EARLY HISTORY OF THE SOODOPSIES AS RELATED BY BARREL BROW.—HOW THEY
WERE DRIVEN TO TAKE REFUGE IN THE UNDER WORLD, AND HOW THEY CAME
UPON THE MARBLE HIGHWAY.—THEIR DISCOVERY OF NATURAL GAS WHICH
YIELDS THEM LIGHT AND WARMTH, AND OF NATURE’S MAGNIFICENT TREASURE
HOUSE.—HOW THEY REPLACED THEIR TATTERED GARMENTS AND BEGAN TO
BUILD THE CITY OF SILVER.—THE STRANGE MISFORTUNES THAT CAME UPON
THEM, AND HOW THEY ROSE SUPERIOR TO THEM, TERRIBLE AS THEY WERE.
And, no doubt, dear friends, you would be glad to hear something about
the early history of the Soodopsies: who they were, where they came
from, and how they happened to find their way down into the World within
a World.
At least, this was the way I felt after I had been presented to the
learned Barrel Brow, and so the next time I called upon him I waited
patiently for him to finish reading the four books in front of him, and
then I said,—
“Be pleased, dear Master, to tell me something concerning the early
history of thy people, and to explain to me how they came to make their
way down into this underground world.”
“Ages and ages ago,” wrote the learned Barrel Brow, “my people lived
upon the shores of a beautiful land with a vast ocean to the north of
it, and in those days they had the same senses as the other people of
the upper world. It was a very fair land, indeed, so fair that, in the
words of the ancient chronicles, the sun looked in vain for a fairer.
Its rivers were deep and broad, its plains were rich and fertile, and
its mountains stored full of silver and gold and copper and tin, and so
easily mined were these metals that our people became famous as metal
workers; so deft in their workmanship that the other nations from far
and near came to us for swords and shields and spear heads and suits of
armor and table service and armlets and bracelets and, above all, for
lamps most gloriously chased and carved to hang in their palaces and
temples. And so we were very happy, until one terrible day the great
round world gave a twist and we were turned away from the sun, so that
its rays went slantingly over our heads and gave us no warmth.
“Ah me, I could weep now,” exclaimed the learned Barrel Brow, “after all
these centuries, when I think of the cruel fate that overtook my people.
In a few months the whole face of our fair land was covered with ice and
snow, and our cattle died, and many of our people, too, before they
could weave thick cloth to keep their delicate bodies from the pinching
cold. But this was not all; the great blue ocean which had until then
dashed its warm waves and white foam up against our shores now breathed
its icy breath full upon us, driving into our cellars to escape its
fury; and in a few brief months, to our horror, there came drifting down
upon us fields and mountains of ice, which the tempestuous waters cast
up against our shores with deafening crash. To remain there meant death,
swift and terrible, so the command was given to abandon homes and
firesides and escape to the southward, and this most of them did. But it
so happened that several hundred families belonging to the metal-working
guilds, who knew the underground passages to the mines as foresters know
the pathless wood, had taken refuge in the vast underground caverns with
all the goods they could carry. Poor deluded creatures! they thought
that this sudden coming of the winter blast, of the blinding snow and
vast floating fields of ice, was but a freak of nature, and that in a
few months the old warmth and the old sunshine would come back again.
“Alas, months went by and their supply of food was almost exhausted and
the entrances to the mines were closed by gigantic blocks of ice
cemented into one great mass by the snow which the gray clouds had
sifted down upon them. There was now no escape that way. Their only hope
was to make their way underground to some portal to the upper world.
“So, with lighted torches but with hearts plunged in the darkness of
despair, they kept on their way, when one day, or one night, they knew
not which, their leaders suddenly came upon a broad street of marble
opened by nature’s own hands. It was skirted by a softly flowing river
that swarmed with fish in scales and shells and skin, and here our
people halted to eat and drink and rest, and while one of their number
was striking his flint on one occasion to make a fire to cook a meal, to
his surprise and delight a tongue of flame darted up from the rocky
floor and continued to burn, giving light and warmth to them.
“As they had brought their tools—their drills and chisels and files and
gravers and blow-pipes—with them in their carts and wagons, they made
haste to fit a pipe to this opening in the rock and set up a cluster of
lights. With food and water and warmth and light their hearts grew
lighter, especially as they soon discovered that in many of the vast
caverns gigantic mushrooms grew in the wildest profusion.
“The wisest of them,” continued the learned Barrel Brow, “at once made
up their minds that there must be reservoirs of this gas farther along
on this beautiful Marble Highway, so, day by day, they pushed farther
into this World within a World, halting every now and then to set up a
lighthouse as they called it.
“After advancing several leagues the exploring party, upon lighting a
cluster of gas jets, were stricken almost speechless with wonder at
finding themselves upon the very sill of a towering portal opening into
a succession of vast chambers, some with flat ceiling, some arched, some
domed, upon the floors and walls of which lay and hung inexhaustible
quantities of pure silver. Those magnificent caverns were in reality
nature’s vast storehouses of the glorious white metal, and our people
made haste to set up clusters of gas jets here and there, so that they
might view the wondrous treasure-house.
