ASKING QUESTIONS.
"How many birds have you got, dwarf?" asked the child.
They were sitting at breakfast the next morning. To look at the child,
no one would have thought she had ever been sleepy in her life; she was
twinkling all over with eagerness and curiosity.
"How many?" repeated the man, absently. He hardly seemed to hear what
the child said; he looked searchingly at her, and seemed to be trying
to make out something that was puzzling him.
"Yes, how many?" repeated the child, with some asperity. "Seems to me
you are rather stupid this morning, dwarf; but perhaps you are like
bats, and sleep in the daytime. Are you like bats? Are dwarfs like
bats? Can you hang up by your heels in trees? Have you got claws on
them?"
Her eyes dilated with awful joy; but the man shook his head and
laughed. "No, no, Snow-white. I wasn't sleepy at all; I was only
thinking."
"Did you sleep last night?" asked the child, slightly disappointed. "I
was in your bed, so you couldn't sleep. If you did sleep, where did
you? Please give me some more bread. I don't see where you get bread;
and I don't see where you slept; and you didn't tell me how many birds
you had. I shall be angry pretty soon, I don't wonder."
"Snow-white," said the dwarf, "if you talk so fast, your tongue will be
worn out before you are seventy."
"What is seventy?" said the child. "I hate it, anyway, and I won't be
it."
"Hurrah!" said the man, "I hate it, too, and I won't be it, either. But
as to the birds; how many should you think there were? Have you seen
any of them?"
"I've seen lots and lots!" said the child, "and I've heard all the
rest. When I woke up, they were singing and singing, as if they were
seeing who could most. One of them came in the window, and he sat on my
toe, and he was yellow. Then I said, 'Boo!' and then he flew away just
as hard as he could fly. Do you have that bird?"
"Yes," said the man. "That is my Cousin Goldfinch. I'm sorry you
frightened him away, Snow-white. If you had kept quiet, he would have
sung you a pretty song. He isn't used to having people say 'Boo!' to
him. He comes in every morning to see me, and sing me his best song."
"Are they all your birds?" queried the child. "Aren't you ever going
to tell me how many you have? I don't think you are very polite. Miss
Tyler says it's horrid rude not to answer questions."
"Miss Tyler is not here!" said the man, gravely. "I thought you said we
were not to talk about her."
"So I did!" cried the child. "I say hurrah she isn't here, dwarf. Do
you say it, too?"
"Hurrah!" said the man, fervently. "Now come, Snow-white, and I'll show
you how many birds I have."
"Before we wash the dishes? Isn't that horrid?"
"No, not at all horrid. Wait, and you'll see."
The man crumbled a piece of bread in his hand, and went out on the
green before the house, bidding the child stay where she was and watch
from the window. Watching, the child saw him scatter the crumbs on the
shining sward, and heard him cry in a curious kind of soft whistle:
"Coo! coo! coo!"
Immediately there was a great rustling all about; in the living green
of the roof, in the yellow birches, but most of all in the vast
depths of the buttonwood tree. In another moment the birds appeared,
clouds and clouds of them, flying so close that their wings brushed
each other; circling round and round the man, as he stood motionless
under the great tree; then settling softly down, on his head, on his
shoulders, on his outstretched arms, on the ground at his feet. He
broke another piece from the loaf, and crumbled it, scattering the
crumbs lavishly. The little creatures took their morning feast eagerly,
gratefully; they threw back their tiny heads and chirped their thanks;
they hopped and ran and fluttered about the sunny green space, till
the whole seemed alive with swift, happy motion. Standing still among
them, the man talked to them gently, and they seemed to understand. Now
and then he took one in his hand and caressed it, with fingers as light
as their own fluffy wings; and when he did that, the bird would throw
back its head and sing; and the others would chime in, till the whole
place rang with the music of them. It was a very wonderful thing, if
any one had been there who understood about wonderful things; but to
the child it seemed wholly natural, being like many other matters in
the Fairy Books; only she wished she could do it, too, and determined
she would, as soon as she learned a little more about the ways of
dwarfs.
By and by, when he had fed and caressed and talked to them, the man
raised his arm; and the gray fluttering cloud rose in the air with
merry cries, and vanished in the leafy gloom. The child was at the door
in a moment. "How do you do that?" she asked, eagerly. "Who telled you
that? Why can't I do it, too? What is their names of all those birds?
Why don't you answer things when I say them at you?"
"Snow-white," said the man, "I haven't yet answered the questions you
asked me last night, and I haven't even begun on this morning's batch."
"But you will answer them all?" cried the child.
