One time a knook became tired of his beautiful life and longed for
something new to do. The knooks have more wonderful powers than any
other immortal folk—except, perhaps, the fairies and ryls. So one would
suppose that a knook who might gain anything he desired by a simple
wish could not be otherwise than happy and contented. But such was not
the case with Popopo, the knook we are speaking of. He had lived
thousands of years, and had enjoyed all the wonders he could think of.
Yet life had become as tedious to him now as it might be to one who was
unable to gratify a single wish.
Finally, by chance, Popopo thought of the earth people who dwell in
cities, and so he resolved to visit them and see how they lived. This
would surely be fine amusement, and serve to pass away many wearisome
hours.
Therefore one morning, after a breakfast so dainty that you could
scarcely imagine it, Popopo set out for the earth and at once was in
the midst of a big city.
His own dwelling was so quiet and peaceful that the roaring noise of
the town startled him. His nerves were so shocked that before he had
looked around three minutes he decided to give up the adventure, and
instantly returned home.
This satisfied for a time his desire to visit the earth cities, but
soon the monotony of his existence again made him restless and gave him
another thought. At night the people slept and the cities would be
quiet. He would visit them at night.
So at the proper time Popopo transported himself in a jiffy to a great
city, where he began wandering about the streets. Everyone was in bed.
No wagons rattled along the pavements; no throngs of busy men shouted
and halloaed. Even the policemen slumbered slyly and there happened to
be no prowling thieves abroad.
His nerves being soothed by the stillness, Popopo began to enjoy
himself. He entered many of the houses and examined their rooms with
much curiosity. Locks and bolts made no difference to a knook, and he
saw as well in darkness as in daylight.
After a time he strolled into the business portion of the city. Stores
are unknown among the immortals, who have no need of money or of barter
and exchange; so Popopo was greatly interested by the novel sight of so
many collections of goods and merchandise.
During his wanderings he entered a millinery shop, and was surprised to
see within a large glass case a great number of women’s hats, each
bearing in one position or another a stuffed bird. Indeed, some of the
most elaborate hats had two or three birds upon them.
Now knooks are the especial guardians of birds, and love them dearly.
To see so many of his little friends shut up in a glass case annoyed
and grieved Popopo, who had no idea they had purposely been placed upon
the hats by the milliner. So he slid back one of the doors of the case,
gave the little chirruping whistle of the knooks that all birds know
well, and called:
“Come, friends; the door is open—fly out!”
Popopo did not know the birds were stuffed; but, stuffed or not, every
bird is bound to obey a knook’s whistle and a knook’s call. So they
left the hats, flew out of the case and began fluttering about the
room.
“Poor dears!” said the kind-hearted knook, “you long to be in the
fields and forests again.”
Then he opened the outer door for them and cried: “Off with you! Fly
away, my beauties, and be happy again.”
The astonished birds at once obeyed, and when they had soared away into
the night air the knook closed the door and continued his wandering
through the streets.
By dawn he saw many interesting sights, but day broke before he had
finished the city, and he resolved to come the next evening a few hours
earlier.
As soon as it was dark the following day he came again to the city and
on passing the millinery shop noticed a light within. Entering he found
two women, one of whom leaned her head upon the table and sobbed
bitterly, while the other strove to comfort her.
Of course Popopo was invisible to mortal eyes, so he stood by and
listened to their conversation.
“Cheer up, sister,” said one. “Even though your pretty birds have all
been stolen the hats themselves remain.”
“Alas!” cried the other, who was the milliner, “no one will buy my hats
partly trimmed, for the fashion is to wear birds upon them. And if I
cannot sell my goods I shall be utterly ruined.”
Then she renewed her sobbing and the knook stole away, feeling a little
ashamed to realized that in his love for the birds he had unconsciously
wronged one of the earth people and made her unhappy.
This thought brought him back to the millinery shop later in the night,
when the two women had gone home. He wanted, in some way, to replace
the birds upon the hats, that the poor woman might be happy again. So
he searched until he came upon a nearby cellar full of little gray
mice, who lived quite undisturbed and gained a livelihood by gnawing
through the walls into neighboring houses and stealing food from the
pantries.
“Here are just the creatures,” thought Popopo, “to place upon the
woman’s hats. Their fur is almost as soft as the plumage of the birds,
and it strikes me the mice are remarkably pretty and graceful animals.
Moreover, they now pass their lives in stealing, and were they obliged
to remain always upon women’s hats their morals would be much
improved.”
So he exercised a charm that drew all the mice from the cellar and
placed them upon the hats in the glass case, where they occupied the
places the birds had vacated and looked very becoming—at least, in the
eyes of the unworldly knook. To prevent their running about and leaving
the hats Popopo rendered them motionless, and then he was so pleased
with his work that he decided to remain in the shop and witness the
delight of the milliner when she saw how daintily her hats were now
trimmed.
She came in the early morning, accompanied by her sister, and her face
wore a sad and resigned expression. After sweeping and dusting the shop
and drawing the blinds she opened the glass case and took out a hat.
But when she saw a tiny gray mouse nestling among the ribbons and laces
she gave a loud shriek, and, dropping the hat, sprang with one bound to
the top of the table. The sister, knowing the shriek to be one of fear,
leaped upon a chair and exclaimed:
“What is it? Oh! what is it?”
