“EAT OR BE EATEN.”
AND well she might start, for in the midst of a kind of steamy odor,
like the essence of fifty kitchens of fifty hotels, added to fifty
pastry cooks’ shops and fifty fruit gardens in the sun, she heard a
gurgle which turned into a voice.
“Good to eat! Roasted, stewed, boiled—which shall it be?” said some one
who popped out and laid a hand with such suddenness upon her shoulder
that Kitty almost dropped with fright.
[Illustration: APPLE-PIE CORNER.—Page 193.]
The creature who held her so tight was dressed from head to foot in
white linen; he wore an apron and white cap like a French cook. He
twirled a knife, and looked at Kitty with a pair of bloodshot eyes. His
cheeks were purple and pendulous, his figure was flabby and fat; it
suggested two suet puddings placed on the top of each other, and set
upon a pair of legs. What with his pendulous cheeks and his bloodshot
eyes, he reminded Kitty of an overfed pug dog.
“Indeed, I am not at all good to eat—not in any way,” said Kitty with an
attempt at dignity, but in a quavering voice.
“If you’re not good to eat, then you are ready to eat. Eat or be
eaten—that is all life in a nut-shell.” The creature chuckled.
Kitty felt rather nervous under the glance of his rolling red eyes, so
she did not like to suggest there was something else to be done than to
eat or be eaten.
“Would you please tell me,” she said politely, “where this road leads
to?”
“Where to! why, to a lot of places. Apple-pie Corner—Vanilla-cream
Pond—Almond-rock Valley—Barley-sugar Field—Chocolate Pavilion—lawn
tennis with plum-pudding balls—”
“Oh, don’t—don’t!” cried Kitty, putting up her hands to her ears. “It
sounds as if the world were nothing but a big dinner-table.”
“You’ve hit it to a T! A big dinner-table—with everything in it eating
or being eaten,” and the creature panted out his words.
“Pray,” said Kitty, jerking her head back, “would you let me pass? I am
in such a hurry.”
“Not till you have chosen what you will do—eat or be eaten,” said the
creature hoarsely.
“Well, of course, I had rather eat,” said Kitty reluctantly.
“Pass on, then!” said the being of the pendulous cheeks, loosing his
grasp. And then as Kitty ran along she heard him puffing, panting,
rumbling out:
“Eat or be eaten—eat or be eaten.”
“What an old prose he is!” thought Kitty. “One idea goes a long way with
him. If he is a goblin, they should call him ‘Gobbling’ Greediness.”
“Goblin Greediness. Take care!” whispered the guardian child.
“Oh!” cried Kitty, laughing, “I need only think of his fat, flabby
cheeks and his bloodshot eyes to lose all care for eating, were I ever
so hungry!”
The air seemed to be made up of the scent of everything she liked
best—ripe strawberries and vanilla-cream, with a touch of pine-apples
and peach. All at once there came a great puff of chocolate perfume.
“Lo—ove—ly!” sighed Kitty, shutting her eyes and sniffing.
“Ex—cel—lent!” chuckled the naughty sprite, opening its nose.
“Shut your nose,” whispered the guardian child anxiously.
Kitty laughed. She thought it was just a little exacting of the guardian
child to advise her to shut her nose. What harm could there be in a
perfume, especially if in smelling it she kept her eyes fixed upon the
star, and she did not stray from the path?
The odor grew more and more enticing. She took in deeper and deeper
breaths of that smell of ripe sunlighty fruit with an entrancing
suggestion of burnt almonds stealing upon the breeze.
“It is dangerous! it is dangerous! Think of the Christmas blessing for
Johnnie! Think of the fog picture of the greedy children!” murmured the
guardian child restlessly.
“Oh! what harm can there be in smelling a taste?” laughed Kitty, with a
confident glance first at the glistening little figure standing erect
and watchful on her right shoulder, then giving a peep round to the
sprite, who was sniffing with a look of expectation.
“You are not hungry! you are not thirsty!” whispered the guardian child.
The naughty sprite jogged Kitty’s cheek in a friendly fashion, and
pointed with its furry paw. She gave a sidelong look in the direction it
indicated. Then she paused in amazement. Was it fruit-country they were
going through? No wonder it smelled so sweet! Hot-house fruit and garden
fruit grew together in glowing profusion. There were fields of
strawberry-beds, where the red berries shone like elfin lanterns through
the fresh green leaves. There were plantations of bananas, and each
banana was like a hatchet of gold. There were martial-looking
pine-apples burnished like copper helmets, guarded by pale-green swords
of spiky leaves. Enormous bunches of grapes hung down, each grape big as
a plum; purple grapes, grapes blue on one side, redly transparent on the
other; white grapes golden and gleaming. And oh! the peaches and the
nectarines were as plentiful as blackberries.
A thousand tiny voices seemed to be calling to Kitty in audible gusts of
perfume: “Eat us! taste us! with the touch of sunshine upon us!”
“Is there any any harm to pluck and eat some of that delicious fruit?”
asked Kitty, who had never felt such a desire to set her teeth in a
juicy peach.
“No Christmas! no blessing! no Johnnie! if you loiter,” murmured the
guardian child. “You are not in need of food. You are not hungry—you are
not thirsty—it would be greediness.”
