I was a tiny little beetle just your size. It’s a grand old house.
Not a skirting board within half an inch of the floor, cracks in all
the walls and holes in the plaster. I wonder what sort of people are
living in it.”
“Newly married people,” said little Jimmy, “whatever that may mean. I
heard the cook say so, and the policeman told her about it.”
“Ah!” said Butterwops, rubbing his hind legs together thoughtfully;
“newly married people. They will do for us. They will have lots of
sugar and leave it about, and then they will get some children to live
with them, and the children won’t eat fat and will make crumbs all over
the floors; there will be lots to eat. We shall move.”
That night “The General” called all the beetles round him after the
cook had rolled the rug up and had gone to bed, and, sitting on the
heel of one of the master’s boots which were drying on the fender,
explained to all the beetles that they must move across the road.
“For,” said he, “there is a newly married couple over the way. Now this
kind of human being eats little else than sugar, and knows nothing of
the ways of the world or the habits of the beetle. Their hearts are
full of kindliness, and believing others to be as good as they are,
they leave the best food in the easiest places. So happy are they
together, that they would not interfere with the happiness of others,
even though they are black and wear shells. With them we may live for
many years in health and comfort, whereas, here we die by tens and
twenties every night. Arise, therefore, and follow me carefully and
quickly. But when you are on the pavements in the road listen carefully
for the tread of the policeman. If he comes among us while we are on
the pavements he will kill many of us, for policemen have bigger feet
than any other kind of men; only, luckily, they wear squeaky boots
so that they may be heard coming a long way off. Now follow me and
remember what I have said.”
So speaking he crawled off the boot, down across the floor, under the
scullery door, along the garden walk, across the pavements, in at the
opposite gateway, round to the back door of the other house; and in
half an hour Butterwops, little Jimmy, and two hundred and forty-nine
of the beetles were safe in their new house, having crossed the road
with the loss of only three beetles. Two tumbled down a drain, and a
third lost his way in trying to make a short cut across a flower bed.
They all set to work to get comfortable in their new quarters, and
Butterwops, who liked to be near the fire, found a crack in the wall on
top of the oven where they dried the wood. From this place of safety,
he could come out and walk about among the warm wood and enjoy the
heat, and yet run away on the first alarm.
“This is capital,” he said, as he sat warming himself and watching
twenty-five beetles climbing into the sugar basin at once; “this is
peace and quiet, and here we shall be very happy.”
As for the master of the old house they had lived in, he was very happy
too, and wrote and told the man from whom he had bought the yellow
powder: “Your powder has killed all the beetles in my house.” And the
man who sold the powder printed that in all the newspapers, and other
people bought it; but it did not kill all their beetles, and that made
them angry. Now if they read this story they will know how it really
happened.
Although, as I have said, the house itself was very old, and suitable
for beetles in every respect, yet all the things in the house were
new, and perhaps the newest thing of all was the young servant, who
seemed rather jealous of the other new things and often broke them. At
present they had no cat, and as there was no one else to blame, the new
mistress scolded the new servant, and then they both cried; especially
if it happened, as it often did, that what was broken was a wedding
present. However, the mistress was far too happy to be angry for long,
and too proud of all the beautiful pots and pans in the kitchen, which
she loved better than any of the lovely furniture in the drawing-room,
to keep away from them for many hours. Besides, the young servant
did not know much about anything, and the mistress used to help her
to cook, and especially to get the master’s tea ready when he came
home. Indeed, in spite of the breakages, they were all very happy. The
mistress used to go about the house singing brightly and cheerfully;
while the young servant had four lumps of sugar in her tea and a
large slice of cake with it every night, so that she was quite happy,
although singing was out of the question. As for the master, you had
only to see him running up the house steps to see how glad he was to
get home again after his day’s work.
And dear old Butterwops! Why, it did his kind heart good to see so much
happiness. The food was left about in easy places, and the larder door
was always wide open so that you did not have to scrape your shell
getting underneath it. It was a grand place for beetles, and Butterwops
told them that if they kept quiet during the day and came out only at
night, things would go well with them. Indeed, I have no doubt it would
have been as he said, if they had only obeyed his instructions; but
beetles, like children, sometimes forget to do what they are told.
