It was a cry of amazement. For suddenly--so suddenly that she did not
have time to think how it had happened--she found herself _up and
dressed_, and standing alone, gazing about her, _in the open air!_
But there were no high buildings on any side, no people passing to and
fro, no motor-cars flashing by. And the grass underfoot was not the
grass of a lawn, evenly cut and flowerless; it was tall, so that it
brushed the hem of her dress, and blossom-dotted.
She looked up at the sky. It was not the sky of the City, distant, and
marbled with streaks of smoke. It was close and clear; starless, too;
and no moon hung upon it. Yet though it was night there was light
everywhere--warm, glowing, roseate.
By that radiant glow she saw that she was in the midst of trees! Some
were tall and slender and clean-barked; others were low and thick of
trunk, but with the wide shapely spread of the great banyan in her
geography; and, towering above the others, were the giants of that
forest, unevenly branched, misshapen, aslant, and rugged with wart-like
burls.
"Is--is this the Park?" she said aloud, still looking around. "Or--or
the woods across the River?"
But there was no sign of a paved walk, such as traced patterns through
the Park; nor of a chimney, to mark the whereabouts of a house. Behind
her the ground sloped gently up to a wooded rise; in front of her it
sloped as gently down to the edge of a narrow, noisy mountain stream.
"Why, I'm at Johnnie Blake's!" she cried--then glanced over a shoulder
cautiously. If this were indeed the place she had longed to revisit, it
would be advisable to keep as quiet as possible, lest someone should
hear her, and straightway come to take her home.
Still watching backward apprehensively, she pushed through the grass to
the edge of the stream.
The moment she reached it she knew that it was not the trout-stream
along which she had wandered while her father fished. It was, in fact,
not ordinary water at all, but something lighter, more sparkling with
color, swifter, and louder. It effervesced, so that a creamy mist lay
along its surface--this the smoke of bursting bubbles. It was like the
bottled water she drank at her nursery meals!
Hands clasped, she leaned to stare down. "Isn't it _funny!_" she
exclaimed half under her breath.
A voice answered her--from close at hand. It was a thin, cracked voice.
"This is where They get their soda-water," it said.
She turned, and saw him.
He was a queer little old thick-set, dark-skinned gentleman, with
grizzled whiskers, a ragged hat and baggy trousers. His eyes were round
and black under his brows, which were square and long-haired, and not
unlike a certain new hand-brush that Jane wielded of a morning across
Gwendolyn's small finger-tips. Over one shoulder, by a strap, hung a
dark box, half-hidden by a piece of old carpet. In one hand he held a
huge, curved knife.
Though she could not remember ever having seen him at Johnnie Blake's;
and though the curved knife was in pattern the true type of a
kidnaper's weapon, and the look out of those round, dark eyes, as he
strode toward her, was not at all friendly, she did not scamper away.
She waited, her heart beating hard. When he halted, she curtsied.
"I've--I've always wondered about soda-water," she faltered, trying to
smile. "But when I asked--"
"Um!" he grunted; then, with a sidewise jerk of the head, "Take a
drink."
She lifted eager eyes. "All I _want_ to?" she half-whispered.
He nodded. "Sip! Lap! Tipple!"
"Oo!" Fairly beaming with delight, she knelt down. For the first time in
her life she could have all the soda-water she wanted!
First, she put the tip of one finger into the rushing sparkle, slowly,
to lengthen out her joy. Next, with a little laugh, she sank her whole
hand. Bubbles formed upon it,--all sizes of them--standing out like
dewdrops upon leaves. The bubbles cooled. And tempted her thirst. With a
deep breath, she bent forward until her red mouth touched the shimmering
surface. Thus, lying prone, with arms spread wide, she drank deep of the
flow.
When she straightened and sat back upon her heels, she made an
astonishing discovery: The trees that studded the slope were not covered
with leaves, like ordinary trees! Each branched to hold lights--myriads
of lights! Some of these shone steadily; others burned with a hissing
sound; others were silent enough, but rose and fell, jumped and
flickered. It was these countless lights that illumed the forest like a
pink sun.