“Suck!” said the naughty sprite. He had plucked an enormous strawberry
and put it to Kitty’s mouth.
“Don’t!” whispered the guardian child.
Kitty looked up impatiently. His eyes were fixed on the star. He looked
so bright, so good, so like Johnnie, Kitty felt ashamed and put the
strawberry aside.
“Silly!” hissed the naughty sprite.
“Christmas blessing! Christmas blessing!” laughed the guardian child as
Kitty set off running up the narrow path, closing her eyes not to see
the tempting fruit.
A sound of many feet made her open her eyes.
Helter! skelter! a crowd of children were bounding along, all in one
direction, laughing as they went.
“Only a few steps more! only a few steps more!” murmured the guardian
child.
“And we’ll be out of the pleasantest, sweetest-smelling, merriest
place,” growled the naughty sprite, with a great roll of rrs and hiss of
ss.
One boy lingered behind the other children. He was a jovial-looking
little fellow with twinkling blue eyes squeezed up into his ruddy
cheeks, the corners of his lips curled up comfortably. He had a comical
friendly air; he reminded Kitty of a child Father Christmas.
“You are going the wrong way for the big pie,” he said, in a voice that
sounded like a deep rich murmur. It was a comfortable, suetty sort of a
voice.
[Illustration]
“The big pie!” replied Kitty, surprised and interested. The naughty
sprite gave a caper.
“Do not loiter!” whispered the guardian child.
“The biggest pie that ever was made, and the best. Such a pie!” cried
the boy. He gathered his fat finger-tips in a bunch, kissed them and
spread them open in the air, as if words failed to describe that pie.
“I am following the star,” Kitty remarked in a depressed but resolute
tone.
“Time enough after you have had a slice of pie,” whispered the sprite
insinuatingly.
“Look! the star is passing away,” urged the guardian child.
“I’ll think you’re an affected silly,” said the boy.
“I am not an affected silly,” cried Kitty, turning very red.
“Come along, then.”
Kitty felt her palm and fingers rolled up in a soft warm pudding of a
hand, and she allowed herself to be dragged along.
What a run that was! The grapes touched her lips as she passed like
silken fingers, the bananas gave delicious blows to her cheeks, the
peaches caressed her with their velvet skins, the cherries pelted her.
She passed by a brown pool of chocolate-cream, in which ladies’ fingers
stood up like reeds. She ran across a field where barley-sugar grew, and
crystallized wild flowers. She came to a valley strewn with immense
lumps like bowlders of almond-rock.
There the great table was set, under a pavilion made of gingerbread. The
pie rose in the center. It was an immense pie, as big as a one-story
house with its roof on, and it was all angles and bulges. It was white
with sugar. All around it was clustered every dainty that could be
imagined.
Children smacking their lips were assembled, and the moment the fat boy
took his seat at the head of the table, with Kitty at his right hand,
they all began to help themselves.
Kitty’s fingers itched to close over the delicious, crisp, sugary
morsels spread near her.
“Don’t!” sighed the guardian child each time she stretched out her hand.
The naughty sprite licked its lips and smacked its tongue. It was all in
a tremble of delight, and repeated the names of all the good things
around in a most expressive tone, that seemed to bring their flavor to
Kitty’s mouth. More and more she longed for delicious things to eat and
drink. Yet every time her hand was stretched out to snatch at something
near her—
“Don’t!” murmured the guardian child.
“Eat, drink, and never mind,” urged the sprite in a jovial, don’t-care
manner.
Kitty shook her head, as if shaking off the thought of consequences. She
would eat. She stretched out her hand; it closed upon a big, crisp
sugar-plum. She put it to her mouth.
The naughty sprite crouched like a pouncing pussy.
“Greedy, greedy! No Christmas! No Johnnie! No blessing!” sighed a breath
in her ear.
Kitty looked up; her guardian child, pale as a ghost, was vanishing
away, but still his eyes were turned toward her. They were Johnnie’s
eyes.
She dropped the sugar-plum. “No, no!” she cried, springing to her feet.
“I shall not eat; I shall not drink!”
There was a great scuffle round her; the guests had started to their
feet.
Kitty clapped her hands against her ears, not to hear her naughty sprite
crying out “Silly, silly!” She was surrounded by the children; they
tried to force sweet, cool fruit and sugar-plums between her lips. All
the while that craving for good things that was not hunger or thirst
fought against her like a wolf; but she went blindly on resisting.
How long the struggle lasted she could not tell, but all at once Kitty
knew her enemies had left her.
That faint peal of distant Christmas bells again sounded in her ear, and
looking up she found herself on the steep and narrow path, the star
shining above her.
“Conquered! conquered! Good old Kitsy! good old Kitsy!” sang her
guardian child, in the old familiar comforting words, as he fanned her
with his rosy wings. He seemed brighter, rosier than ever.
[Illustration]
The sprite glared at her with wild eyes, full of disappointment.
“I shall never reach my journey’s end,” cried Kitty, bursting into
tears. “If I could but rest a little while—just a little while—before
going on further through that dreadful wood.”
“Look, you may rest; the star has stopped,” said her guardian child,
pointing.
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