Little Jimmy, for instance, was never happy unless he was frightening
womenkind, and one afternoon three or four days after they had arrived,
when the mistress and her servant were getting tea ready, he scuttled
across the room, helter-skelter, right under their eyes. The girl
saw him first and threw the toasting fork on to the best tea-things,
breaking two cups and saucers with it; she bounded on to a chair,
pulled her skirts tight round her legs and screamed out, “Beetles!
Black ones.”
In a moment the mistress dropped the kettle, which nearly crushed
little Jimmy, and jumped on to the table herself, screaming louder than
the servant. Little Jimmy could hardly get under the skirting board, he
was laughing so, and old Butterwops, looking out cautiously from the
wood pile grunted to himself, “Little Jimmy again,” for he knew who
must have done it as soon as he heard the women screaming.
How long the two ladies might have stayed there screaming before they
would have dared to step down on to the floor again I do not know, but
the master of the house came in just then, and hearing the cause of the
trouble laughed aloud and said. “If there are beetles, I will get a
beetle trap.” And he did so.
That night he brought one into the kitchen, and before they went to
bed he and his wife mixed up a dose of treacle and sugar and put it in
the trap and left the trap on the floor. Butterwops was looking on all
the time from out of the wood pile, and he laughed all down the back
of his shell at them. He had seen that kind of beetle trap before. It
was a box of wood, with sloping sides to walk up and a sort of inkstand
in the middle, leading to the sugar and treacle. When you walk up the
sides, you smelled the mixture and if you went to the edge of the glass
inkstand, you stepped in and got drowned. There was no getting out of
it.
That night Butterwops was very anxious about the other beetles, for he
knew what duffers they were, so he got down right away and sat on the
edge of the trap and told them all about it. As the master of the house
had been foolish enough to leave the sugar and treacle on the table,
no one bothered about the trap. They had a merry feast, only spoilt by
one giddy young beetle tumbling head first into the treacle pot, and
there the master found him when he came down to light the fire. When he
found nothing in the trap, and the dead beetle in the treacle pot on
the table, he seemed very angry and threw both treacle and trap out of
the scullery window, across the garden into the ashpit.
“To-night,” he said, “we will have a hedge-hog!”
Butterwops, who had stuck his head out of his crack to see what was
going on, drew it back quickly and shuddered at this, for he knew what
hedge-hogs were. His grandfather had been eaten by one in a garden
close to the house, and he had heard they were terrible fellows for
catching beetles, as indeed they are.
Sure enough, that night the master brought home a hedge-hog, a little
prickly round ball in a basket. He unrolled himself by the fire and had
a cup of milk.
“Let us call him Curlywig,” said the mistress, as she poured out the
milk; “he is such a little darling. See him drink.”
So they called him Curlywig; but he paid no attention to them, and
curled up on the rug and went to sleep.
That night Butterwops did not come down from the fireplace, but looked
out from the wood pile in great trouble. When all his army of beetles
were creeping and crawling over the floor, picking up food and having
a rare good time, he kept shouting out from the edge of a log: “Do go
home! Do go in! There’s a hedge-hog in the corner.”
But some of the beetles went close to Curlywig to look at him, and came
back and said to Butterwops: “Nonsense, it’s only a mop-head. You are
growing old and nervous, General. Go to bed and let us eat in peace.”
Almost as soon as they had spoken, Curlywig unrolled himself, and
darting here and there and everywhere, went round the room cracking up
beetles furiously while poor old Butterwops sat wringing his feelers
and crying out from the wood pile: “I told you so! I told you so!”
From that time onwards, there was no peace for beetles. If one put his
head up above a crack in the floor, Curlywig was on to him and he was
snapped up. In three days, one hundred and four beetles had been eaten,
and the rest were all starving. Butterwops himself had not tasted bite
or sup all the time, and you could hear little Jimmy crying behind the
skirting board that he had nothing to eat and was very hungry.
How long this might have gone on no one can say, but at last Butterwops
hit on a bright idea, and the next night as soon as the people of the
house were in bed, he came to the edge of the wood pile and said to the
hedge-hog: “Mr. Curlywig, sir!”
Curlywig looked up, and seeing a beetle, snapped his jaws at him but
said nothing.
“Mr. Curlywig, sir, can you explain to me why you are here?”
