gable of the house. There was an old Garuly who acted as showman. We
first stopped before a cage that contained a crazy mouse. "This," said
the showman, "is the mouse that ran up the clock. Just as he got up
there, the clock struck one, and though the poor fellow ran back again,
he has never been right since. This long slender cow, that you see, has a
great taste for music. She is the one that jumped over the moon when the
cat played the fiddle. The cat has never been allowed to play since. This
is the little dog that laughed on that occasion. He was so much amused
that he has never been able to get his face straight since. In this pot
you see some of the cold plum porridge, with the eating of which the man
in the South burnt his mouth. Here is a portrait of the man in the moon,
when he came down too soon to inquire the way to Norwich. In one of the
other gables of this house I can show you Mother Goose's cap frill. And
here is the arrow with which Cock Robin was cruelly murdered by the
sparrow. This is the original and genuine arrow; all others are humbugs.
This is the bone that Mother Hubbard went to look for, but failed to
find. Here are the skates on which the
"Three boys went a-skating
All on a summer's day,
They all fell in,
And the rest ran away."
And here is the skin of the wolf that Little Red Ridinghood met in the
woods."
I was just going to inquire of him which was the true version of that
story, whether the wolf really ate Little Red Ridinghood up, or whether
she ate the wolf; but before I got a chance, a Joblily came in to say
that the Great Panjandrum himself was coming, and soon the queerest
little, old, round, fat man came in, puffing like a porpoise, and rolling
from side to side as he walked. His hair looked like sea grass, and was
partly covered by a queer concern, nothing less than the celebrated
"little round button-at-the-top."
"And so you want to see whether there is really a bag of gold at the end
of the rainbow, do you? Well, I'll show you, though I haven't much time,
for he died last week, and she very imprudently intends to marry the
barber."
This is what the Panjandrum said, and we never could tell who "she" was,
nor, indeed, whom he meant by the barber.
"Pickaninnies, open the wonderful Pantoscopticon, and let them see."
The wonderful Pantoscopticon was brought out, and we were allowed to look
in it.
There were holes enough for us all to see, and we beheld several rainbows
in one sky. On one of them was marked "Get and keep," on another "Eat,
drink, and be merry," besides some that were too far away for me to read.
There was one that had an inscription in unknown letters that shone with
their own light. Though I could not read the words, they reminded me
somehow of the Latin sentence which I once read over the gate of a park
belonging to the richest duke in England, which says, that goodness is
the only true nobility, or something of the sort.
All the time we were looking the Great Panjandrum Himself, with his
little round button-at-the-top on his head, was turning a crank in the
side of the wonderful Pantoscopticon, which had a hopper on the top of it
like that of an old-fashioned coffee-mill. As he turned he kept puffing
out:
"If you want to find out whether there is any gold at the end of the
rainbow, please walk up the ladder, get into the hopper, and be ground
down to a proper size." He hissed out the word size, drawing it as long
as his breath would hold.
I didn't know what his words meant until a lady with a red parasol went
round behind the Pantoscopticon and climbed to the top. After looking
down at the rattling wheels of the machinery a moment, she jumped into
the hopper, just as the Panjandrum came round again to the word
"s--i--z--e." I looked into the machine and had the satisfaction to see
this lady come out, not in pieces as I expected, but looking just as she
did when she went in, except that she was reduced to rather less than an
inch in height. Her parasol was a mere rose-leaf for size--about as big
as a silver three-cent piece. A gentleman with a white hat, whom I had
seen walking through the museum with this lady, and who seemed to be her
husband, stood looking into the peep-holes when she came out. He cried:
"Hold on, Amanda, and I'll go with you to see about the rainbows and the
pot of gold."
But the little lady with the red parasol didn't seem to hear him, she
only walked ahead eagerly toward the rainbows. The gentleman with the
white hat rushed up the stairs and leaped into the hopper without a
moment's pause, and the Great Panjandrum Himself, seeing that the man was
in a hurry, turned the crank twice as fast as before. The gentleman was
caught in the wheels and sent a-whirling. When he came to the bottom,
properly reduced, the speed of the machinery was such that he was thrown
out with a shock and his white hat, about the size of a doll's thimble,
fell off, so that he had to pick it up, crying out as he did so:
"Hold on, Amanda, and I'll go with you."
