THE SOFT-VOICED COW MEETS THE WITCH AND THE INVISIBLE PEOPLE
After leaving the village in which the Magician was a prisoner, Gran’ma,
Gran’pa, the Princess and the children ran until they were tired, and
coming to a quiet shady place they sat down to rest.
“I do not believe I have run so hard since I was a girl,” said Gran’ma
as she fanned herself.
Just then they heard a noise in the bushes and all sprang to their feet,
but sat down again with sighs of relief when a Cow walked up to them.
The Cow wore a pretty bonnet and a velour waist; her skirt was of velvet
with flowers embroidered around the edge.
As she came up to the little group she shook the wrinkles out of her
apron and sat down facing them.
“How do you do, everybody!” the Cow said in a soft voice, as she smiled
at all.
Everybody greeted the Soft-Voiced Cow in a kindly manner.
“I saw you running across the field,” said the Soft-Voiced Cow, “and you
looked as if you were running away from something.”
“We were,” Gran’ma said. “We were running away from Old Jingles the
Magician, who wants to change us into animals.”
“Dear me suz!” exclaimed the Soft-Voiced Cow. “Is he that wicked?”
“Yes indeed he is,” Janey said, and she told of their experiences, and
of that of the Princess.
“If he follows you, he may find me when he comes this way,” said the
Soft-Voiced Cow. “So if you do not mind my company, I will go with you
to the City of Nite. I should not care to meet so wicked a Magician.”
“We should be greatly pleased to have your company,” they told the
Soft-Voiced Cow.
When they had rested, Gran’pa said they better begin travel on; so the
Soft-Voiced Cow took Gran’ma and the Princess and Janey on her back and
the little party started on their way.
[Illustration: The Old Woman caught the Soft-Voiced Cow’s tail and began
dragging her back. (Page 83)]
They passed through dense groves of giant mushrooms and at times these
were so thick they had to bend them to one side in order to pass.
When they grew hungry the children told Gran’ma and Gran’pa that the
mushrooms were cake, so they ate of these.
After leaving the forest of mushrooms the path led through very rocky
country and as they turned a cliff the party came upon a spring bubbling
from the rocks and splashing down into a small stream far below.
There were a number of cups near the spring, so the children ran up and
took a drink. “Oh hurry!” they cried, “It’s a soda water spring!”
After drinking all they wished they again set out upon their journey.
When they finally left the rocky country and came upon a level stretch
of road they saw approaching them an Old Woman.
Gran’ma, the Princess and Janey had dismounted from the back of the
Soft-Voiced Cow, for they did not wish to tire her.
When the Old Woman came up to them, she caught the Soft-Voiced Cow by
the tail and began dragging her back the way the party had come.
Gran’pa was for making her let go of the Soft-Voiced Cow’s tail, but the
Soft-Voiced Cow spoke gently and said, “Let her be; she is evidently an
ill mannered person or she would not treat a stranger in this manner!”
However, the Old Woman dragged the Soft-Voiced Cow down the road so fast
the friction of the cow’s feet upon the roadway made them burn.
So the Soft-Voiced Cow turned to the Old Woman and said, “I wish you
would please let go of my tail! I do not care to travel in the direction
you are taking me and besides you are making my feet burn.”
But the Old Woman kept right on and paid no attention to the cow.
When the Soft-Voiced Cow had been dragged back upon the road for about a
mile with the little party following her, the Soft-Voiced Cow turned her
head to the Old Woman and said in her gentle way, “My dear lady, I must
insist that you let go of my tail, for you are delaying our party! We
wish to go in the opposite direction! And if you drag me three more
steps, I shall have to raise my heels and upset you!”
At this, Gran’pa caught the Old Woman’s arm and said, “Why do you drag
the Soft-Voiced Cow in this manner?”
The Old Woman stopped and gazed at Gran’pa for a moment, “Does this Cow
belong to you?” she asked.
“Of course not!” Gran’pa replied.