She rose. There was wonder in the gray eyes. "Are these Christmas
trees?" she said. "Where am I?"
"You've had your soda-water," he answered shortly. "You ought to know."
"Yes, I--I ought to know. But--I don't."
He grunted.
"I s'pose," she ventured timidly, "that nobody ever answers questions
here, either."
He looked uncomfortable. "Yes," he retorted, "_every_body does."
"Then,"--advancing an eager step--"why don't _you?_"
He mopped his forehead. "Well--well--if I must, I must: This is where
all the lights go when they're put out at night."
"Oh!" And now as she glanced from tree to tree she saw that what he had
said was true. For the greater part of the lights were electric bulbs;
while many were gas-jets, and a few kerosene-flames.
Still marveling, her look chanced to fall upon herself. And she found
that she was not wearing a despised muslin frock! Her dress was
gingham!--an adorable plaid with long sleeves, and a patch-pocket low
down on the right side!
"You darling!" she exclaimed happily, and thrust a hand into the pocket.
"I guess They made it!"
Next she looked down at her feet--and could scarcely believe! She had on
no stockings! She did not even have on slippers. _She was barefoot!_
Then, still fearful that there was some mistake about it all, she put a
hand to her head; and found her hair-bow gone! In its place, making a
small floppy double knot, was a length of black shoe-string!
"Oh, goody!" she cried.
"Um!" grunted the little old gentleman. "And you can play in the water
if you'd like to."
That needed no urging! She was face about on the instant.
From the standpoint of messing the soda-stream was ideal. It brawled
around flat rocks, set at convenient jumping-distances from one another.
(She leaped promptly to one of these and sopped her handkerchief.) It
circled into sand-bottomed pools just shallow enough for wading; and
from the pools, it spread out thinly to thread the grass, thus giving
her an opportunity for squashing--a diverting pastime consisting in
squirting equal parts of water and soil ticklishly through the toes. She
hopped from rock to pool; she splashed from pool to long, wet, muddy
grass.
It was the water-play that brought the realization of all her new
good-fortune--the being out of doors and plainly clad; free from the
espionage of a governess; away from the tyranny of a motor-car;
barefoot; and--chief blessing of all!--_nurseless_.
Forgetting the little old gentleman, in a sudden excess of glee she
seized a stick and bestrode it; seized another and belabored the
quarters of a stout dappled pony; pranced, reared, kicked up her wet
feet, shied wildly--
Then, both sticks cast aside, she began to dance; at first with
deliberation, holding out the gingham dress at either side, and mincing
through the steps taught by Monsieur Tellegen. But gradually she forsook
rhythm and measure; capering ceased; the dance became fast and furious.
Hallooing, she raced hither and thither among the trees, tossing her
arms, darting down at the flowers and flinging them high, swishing her
yellow hair from side to side, leaping exultantly toward the lights,
pivoting--
Suddenly she found that she was dancing to music!--not the laboriously
strummed notes of a piano, such as were beaten out by the firm-striding
Miss Brown; not the clamorous, deafening, tuneless efforts of an
orchestra. This was _real_ music--inviting, inspiring, heavenly!
It was a hand-organ!
She halted, spell-bound. He was playing, turning the crank with a swift,
steady motion, his ragged hat tipped to one side.
Now she understood the box hanging from its strap. She danced up to him,
and held out a hand. "Why, you're the _hand-organ_ man!" she panted
breathlessly. "And you got here as quick as I did!"
He stopped playing, "I'm the hand-organ man when I'm in town," he
corrected. "Here, in the Land of the Lights, I'm the Man-Who-Makes-Faces."
The Man-Who-Makes-Faces! She looked at him with new interest. "Why, of
course you are," she acknowledged. "Sometimes you make 'em in town."