The little lady with the red parasol seemed to hear him this time, for
she turned her head long enough to say something, but she kept walking
briskly forward, either because she couldn't help it, or more likely for
fear somebody else would get the pot of gold which, as everybody knows,
lies at the end of a rainbow. However, by running, the little inch-long
gentleman caught up with the seven-eighths of an inch lady, and the two
went along together to find the pot of gold.
Still the Great Panjandrum kept toiling at the crank, while others
plunged into the hopper and came out "ground down to a proper size," as
the Great Panjan kept saying. Presently some of the children who had come
in with me jumped into the hopper and came out about half an inch in
length. The others followed, and I went up to the top and looked at the
whirling wheels, fearing to make the leap. But at last I became
fascinated and could not take away my eyes. I did not care about the pot
of gold, nor about the rainbows, nor did I exactly like the idea of being
"ground down to a proper size." But I looked at the wheels until I became
dizzy, and at length fell into the whirl and was pitched and turned about
in the most frightful way until I came out at the bottom. I felt as big
as ever, but when I looked up and saw the eyes of the people staring at
me through the peep-holes and found that these eyes were nearly as large
across as I was tall, I knew that I must have been ground down. I ran
after the children and went on for a long time, trying to find the ends
of the rainbows. There were many suns in the sky and many rainbows, but
no pots of gold, nor would the ends of the rainbows wait for us.
At length we came to the one written over with unknown letters that shone
with their own light. This one stood still, having one end resting in a
low-lying valley and the other end on top of a high mountain, which was
very steep and difficult to climb. At the lower end we found an earthen
pot sealed up, which the gentleman in the white hat proceeded to open. To
the disappointment of the lady with the red parasol and all of us, there
was not a piece of gold in it--only a paper on which was written,
"THE GOLD IS AT THE HIGHEST END OF THE RAINBOW."
We looked up the mountain-side, but all of us by this time felt too weary
and lazy to scramble up the cliffs, and among the thorns to find a pot of
gold. Besides we were hungry, and not a little uneasy as to how we should
get back our proper size. A ground-down Pickaninny who had joined us
proposed to hop over along the arch of the rainbow and see whether there
was any gold on the mountain-top. Being very light he easily ran up the
bow, while we, anxious to get out, did not even wait for him to come
back, but hurried down the long road toward the peep-holes and the
grinding-machine. I say the long road, for it seemed miles to us little
people. I suppose we had travelled twice the length of a good-sized house
from the starting-point, and that is a long journey for legs so short.
All the way we wondered how we should get out, and whether we should ever
regain our proper stature. When we came to the grinding place the mill
was still. We accosted an old Garuly who was wandering about.
"How do we get out?" I said.
"Why, by getting the Great Panjandrum Himself to set the thing a-going
the other way," he squeaked.
Then he walked to a speaking-tube and shouted:
"O Great Pan, grind 'em upward."
All this time I could see the eyes of ladies and gentlemen looking at us
through the peep-holes, and their eyes were about as big as wagon-wheels
to my sight. I felt mean to be stared at by such gigantic goggle-eyed
creatures.
The Panjandrum did not start the wheels at once because he was looking
around for his little round button-at-the-top without which he cannot do
anything. At length when the wheels were set a-going, the man in the
white hat and the lady with the red parasol went up, and I was just about
to climb up the pipe myself, to get out of the glare of the people's
eyes, when one of the children cried out:
"O sir! we'll never get home. We can't reach the tube."
So I took hold of them one after another and pushed them up the spout
until the wheels running backward caught them. Whenever a boy or girl
slipped out of my hands I would soon after see two more of those hateful
big eyes looking at me through the peep-holes. All the time I was afraid
the Panjandrum Himself would quit turning or that his little round
button-at-the-top would blow off before I could get out. And just as I
thrust the last boy up the spout the wheels began to slacken.
"Quick," cried the Garuly, "the Great Pan has let go of the machine. Your
last chance for to-day is to get through on the headway."
I climbed in, immediately, but I could feel the works gradually stopping.