"Yes, I will answer them all, if you give me time."
"'Cause I have to know, you know!" said the child, with a sigh of
relief.
"Yes, you have to know. But first I must ask you some questions,
Snow-white. Come and sit down here on the roots of the birch; see, it
makes an arm-chair just big enough for you."
The child came slowly, and seated herself as she was bid. But, though
the seat was easy as a cradle, her brow was clouded.
"I don't like to answer things," she announced. "Only I like to ask
them."
"But we must play fair," said the man. "It wouldn't be fair for you to
have all the fun."
"No more it would. Well, I'll answer a fewly, dwarf; not many I won't,
'cause when you're little you don't have to know things first; only you
have to find out about them."
"Snow-white, why did you run away from home?"
"Last night I told you that, dwarf. I made a song, too. I'll sing it
for you."
She sat up, folded her hands, shut her eyes tight, and sang at the top
of her voice:
"And I comed away,
_And_ I runned away,
And I said I thought I did not
_Want_ to stay;
And they tore their hair,
And they made despair.
And I said I thought perhaps
I did not care."
"Do you like that song?" she said, opening her eyes wide at the man.
Yes, the man liked it very much, but she was not answering his question.
"I sang it that way because that way Miss Tyler sings. She shuts her
eyes and opens her mouth, and screeches horrid; but I don't screech,
I truly sing. Don't I truly sing? Don't you think I was a bird if you
didn't see me? don't you, dwarf?"
The dwarf said he was not going to answer any more questions. The child
fidgetted on her seat, sighed, said he was stupid, and finally resigned
herself.
"I told you that last night!" she said again. "My mamma went to New
York, and my papa, too. They leaved me alone after I told them not to.
And I told them; I said if they did, then I would; and they would, and
so I did. And so you see!"
She looked up suddenly at the man, and once more he winced and drew in
his breath.
"What's the matter?" asked the child, with quick sympathy. "Have you
got a pain? is it here? is it in your front? often I have them in
my front. You take a tablet, and then you curl up wiz the hot-water
bottle, and perhaps it goes away pretty soon. Green apples makes it!"
she nodded wisely. "Dwarfs didn't ought to eat them, any more than
children. Where is the tree?"
The man did not answer this time. He seemed to be trying to pull up
a weight that lay on him, or in him and sat moodily looking on the
ground. At last--
"What is your mother's name?" he said; and then one saw that he had got
the weight up.
"Evelyn!" said the child.
"Yes, of course!" said the man.
"What makes you say that?" asked the child. "Did ever you see her?"
"Did ever you see a toad with three tails?" said the man.
"Aren't you funny? say, is all dwarfs funny? aren't there really any
more of you? didn't there ever was? where did the rest of them go? why
do you stay in this place alone? I want to know all those things." She
settled herself comfortably, and looked at the man confidently. But he
seemed still to be labouring with something.
"Would your mother--would she be very unhappy, if she should come home
and find you gone, Snow-white?"
The child opened her eyes at him.
"Oh, I s'pose she'd go crazy distracted; but she isn't coming home, not
a long time isn't she coming home; that's why I comed away, _and_ I
runned away, and I said--what makes you look like that, dwarf?"
"I suppose I ought to send you home, Snow-white. I suppose you ought to
go this very day, don't you?"
He stopped abruptly, for the signs were ominous; the child's lower lip
was going up in the middle and coming down at the corners; her eyes
were growing wider and wider, rounder and rounder; now they began to
glitter.
"Don't cry!" said the man, hastily. "Don't cry, Snow-white. The other
Snow-white never cried, you know."
The child sniffed tearfully. "The other Snow-white never was treated
so!" she said. "Never those dwarfs tried to send her away, never. She
cooked their dinner, and she swept, and they liked her, and they never
said noffin, and--I haven't any hanky!" she concluded suddenly, after a
vain search in her pink calico pocket.
The man handed her a great square of white cobweb linen, and she dried
her eyes. "Never I heard of dwarfs sending children away!" she said, in
conclusion. "I don't believe p'r'aps you aren't the right kind. Is you
got any name? Not ever dwarfs has names."
"I'm afraid I have a kind of name!" the man admitted. "But it isn't
much of one. You might call me Mark, though, if you like."
"That isn't no name at all. It's just you do it wiz a pencil. Aren't
you funny? Truly is it your name? What made you have such a name?"
But the man declared he had lost his way in the questions. "I haven't
begun on this morning's yet," he protested, "and now you are asking me
to-morrow's, Snow-white. But we must do the dishes now, and then I'll
show you where I slept last night. You asked me that the very first
thing this morning, and you have not been still long enough yet for me
to tell you."