"Sometimes in town I make an ugly one," he retorted. Whereupon he
shouldered the hand-organ, grasped the curved knife, and started away.
As he walked, he called aloud to every side, like a huckster.
"Here's where you get your ears sharpened!" he sang. "_Ears_ sharpened!
_Eyes_ sharpened! Edges taken off of tongues!"
She trotted beside him, head up, gray eyes wide, lips parted. He was
ascending a gentle rise toward a low hill not far distant. As she drew
away from the stream and the glade, she heard, from somewhere far
behind, a shrill voice. It called a name--a name strangely familiar. She
paid no heed.
At the summit of the little hill, under some trees, he paused, and waved
the kidnaper knife in circles. "_Ears_ to sharpen!" he shrilled again.
"_Eyes_ to sharpen! Edges taken off of tongues!"
She smiled up at him engagingly, noting how his gray hair hung over the
back of his collar. She felt no fear of him whatever. "I think you're
nice, Mr. Man-Who-Makes-Faces," she announced presently. "I'm so glad I
can look straight at you. I didn't know you, 'cause your voice is
different, and 'cause I'd never seen you before 'cept when I was looking
_down_ at you."
He had been ignoring her. But now, "Wasn't my fault that we didn't meet
face to face," he retorted. Though his voice was still cross, his round,
bright eyes were almost kind. "If you'll remember I often came under
your window."
"And I threw you money," she answered, nodding brightly. "I wanted to
come down and talk to you, oh, lots of times, only--"
At that, he relented altogether. And, reaching out, shook hands
cordially. "Wouldn't you like," said he, "to have a look at my
establishment?" He jerked a thumb over a shoulder. "Here's where I make
faces."
In the City she had seen many wonderful shops, catching glimpses of some
from the little window of her car, visiting others with Miss Royle or
Jane. Among the former were those fascinating ones, usually low of
ceiling and dark with coal-dust, where grimy men in leather aprons tried
shoes on horses; and those horrifying places past which she always drove
with closed eyes--places where, scraped white and head downward, hung
little pigs, pitiful husks of what they once had been, flanked on either
hand by long-necked turkeys with poor glazed eyes; and once she had seen
a wonderful shop in which men were sawing out flat pieces of stone, and
writing words on them with chisels.
But this shop of the Man-Who-Makes-Faces was the most interesting of
all.
It occupied a square of hard-packed ground--a square as broad as the
nursery. And curiously enough, like the nursery, it had, marking it off
all the way around its outer edge, a border of flowers!
It was shaded by one huge tree.
"Lime-tree," explained the little old gentleman. "And the lights--"
"Don't tell me!" she cried. "I know! They're lime lights."
These made the shop exceedingly bright. Full in their glare, neatly
disposed, were two short-legged tables, a squat stool, and a high, broad
bill-board.
The Man-Who-Makes-Faces seated himself on the stool at one of the tables
and began working industriously.
But Gwendolyn could only stand and stare about her, so amazed that she
was dumb. For in front of the little old gentleman, and spread handily,
were ears and eyes, noses and mouths, cheeks and chins and foreheads.
And upon the bill-board, pendant, were toupees and side-burns and
mustaches, puffs, transformations and goatees--and one coronet braid (a
red one) glossy and thick and handsome!
The bill-board also held an assortment of tongues--long and scarlet.
These, a score in all, were ranged in a shining row. And underneath them
was a sign which bore this announcement:
_Tongues In All Languages
Dead or Modern
Chic if Seven
Are Purchased at Once_.
Gwendolyn clapped her hands. "Oo! how _nice!_" she exclaimed, finding
her voice again.
"Quite so," said the little old gentleman, shoving away a tray of chins
and cheeks and reaching for a forehead. "Welcome, convenient, and
satisfactory."
