Smat. ‘My house is so far from the
palace that I have not been able to call and pay my respects to your
majesty.’
“‘I see you are a maker of shoes,’ remarked the king, seeing the awl in
Smat’s hand.
“‘No, your majesty, not a maker of shoes, but simply a shoemaker. Thus
far I have succeeded in making only one shoe.’
“At this the king and his councilors began to shake and tremble. ‘What
was the prophecy?’ cried the king to the oldest and wisest. ‘Repeat it!’
“The oldest and the wisest closed his eyes, allowed his head to drop to
one side, and said in solemn tones:—
‘Wherever you go, and whatever you do,
Beware of the man that makes but one shoe;
Beware of the man with the awl and the axe,
With the pegs and the leather and the shoemaker’s wax.
If you’re out of your palace when you meet this man,
You’d better get back as fast as you can.’
“Smat felt very much like laughing at the solemn way in which the oldest
and wisest councilor repeated this prophecy, or whatever it might be
called. ‘Your majesty needn’t be worried about that prophecy,’ said he.
‘It’s the easiest thing in the world to break the force of it.’
“‘How?’ asked the king.
“‘Why, having made one shoe, I’ll go to work and make another,’ replied
Smat.
“The oldest and wisest of the councilors said that was a pretty good
plan,—anyhow, it was worth trying. Smat promised to make another shoe,
and have it ready in two days. But this was easier said than done. In
the first place, he had used nearly all his leather in making a shoe for
the beautiful girl. In the second place, the awl point wouldn’t stay in
the handle. In the third place, the pegs split and broke every time he
tried to drive them, and the shoemaker’s wax wouldn’t stick. Everything
went wrong at first and grew worse at last, so that when the king sent
his officers for the shoe it was no nearer done than it had been before
Smat began.
“The beautiful girl had not gone very far away, and she came every day
to see how Smat prospered in making the second shoe. She was watching
him when the king’s officers came for the shoe, and when she saw them
she began to weep. But Smat looked as cheerful as ever, and even began
to whistle when the officers knocked at the door.
“‘We are in a fix,’ said he, ‘but we’ll get out of it. Lend me the shoe
I made for you. I’ll send that to the king and then get it back again.’
“The girl tried to take the shoe from her foot, but nothing would move
it. ‘That is a sign,’ said Smat, ‘that it ought not to come off. I’ll
just go to the king myself and tell him the facts in the case. That is
the best way.’
“So he gathered the awl and the axe and the shoemaker’s wax, and the
scraps of leather, and bundled them together. Then he told the officers
that he would go with them and carry the shoe himself, so as to be sure
that it came safely into the king’s hands. They went toward the palace,
and Smat noticed, as they went along, that it grew darker and darker as
they came nearer to the palace. The officers seemed to notice it too. By
the time they reached the palace, it was so dark that Smat had great
trouble in keeping up with the officers.
“There was great commotion in the palace. Nobody had ever seen it so
dark before except just at the stroke of midnight, when the shadows grow
thick and heavy and run together and over everything.
“Now, old King Stuff was a sort of magician himself (as, indeed, he had
to be in those times, in order to manage a kingdom properly), and as
soon as he saw the great darkness coming on at the wrong time of day, he
thought at once of the prophecy in regard to the man who made but one
shoe. So he hustled and bustled around the palace, calling for the
officers he had sent after the shoe. But nobody had seen them return
before the dark began to fall, and after that it was impossible to see
them.
“In the midst of it all, the officers, followed by Smat, stumbled into
the palace and went groping about from room to room hunting for old King
Stuff and his ministers. At last, they heard him grumbling and growling,
and felt their way toward him.
“‘The shoe! the shoe!’ cried King Stuff, when the officers had made
themselves known.
“‘I have something that will answer just as well,’ said Smat.
“‘The shoe! give me the shoe!’ cried the king.
“‘Take this, your majesty,’ said Smat, handing him the bundle.
“No sooner had the king’s hands touched the bundle than there was a
rumbling noise in the air, the building began to shake and totter and
crumble away. In the midst of it all some one cried out in a loud
voice:—
‘Wherever you go, and whatever you do,
Beware of the man that makes but one shoe!’
“In the twinkling of an eye, King Stuff and his army and his palace had
disappeared from sight. At the same time the darkness had cleared away,
and Smat saw his father and his brother standing near, dazed and
frightened, and not far away was the beautiful girl. The father and the
brother were very much astonished when they found that Smat had been the
means of their rescue. They talked about it until night fell, and then
the Man in the Moon, with his tiny lantern-bearers, came and escorted
them to their own country.
