“TO DADDY COAX’S HOUSE.”
“I SHALL take you there,” said a voice.
Kitty turned round and saw a little girl standing with her eyes modestly
cast on the ground.
“I think I saw you with the cruel children who were going to rob the
nest,” she said bluntly.
“No, indeed, I never hurt anything,” answered the girl. As she said this
a pimple came out on her lips. “I never hurt anything,” she continued,
in a high voice—“never. If a mosquito or a flea bite me, I let them
bite. I say, ‘Poor things, they are hungry; I am their supper, I am
their dinner.’”
“You are good!” said Kitty, very much impressed, but still with a rather
doubtful tone.
“Yes, I am very good,” said the little girl, with a sigh, and as she
said this another pimple came out, this time on her nose.
Kitty could not speak, she was so surprised at finding this good little
girl here. They walked on through the wood, and here presently they
heard singing. It was a bright tune, and Kitty distinguished the words:
“What a lovely, lovely face
Peeping slyly up at me,
Mocking when I make grimace.
Can it be? Can it be?
Yes, it is my own I see.”
They had come to a place where there was a pool set round with blossoms
and reeds, like a mirror in a charming frame. All around it a number of
little girls were kneeling, bending over, smiling, bowing to themselves,
making the most extraordinary grimaces as they decked themselves with
flowers, and talked and sang to their own reflections.
A fat, green frog and his family sat on a water lily leaf; all the frogs
hopped and bowed as they looked over its border, croaking all the time,
as much as to say:
“Look at us; admire us! Are we not beautiful creatures?”
[Illustration]
“Who are those children, are they idiots?” asked Kitty in an affrighted
whisper.
“They are worse than idiots; they are vain,” sighed her guide.
The children were far too much occupied gazing at themselves to see any
one else. They kept on murmuring lovingly to their reflections down in
the water.
“Is that not a lovely smile?
Lips of coral, teeth like pearls,
Nose of truly Grecian style,
Eyes of sapphire, silken curls,”
sang one softly, continuing to smile to herself.
“Such a nose
No one knows,
Two lips like a budding rose
Placed for pretty nose to smell,
Pinky ear shaped like a shell,”
crooned a second, who was making grimaces in her efforts to kiss her own
face.
“Oh where, and oh where
Is a girl whose hair
Runs to curl? How fair!
How fine! see it shine!
Sweet curl! darling girl!”
a third sang joyously, putting a wreath on her head.
“A silken robe,
A spreading train
Rustling there and back again;
A veil of lace,
A gracious face,
A queen, a queen, and fit to reign,”
joined in another, promenading up and down and craning her neck to see
the effect of her dress at the back.
Then together all the children sang:
“Who cares for work!
Who cares for play!
Don’t disturb me now, I pray;
There is no prettier sight for me
Than when my charming self I see.”
“Croak, croak, croak,” joined in the frogs, jumping in accompaniment to
the song.
Kitty was never to forget the sight; the pretty, shining pool surrounded
by beautiful flowers; the speckled frogs gazing at themselves
affectionately over the edge of the lily leaf; the little girls
grimacing, smiling, and singing to themselves so lovingly. It all seemed
so droll that she burst out laughing.
Suddenly she stopped, for she heard her laugh taken up by everything
around her; up in the trees, down from the sky, all through the reeds
and flowers. Everything was laughing with Kitty’s laugh.
She stopped, and still the laugh was going on. Ha!ha!ha! Ho!ho!ho! As if
everything had been inwardly laughing until then, but had not known how
to express laughter until she gave it a voice.
The children started to their feet; they looked around, they saw Kitty,
and were rushing toward her in their anger, when all at once, but whence
Kitty could not tell, there appeared the two severe old women waving
their birch rods.
“Hoity! toity!” they muttered, laying hold of as many of the children as
they could pounce upon. “You’ll have enough of your faces by Christmas
Day in Punishment Land.”
They strode off so quickly with the children tucked under their arms
that Kitty could not tell which way they had gone, any more than she
could tell how they had come.
[Illustration]
“I am not vain. I never look at myself in the glass,” remarked the
little girl in her high voice; as she said this another pimple came out,
this time on her forehead, over her right eye. “When I brush my hair, or
pin on my collar, I shut my eyes not to see my face. Not even to have a
peep.”
“I wonder,” said Kitty, watching with great interest the pimples
spreading and spreading, “how you ever came to Naughty Children Land
when you are so good.”