“To eat beetles, I suppose. What better job can you have? I’d eat you
if you would come down, though you look rather old and tough, and there
are lots of young ones left yet.”
“Ah, but I sha’n’t come down, thank you,” said Butterwops, smiling
blandly. “I suppose,” he continued, as if he was merely thinking it
out, “you don’t know what it is like to be eaten, do you?”
“Not I,” said Curlywig, “How should I?”
“No, of course not,” said Butterwops. “Poor little fellow, how should
he! It seems a cruel shame to bring him here for that. Poor little
fellow!”
“Who is a poor little fellow?” asked Curlywig, rather angrily.
“That’s what the mistress said, while you were asleep,” said
Butterwops, innocently, “as she was making the pie-crust. She said,
‘Poor little fellow, I hope they won’t hurt him skinning him!’”
Curlywig shivered in every prickle. “Who is to be skinned?” he snapped
out, looking round nervously.
“The cookery book was open at Hedge-hog Tart,” went on Butterwops,
quite coolly, as though he was talking about the weather, “and the
servant said at the rate you were eating beetles she thought you would
be fat enough by to-morrow.”
“Dear me! dear me!” said Curlywig; “what wicked things these men are.
I remember now when the master of the house bought me, he said: ‘Lean
little beggar this, but he’ll soon fatten up at our house for we are
full of black beetles,’ What wretches they are! What shall I do?”
“As far as I can learn,” continued Butterwops, “it is done like this.
You take a young hedge-hog, the fatter the better, first remove the
prickles and skin quickly----”
“Do be quiet,” groaned Curlywig, rolling himself up into a ball. “What
shall I do? What shall I do?”
“That is to say,” said Butterwops, “that is how it is done if they
decide on tart. If it’s to be curry you won’t be skinned, only then you
will catch it hotter in the saucepan.”
“Shut up!” shouted Curlywig, running round the kitchen table in
despair. “Oh my poor prickles! What shall I do?”
“Well, if I were you,” continued the General, calmly, “I do not think
I should stay on, but do not go on my account. You might squeeze under
the scullery door if you wanted to, or you may stay and be eaten and I
have no doubt you will look as handsome in a tart as you do out of it.
But after all, handsome is as handsome does, and the real question is
what will you taste like. Now you will never know, but I shall hear all
about it. Yes,” chuckled Buttercups, “I shall hear all about it.”
Curlywig was now galloping round the room mad with terror, shouting
out: “Oh, my poor prickles! Oh, my poor prickles!”
Butterwops continued slowly as though he was addressing a dear friend.
“I am really very sorry for you, but don’t worry so much. They are
going to put some steak and kidney in the pie, so you will have
company; and I dare say being baked is not bad, though I fear you won’t
like the skinning, especially this chilly weather. But it will soon be
over, and once inside the oven you will be warm again in a jiffy.”
Curlywig did not hear all this. He had heard enough. The foolish
fellow believed every word Butterwops said to him, and when he came
to the word skinning, Curlywig uttered a wild shriek and away he fled
underneath the scullery door, across the garden, out into the fields
beyond the church, where he hid in a dry ditch for three days, and
dared not move out for fear the people of the house were hunting him.
Then the beetles had peace and grew up with the children who came to
stay at that house, and cleaned up the floors, and kept out of sight as
much as might be. Even little Jimmy grew wiser and gave up frightening
the mistress. No one ever heard of Curlywig any more. And everyone in
that house, from the master of it down to little Jimmy, lived happily
ever afterwards.
This much more there is to tell: that if you can make friends with a
black beetle you should get him to tell you stories of Butterwops. And
this any good beetle will do willingly, for there never has been such
a General as he was before or since. But of all the many tales of his
valour and wisdom, there is none they love to tell better than the
story of how he outwitted Curlywig the Hedge-hog. “That,” as little
Jimmy said at a dinner given by all the beetles to their General to
celebrate Curlywig’s flight, “is a story fit to be written in letters
of Treacle on the Skirting Boards of Time.” (Adapted.)
FINIKIN AND HIS GOLDEN PIPPINS
MADAME DE CHATELAINE
In a quiet little village surrounded by woods, there once lived a poor
couple who owned nothing in the world but their cottage which sheltered
them and a bit of ground where a few vegetables grew. They were blessed
with two pretty little twin boys, much alike in face, though very
different in character. One was a tidy, diligent, active little fellow,
whom, on account of his delicate beauty, his mother used to call
Finikin. The other was an idle, careless child, who always loitered if
sent on an errand, and grumbled when asked to do any kind of work. This
one the mother called Winikin.