“Does she belong to anyone in your party?” the Old Woman asked.
“Of course not!” Gran’pa replied.
“Then,” said the Old Woman, “in that case, the Cow does not belong to
you nor anyone else that you know of, so she must be lost. And anything
which is lost belongs to the one who finds it! Therefore, since I found
the Cow she belongs to me, so I will take her home and make ox tail soup
out of her!”
“Did you ever hear the like?” cried the Princess. “Do not let her take
the Soft-Voiced Cow to make soup of!”
The Old Woman again began dragging the Soft-Voiced Cow down the road.
“Stand aside!” said the Soft-Voiced Cow. “ONE, TWO, THREE! There!” She
raised her heels in the air and upset the Old Woman. “I promised that I
would do it if you dragged me three more steps!”
The Old Woman scrambled to her feet and shook her fist at Gran’ma. “You
will pay for this!” she cried. “Just wait!”
[Illustration]
And as the travelers and the Soft-Voiced Cow resumed their journey, the
Old Woman followed right behind them muttering in an undertone, “You
will pay for this!”
When they had gone but a little way beyond the place where they had met
the Old Woman, Johnny who was ahead of the others found ten cans. With
these he came running back.
“Here are ten cans of ox tail soup!” he said, as he offered them to the
Old Woman.
“I don’t want them!” the Old Woman cried. “I want the Soft-Voiced Cow
and I will have her if I have to follow you all around the Moon!”
“You are a most unreasonable Old Woman!” said the Princess. “You don’t
try to be happy! When you get what you want it seems to make you
discontented!”
The Old Woman did not answer, but ran around the party and down the road
ahead of them. “You just wait!” she cried again. “You will all be
sorry!”
“Let’s not pay any attention to her any more!” said the Soft-Voiced Cow.
“She is very disagreeable and has delayed us long enough as it is!”
The Old Woman could run very fast and she soon disappeared around the
bend in the road. They heard her clapping and shouting. When the
travelers reached the bend in the road a strange sight met their eyes.
As far as they could see before them and to either side was a great bog.
Gran’pa went up to it and pushed his cane into the edge. It was very
soft.
“We shall have to walk around it,” Gran’pa said, “for we should sink out
of sight if we attempted to cross it!”
When Gran’pa wiped his cane off in the grass, he felt that it was very
sticky, and touching his finger to the bog he tasted it. “Molasses candy
mud!” he cried.
“This is very unfortunate!” said the Princess as she looked about. “We
shall lose a lot of time walking around the molasses candy bog!”
“I told you that you would be sorry!” cried a voice behind them, and
looking around they saw the Old Woman standing on a little hill shaking
her fist at them. “I made it with my magic!” she called, “and you will
never get across it!”
“The unreasonable wicked creature!” Gran’ma cried as she started after
the Old Woman. “I will tweek your nose for you if I catch you!”
The Old Woman did not tarry long, but struck out over the hill with
Gran’ma close behind her. Gran’ma ran after the Old Woman and the others
followed. The Old Woman made for a little house not far away and as she
jumped through the door, she, the house and all disappeared.
“Well!” Gran’pa cried as he came up to Gran’ma. “We are rid of her at
any rate!”
“I hope we shall never see her again,” said the Soft-Voiced Cow. “Like
most disagreeable people she isn’t satisfied unless everyone else is
uncomfortable, depressed and so unhappy.”
“We may as well start walking around the molasses candy bog,” said the
Princess, “for we are losing so much time old Jingles may catch up with
us!”
“I have a suggestion,” said the Soft-Voiced Cow, “which may be helpful.
Let us all walk down to the molasses candy bog, and when we are at the
edge I will take you all on my back and carry you some distance along
the bank, so that you will not leave any footprints. Then when the
Magician comes along he will not be able to track you!”
“That is an excellent idea!” said Gran’pa. “Let us act upon the
Soft-Voiced Cow’s suggestion!” So they all walked down to the molasses
candy bog.
