DOWN THE SNOW STAIRS.
“GET up! get up! get up!” said another voice.
Kitty was wide awake and sitting up in a moment. Some one was standing
by her bedside. Was it nurse? Her white cap and apron glimmered through
the dusk.
“How is Johnnie?” cried Kitty, starting up.
It was not nurse; it was the snow-man staring at her with his blank
eyes, and waving a great fingerless white hand to her in the moonlight.
Kitty did not feel frightened; she sat up and looked at him. He held his
pipe in one hand; with the other he beckoned to her. She could see the
formless hand quite distinctly waving backward and forward.
“Get up! get up! get up!” he repeated in a hoarse, muffled voice.
“Go away, naughty snow-man,” said Kitty; “it is your fault that Johnnie
is ill.”
[Illustration]
“Don’t you want to find the blue rose?” said the snow-man, with little
pants between his words; he seemed very short of breath. His voice began
with a rumble and a grumble, and ended in a squeak.
“The blue rose that will cure Johnnie! Oh! but where can I find it?”
eagerly cried Kitty, standing up in bed, and pressing up both hands
under her chin.
“Come away! come away! come away!” said the snow-man, moving off.
He had an extraordinary way of walking—a shuffling, shambling, sliding
way, and as he moved he still waved that white formless hand, and gazed
at Kitty with his blank eyeless sockets.
“I dare not go downstairs again,” said Kitty.
But the snow-man was gliding, shambling, shuffling toward the window. He
opened it, passed out, put his head back into the room, and continued to
beckon to her.
Kitty jumped down to see what it meant. “I must put something on, or I
shall catch cold,” she remarked, glancing down at her night-gown; but as
her feet touched the ground she perceived that she was ready dressed.
“How won—” she began; then she paused, with her mouth open, looking at
something much more extraordinary. Just outside her window spread a
spacious flight of steps. Lovely stairs, white as pearl! On one side
they towered upward, gleaming brighter and brighter till they touched
the moon; on the other, they reached downward, till it made her dizzy to
look. Far down as she could see the great white stairs reached.
As Kitty stood on the ledge of her window, voices sounded around her;
she thought she heard her mother’s voice, her father’s voice, nurse’s
voice, calling: “Cure Johnnie! cure Johnnie!”
A bell pealed from the church steeple; it seemed to call out: “Cure
Johnnie!”
Then other voices came again, floating along down or up the white
stairs, she could not tell which, whispering:
“Find the blue rose! Find the blue rose!”
Was she to go up, or was she to go down those white stairs?
The snow-man began to go down; Kitty followed him.
“Hurry! hurry!” he panted impatiently. “I am beginning to melt. There is
a great drop on my nose.”
He descended with a certain stateliness of gait—gliding; then letting
himself drop noiselessly over each step. Kitty perceived that this way
of getting along was due to his having no feet—that his figure ended in
a stump.
Down, down they went, the snow-man going before, Kitty following.
How still it was! Their footsteps made no noise. Not a breath stirred.
Nothing was to be seen but those white stairs glimmering. Down—down.
Every now and then the snow-man panted.
“Hurry! hurry! I am melting!” and a morsel of him would disappear.
[Illustration]
His nose went; his pipe went; one after another his features went, till
the face he occasionally turned toward Kitty was a flat white face like
a plate. One arm went. Still gliding, dropping noiselessly over each
step, down went the snow-man, and Kitty followed.
As she followed she began to feel very vague. The lower she descended
the less she could remember what she was going for. She was looking for
something—something for Johnnie. But what was it? “What am I looking
for?” she asked herself, shaking her head to shake off that dreaminess.
“Is it that cake of gamboge?” No, it was not that. It was something
else. Something she must find for Johnnie.
After awhile she thought she was going down for something she wanted for
herself—something she must find.
“Oh, what is it I am looking for?” puzzled Kitty. “Is it that
mince-pie?”
She shook her head. “No, I don’t want that. It is something else.”
“Is it the naughtiest child?” Kitty went on dreamily.
“No, it cannot be that. I do not want to see the naughtiest child.”
Down, down they went, the snow-man melting till he had dwindled to a
stump. Still gliding, dropping noiselessly over each step, went this
stump before Kitty.
[Illustration]
“Is it the moon I want?” she asked herself. As she said this drowsily
the last bit of the snow-man melted away, and she found herself alone at
the bottom of the stairs.
The snow had disappeared. She was standing in a meadow full of cowslips.
At a little distance stood a wicket-gate, and beyond the gate there was
a wood; one of the trees overshadowed the gate.
It was broad daylight. The summer had come; the trees were in full leaf.
Kitty rubbed her eyes; but she did not feel surprised.
In front of the gate stood the drollest creature Kitty had ever seen,
dancing to its own shadow. Down to the waist it looked like a pretty
boy; but it had hairy goat legs, a curling tail, and tiny horns. A pair
of pointed ears showed through its curly black hair. Its skin was a
golden brown. On seeing Kitty the queer little creature stopped just as
it was setting off to run a race with itself. It had the wildest,
brightest, blackest eyes.