The father earned a little money by going out to work as a day
labourer. As long as he remained hale and hearty, he managed to
provide for the wants of his family. But one summer he fell ill, and
as they were too poor to buy good food and medicine he grew worse and
worse, till at length his recovery seemed almost hopeless.
One day the patient wife thought of a good old hermit who lived in the
neighboring forest, and who often gave advice to the poor cottagers. He
had cured many a one with medicine made from plants and other homely
remedies. She, therefore, called her boys and bade them go and ask the
hermit what could be done for their sick father.
“The good man may send you to gather healing plants,” she said,
“such as he often points out to the villagers. Be sure to follow his
directions carefully and above all, do not loiter on the way.” She
divided a rye-cake between them, to eat by the way, and off started the
two boys for the forest. No sooner had they reached it than they saw
from afar an old huntsman smoking his pipe under a tree.
“Oh!” cried Winikin, forgetting his mother’s caution, “there is old
Roger! Let’s go to him instead of to the hermit. He always tells us
such pleasant stories.”
“But father is very sick and mother told us not to loiter on the way,”
said Finikin.
“Surely,” said Winikin, “Roger’s advice will be as good as the
hermit’s. I shall not go any farther.”
So Finikin trudged on alone to the good old man’s cell where he found
him making medicine from herbs he had gathered in the forest.
“Good hermit,” said Finikin eagerly, “will you not give me some of your
medicine for my sick father?”
“I will, indeed,” said the old man. “But my child there is something
more than these herbs needed to cure your father; and it must be
fetched from a long distance.”
“I will go anywhere for it,” declared Finikin, quickly.
“Then my son,” replied the hermit, “you must go to a garden five or
six miles off. None but little children like yourself can enter;
therefore, it would be of no use if I or any other grown person
attempted to go with you. This garden is situated on top of a cluster
of high rocks. Should you have the perseverance to reach it, you will
find it full of trees, bearing all kinds of fruit which several little
boys always keep gathering. You must ask them to give you some golden
pippins for your father. If they consent all will be well; but if they
try to keep you to play with them, you must not stay, for the hours
would pass so quickly, that your father might die before you returned.”
Finikin listened very carefully. “Please tell me the way to this
wonderful garden,” he said.
The hermit opened the door at the back of his cell, which led to a
small piece of ground where he grew his vegetables. He showed Finikin
a kind of tunnel hollowed out in a grotto through which he could see
a distant view of green meadows and blue mountains, and told him that
way would lead him in the right direction. He then described carefully
all the objects the lad was to pass on the road, and told him above all
things neither to idle as he went along nor listen to anyone who should
offer to show him a shorter way. Finikin promised he would not, and
thanking the hermit, lost no time in starting off to find the wonderful
garden where the golden pippins grew.
Winikin, meanwhile, after losing at least half an hour talking to the
old huntsman, and playing with his dog, suddenly thought how heartless
he had been, and asked Roger to tell what he had better do to help his
father to get well.
“Do not stand idling here, youngster, for one thing,” said Roger; “and
next go and ask advice of the hermit, who knows better than anyone else
what can be done to save your father!”
“Oh! but my brother has gone there, so it is of no use for me to go
too,” said Winikin; “and he is too far for me to catch him, so please
tell me something else I can do instead!”
The huntsman thought awhile, and at last said: “I have heard of a
wonderful garden some three miles east of the forest, where all kinds
of fruits made of precious stones grow all the year round. The currants
are rubies, the apples are topazes, and the plums are amethysts or
sapphires. If you are able to reach this garden and gather a basketful
of cherries you might enrich yourself and family for life; and then
your father might have the best doctors. He would want for nothing and
might soon get well.”
Winikin was delighted at the idea of such a garden, and asked Roger to
show him the way to it.
The old huntsman then took him to a kind of grotto that was so
completely hidden by brushwood that the little boy had never seen it
before though he had often crossed that part of the forest. When the
twigs that choked up the entry had been put aside he saw a hollow
passage and a view of distant meadows and hills. Then Roger carefully
described all the objects the lad was to pass on the road, so that he
could not miss the way. Also, he bade him not to loiter on the way for
fear he should not be back by nightfall.