The Soft-Voiced Cow took Gran’ma, Janey and the Princess upon her back
and carried them far down the bank; then she returned and carried
Gran’pa and Johnny to where the others were waiting.
But as they walked the bank gradually curved in until in a short time
they were walking in the direction from which they had just come.
“This will never do,” said Gran’pa coming to a stop, “for we are
returning from whence we came.”
And when they walked back along the bank the same thing happened.
Everything went swinging before them in long, sweeping circles. They
couldn’t make heads or tails of the shore line.
“Let us try walking away from the molasses candy bog,” said Johnny, “and
see what happens then!”
So they turned their backs to the bog and started walking away from it.
Sure enough, when they did this the bog began to fade away, and soon it
disappeared entirely!
“Whee!” cried the children. “We can go ahead!”
The travelers had lost a lot of valuable time, so they hastened across
the fields where the bog had been.
“You see!” said the Princess, “Johnny was right! The Old Woman’s magic
was as contrary as herself, for when the molasses candy bog thought we
did not care whether we crossed it or not, it disappeared.”
As the travelers walked along, they saw numbers of small animals running
about.
“I wonder where these little animals were when the great molasses bog
was here!” Janey said looking at them curiously.
“I’ll ask one of them,” said the Soft-Voiced Cow, and she talked to the
strange little beast in animal talk.
[Illustration]
When the little animal answered, the Soft-Voiced Cow rolled over on the
ground with laughter and when at last she could speak she said, “I asked
the animal where it was when the bog was here, and it said there never
had been a bog here. Said it had lived here for years and the ground had
always been as it is now, except after a hard rain, so you see the Old
Woman only made us believe we saw a bog here, when in reality there was
none at all.”
“It’s queer,” exclaimed Gran’pa, “but I certainly tasted molasses candy
on my cane! In fact,” he said, looking at the cane, “there is still some
on it now!”
“Let me taste it!” Gran’ma cried. “Yes,” she said, “it is molasses
candy!”
“Well at any rate we are not troubled with the bog now!” Janey mused.
Across the fields rose high mountains.
“I wonder if we shall be able to find a path through the mountains!”
Gran’pa said.
“I think those are the mountains bordering the City of Nite!” said the
Princess. “And if that is the case we have not very much farther to
travel.”
But the mountains were farther away than the travelers thought, for
after walking for an hour they came to a rise in the ground from which
they looked across miles and miles of beautiful valley country. Gran’ma
and Gran’pa said it was almost as pretty as the country round the farm
back home.
Down in the valley a little way they saw a tiny house and walked in that
direction. When they came to the front gate and called no one answered,
so they walked in and knocked at the door.
As no one answered the knock they walked around to the back door and
looked inside the kitchen, for the door was open. There on the stove
were pots and pans filled with food which was cooking; and as they
watched, one of the pots raised itself from the stove and poured its
contents into another pot. Then another pot moved across the stove and
its lid came off and hung itself in the air, while a large spoon raised
itself from the back of the stove and stirred the contents of the pot.
“Shall we go in?” Janey whispered, as they all hesitated on the step.
Gran’pa raised his cane and knocked three times on the door sill.
“What was that?” cried a man’s voice from the front part of the house.
“Something hammered upon the door!” a woman’s voice in the kitchen
answered. “But I can see nothing outside to cause the noise!”
Gran’pa raised his cane and gave three more knocks.
“Did you ever!” the woman’s voice cried. “I was looking right at the
spot where the noise came from and I could not see a thing!”
Evidently the man had come to the kitchen door and stood near the woman,
for the travelers heard him speak right at the back door.
“What could it have been, Ella?” he said.
Gran’pa turned and winked at the others and again rapped three times
with his cane upon the door sill.
“There! You hear for yourself, Jules! There must be an invisible person
knocking at the door!”
“Is anyone there?” asked the man’s voice.
“We are standing right here in plain sight!” Gran’ma replied.
