WENDELL WORKS THE MIDNIGHT SPELL
“How did she get that way?” he asked the Pixie, who only smiled
gleefully and returned, “It’s a great life, isn’t it, this fairy story
business!”
“Well, I suppose I’ve got to do it,” said the harassed boy. “How I’m
ever going to stay awake till midnight, I don’t see.”
“Oh, I’ll wake you, my boy,” said the Pixie obligingly. “You go to bed.”
“And what am I going to do with him--with her?” pursued Wendell,
pointing vindictively to the frog. “Now I know what she is, I’ve got to
make her comfortable somewhere. She can’t sleep in a stocking.”
The frog blinked and stared at him. Wendell stared back gloomily. He
wondered if different frogs looked different to each other, like boys
and dogs. It seemed to him that this frog was particularly ugly, even
judged by frog standards of beauty. Well, poor thing! that was probably
the Kobold’s fault.
“I know what I’ll do with her,” he said. “I’ll put her in the guest
chamber for the night. She’ll like that. Virginia’s away overnight.”
It wasn’t very easy to catch the frog. It eluded Wendell with
long-legged leaps, but Wendell cornered it at last, with the help of the
Pixie, and carried it, its little heart pulsating with fright, to the
dainty room that Cousin Virginia occupied, and tucked it into bed.
“One good job done,” said Wendell to himself. “I won’t have to sleep
with _that_ in the room to-night.”
“Well, old chap, I guess I’ll go to bed now,” he said, yawning, to the
Pixie, “and if you _will_ call me, say about eleven-thirty, I’ll be much
obliged.”
As he slid under the bed clothes and sprawled out in solid comfort, his
foot touched something cold, clammy, repellent. He barely repressed a
shriek. He threw back the bed clothes. Yes, the frog again!
“Now, how did he ever get there?” cried Wendell in bewilderment. “I’m
sure he couldn’t open the door. It _is_ magic, for sure.”
“_She_, you mean. You can’t shake her,” rejoined the Pixie maliciously.
“It’s your fairy tale, you know, and you are The Rescuer.”
“Well, what shall I do with her now?” asked Wendell in despair. “Do you
suppose she’d stay here if I went into Cousin Virginia’s room?”
“Not for a moment,” said the Pixie. “I tell you. You put her under the
down puff, on the foot of the bed, and I’ll keep an eye on her.”
It seemed about five minutes after Wendell was in bed, when he awoke
suddenly and found that the Pixie was pounding him severely.
“Hold on! Hold on!” he called. “What’s the matter?”
“The matter is, I’ve been trying for the last ten minutes to wake you,”
said the Pixie, exasperated. “The Sleeping Beauty had nothing on you.
Hurry up, now, or you won’t get there at midnight.”
Wendell tumbled into his clothes and tiptoed, as noiselessly as in him
lay, down the broad old-fashioned stairs, and still another flight to
the basement. He did not dare risk the noise of the front door, so he
emerged from the kitchen into the back alley, and thence to the street.
Not a person was in sight. Only a black and white cat prowled the
gutters. A strange silence covered the city. Even the surging, seething
roar of West End children at play, which rises all the evening, was
stilled. Wendell’s running footsteps, beating rhythmic time on the brick
pavement of Old Boston, alone broke the stillness. No traffic policemen
presided over Beacon Street. He gained the Common, skirted the Frog
Pond, and faced Flag Staff Hill and, brave boy though he was, he did
tremble in his boots.
The frequent electric lights along the thoroughfares that bound the
Common drew glowing lines of light around it; and there were bright
lights at the intersection of the walks. But here, on the gentle slope
of Flag Staff Hill, under the tall elms, a great black shadow lay. No
Boston boy, born and reared among the historic traditions of the
Commonwealth, but knows the somber legend of this site, that under this
soil lie buried the Quakers and the pirates whom Puritan zeal executed
on this spot in the early days of the colony. Cold chills ran up and
down Wendell’s spine as he stood here in the shadow and listened for the
stroke of midnight. Presently it boomed forth from the old church on
Mount Vernon Street--the same metal voice that struck the hour to the
poet Longfellow when he stood on the bridge at midnight. Now was the
fateful moment! And do you know, whether it was magic or whether it was
scare I can’t say, but Wendell couldn’t for the life of him remember
that charm that was to summon the Kobold! The striking of the clock,
bringing with it the memory of that well known poem which he had learned
in school, had driven every bit of verse out of his mind, except his
Cousin Virginia’s irreverent version of the same poem:--
“_I stood on the bridge at midnight,_
_As the clocks were striking three,_
_And a cabman drove across the bridge_
_And hitched his horse to me._”
On the eleventh stroke of the old church bell, the Park Street Church at
Brimstone Corner took up the echo. Wendell by a mighty effort recalled
the charm before the second sonorous voice had died on the still air.