“Now it happened that the beautiful girl was a princess, the daughter of
the king. It fell to the lot of Smat to take the princess home. Not long
after that the king gave a great festival, to celebrate the return of
his daughter. Smat’s father and brother got close enough to the palace
to see him standing in a large room, where there was a large crowd of
people and music and flowers. They saw, too, that he was holding the
princess by the hand.
“And so,” said little Mr. Thimblefinger, wiping the perspiration from
his forehead, “the story ended.”
------------------------------------------------------------------------
XX.
THE WOOG AND THE WEEZE.
“Phew!” exclaimed Mr. Rabbit, when he was sure that little Mr.
Thimblefinger had finished. “That beats anything I ever heard.”
“I’m glad you like it,” said Mr. Thimblefinger.
“Oh, hold on there!” protested Mr. Rabbit, “you are going too fast. I
never said I liked it. I said it beat any story I ever heard, and so it
does,—for length. I didn’t know that such a little chap could be so
long-winded. It was such a long story that I’ve forgotten what the moral
ought to be.”
“Why, I thought you said you didn’t believe much in stories that had
morals tacked to them,” remarked Mrs. Meadows.
“No doubt I did,” replied Mr. Rabbit,—“No doubt I did. But this story
was long enough to have a dozen morals cropping out in different places,
like dog fennel in a cow pasture.”
“Well,” said Mr. Thimblefinger, “there was a moral or two in the story,
but I didn’t call attention to them in the telling, and I’ll not dwell
on them now.”
“I thought it was a tolerably fair story,” said Buster John, yet with a
tone of doubt.
“Oh, I thought it was splendid all the way through,” said Sweetest
Susan.
“There are some stories that are hard to tell,” suggested Mrs. Meadows.
“They go in such a rambledy-wambledy way that it’s not easy to keep the
track of them. I remember I once heard Chickamy Crany Crow trying to
repeat a story that she heard the Looking-glass Children tell. I never
found head nor tail to it, but I sat and listened almost without
shutting my eyes.”
“What was the story?” asked Sweetest Susan.
In reply, Mrs. Meadows said she would call Chickamy Crany Crow, and ask
her to tell it. As usual, Chickamy Crany Crow was off at play with
Tickle-My-Toes. They both came when Mrs. Meadows called them, and
Chickamy Crany Crow, after some persuasion, began to tell the story.
“One day,” she said, brushing her hair behind her ears with her fingers,
“I wanted to see the Looking-glass Children. Tickle-My-Toes was off
playing by himself, and I was lonesome; so I went to the Looking-glass,
whirled it around in its frame, and waited for the children to come out.
But they didn’t come. I called them, but they made no answer. I went
close to the Glass, and looked in. At first, I couldn’t see anything;
but after a while I saw, away off in the Glass, one of the children,—the
one they all say looks like me. I called her; but she was so far off in
the Glass that she couldn’t hear me, and, as she had her face turned the
other way, she couldn’t see me.
“After so long a time, she came up to the frame of the Glass, and then
stepped out and sat down on the ground. I saw she had been crying.
“Says I, ‘Honey, what in the world is the matter?’ I always call her
Honey when we are by ourselves.
“Says she, ‘There’s enough the matter. I’m e’en about scared to death,
and I expect that all the other children in this Looking-glass are
either captured, or killed, or scared to death.’
“Says I, ‘Why didn’t you holler for help?’
“Says she, ‘What good would that have done? You all could help us very
well on dry land, out here, but how could you have helped us in the
Looking-glass, when you can’t even get in at the door? I’ve seen you try
to follow us, but you’ve always failed. You stop at the Glass, and you
can’t get any farther.’
“Says I, ‘You are right about that; but if we outside folks can’t get in
the Glass to play with you and keep you company, how can anybody or
anything get in there to scare you and hurt you?’
“Says she, ‘The thing that scared us has been in there all the time. It
was born in there, I reckon, but I’ve never seen it before; and I tell
you right now I never want to see it again.’
“Says I, ‘What sort of a thing is it?’
“Says she in a whisper, ‘_It’s the Woog!_‘
“‘The what?’ says I.
“‘_The Woog!_‘ says she.
“Says I, ‘It’s new to me. I never heard of it before.’
“Says she, ‘To hear of it is as close as you want to get to it.’
“Why, I heard of the Woog in my younger days,” remarked Mr.
Thimblefinger. “I thought the thing had gone out of fashion.”
“Don’t you believe a word of it,” said Chickamy Crany Crow. “It’s just
as much in fashion now as ever it was, especially at certain seasons of
the year. The little girl in the Looking-glass—I say little girl, though
she’s about my size and shape—told me all about it; and as she lives in
the same country with the Woog, she ought to know.”
“What did she say about it?” asked Buster John, who had a vague idea
that he might some day be able to organize an expedition to go in search
of the Woog.
[Illustration:
A HORRIBLE MONSTER GLARED AT THEM
]