Slowly my head and my body came out at the top, but the wheels stopped
stock-still before my left foot could be drawn out. It was only by
slipping my foot out of my boot that I escaped.
Just as I got out there came along the Pickaninny that had gone over on
the rainbow. He had come back some other way known to Pickaninnies and
had in his arms a pot just like the one we had seen. But this one was
full, and he set it down for us to look at. There were doubloons of
Spain, there were pistoles, guineas, Arabian pieces, Jewish money, coins
of Alexander the Great, and I know not what besides.
While we were examining these, a Garuly came in to say that the she-bear
had brought the soap, and that the barber was waiting. The Great
Panjandrum, in a state of flustration, hurried past us, and we, not
knowing what else to do, stood looking at each other. Just then a Joblily
went by with a cabbage leaf.
"What is that?" asked one of the little girls of our party.
"A cabbage leaf to make an apple pie," he replied, without looking
around.
Presently a Pickaninny came along with a small keg in his hands.
"What is that?" asked the same curious little girl.
"Gunpowder for the heels of their boots," he answered, and went on.
And a spark of fire from one of the seventy-seven chimneys fell into the
keg, and there was a frightful explosion.
But I don't think it was the Panjandrum's house that got blown up, but we
ourselves, for we found ourselves outside in the woods going home from
Shuteyetown. I for one resolved that the next time I came to the rainbow
with one foot in the valley and the other in the mountain. I should climb
to the upper end of it.
Stories Told on a Cellar-door.
THE STORY OF A FLUTTER-WHEEL.
What queer places boys have of assembling. Sometimes in one place,
sometimes in another. Hay-mows, river-banks, threshing-floors, these were
the old places of resort for country boys. And nothing was so sweet to
me, when I was a boy, as the newly cut clover-hay where I sat with two or
three companions, watching the barn swallows chattering their
incomprehensible gabble and gossip from the doors of their mud houses in
the rafters. And what stories we told and what talks we had. In the city
who does not remember the old-fashioned cellar-door, sloping down to the
ground? These were always places of resort.
Tom Miller was the minister's son, and there was a party of boys who met
regularly on Parson Miller's cellar-door. Mrs. Miller used herself to
listen to the stories they told, as she sat by the window above them,
though they were unconscious of her presence. They were boys full of life
and ambition, but they were a good set of boys on the whole, and it was
not till lessons were learned and work done that they met thus on the
cellar-door. They belonged to the same class in school, and besides were
"cronies" in all respects. There was Tom Miller, the minister's son, who
intended to be a minister himself, and Jimmy Jackson, the shoemaker's
boy, as full of fun and playfulness as a kitten, and poor Will Sampson,
who stammered, and Harry Wilson, the son of a wealthy banker, and a brave
boy too, and John Harlan, the widow's son, pale and slender, the pet of
all, and great, stout Hans Schlegal, who bade fair to be a great scholar.
These half dozen were nearly always on the cellar-door for half an hour
on Friday evenings, when they happened to have a little more leisure than
on other evenings.
"I say, boys," said Hans, "I've got an idea."
"How strange it must seem to you," said Tom Miller; whereupon they all
laughed, good-natured Hans with the rest.
"Do let's hear it," said Harry; "there has not been an idea in this crowd
for a month."
"Well," said Hans, "let's every fellow tell a story here on the cellar
door, turn about, on Friday evenings."
"All except m-m-me," stammered Sampson, who was always laughing at his
own defect; "I c-c-couldn't g-g-get through be-be-fore midnight."
"Well," said Miller, "we'll make Will Sampson chairman, to keep us in
order."
They all agreed to this, and Sampson moved up to the top of the
cellar-door and said: "G-g-gentlemen, th-th-this is th-th-the proudest
m-m-moment of my life. I'm president of the C-c-cellar-d-d-door C-club!
M-m-many thanks! Harry Wilson will tell the first st-st-story."
"Agreed!" said the boys. After thinking a minute, Harry began.
_HARRY WILSON'S STORY._
I will tell you a story that my father told me. In a village in
Pennsylvania, on the banks of the Schuylkill River, there lived a wealthy
man.
"Once upon a time," said Jimmy Jackson.
