THE PIXIE’S FIRST TASK
The Pixie came that evening, true to his word. Wendell, undisturbed by
fractions, luxuriously idling over his fairy books, looked up suddenly
and there sat the funny little fellow on the foot of the bed.
“How are you?” said the Pixie. “I didn’t have time to say good-bye
to-day. Your Miss Ounce turned the door-handle too quickly.”
“That’s all right,” said Wendell. “Are you ready to spring my first task
yet?”
“Yes, _sir_,” said the Pixie gleefully. “And you can’t say it isn’t up
to the minute. You must bring me an aeroplane that you have found
traveling underground.”
“Why, there’s no such thing,” said Wendell vexedly. “An aeroplane
traveling underground! How silly! An aeroplane doesn’t travel
underground. How can it?”
“Don’t ask me,” shrugged the Pixie. “How should I know? You can’t
expect me to make up the tasks and think up the answers too. Be
reasonable.” And he vanished.
Wendell was greatly cast down.
“It’s a fool task,” he said as he went to bed. “In fact, it’s
impossible.”
He woke with a sense of calamity hanging over him. Really, it was almost
as bad as having fractions on his mind. He was so serious at breakfast
that Cousin Virginia asked him if he was practicing to be a Puritan
Ancestor at a fancy-dress ball. This levity seemed to Wendell ill-timed.
The brooding anxiety lingered with him all through school time. What if
he couldn’t do the task? What would it be like to belong to a Pixie? He
didn’t like the prospect.
He came out of his school on Beacon Street, still with the cloud
lowering over him. He felt desperate. He thought of going over to the
train yards of South Station and stealing a ride in an empty cattle-car
bound for the prairies of the West. He meditated stowing away on a ship
bound for Timbuctoo or Guam or somewhere. Just then a tempting truck
passed him “south”-bound on Beacon Street. It was low and it was going
slowly, and altogether it offered just the right opportunity to “hook” a
ride. Wendell seized the opportunity and the truck together; and dodged
down inside unseen by the driver.
In Allston, Wendell dropped out again. His mind was somewhat relieved by
this pleasant adventure, and he didn’t wish to get too far from home. He
hailed an electric for Park Street.
Now, you may not believe it, but the first thing he saw when he got on
the car was an aeroplane--a toy aeroplane about four feet long, carried
in the arms of a freckle-faced boy.
Wendell sat down by the boy.
“Does it go?” he said.
“Sure it does,” said the freckle-faced boy.
“How?” said Wendell.
“You wind it up,” said the boy.
It was apparently a perfect model of a large aeroplane, a fascinating
toy. The freckle-faced boy let him hold it, let him examine it closely.
It was a joy to see such a perfect mechanical model on that small scale;
but suddenly it brought a leaden lump to Wendell’s heart. It reminded
him of his impossible task.
“Where you taking it?” asked Wendell.
“Home. I live in Medford.”
“Change at Park Street?” said Wendell.
“Scollay Square,” said the boy. They were now opposite the Public
Garden.
“I’ll bet it can travel,” said Wendell.
“You’ve said it,” replied the boy. “But,” he added, grinning, as the
electric sloped down into the Subway, “this is the first time it ever
traveled underground.”
Wendell nearly bounced from his seat. “Say!” he almost yelled. “What’ll
you take for that aeroplane?”
“Don’t want to sell it,” said the boy. “I just got it.”
“But if you should sell it,” persisted Wendell.
“But I ain’t a-goin’ to sell it,” said the freckle-faced boy.
“But if you ever _should_ want to sell it,” reiterated Wendell. “Say,
there’s something, you know, you’d rather have.”
“Well, I don’t know. What, f’r instance?”
“I’ll give you anything you like for it,” offered Wendell, who was
rapidly formulating a plan in his mind. “Wouldn’t you like a gun, now?”
“I’ve got a gun,” said the boy.
“Don’t you want a dog?” pleaded Wendell.
“Is it a trick dog?” asked the boy.
“Do you want a trick dog?” questioned Wendell.
“Yes, I do.”
“Well, it is a trick dog,” said Wendell. “Just you get out here,” for
meantime they were nearing Park Street, “and I’ll show him to you. I
live right near here.”
“What tricks can he do?” asked the boy.
“You wait and ask him,” said Wendell.
Once out of the Subway, Wendell left the boy on a bench on the Common,
and sprinted across the green expanse, in spite of the official sign,
KEEP OFF THE GRASS
IF YOU WANT TO ROAM
JOIN THE NAVY
He shot around the corner of his street, circled the Wishing Stone
rapidly nine times, climbed on top of it and said to himself,
“I wish for a trick dog that will do any trick you tell him to.”