That would be great! the child thought. On the whole, she thought
perhaps he was the right kind of dwarf, after all. Why did he have
a hump on his back, though? not in the Snow-white picture they did.
Wasn't it funny, when she stood on the cricket she was just as tall
as he? Wasn't that nice? wasn't he glad he wasn't any taller? didn't
he think he was made that way just for little girls? did ever he see
any little girls before? did he think she looked like Snow-white? why
didn't he talk when she spoke to him?
It was a merry time, the dish-washing. The man had put away whatever
it was that kept his eyes dark, and was smiling again, and chatting
cheerfully. It appeared that he was an extraordinary person, after all,
and quite like the books. He lived here all alone. Yes, always alone.
No; he never had wanted any one else till now, but then he didn't know
there were any Snow-whites; that made a great difference, you see.
Did--she broke off to laugh--did he like Snow-whites, honest and true,
black and blue? Did he think she was beautiful, more beautiful than
wicked stepmothers if she had one, only she hadn't, only mamma was
awfully beautiful; did he know that? how did he know that? did ever he
see mamma? what made him look so queer in his eyes? did he get soap in
them? poor dwarf! well, why weren't there any more dwarfs, anyhow? why
didn't he get six more when he comed here the first time?
It appeared that he did not want any more. It appeared that when he
came away he never wished to see anybody again as long as he lived.
The child thought this so funny that she bubbled quite over, and
dropped the cup she was wiping back into the hot water.
Why didn't he want to see people? had they been horrid to him?
Yes, they had been very horrid. He came away into the woods to stay
till he was tired, and then he was going farther away. Where? oh, he
did not know; to wherever he belonged; he was not sure where it was,
but he knew the way to get there. No, not by the brook, that was too
slow, he knew a quick way. Show it to her? well, no, he thought not.
How long had he been here? oh, a good while. At first, after they had
been horrid to him--no, he could not stop to tell her now; sometime,
perhaps, when they had nothing else to do; at first he had gone across
the sea, oh, a long way across; yes, he would tell her all about that
by and by. Then, when he came back--
"Why do you keep stopping like that?" asked the child. "Do you forget
what you was going to say? often I do! You said when you came back; did
you go and tell them they was mean old things to be horrid to you, and
never you wouldn't play wiz them no more?"
"No," said the man, slowly. "No, Snow-white, I didn't do that; it
wouldn't have done any good, you see. I came here instead."
"Didn't you tell them at all that they was mean?"
"No; where was the use?"
"Don't they know you are here, dwarf?"
"No."
The child grew red in the face. "Well, I think you was dreadfully
silly!" she said. "I would told 'em all about it, and stamped my foot
at 'em, so! and--"
But the stamp was too much for the composure of the cricket, which
turned over at this point, bringing the child down suddenly, with
her chin against the hot dish-pan. This was a grievous matter, and
consolation was the only possible thing to be thought of. The man
took her in his arms, and carried her out-of-doors; she was sobbing a
little, but the sobs died away as he stood with her under the great
buttonwood, and bade her look up into the rustling dome.
"You asked where I slept last night, Snow-white," he said. "I slept
up there, in my tree-room. Look! a good way up, just above that great
branch, do you see a hole? Well, in there is a hollow, big enough to
sit in or lie down and sleep in. I often go up there and sit with the
brother birds; and last night I slept there, and very well I slept,
too."
"Did you"--the child hesitated between a sob and a chuckle--"did you
have any bed?"
"The finest bed in the world, moss and dry leaves. Would you like to
come up and see, Snow-white? I think I can manage to get you up."
"Oh, what a nice dwarf you are!" cried the child, slipping down from
his arms and dancing around him. "Aren't you glad I came? I'm glad you
were here. How I shall get up? Stand on your hump? isn't it nice you
have a hump, dwarf? was it made for little girls to stand up on? did
you have them make it? did you think about little girls when you had it
made? do you like to have it for me to stand on? can I jump up and down
on it?"
Standing on the hump, which certainly made an excellent thing to stand
on, she could grasp the lowest branch of the tree. Could she put her
arms round that and hang for just a moment? Yes, she could, and did;
and in an instant the active dwarf was beside her, and had her up on
the branch beside him. From there it was easy to ascend, branch by
branch, till they reached the black hole. The child caught her breath
a moment as the man swung her in; then her laughter broke and bubbled
up so loud and clear that the birds rose in a cloud from the murmuring
depths of the tree, and then sank down again with chirp and twitter and
gurgle of welcome, as if recognising one of their own kind.