"B-be st-still! Come to order th-th-there, Jackson," stammered the
chairman, and the story went on.
Yes, once upon a time, there lived a wealthy man who had two sons. The
father was very anxious to make great men of them, or at least, educated
men. I think, or rather my father thinks, that their father used to dream
that one of these boys would grow to be President, and that the other
would be a member of Congress, at any rate. But while his younger son
grew to be a good student, the other one was a good, honest, industrious,
and intelligent boy, who did not much like books. His father intended to
make him a lawyer, and he got on well enough in Arithmetic and Geography,
but Grammar came hard, and when he got into Latin he blundered
dreadfully. He studied to please his parents, and from a sense of duty,
but it mortified him greatly to think that he could not succeed as the
other boys did. For you know it is hard to succeed at anything unless
your heart is in it. And so one night he sat down and cried to think he
must always be a dolt. His mother found him weeping and tried to comfort
him. She walked out in the dusky evening with him and talked. But poor
David, for that was his name, was broken-hearted. He had tried with all
his might to get interested in "Hic, hæc, hoc," but it was of no use. He
said there was something lacking in his head. "And I'll never amount to
anything, never! Brother Joe gets his lesson in a few minutes, and I
can't get mine at all."
His mother did not know what to say. But she only said that there was
some use for everybody. She knew that David was not wanting in
intelligence. In practical affairs he showed more shrewdness than his
brother. But his father had set his heart on making him a scholar. That
very day the teacher had said to his father that it was no use.
"Your father," she said, "intends to take you from school, and it is a
great disappointment to him. But we know that you have done your best,
and you must not be disheartened. If you were lazy, we should feel a
great deal worse."
Just then they came to the orchard brook. Here she saw in the dim light
something moving in the water.
"What is that, David?" she said.
"That's my flutter-wheel, and I feel like breaking it to pieces."
"Why?"
"Well, you see, all the boys made little water-mills to be run by the
force of the stream. We call them 'flutter-wheels.' But I made one so
curious that it beat them all," he said.
"Show it to me, Davie," she said. And David explained it to her,
forgetting all about his unhappiness in the pleasure of showing the
little cog-wheels, and the under-shot wheel that drove it.
"And why did you want to break it up?" she asked.
"Because, mother, Sam Peters said that I should never be good for
anything but to make flutter-wheels, and it is true, I am afraid."
"If you were a poor man's son, Davie, you might be a good mechanic," said
his mother.
That night Davie resolved to be a mechanic. "I won't be a
good-for-nothing man in the world. If I can't be a learned professor, I
may be a good carpenter or a blacksmith. If I learn to make a good
horseshoe, I'll be worth something." So the next morning he asked his
father's leave to enter a machine-shop. His father said he might, and
with all the school-boys laughing at him, he took his tin-pail with his
lunch in it, and went into the shop each morning. And now he began to
love books, too. He gathered a library of works on mechanics. Everything
relating to machinery he studied. He took up mathematics and succeeded.
After a while he rose to a good position in the shop. And he became at
last a great railroad engineer. He built that great bridge at Blankville.
"Why," said John Harlan, "I thought your Uncle David built that."
"So he did," said Harry. "My uncle was the boy that could not learn
Latin."
"I suppose," said Tom Miller, "that God has use for us all, boys. Perhaps
Jimmy's father was as much intended to make shoes as mine to preach. What
a mistake it must be to get into the wrong place, though."
"Come, you're getting too awfully solemn, Tom," said Jimmy Jackson;
"you'll put a fellow to sleep before he has time to go to bed." And
Jackson pretended to snore.
"The m-m-meeting's adjourned," said the president. "Jimmy Jackson will be
the sp-speaker at the n-next m-m-meeting of the Cellar-d-door S-society."
THE WOOD-CHOPPER'S CHILDREN.
The next Friday evening found all the members of the Cellar-door Club in
their places. Will Sampson, the stammering "chairman," was at the top,
full of life and fun as ever. Jimmie Jackson, running over with mischief,
was by him, then came Tom Miller and John Harlan, while Hans Schlegel and
Harry Wilson sat at the bottom. After a half-hour spent in general talk
about school and plays, and such miscellaneous topics as every gathering
of boys knows how to discuss, the "chairman" called out,
"Come t-to order! Th-th-the C-cellar-d-d-door Society is c-called to
order. G-g-gentlemen, the Hon. J-Jeems Jackson is the speaker f-for the
evening. I h-have the pl-pleasure of introducing him to you."