She saw her opportunity. "Please," she began, "I'd like to buy six." She
counted on her fingers. "I'll have a French tongue, a German tongue, a
Greek tongue, a Latin tongue, and--later, though, if you don't happen
to have 'em on hand--a Spanish and an Italian." Then she heaved a sigh
of relief. "I'm glad I saw these," she added. "They'll save me a lot of
work. And they've helped me about a def'nition. I looked for 'lashing'
in my big dictionary. And it said 'to whip.' But _I_ couldn't see how
anybody could whip anybody else with a _tongue_. Now, though--"
The Man-Who-Makes-Faces nodded. "Just wait till you see the King's
English," he bragged.
"The King's English? Will I see him?"
"Likely to," he answered, selecting an eye. He had all his eyes about
him in a circle, each looking as natural as life. There were blue eyes
and brown eyes, hazel eyes and--
"Ah!" she exclaimed suddenly. "I remember! It was _you_ who gave the
Policeman a black eye!"
"One _fine_ black eye," he answered, chuckling as he poked about in a
pile of noses and selected a large-sized one. "Yes! Yes! And recently I
made a lovely blue pair for a bad-tempered child who'd cried her own
eyes out."
She assented. She had heard of just such a case. "Once I saw some eyes
in a shop-window," she confided. "It was a shop where you could buy
spectacles."
He wagged his beard proudly. "I made every _one_ of 'em!" he boasted.
"Oh, yes, indeed." And polished away at the tip of the large nose.
She considered for a moment. "I'm glad I know," she said gravely. "I
wanted to, awful much."
After that she studied the bill-board for a time. And presently
discovered that a second supply of eyes was displayed there, being set
in it as jewels are set in brooches!
She pointed. "What kind are those?"
He looked surprised at the question. "The bill-board is the rear wall of
my shop," said he. "And those eyes are wall-eyes."
She flushed with pleasure. "That's _exactly_ what I thought!" she
declared.
She began to walk up and down, one hand in the patch-pocket--to make
sure it was really there. For this was all too good to be true. Here, in
this Land so new to her, and so wonderful, were things about which she
had pondered, and puzzled, and asked questions--the tongues, for
instance, and the lime-lights, and the soda-water. How simply and
naturally each was now explained!--explained as she herself had
imagined each would be. She felt a sudden pride in herself. So far had
anything been really unexpected? As she went back to pause in front of
the little old gentleman, it was with a delightful sense of
understanding. Oh, this was one of her pretend-games, gloriously come
true!
Now she felt a very flood of questions surge to her lips. She pointed to
a deep yellow bowl set on the table beside him. "Would you mind telling
me what that is?" she asked.
"That? That's a sauce-box." And he smiled.
"Oh!--What's it full of, please?"
"Full of mouths,"--cheerily.
It was her turn to smile. She smiled into the sauce-box. At its center
was a queer object, very like a short length of dried apple-peeling.
"I s'pose that's part of a mouth?" she ventured.
He picked up the object and balanced it across his thumb. "You've
guessed it!" he declared. "And it's a fine thing to carry around with
one. You see, it's a stiff upper lip." He tossed it back.
"My!" She took a deep breath. "Once I asked and _asked_ about a stiff
upper lip."
He went on with his polishing. "Should think you'd be more interested in
these," he observed, giving a nod of the ragged hat toward a shallow
dish at his elbow. "Little girls generally are."
She looked, and saw that the dish was heaped high with what seemed to be
_white peanuts_--peanuts that tapered to a point at one end. She
puckered her brows over them.
"Can't guess?" said he. "Then you didn't drink enough of that
soda-water. Well, ever hear of a sweet tooth?"
At that she clapped her hands and jumped up and down. "Why, I've _got_
one!" she cried.
"Oh?" said the little old gentleman. "Thought so. I _always_ keep a
supply on hand. Carve 'em myself, out of cube sugar."
"Oh, aren't they funny!" She leaned above the shallow dish.
"Funny?" repeated the Man-Who-Makes-Faces. "Not when they get into the
wrong mouth!--a wry mouth, for instance, or an ugly mouth. A sweet tooth
should go, you understand, only with a sweet face."