“Here they determined to remain, for here was food and water in
never-failing supplies, and here they would have light and warmth, and
here they could forget their miseries by working at their calling, using
the precious metal with lavish hand to build them living-chambers, and
to fashion the thousand and one things necessary for every-day life. So
great was their delight as metal-workers to come upon this exhaustless
supply of pure silver that they could hardly sleep until they had set up
clusters of gas jets throughout these vast caverns, for, no doubt,
little baron, thou hast already guessed that this is the spot I am
telling thee of; that right here it was where our people halted to build
the City of Silver.
“But one thought troubled them and that was where to find needful
clothing, for the old was fast falling into shreds and tatters, when, to
their delight, they came upon a bed of mineral wool and with this they
managed to weave some cloth. Although it was rather stiff and harsh, yet
it was better than none.
“While exploring a new cavern one day, one of my wise ancestors saw a
large night moth alight near him, and, gently loosening some of its
eggs, he carried them home, more as a curiosity than aught else.
“Imagine how rejoiced he was, however, to see one of the worms which
hatched out set to work spinning a cocoon of silk half as big as his
fist. There was great feasting and merry-making among our people upon
hearing of this glad news, and it was not very long before many a silver
shuttle was rattling in a silver loom, and the soft bodies of our people
were warmly and comfortably clad. Now, long periods of time went by,
which, cut up into your months, would have made many, many years. Our
people had everything but sunlight, and this, of course, those who were
born in the under world knew nothing about and therefore did not miss.
“But, as was to be expected, great changes gradually took place in our
people. To their inexpressible grief, they noticed that as they busied
themselves beautifying their new homes by erecting arches and bridges
and terraces, and lining them with glorious candelabra and statues, all
in cast and wrought or hammered silver, their sight was gradually
failing them, and that in not a very great length of time they should be
totally blind.
“This result, little baron,” continued the learned Barrel Brow, “was
very natural, for the sense of sight was in reality created for
sunlight; for as thou no doubt knowest, all the fish that swim in our
rivers have no eyes, having no need of them. It happened just as they
had expected—in a few generations more our people discovered that their
eyes could no longer see things as thou dost, but yet they could feel
them if they were not too far away, just as I can feel thy presence now
and tell where thou sittest, and how tall thou art, and how broad thou
art, and whether thou movest to right or left, forward or backward, but
I cannot tell exactly how thou art made until I reach out and touch
thee; then I know all; yes, far better than thou canst know, for our
sense of feeling is keener than thy so-called sight. One of my people
can feel a grain or roughness upon a silver mirror which to thy eyes
seems smoother than glass. Well, strange to relate, and yet not strange,
our ancestors with the going-out of their sense of sight also felt their
sense of hearing on the wane. Our ears, as thou callest them, having
nothing more to listen to, for eternal silence, as thou knowest, reigns
in this under world, became as useless to us as the tail of the pollywog
would be to the full-grown frog; and of course with the loss of our
sense of hearing our children were soon unable to learn to talk, and in
a certain lapse of time we came to merit full well our new name of
Formifolk, or Ant People, for we were now blind and deaf and dumb.
[Illustration: A SOODOPSY MAIDEN READING HER FAVORITE POET]
“It is long, very, very long, little baron,” continued the learned
Soodopsy, “since all recollection of sunlight, of color, of sound, died
out of our minds. To-day my people don’t even know the names of these
things, and thou wouldst have as much chance of success wert thou to
attempt to tell them what light or sound is as thou wouldst have if thou
shouldst try to explain to a savage that there is nothing under the
world to hold it up, and yet it doesn’t fall. But if thou shouldst lay
several pieces of metal in a row and ask one of my people to tell thee
what they were, he would try the weight of each and feel its grain
carefully, possibly smell them or touch his tongue to them, and then he
would make answer: ‘That is gold; that is silver; that is copper; that
is lead; that is tin; that is iron.’
“But thou wouldst say, ‘They all are differently colored; canst not
perceive that?’
“‘I know not what thou meanest by color,’ he would reply. ‘But mark me:
now I hide them all beneath this silken kerchief, and still by touching
them with my finger tips I can tell what metal each one is. If thou
canst do it, then art thou as good a man as I.’
“What sayest now, little baron?” asked the learned Barrel Brow, while
his face was wreathed in a smile of triumph; “dost think thou wouldst be
as good a man as this Soodopsy?”
“Nay, indeed I do not, wise Master,” wrote I upon my silver tablet; “and
I thank thee for all thou has told me and taught me, and I ask leave, O
Barrel Brow, to come again and converse with thee.”
“That thou mayest, little baron,” traced the learned Soodopsy upon his
silver tablet; and then as I turned to leave his chamber he reached
quickly after me and touched me with a bent forefinger, which meant
return.
“Thy pardon, little baron,” he wrote, “but thou art leaving my study
without thy faithful Bulger; am I not right?”
I was astounded, for indeed he was right, and though without the sense
of sight he had seen more than I with two good eyes wide open. There lay
Bulger fast asleep on a silken-covered hassock.
Our silent conversation had so wearied him that he had sailed off into
the Land of Nod on the wings of a dream.
He hung his head and looked very shame-faced when my call aroused him
and he discovered that I had actually reached the doorway without his
knowing it.