Beasts and Super-Beasts

by Saki

  THE STORY-TELLER

  It was a hot afternoon, and the railway carriage was correspondinglysultry, and the next stop was at Templecombe, nearly an hour ahead. Theoccupants of the carriage were a small girl, and a smaller girl, and asmall boy. An aunt belonging to the children occupied one corner seat,and the further corner seat on the opposite side was occupied by abachelor who was a stranger to their party, but the small girls and thesmall boy emphatically occupied the compartment. Both the aunt and thechildren were conversational in a limited, persistent way, reminding oneof the attentions of a housefly that refuses to be discouraged. Most ofthe aunt’s remarks seemed to begin with “Don’t,” and nearly all of thechildren’s remarks began with “Why?” The bachelor said nothing out loud.“Don’t, Cyril, don’t,” exclaimed the aunt, as the small boy begansmacking the cushions of the seat, producing a cloud of dust at eachblow.

  “Come and look out of the window,” she added.

  The child moved reluctantly to the window. “Why are those sheep beingdriven out of that field?” he asked.

  “I expect they are being driven to another field where there is moregrass,” said the aunt weakly.

  “But there is lots of grass in that field,” protested the boy; “there’snothing else but grass there. Aunt, there’s lots of grass in thatfield.”

  “Perhaps the grass in the other field is better,” suggested the auntfatuously.

  “Why is it better?” came the swift, inevitable question.

  “Oh, look at those cows!” exclaimed the aunt. Nearly every field alongthe line had contained cows or bullocks, but she spoke as though she weredrawing attention to a rarity.

  “Why is the grass in the other field better?” persisted Cyril.

  The frown on the bachelor’s face was deepening to a scowl. He was ahard, unsympathetic man, the aunt decided in her mind. She was utterlyunable to come to any satisfactory decision about the grass in the otherfield.

  The smaller girl created a diversion by beginning to recite “On the Roadto Mandalay.” She only knew the first line, but she put her limitedknowledge to the fullest possible use. She repeated the line over andover again in a dreamy but resolute and very audible voice; it seemed tothe bachelor as though some one had had a bet with her that she could notrepeat the line aloud two thousand times without stopping. Whoever itwas who had made the wager was likely to lose his bet.

  “Come over here and listen to a story,” said the aunt, when the bachelorhad looked twice at her and once at the communication cord.

  The children moved listlessly towards the aunt’s end of the carriage.Evidently her reputation as a story-teller did not rank high in theirestimation.

  In a low, confidential voice, interrupted at frequent intervals by loud,petulant questionings from her listeners, she began an unenterprising anddeplorably uninteresting story about a little girl who was good, and madefriends with every one on account of her goodness, and was finally savedfrom a mad bull by a number of rescuers who admired her moral character.

  “Wouldn’t they have saved her if she hadn’t been good?” demanded thebigger of the small girls. It was exactly the question that the bachelorhad wanted to ask.

  “Well, yes,” admitted the aunt lamely, “but I don’t think they would haverun quite so fast to her help if they had not liked her so much.”

  “It’s the stupidest story I’ve ever heard,” said the bigger of the smallgirls, with immense conviction.

  “I didn’t listen after the first bit, it was so stupid,” said Cyril.

  The smaller girl made no actual comment on the story, but she had longago recommenced a murmured repetition of her favourite line.

  “You don’t seem to be a success as a story-teller,” said the bachelorsuddenly from his corner.

  The aunt bristled in instant defence at this unexpected attack.

  “It’s a very difficult thing to tell stories that children can bothunderstand and appreciate,” she said stiffly.

  “I don’t agree with you,” said the bachelor.

  “Perhaps you would like to tell them a story,” was the aunt’s retort.

  “Tell us a story,” demanded the bigger of the small girls.

  “Once upon a time,” began the bachelor, “there was a little girl calledBertha, who was extraordinarily good.”

  The children’s momentarily-aroused interest began at once to flicker; allstories seemed dreadfully alike, no matter who told them.

  “She did all that she was told, she was always truthful, she kept herclothes clean, ate milk puddings as though they were jam tarts, learnedher lessons perfectly, and was polite in her manners.”

  “Was she pretty?” asked the bigger of the small girls.

  “Not as pretty as any of you,” said the bachelor, “but she was horriblygood.”

  There was a wave of reaction in favour of the story; the word horrible inconnection with goodness was a novelty that commended itself. It seemedto introduce a ring of truth that was absent from the aunt’s tales ofinfant life.

  “She was so good,” continued the bachelor, “that she won several medalsfor goodness, which she always wore, pinned on to her dress. There was amedal for obedience, another medal for punctuality, and a third for goodbehaviour. They were large metal medals and they clicked against oneanother as she walked. No other child in the town where she lived had asmany as three medals, so everybody knew that she must be an extra goodchild.”