"Is it a sweet tooth that makes a face sweet?" she inquired.
"Quite so." He held up the nose to examine it critically.
She watched him in silence for a while. Then, "You don't mind telling
me who's going to have that?" she ventured, pointing a finger at the
nose.
"This? Oh, this is for a certain little boy's father."
She blinked thoughtfully. "Is his name," she began--and stopped.
"His father--the unfortunate man--has been keeping his own nose to the
grindstone pretty steadily of late, and so--"
"I can't just remember the name I'm thinking about," said Gwendolyn,
troubled.
He glanced up. And the round, bright eyes were grave as he searched her
face. "I wonder," he said in a low voice, "if you know who _you_ are."
She smiled. "Well, I've been acquainted with myself for seven years,"
she declared.
"But do you know who you _are?_" (The round eyes were full of tears!)
She felt uncertain. "I did just a little while ago. Now, though--"
He reached to take her hand. "Shall I tell you?"
"Yes,"--in a whisper.
"You're the Poor Little Rich Girl." He patted her hand. "The Poor Little
Rich Girl!"
She nodded bravely, and stood looking up at him. He was old and unkempt.
Out at elbows, too. And the bottoms of his baggy trousers hung in dusty
shreds. But his lined and bearded face was kind! "I--I haven't been so
very happy," she said falteringly.
He shook his head. "Not happy! And no step-relations, either!"
"Well,--er," (she felt uncertain) "there are some step-houses just
across the street."
"Not the same thing," he declared shortly. "But, _hm! hm!_"--as he
coughed, he waved an arm cheerily. "Things will improve. Oh, yes. All
you've got to do is follow my advice."
The gray eyes were wistful, and questioning.
"You've got a lot to do," he went on. "Oh, a _great_ deal. For
instance"--here he paused, running his fingers through his long
hair--"there's Miss Royle, and Thomas, and Jane."
She was silent for a long moment. Miss Royle! Thomas! Jane! In the joy
of being out of doors, of having real dirt to scuff in, and high grass
through which to brush; of having a plaid gingham with a pocket, and
all the fizzing drink she wished; of being able to dabble and wade; and
of having good, squashy soda-mud for pies--in the joy at all this she
had utterly forgotten them!
She looked up at the tapered trees, and down at the flower-bordered
ground; then at the bill-board, and the loaded tables of that marvelous
establishment. There was still so much to see! And, oh, how many scores
of questions to ask!
He bent until his beard swept the sauce-box. "You'll just have to keep
out of their _clutches_," he declared.
Again she nodded, twisting and untwisting her fingers. "I thought maybe
they didn't come here."
"Come?" he grunted. "Won't they be hunting _you?_ Well, keep out of
their clutches, I say. That's absolutely necessary. You'll see why--if
you let 'em get you! For--how'll you ever find your father?"
"_Oh!_" A sudden flush swept her face. She looked at the ground. She had
forgotten Miss Royle and Thomas and Jane. Worse! Until that moment _she
had forgotten her father and mother!_
"There's that harness of his," went on the Man-Who-Makes-Faces. He
thought a moment, pursing his lips and twiddling his thumbs. "We'll have
to consider how we can get rid of it."
She glanced up. "Where does he come?" she asked huskily; "my fath-er?"
"Um! Yes, where?" He seemed uneasy; scratched his jaw; and rearranged a
row of chins. "Well, the fact is, he comes here to--er--buy candles that
burn at both ends."
"Of course. Is it far?"
"Out in a new fashionable addition--yes, addition, subtraction,
multiplication."
"_You_ won't mind showing me the way?" Now her face grew pale with
earnestness.
He smiled sadly. "I? Your father thinks poorly of me. He's driven me off
the block once or twice, you know. Though"--he looked away
thoughtfully--"when you come to think of it there isn't such a lot of
difference between your father and me. He makes money: I make faces."