Winikin now entered the grotto but kept stopping every minute to admire
its pretty sparkling walls, which glistened like diamonds and rubies as
a sunbeam shone through the narrow opening. At last, however, he came
out into the open meadows, in a part of a country which he had never
seen before. Here he met a beautiful little boy with golden locks and
cheeks as blooming as a ripe peach. He was carrying a couple of hoops
on his arm.
“Will you come and play with me?” asked the little stranger whose name
was Goldlocks.
“Why,” said Winikin slowly, thinking of the huntsman’s advice not to
loiter on the way, “I should like that very much, but I’m going to a
beautiful garden beyond the hills and I’m afraid of being too late.”
“Oh, don’t fear that,” said the little boy, “for we will trundle our
hoops that way. You will get on much faster with a hoop than without
one. Come!”
The lad offered Winikin one of the hoops which were made of finely
worked silver. Also, there was a small ivory stick to trundle it with.
Winikin could not resist. He took a beautiful hoop and stick from
Goldlocks who said:
“Once, twice, thrice, away!” and off they went like the wind.
Winikin thought to reach the hills in about five minutes, but at a turn
in the road little Goldlocks kept trundling on his hoop faster than
before.
Winikin suspected they were not taking the shortest road to the hills,
but fearing Goldlocks would win the game he sped after him as fast as
he could.
At length Winikin stopped and was panting for breath. Goldlocks laughed
and stopped, too, saying, “There’s enough of hoop-trundling!” and he
flung them over a hedge into a neighbouring field. “Now we’ll stop and
rest and play at marbles.”
Then he drew from his pocket some pearls as large and round as other
children’s marbles and Winikin, who dearly loved this game, could not
resist playing.
“I have come along so fast,” he said to himself, “that no time will be
lost.”
It was now high noon and the sun had grown so hot that Winikin felt
tired and thirsty.
“Let us go into this wood and gather strawberries,” said Goldlocks.
Winikin thought the idea was excellent, so he said, “Yes, we shall get
on faster after we have eaten some fruit.”
Accordingly, the little boys went into the wood, and, in about five
minutes, Goldlocks had gathered enough strawberries to fill Winikin’s
hat. They were larger and more delicious than any he had ever tasted
before.
When Winikin had eaten his fill, he wished to go on.
“Oh!” said his companion, “it is still too hot to walk fast. If you
wait awhile under the shade of this pretty wood, you will get on all
the better a little later in the afternoon.”
“All right,” said Winikin, and the lads sat down on the grass.
Goldlocks now drew from his pocket a humming top and set it spinning.
It was made of a single carbuncle and was topped at each end with a
diamond. It was called a humming top but it should have been called a
musical top for the sounds it gave forth were as beautiful as an Eolian
harp, and they formed distinct tunes. Winikin listened in speechless
joy, till at length, tired out with play and amusement, he fell fast
asleep.
Little Finikin, meanwhile, on getting out into the meadows, carefully
noticed all the objects the hermit had described, so as to be sure to
lose neither time nor way till at last he came to a field where he saw
a little boy sitting on a bank, and crying bitterly.
Finikin felt so sorry for him that he stopped and said, “What is the
matter?”
“Oh,” cried he, “I am waiting for someone to play with. My name is
Brownlocks. Who are you?”
“I am Finikin,” said our little friend, “but I cannot stop to play. I
am trying to find an orchard of wonderful fruit. I shall take some of
it back to my sick father. The fruit will help to cure him.”
“Play with me awhile,” said Brownlocks. “I can take you to a garden
where you will find better fruit than that which grows in the orchard
you are looking for.”
But Finikin remembered the hermit’s words and persisted in going on his
way. When he looked to see if the little boy was following him, Finikin
found he had disappeared.
Finikin hurried on, and at length the scenery began to grow wilder as
he came near the end of his journey. The rocks were higher and more
abrupt and the vegetation more luxuriant, and soon in great joy he
stopped, looked at the top of a great pile of rocks, and cried out,
“There is the wonderful garden! It looks like a giant basket of fruit
and flowers! How shall I ever climb up to it!”