“Who are you?” he asked, fixing them upon her.
“I!” answered Kitty. “I—why, of course—I am—I am—” Then she stopped; she
could not remember who she was. “Where is mamma?” she cried, frightened
at forgetting.
“Mamma—you’ve no mamma—what was she like?” demanded the goat-legged
creature, throwing back its goat-eared head and laughing.
“Mamma—she was—she was—talking to me—just now—why—I can’t—I can’t
remember what—she was saying;” and Kitty looked blankly at the frisking
being. It laughed louder and louder. Ha! ha! ha! ha! ho! ho! ho! It
sniffed the air with delight; it tumbled and gamboled about, clattering
its cloven feet.
“There was Johnnie, I know there was Johnnie,” said Kitty slowly.
“Johnnie! I am Johnnie!” cried the brown creature. It ran up the tree
that overshadowed the gate, and peered through the branches at Kitty.
“No, you are not Johnnie,” she answered, shaking her head. She was quite
sure of that.
Down it jumped and began marching backward and forward with high steps,
keeping time as to the sound of music. Its pretty boy-head was thrown
back—mischief and sportiveness peeped out of its bright eyes.
Kitty thought she had never seen anything so pretty, playful, and
delightful as this elfish being with its pointed ears, its tiny horns,
and bit of a tail. “Who are you?” she asked.
“I!” The creature paused in its marching, laughed and sniffed the air,
frisking to a measure of its own, first on one horny foot, then on the
other, chanting as it frisked:
“I am what makes the kids jump, the kittens tumble, and the children
dance.”
“Are you then a sprite?” asked Kitty.
The elfish being laughed louder, showing all its white teeth. Kitty
thought it now looked more like an imp, as he went on skipping and
chanting.
“I make the magpies steal; I make the goats butt; I make the children
disobey.”
Saying this it ran up the tree again, caught at one of the branches, and
swung itself backward and forward.
Kitty felt a little afraid on hearing that last speech; but she began to
laugh again as she watched the creature darting gay as the birds or the
pretty wildlings of the wood.
The next moment it scampered down. “Catch!” it cried, tapping her on the
shoulder, and starting off at a run.
Clack! clack! went its bounding heels. The sound set those of Kitty
bounding in pursuit. It was the merriest race. She chased her elfish
play-fellow round and round the meadow; but she could never catch him.
He always escaped her; tossing back his curly black hair and tiny horns.
Still they scampered about until Kitty was quite giddy with play.
All at once the creature stopped short, and said:
“I know Johnnie. Come, let us look for Johnnie.”
“For Johnnie!” cried Kitty, bewildered. “Where shall we look for him?”
“In Naughty Children Land, of course!” he answered.
“Oh! Naughty Children Land! Naughty Children Land!” repeated Kitty, who
vaguely felt as if she knew the place.
“I am sure Johnnie was naughty. You are naughty. I’ll bring you where
all the naughty children are!” The elfin having stretched itself on the
ground, put its elbows on the grass and its chin on its brown hands.
Kitty sat down opposite.
“Is the naughtiest child there?” she asked eagerly.
[Illustration]
“The naughtiest!—yes, the very naughtiest. The greediest; the vainest;
the mischievousest,” answered her elfin comrade, kicking up its heels.
“Are they punished?” asked Kitty.
“Punished! No, they are petted!” the queer creature replied, rolling
itself round and round with laughing.
“I think I should like to go,” said Kitty.
“Come along; I’ll take you. It is the most comical place you ever saw;”
and the goat-legged being sprang to its feet.
Kitty got up.
Her play-fellow opened the wicket-gate, and they passed out together
into a broad and flowery path hand in hand.
Skip, skip, down the path they went together.
Skip, skip, through a lovely wood where grew all Kitty’s favorite
flowers. Honeysuckles garlanded the way, and thrust out their waxen
blossoms like fingers to catch them as they passed. Wild roses, that
looked like fallen stars on the bushes; little pools of blue hyacinths,
hosts of golden king-cups, ox-lips, and daisies lined the road.
Skip, skip, past a stream on which the water-lilies floated.
Dragon-flies darted zigzag like jewels writing on the air. Butterflies
hovered, birds sang. Red squirrels ran up trees and stopped cracking
their nuts to look at them. A gray field-mouse peered out, moving its
tiny mouth incessantly as if talking to itself. The trees rustled; the
shadows waved as the breeze rocked the boughs.
Skip, skip, first on one cloven foot and one tiptoe, then on the other
cloven foot and the other tiptoe, went Kitty’s guide and Kitty followed.
Suddenly they came to the oddest place Kitty had ever seen. It was right
in the center of the wood on the other side of a ditch. They paused to
look at it.
------------------------------------------------------------------------