It was one of those unpleasant moments when there seemed very little to
be said. She stood on the other foot.
He began polishing once more. "Then there's that bee," he resumed--
"Moth-er."
He went on as quickly as possible. "Of course there are lots of things
worse than one of those so-cial hon-ey-gath-er-ing in-sects--"
"She sees nothing else! She _hears_ nothing else!"
"Um! We'll help her get rid of it!--_if!_"
"If?"
"You've got a lot to overcome. Recollect the Policeman?"
She retreated a step.
"Just suppose we meet _him!_ And the Bear that--"
"My!"
"Yes. And a certain Doctor."
"Oh, _dear!_"
"Bad! Pretty bad!"
"Where does my moth-er come?"--timidly.
The question embarrassed. "Er--the place is full of carriage-lamps," he
began; "and--and side-lights, and search-lights, and--er--lanterns."
She looked concerned. "I can't guess."
"Just ordinary lanterns," he added. "You see, the Madam comes to--to
Robin Hood's Barn."
"Robin Hood's Barn!"
"Exactly. Nice day, _isn't_ it?"
By the expression on his face, Gwendolyn judged that Robin Hood's
Barn--of which she had often heard--was a most undesirable spot. "Is it
far?" she asked, swallowing.
"No. Only--we'll have to go around it."
Somehow, all at once, he seemed the one friend she had. She put out a
hand to him. "You _will_ go with me?" she begged. "Oh, I want to find my
fath-er, and my moth-er!"
"You want to tell 'em the real truth about those three servants they're
hiring. Unless I'm _much_ mistaken, your parents have never taken one
good square look at those three."
"Oh, let's start." Now, of a sudden, all the hopes and plans of the past
months came crowding back into her mind. "I want to sit at the grown-up
table," she declared. "And I want to live in the country, and go to
day-school."
He hung the hand-organ over a shoulder. "You can do every one of them,"
he said, "if we find your father and mother."
"We'll find them," she cried determinedly.
"We'll find 'em," he said, "if, as we go along, we don't leave
one--single--stone--_unturned_."
"Oh!" she glanced about her, searching the ground.
"Not _one_," he repeated. "And now--we'll start." He picked up two or
three small articles--an ear, a handful of hair, a plump cheek.
"But there's a stone right here," said Gwendolyn. It was a small one,
and lay at her feet, close to the table-leg.
He peered over. "All right! Turn it!"
She stooped--turned the rock--straightened.
The next moment a chill swept her; the next, she felt a heavy hand upon
her shoulder, and clumsy fingers busy with the buttons on the gingham
dress.
"_Tee! hee! hee! hee!_"
It was the voice that had called from a distance. Hearing it now she
felt a sudden, sickish, sinking feeling. She whirled.
A strange creature was kneeling behind her--a creature dressed in black
sateen, and like no human being that she had ever met before. For it
was _two-faced!_
One face (the front) was blowzy and freckled, with a small pug nose and
a quarrelsome mouth. The other (the face on what, with ordinary persons,
was the back of the head) was dark and forbidding, its nose a large
brick-colored pug, the mouth underneath shaped most extraordinarily--not
unlike a _barrette_, for it was wide and long, and square at the
corners, and full of shining tortoise-shell teeth! But the creature had
only one tongue. This was loose at both ends, so that there was one tip
for her front face, and one for the back. But she had only one pair of
eyes. These were reddish. They watched Gwendolyn boldly from the front;
then rolled quickly to the rear to stare at the Man-Who-Makes-Faces.
At sight of the two-faced creature, Gwendolyn shrank away, frightened.
"Oh!--oh, my!" she faltered.
Both horrid mouths now bellowed hilariously. And the creature reached
out a big hand.
"Look here, Gwendolyn!" it ordered. "You ain't goin'!"
Gwendolyn lifted terrified eyes for a second look at the brick-colored
hair, the blowzy countenance. No possibility of doubt remained!
It was Jane!