“I come to teach the children to be good,” answered her guide with a
smug sigh.
Another pimple, larger than the others, was just coming out on her left
cheek, when Kitty gave a start and the demure little girl a scream. One
of the old ladies suddenly appeared behind the latter’s back—how she had
come there was the wonder; she tucked the boaster under her arm, and
marched off at a tremendous rate, with her captive screaming and
wriggling in the wildest passion.
“I am sure she was not a bit good, and I am sure she was a great
goose—never killing a flea or taking a peep at herself in the glass,”
muttered Kitty, straining her eyes to discover which way they had gone.
“I wonder where the old women take them?” she continued.
Look which way she would she could not see them. They had disappeared
clean out of sight before she could have said “Daddy Coax.”
“It certainly is Vanish Land as well as Naughty Children Land,” thought
Kitty dejectedly. “How can I ever find Daddy Coax?”
She perceived she was now standing on the edge of the wood and at the
entrance of a lane. The lane seemed to lead to Untidy Village. She could
just see the houses with the broken window-panes, the weedy gardens, the
ground all covered with broken toys and torn books.
Kitty took heart. “I’ll run down the lane. I am sure Daddy Coax lives in
the village.”
She had not gone many steps down the lane when she came upon a party of
boys and girls having a picnic. Gracious! how they gobbled; it was a
sight to see. They doubled up whole buns into their mouths, crammed down
tarts and lumps of cakes. Their cheeks were puffed out, their noses
hidden. Every now and then they gave a grasp, stroked themselves up and
down, and set to again.
“Could you please tell me the way to Daddy Coax’s house?” asked Kitty
politely, trying to look as if she were not at all astonished at the
quantity the children were eating or their manner of gobbling.
They said something that sounded between a snort, a sneeze, and a
mouthful of pudding, and went on cramming.
Thin birds hovered above them, lean dogs and cats peered hungrily at the
feast; but when the birds came down to pick up the crumbs, or the dogs
advanced with an entreating whine, and the cats slowly with glittering
eyes, the gobblers, with a hiss, waved their arms and frightened away
the beggars.
“I think it is perfectly disgusting to be so greedy,” said Kitty,
turning her back upon the picnickers. She walked off slowly. She could
not bear the sight of the hungry animals repulsed by these children, who
looked all fat cheeks.
No wonder the dogs she met appeared to be always watching their
opportunity to bite somebody’s legs; that the cats seemed to have no
purr in them; the birds no sweet thanksgiving song; that the crests of
the cocks and hens hung depressed like bits of red rags out of an
old-clothes shop.
“I am sure these fowls have no merry thoughts,” said Kitty, trying to
make a joke just because she felt so miserable.
A fat small boy, with cheeks the color and shape of suet-dumplings, was
sitting apart by himself, gazing with a melancholy air at a tart that he
had nibbled all round.
“I cannot finish it,” he said to Kitty, looking sadly at her. “I have
shaken myself, but it makes no difference. There is no more room inside
me.”
“Never mind, you’ll eat it by and by, when you are hungry again. It will
taste better then,” said Kitty encouragingly.
“It could not taste better,” said the boy sadly. “It was a beautiful
tart, all jam and almonds, with custard on the top. A lovely tart. I
have eaten thirteen, all different. I feel a little sick. Ah!” he went
on with a sigh that almost blew his tart away, “what a dreadful thing to
have all those good things to eat and not to be hungry! I wish I were
always hungry, and had always something good to eat.”
[Illustration]
“But then you would do nothing but eat,” remarked Kitty, turning away.
“Nothing but eat tarts and cakes and sweets, never feel sick, never be
interrupted; that must be heaven,” said the boy, nodding drowsily.
Kitty was leaving him with the toss of her head, the firm closing of her
lips, and dilating of her nostrils that was her usual way of showing
indignation, when she recollected that she did not know her way to Daddy
Coax’s house.
“Please before you go to sleep,” she said, steadily looking over the
boy’s head, but trying to make her voice sound pleasant, “would you tell
me the way to Daddy Coax’s house?”
“Yes, I know it; it is close to the sweet-stuff shop. Straight on.” The
boy made an effort to get up, but down he sprawled again. “I cannot walk
just now, or I would go with you as far as the sweet-stuff shop. There
is lovely barley-sugar and plum-cake, and lots of raisins. Bath-buns
stuck all over with lumps of sugar, and jam-puffs. Which do you like
best, jam-puffs or plum-cake?”