“Woof! Woof!” said an ingratiating voice near him, and there was the
dog. He was of no special breed, just a lost-dog breed of mongrel, but
he had the look in his eye that means a dog will do anything in the
world for you if he loves you.
“Sit up and beg, old fellow,” commanded Wendell, and the dog sat up with
an excited little bark.
“Heel,” ordered Wendell, who had no time to lose, and the two chased
excitedly through the streets to the Common, and there, to Wendell’s
relief, waited the impatient boy with his aeroplane.
“Here he is,” said Wendell. “Here’s your trick dog.”
The freckle-faced boy looked him over critically.
“He ain’t much to look at,” he said.
“Well,” said Wendell, “you didn’t say you wanted him to take a prize in
a beauty contest. You asked for a trick dog.”
“What can he do?” asked the boy.
“You just try him,” said Wendell.
“Dead dog!” said the freckle-faced boy.
The dog dropped flat and rolled over motionless. He didn’t even blink an
eye.
“Live dog!” said the boy, and up he jumped and frisked and wagged and
was very much alive.
“Is that all he can do?” asked the boy.
“No, he can do any trick,” said Wendell. “I don’t know ’em all myself.
He knew ’em when I got him.”
“Where’d you get him?” asked the boy suspiciously.
“Given to me,” said Wendell. “Let’s have the aeroplane.”
The boy hesitated. Perhaps he was afraid that the dog had been stolen or
found by Wendell, and might soon be claimed by the police. But the dog
himself settled the question. He jumped up on the freckle-faced boy and
“woof”-ed engagingly; and when the freckle-faced boy stooped to pat him,
he licked the boy’s freckles so warmly and wetly and scratchily and
lovingly that the boy hastily handed the aeroplane to Wendell and
gathered the dog right up in his arms; and the bargain was complete.
Wendell had a few pangs himself. The dog had found a warm place in his
heart too. But he consoled himself with the reminder that he could wish
for another just like him any time. And he had the aeroplane.
He took it over to the parade ground on the other side of the Common,
and tried it out. It flew beautifully. On its own merits, apart from
Wendell’s need to satisfy the Pixie’s demand, it was a very desirable
possession.
It struck Wendell as strange that, whatever adventures the Wishing Stone
had thus far brought him, seemed to increase the number of things he had
to wish for. He had never yearned for an aeroplane before, but now it
seemed to him that he couldn’t bear to part with this one to the Pixie.
Of course, he had often thought he would like a dog; but now that the
Wishing Stone had brought to life this wagging, barking, loving morsel
of a pup, Wendell was almost unhappy without him. He wondered if it
would be that way all the time,--if every granted wish would produce
more ungranted ones. If that were so, it would really be happier not to
begin the endless chain, not to have the first wish granted. That was
the way it turned out in a good many of the fairy stories,--the black
pudding, for instance, on the end of the old woman’s nose.
A great truth was almost within Wendell’s grasp for the moment,--that it
is not the attainment of a wish, but the effort to attain it that brings
us happiness: that right activity, not idle possession, is man’s
happiest endowment. Wendell had his finger on this key to happiness, but
as he was only a small boy flying a toy aeroplane, and not a great
philosopher, he did not grasp the key, but let his thoughts wander to
the Pixie, who would probably be all ready with another task after
dinner.
When the Pixie suddenly appeared that evening (sitting this time on top
of the chiffonier, with his thin long legs drooping over the drawers),
Wendell said triumphantly,
“Well, I got the aeroplane.” He stroked it lovingly where it stood
balanced on his desk.
“Why, yes, it’s an aeroplane, all right,” granted the Pixie; “but it
isn’t traveling underground.”
“But it was when I found it,” protested Wendell. “A boy had it in the
Subway.”
The Pixie looked crestfallen.
“I never thought of that,” he admitted. “You win.”
“Tell me all about it,” he added with some curiosity.
Wendell told him the whole thing, but the Pixie looked grave when he
mentioned the Wishing Stone.
“You’re not using them up too fast, are you?” he said doubtfully. “That
makes two, you know.”
“Two what?” said Wendell.
“Why, two wishes. You only have three, you know.”
“Is that a fact?” asked Wendell anxiously. “I didn’t know. Is that
straight?”
“Of course,” said the Pixie. “Everything goes by threes in fairy
stories.”
“I’m afraid you’re right,” said Wendell gloomily.
“I know I am,” said the Pixie. “Well, are you ready for the next task?”
“All right. What comes next?” asked Wendell.