“_Green hill, green hill, open to me._
_I would the wise old Kobold see,_”
repeated Wendell.
Suddenly another electric light on the path below sprang into
brightness, and sent a light streak across the shadow of the elms. For a
moment Wendell fancied, and decided that it must be only fancy, that
the ground trembled slightly under his feet. Then, before his eyes there
came a crack in the earth, as if a giant seed were germinating and
pushing up a shoot. The crack widened. It became a tunnel extending
apparently into the very heart of the hill; and suddenly, like a cut
moving-picture film that jerks a sudden change upon the screen, he saw
that the mouth of the tunnel was occupied by an unexpected grotesque
figure that could be none other than the Kobold.
Wendell had expected that the Kobold would look somewhat like the Pixie,
but they had nothing in common except smallness of stature. The Kobold
was about the size of a six-year-old, and had white hair and white
whiskers and a very long white beard that reached to his waist. He
appeared to be wearing a belted velvet suit, with full sleeves and
breeches, and he was very stout and stocky.
“Who summons me?” he said with dignity.
“I do,” said Wendell advancing boldly, now that there was need for
action. “I should like to know how to free the Beauteous Maiden from
your spell.”
The Kobold chuckled grimly--an exclusive sort of chuckle that made
Wendell feel very much out of the joke.
“If you wish to win the Maiden’s freedom,” he said slowly, “you will
first have to guess a riddle. You may have three chances to give the
answer. If you guess correctly on any one of those trials, the Maiden
shall be restored to her original form. If
[Illustration: “WHO SUMMONS ME?” SAID THE KOBOLD]
you fail, she shall still remain a frog, and you too shall be
transformed into another shape at my will.”
“Good gracious!” cried Wendell. “Is there as much to it as all that? I’m
not going to be changed into anything at anybody’s will. You can keep
your old riddle and your frog, too, for all of me.” He turned to go.
“Stay!” cried the Kobold, so he stayed to listen.
“I might add,” said the Kobold, “that while the above terms are my
regular ones, I might make a slight reduction in your case, as business
is particularly dull just now. Indeed, to be candid, it is nearly a
hundred years since I have had any opportunity to hold this guessing
contest.”
“Well, how much of a reduction?” asked Wendell. “Will you leave out the
part about transforming me? Say, if I win, the frog changes back to the
Maiden, and if I lose, it stays a frog?”
“No, no,” returned the Kobold. “Such is not my method of doing business.
The princes that have entered this contest in times past have at least
agreed to be transformed for a limited time.”
“Not for a moment, for me,” said Wendell. “Times have changed.”
“A week, say,” urged the Kobold. “I tell you frankly I shall not release
the Maiden for less, and if she is not released before one more year is
run, she will be turned into a loathly dragon for life.”
“Well, make it a week, then,” said Wendell sulkily.
“Agreed!” said the Kobold. “Here, then, is the riddle you must
answer:--_What is Boston?_”
Without a moment’s hesitation, just as promptly as if he had been asked
his own name, Wendell replied in Dr. Holmes’ words, as any Boston boy
would,
“Boston is the Hub of the Universe.”
“Wrong! Wrong!” chuckled the Kobold maliciously. “I knew you’d say that.
But there is another answer.”
“Well,” said the crestfallen Wendell, “I’ll go home and think it over.
And say, do I have to come at midnight every time? It’s mighty hard to
sneak out just then.”
“No, I will make an appointment with you for any time you say,” returned
the Kobold obligingly. “Morning, evening, whatever you wish.”
“Let’s make it eight o’clock in the morning,” said Wendell. “I could
drop in here on the way to school.”
“To-morrow?” asked the Kobold.
“N-no,” hesitated Wendell. “I’ll need a little time on this thing.”
“I’ll wager you will,” chuckled the old Kobold, growing almost slangy in
his dignified glee.
“Say the day after to-morrow,” suggested Wendell.
“Agreed!” said the Kobold. “You will find me here outside the hill. And
mind you bring back that frog. It is not your property, you must
remember.”
“I will. I’ll be glad to,” returned Wendell hurriedly. The frog was
already on his nerves.
“And only two more guesses,” added the Kobold.
“I know,” said Wendell meekly. He was very much mortified to have failed
so quickly through his own assurance. He went back through the silent
streets, let himself in quietly and bolted the back door, took off his
shoes and groped up to his room, where the Pixie sat awaiting him.