“A mouse!” gasped the milliner, trembling with terror.
Popopo, seeing this commotion, now realized that mice are especially
disagreeable to human beings, and that he had made a grave mistake in
placing them upon the hats; so he gave a low whistle of command that
was heard only by the mice.
Instantly they all jumped from the hats, dashed out the open door of
the glass case and scampered away to their cellar. But this action so
frightened the milliner and her sister that after giving several loud
screams they fell upon their backs on the floor and fainted away.
Popopo was a kind-hearted knook, but on witnessing all this misery,
caused by his own ignorance of the ways of humans, he straightway
wished himself at home, and so left the poor women to recover as best
they could.
Yet he could not escape a sad feeling of responsibility, and after
thinking upon the matter he decided that since he had caused the
milliner’s unhappiness by freeing the birds, he could set the matter
right by restoring them to the glass case. He loved the birds, and
disliked to condemn them to slavery again; but that seemed the only way
to end the trouble.
So he set off to find the birds. They had flown a long distance, but it
was nothing to Popopo to reach them in a second, and he discovered them
sitting upon the branches of a big chestnut tree and singing gayly.
When they saw the knook the birds cried:
“Thank you, Popopo. Thank you for setting us free.”
“Do not thank me,” returned the knook, “for I have come to send you
back to the millinery shop.”
“Why?” demanded a blue jay, angrily, while the others stopped their
songs.
“Because I find the woman considers you her property, and your loss has
caused her much unhappiness,” answered Popopo.
“But remember how unhappy we were in her glass case,” said a robin
redbreast, gravely. “And as for being her property, you are a knook,
and the natural guardian of all birds; so you know that Nature created
us free. To be sure, wicked men shot and stuffed us, and sold us to the
milliner; but the idea of our being her property is nonsense!”
Popopo was puzzled.
“If I leave you free,” he said, “wicked men will shoot you again, and
you will be no better off than before.”
“Pooh!” exclaimed the blue jay, “we cannot be shot now, for we are
stuffed. Indeed, two men fired several shots at us this morning, but
the bullets only ruffled our feathers and buried themselves in our
stuffing. We do not fear men now.”
“Listen!” said Popopo, sternly, for he felt the birds were getting the
best of the argument; “the poor milliner’s business will be ruined if I
do not return you to her shop. It seems you are necessary to trim the
hats properly. It is the fashion for women to wear birds upon their
headgear. So the poor milliner’s wares, although beautified by lace and
ribbons, are worthless unless you are perched upon them.”
“Fashions,” said a black bird, solemnly, “are made by men. What law is
there, among birds or knooks, that requires us to be the slaves of
fashion?”
“What have we to do with fashions, anyway?” screamed a linnet. “If it
were the fashion to wear knooks perched upon women’s hats would you be
contented to stay there? Answer me, Popopo!”
But Popopo was in despair. He could not wrong the birds by sending them
back to the milliner, nor did he wish the milliner to suffer by their
loss. So he went home to think what could be done.
After much meditation he decided to consult the king of the knooks, and
going at once to his majesty he told him the whole story.
The king frowned.
“This should teach you the folly of interfering with earth people,” he
said. “But since you have caused all this trouble, it is your duty to
remedy it. Our birds cannot be enslaved, that is certain; therefore you
must have the fashions changed, so it will no longer be stylish for
women to wear birds upon their hats.”
“How shall I do that?” asked Popopo.
“Easily enough. Fashions often change among the earth people, who tire
quickly of any one thing. When they read in their newspapers and
magazines that the style is so-and-so, they never question the matter,
but at once obey the mandate of fashion. So you must visit the
newspapers and magazines and enchant the types.”
“Enchant the types!” echoed Popopo, in wonder.
“Just so. Make them read that it is no longer the fashion to wear birds
upon hats. That will afford relief to your poor milliner and at the
same time set free thousands of our darling birds who have been so
cruelly used.”
Popopo thanked the wise king and followed his advice.
The office of every newspaper and magazine in the city was visited by
the knook, and then he went to other cities, until there was not a
publication in the land that had not a “new fashion note” in its pages.
Sometimes Popopo enchanted the types, so that whoever read the print
would see only what the knook wished them to. Sometimes he called upon
the busy editors and befuddled their brains until they wrote exactly
what he wanted them to. Mortals seldom know how greatly they are
influenced by fairies, knooks and ryls, who often put thoughts into
their heads that only the wise little immortals could have conceived.
The following morning when the poor milliner looked over her newspaper
she was overjoyed to read that “no woman could now wear a bird upon her
hat and be in style, for the newest fashion required only ribbons and
laces.”
Popopo after this found much enjoyment in visiting every millinery shop
he could find and giving new life to the stuffed birds which were
carelessly tossed aside as useless. And they flew to the fields and
forests with songs of thanks to the good knook who had rescued them.
Sometimes a hunter fires his gun at a bird and then wonders why he did
not hit it. But, having read this story, you will understand that the
bird must have been a stuffed one from some millinery shop, which
cannot, of course, be killed by a gun.