"No, you don't!" said the shoemaker's son; "don't put it on so thick. If
you want me to tell my yarn along with the rest of you, why, I'm ready,
but if you call it a speech, you scare me out of my shoes, just like the
man that tried to make a speech in the legislature, but couldn't get any
farther than 'Mr. Speaker, I am in favor of cartwheels and temperance.'
Or, like a boy I knew, who tried to declaim the speech beginning:
'Friends, Romans, Countrymen, lend me your ears!' and who got so badly
confused on the first line that he said, 'I'd like to borrow your ears!'"
This raised a laugh at the expense of Harry Wilson, who had broken down
on that line, though he did not make it as bad as Jimmy represented it.
"G-g-go on with your story!" stammered the chairman, and Jackson
proceeded.
_JIMMY JACKSON'S STORY._
There lived in a country a long way off--it don't matter where--a poor
wood-chopper whose name was--let's see--well, we will call him Bertram.
It wasn't the fashion to have two names in those days, you know; people
couldn't afford it. He had a son, whose name was Rudolph, and a daughter,
Theresa. The boy was twelve and the girl was eleven years old. The
wood-chopper earned but a scanty subsistence--that means an awfully poor
living, I believe--and the children soon learned to help him. Rudolph and
Theresa were hard-working and cheerful, and as they had never been rich,
they did not know what it was to be poor. That is, they thought they had
plenty, because they never had any more; and had no time to sit down and
see how nice it would be to have a fine house, and be drawn in an elegant
carriage. But one day a tree fell on poor Bertram, and he was carried
home with a broken arm and leg. I suppose if he had been rich enough to
send for a great surgeon that lived in the city, only two leagues away,
he would have recovered without much trouble, but poor men have to do
without such attentions, and so Bertram's arm and leg, which were fixed
by a country "bone-setter," were so crooked that he could not work. And
now the burden fell heavily on the wife, who had to gather berries and
nuts in the forests, which she loaded on the donkey, and carried away to
the city to sell. But the poor woman was never very strong, and this
extra tax was fast breaking her down.
The children did what they could, but it was not much. After working hard
all day, they amused themselves in the evening by manufacturing little
articles out of nutshells. Rudolph had a sharp knife which had been given
him for showing a gentleman the way out of the forest. But the
circumstances of the family had become so distressing that they had given
up their evening employments, creeping sadly away to bed after a frugal
supper.
One day, as they were gathering nuts in the forest, Rudolph said,
"Sister, I fear that mother is breaking down. What can we do to help her?
The winter is coming on, and times will be harder than ever."
"I'll tell you what, Rudolph," answered Theresa; "why can't we do
something with your little nut-baskets and nut-boats? I've heard say that
the little city children, who wear fine clothes and have plenty of money,
are very fond of such things. Let us send all you have by mother
to-morrow."
And so on the next morning the mother's basket took the whole stock. When
evening came the children walked a quarter of a league down to the
crossing of the brook to meet her, and hear the fate of their venture.
But the poor woman could only tell them that the work was admired, but
that she had not succeeded in selling any of it. That night they went to
bed more than ever disheartened. The next day, their mother carried their
trinkets to town again, and when she returned they were delighted to know
that some of them had sold for a few pence, and that a lady had sent an
order for some mosses to make a moss-basket with.
"We'll make the basket ourselves," exclaimed Rudolph, and the next day
they gathered the mosses, and Rudolph and his sister worked nearly all
night framing a basket of twigs, and fitting in the different colored
mosses. What was their delight when they learned that the lady had paid a
good price for the basket.
It was still up-hill work to live. Sometimes the trinkets sold and
sometimes they did not. But Rudolph kept whittling away, and his sister
soon became a good whittler, too. Besides, she often sewed little
pin-cushions in the nut shells, and did other things by which her little
brown fingers were quite as useful as Rudolph's. But often they were
discouraged by complete failure to sell.