“Dear me!” the woman’s voice said. “I can see no one, can you, Jules?”
“I can’t see anyone!” Jules answered. “Whoever it is must be invisible!”
“It’s the Princess of Nite, Janey and Johnny, Gran’ma and Gran’pa
Huggins!” Gran’pa said. “We can see ourselves easily, but you are
invisible to us!”
“Had we better ask them in?” Ella inquired of the man.
[Illustration]
“Yes, do come in!” he said in answer, and as Gran’pa was nearest the
door, he walked in first and bumped right into the Invisible Man.
“Please excuse me!” Gran’pa said. “I am sorry, but I did not see you!”
“That’s all right,” the Invisible Man replied in a cheery voice. “I was
standing right in the doorway and I should have moved out of your way!”
His voice now came from the other side of the kitchen. “We will stand
over at this side of the room until all of you have gone into the dining
room. We were about to have dinner, and if you will take pot luck we
shall be pleased to have you dine with us.”
“That is nice of you!” Gran’ma said as she and the others walked into
the dining room and sat down at the table.
“It is strange to hear people speak and not be able to see them!” said
Janey.
[Illustration]
Johnny felt something brush against his leg and when he felt down there
he touched fur. “Here’s a kitten!” he cried, as he picked it up and held
it upon his lap. All could hear the kitten purring as Johnny stroked its
back, but it was invisible too.
There were only two plates upon the table when the visitors entered the
dining room, but now five more plates seemed to place themselves.
“Everybody pull up chairs!” said the Invisible Man, as he caught hold of
Gran’ma’s chair and tried to pull it towards the table. “Please excuse
me,” he laughed when he felt the weight and knew that one of his guests
was in it.
All pulled their chairs up to the table, Ella suggesting that the
visitors be seated first so that she and Jules would know just where
they were.
So all of the party presently were seated at the table and Ella brought
in the food from the kitchen.
It was strange for Gran’pa, Gran’ma, the children and the Princess to
see the dishes of food come floating in from the kitchen, and it seemed
as strange for Jules and Ella to hear the voices of invisible guests and
see their knives and forks rise from the table to cut their food.
When Jules had passed everything and all had helped themselves he asked
where they were traveling and where they had come from.
“It’s a long story,” Gran’pa said.
Then Gran’ma told him of how they had come to the Moon, and why they
were traveling to the City of Nite.
“But the wicked Magician will not be able to see you,” said Jules, “for
you are invisible!”
[Illustration]
“No,” Gran’ma answered, “we are visible to him, but the chances are that
he will not be able to see you!”
“If that is the case, and he should pass here we will do our best to
help you!” said Ella.
When the visitors had finished their dinner they thanked Jules and Ella
and asked if they might be excused.
“We are anxious to get to the City of Nite so that we can assist the
Princess in regaining her throne, and try to get our Flying Boat so that
we can return to the Earth,” they explained.
The Invisible Man and Woman said they understood the visitors’ hurry,
and told them to stop in to see them if they passed that way again.
Just then the Soft-Voiced Cow put her head in at the door and asked if
they were ready to start.
When the Invisible Man and Woman heard the Soft-Voiced Cow speak they
asked if they had forgotten to invite some of the party in to dinner.
“It’s the Soft-Voiced Cow,” explained the Princess. “She has been eating
her dinner of grass out in the back yard!”
“I can scarcely believe there is a Cow there!” said the voice of Ella.
“Would the Cow mind if I touched her to see if I can feel her?”
The Soft-Voiced Cow laughed heartily at this and stood still while Ella
patted her.
After a lot of reaching around in the air, Gran’pa and the rest
succeeded in shaking hands with their invisible friends.
“Funny how pleasant people keep out of sight,” Gran’ma said as her party
started down the walk.
“Thank you so much!” they all cried. “We hope to see you again some
time!”
At this the Invisible Man and Woman laughed and replied, “And we hope to
see you again some time, too!”
[Illustration]