“Neither,” said Kitty, jerking out the word and jerking up her chin.
“Neither!” feebly echoed the fat boy, his cheeks quivering with
surprise. “Bath-buns, then?”
“You are very dull,” interrupted Kitty with flashing eyes. “Whichever
way I turn the conversation you turn it back to tarts and cakes.”
“Con—ver—sa—tion! What is that? Is it plum-preserves or straw—ber—ry?”
and he nodded asleep with a snore.
“Conversation—preserves! He is stupid!” said Kitty, walking away. She
tried to laugh, just to keep from feeling miserable.
Naughty Children Land was a dull, ugly place. She had changed her mind
concerning it. She wished, with all the might of her little heart, she
had never put her foot inside it, and she was glad Johnnie had not come
with her.
As she came nearer to the end of the lane she could more plainly see the
village of which she had caught only glimpses. There were the houses
with the broken window-panes, through which she could see the smashed
crockery and furniture, and the cross, fat children looking out. There
were the gardens all a-tangle of thistles and weeds. There were more
frightened animals, more shrieking, squabbling children, kicking and
growing purple in the face. There were the do-nothing children dolefully
crying among their broken toys and their torn lesson-books. There were
the mischievous children playing pranks upon everybody. All were
unhappy! Coming, Kitty could not tell whence, and going, she did not
know whither, appearing here—there—everywhere—as if out of the air, were
the stern old ladies, pouncing upon the children and disappearing with
them.
Kitty now perceived a group of little girls who looked tattered and
torn, and who seemed to be playing at some game. They were running about
in all directions, looking here—looking there—emptying their
pockets—banging their sides—searching the ground—stopping suddenly and
tapping their foreheads, as if to find something there.
They were in rags, but they had good-humored, slobbery, dirty faces.
“I beg your pardon for interrupting you; but could you tell me the way
to Daddy Coax’s house?” Kitty asked in her best-company-manners voice,
for she felt this was her last chance—no one else could tell her if
these children did not.
“Daddy Coax! oh, yes, certainly—we know it quite well. Turn on your
right—no—no—turn on your left. No; keep straight along.”
“Daddy Coax’s house! Why, of course—it’s somewhere.”
They all spoke together, or rather each before the other had finished,
so their words sounded as if treading on each other’s heels. They all
pointed as they spoke, first one way, then the other. At last they all
tapped their foreheads, and looked at each other, as if for inspiration.
Then they returned to their game. What was the game? Was it hunt the
slipper?
It was hunt the slipper, hunt the handkerchief, hunt the pencil, hunt
everything!
“There’s my boot!” cried one. “It had got into my pocket.”
“I have found my handkerchief!” shouted another triumphantly. “It had
crumpled itself up in my sandwich-box.”
“There is my geography-book, oh, dear! oh, dear! It had gone and thrown
itself into the slop-pail.”
“Did any one ever see so many blots?” dolefully muttered one little
girl, turning over the pages of her copy-book. “It is all the fault of
that paper. It attracts the ink so.”
Kitty rather liked this way of explaining the presence of blots. She
thought there was something in it.
“Clang! clang!” went a bell. The untidy children rushed about, looking
here, looking there, more furiously than ever, and as they searched they
sang faster and faster:
“‘Where is it? where is it? where is it?
Where can it have got to?’ we say.
Only just turn your head, and you miss it.
Where’s this thing, and that thing, and t’other?
Oh, dear, what a terrible bother
That things should be always astray.
Where is it? where is it? we say.
They were all of them here just this minute,
Yet nothing will keep in its place,
As to ‘order’—just try to begin it.
Here’s the soap in a shoe, and the hammer,
The taffy put inside the grammar,
The boot that was wanting a lace.
Oh, don’t talk to us of disgrace,
For nothing will keep in its place!
It’s hurry and scuttle and race;
That’s the way
Every day.
Where is it? where is it? we say.”
Singing the last words, they ran toward the village. As they ran they
dropped their books, their pencils, their hats, their gloves.
“Well, they are untidy,” said Kitty.
She remained with her eyes round open with surprise. She was just on the
threshold of a pretty house which she had not perceived before. There
was a porch before the door, with a creeper over it; and under it an old
gentleman was sitting fast asleep in a garden arm-chair, with a
handkerchief over his knees.
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