  “Horribly good,” quoted Cyril.

  “Everybody talked about her goodness, and the Prince of the country gotto hear about it, and he said that as she was so very good she might beallowed once a week to walk in his park, which was just outside the town.It was a beautiful park, and no children were ever allowed in it, so itwas a great honour for Bertha to be allowed to go there.”

  “Were there any sheep in the park?” demanded Cyril.

  “No;” said the bachelor, “there were no sheep.”

  “Why weren’t there any sheep?” came the inevitable question arising outof that answer.

  The aunt permitted herself a smile, which might almost have beendescribed as a grin.

  “There were no sheep in the park,” said the bachelor, “because thePrince’s mother had once had a dream that her son would either be killedby a sheep or else by a clock falling on him. For that reason the Princenever kept a sheep in his park or a clock in his palace.”

  The aunt suppressed a gasp of admiration.

  “Was the Prince killed by a sheep or by a clock?” asked Cyril.

  “He is still alive, so we can’t tell whether the dream will come true,”said the bachelor unconcernedly; “anyway, there were no sheep in thepark, but there were lots of little pigs running all over the place.”

  “What colour were they?”

  “Black with white faces, white with black spots, black all over, greywith white patches, and some were white all over.”

  The story-teller paused to let a full idea of the park’s treasures sinkinto the children’s imaginations; then he resumed:

  “Bertha was rather sorry to find that there were no flowers in the park.She had promised her aunts, with tears in her eyes, that she would notpick any of the kind Prince’s flowers, and she had meant to keep herpromise, so of course it made her feel silly to find that there were noflowers to pick.”

  “Why weren’t there any flowers?”

  “Because the pigs had eaten them all,” said the bachelor promptly. “Thegardeners had told the Prince that you couldn’t have pigs and flowers, sohe decided to have pigs and no flowers.”

  There was a murmur of approval at the excellence of the Prince’sdecision; so many people would have decided the other way.

  “There were lots of other delightful things in the park. There wereponds with gold and blue and green fish in them, and trees with beautifulparrots that said clever things at a moment’s notice, and humming birdsthat hummed all the popular tunes of the day. Bertha walked up and downand enjoyed herself im
mensely, and thought to herself: ‘If I were not soextraordinarily good I should not have been allowed to come into thisbeautiful park and enjoy all that there is to be seen in it,’ and herthree medals clinked against one another as she walked and helped toremind her how very good she really was. Just then an enormous wolf cameprowling into the park to see if it could catch a fat little pig for itssupper.”

  “What colour was it?” asked the children, amid an immediate quickening ofinterest.

  “Mud-colour all over, with a black tongue and pale grey eyes that gleamedwith unspeakable ferocity. The first thing that it saw in the park wasBertha; her pinafore was so spotlessly white and clean that it could beseen from a great distance. Bertha saw the wolf and saw that it wasstealing towards her, and she began to wish that she had never beenallowed to come into the park. She ran as hard as she could, and thewolf came after her with huge leaps and bounds. She managed to reach ashrubbery of myrtle bushes and she hid herself in one of the thickest ofthe bushes. The wolf came sniffing among the branches, its black tonguelolling out of its mouth and its pale grey eyes glaring with rage.Bertha was terribly frightened, and thought to herself: ‘If I had notbeen so extraordinarily good I should have been safe in the town at thismoment.’ However, the scent of the myrtle was so strong that the wolfcould not sniff out where Bertha was hiding, and the bushes were so thickthat he might have hunted about in them for a long time without catchingsight of her, so he thought he might as well go off and catch a littlepig instead. Bertha was trembling very much at having the wolf prowlingand sniffing so near her, and as she trembled the medal for obedienceclinked against the medals for good conduct and punctuality. The wolfwas just moving away when he heard the sound of the medals clinking andstopped to listen; they clinked again in a bush quite near him. Hedashed into the bush, his pale grey eyes gleaming with ferocity andtriumph, and dragged Bertha out and devoured her to the last morsel. Allthat was left of her were her shoes, bits of clothing, and the threemedals for goodness.”

  “Were any of the little pigs killed?”

  “No, they all escaped.”

  “The story began badly,” said the smaller of the small girls, “but it hada beautiful ending.”

  “It is the most beautiful story that I ever heard,” said the bigger ofthe small girls, with immense decision.

  “It is the _only_ beautiful story I have ever heard,” said Cyril.

  A dissentient opinion came from the aunt.

  “A most improper story to tell to young children! You have underminedthe effect of years of careful teaching.”

  “At any rate,” said the bachelor, collecting his belongings preparatoryto leaving the carriage, “I kept them quiet for ten minutes, which wasmore than you were able to do.”

  “Unhappy woman!” he observed to himself as he walked down the platform ofTemplecombe station; “for the next six months or so those children willassail her in public with demands for an improper story!”