The cat had lain down upon a rug and curled herself up again, but her eyes were not closed in sleep. Instead, they gazed steadily at the mantel where vases and ornaments stood on either side the pretty French clock.
Something in the animal’s attitude made Joslyn decide to remain, half hidden as he was, and watch her. It was a long wait, and once or twice he was tempted to abandon his post. But finally the clock struck two, and then his patience was amply rewarded.
Instantly the cat arose and said in a clear, distinct voice: “Two o’clock! It’s time for our frolic, friends — the third and last one we shall be able to enjoy.”
Joslyn’s heart nearly stopped beating, he was so amazed to hear a cat talk; and then it began to throb with excitement, for one of the dainty Dresden shepherdesses on the mantel leaned forward, losing all its china stiffness, and replied to the cat’s speech.
“The last time, you say? Why is that?” she asked.
“Because my visit here ends today and I must journey on to other places,” was the answer.
A taboret came trotting on its four legs from a corner and awkwardly approached the yellow cat. Joslyn thought he could see a comical face faintly outlined on the side of the taboret, although he had never noticed it before.
“Why don’t you tell us your story?” asked the little thing, in a squeaky voice.
“Why should you wish to hear it?” replied the cat.
“You’ve brought us to life and given us some good times — which we never enjoyed before since we were made,” said the taboret. “So we’d like to know who our good friend is.”
“Moreover,” added the shepherdess, who was now sitting on the edge of the mantle shelf and slowly swinging her feet, “if this is the last time we shall ever be able to move, we will have ages in which to think over these adventures, and your story will give us one more thing to think about.”
The cat made a queer purring sound that Joslyn thought was meant for a laugh.
“Very well,” it said, quietly; “I will tell you who I am and why I am here. Also I will tell you why I have given you these hours of frolic and play.”
“Wait a minute! wait a minute!” cried several shrill little voices, and to Joslyn’s astonishment all the pieces of furniture began to move away from their places and prance into the center of the room, where they surrounded the cat in an interested group.
“Wait for me, too!” called a voice more deep-toned than the others, and the big piano bent its carved legs and began stalking from the wall toward the cat.
“Keep away!” screamed a delicate Chippendale table; “you’ll crush me with your big body.”
“Stay back, awkward!” cried a carved mahogany chair; “do you intend to crowd all the rest of us away?”
“Can’t you hear plainly from where you are?” enquired the second Dresden shepherdess, who had now stepped forward and was leaning gracefully against a big Venetian vase on the mantel.
The piano stopped half way, and its castors gave a groan.
“I’m the most important article in this room,” it said indignantly, “and I must say I consider your remarks very disrespectful.”
“Say whatever you please; we don’t care, as long as you keep your distance,” retorted papa’s reading chair, sliding a little nearer the cat.
“Tut-tut, friends!” called a picture of an old gentleman in a hunting coat, which hung on the wall. “Don’t quarrel, for goodness’ sake. Let us enjoy these moments of freedom while we may.”
“That’s right; you’re spoiling all the fun,” added a Chinese Mandarin, bobbing his head back and forth from his perch on the music cabinet.
The chatter ceased at this rebuke and the cat rubbed its nose softly with one paw and said:
“Of course you know I was born a fairy”; he paused as the furniture, the picture and all listened breathless. “Of course, you know, I was born a fairy.
Otherwise I could not have brought you to life. I am of a race of immortals called ryls, whose duty it is to paint the colors on the blossoming flowers. I am the Yellow Ryl, and carry a paint-pot full of yellow to color the buttercups and marigolds and other flowers when they appear upon their plants. It is a pleasant task, and I have enjoyed it for thousands of years. But our king, the White Ryl, is a very touchy and sensitive fellow, and because he thought I answered him impudently one day he resolved to punish me. So he gave me this form of a cat — a creature I always disliked — and commanded me to wander through the world for a year and a day. If I do no mischief in that time I am to be restored to my former condition.” Thus spoke the cat.
“Well, friends, you’ve no idea how hard it is to keep out of mischief for a year and a day especially when one has the shape of such an insignificant animal. I dare not let the stupid human creatures know I am anything more than I appear to be — -a wandering, mongrel yellow cat, to be cuffed and kicked by all it meets — so there are few opportunities for enjoyment unless I occasionally exercise my fairy powers. In this house, where I am able to make but a brief stay, I found this room was often left alone for hours together; so I conceived the idea of bringing the furniture and other things here to life, and having a jolly romp with them when no one was around. My king cannot say this is mischief, for it does no harm to anyone. It is a great relief to me to get away from the matter-of-fact, simple life in which I am now placed, and to watch your absurd antics.”
“Absurd!” cried the taboret.
“Yes; you are all absurd except the two pretty shepherdesses and the pictures,” insisted the cat. “But you are none the less amusing on that account.”
“Your king was right to call you impertinent,” declared the piano, in a discordant key, “I have often heard Mrs. Blandford say I was the finest piano she ever knew, and I am certainly high-toned and aristocratic, Therefore I cannot be absurd.”
‘“I,” said the mandarin, nodding briskly, “represent a high official of the Chinese Empire. There is nothing absurd about me,” and he continued to bob his head emphatically.
“Solid mahogany is always respectable,” said the center table, gravely. “Only a disgraced yellow cat would dare call me absurd.”
“Keep it up, you blockheads,” remarked the old gentleman in the picture, carefully arranging a painted flower in his buttonhole, “Keep it up, and waste, in useless argument, the only hour in which you can ever hope to be alive. Then you will be sorry forever afterward.”
There was a sudden hush at this, and the cat arose and stretched itself with a yawn.
“We will have a dance,” it announced.
“Come down, Phoebe, dear, and play the piano.”
“Very well,” replied one of the shepherdesses.
Then the mahogany chair rolled up to the mantel and the center table came and stood beside it. The high back of the chair almost reached to the shelf of the mantel, so Phoebe, the shepherdess, stepped upon the back of the chair, then down to the table, and afterward, by putting a foot upon the arm of the chair and seat, she managed to reach the floor, where she arranged her dainty skirts and bowed to the company.
“Come along, Daphne!” called the cat, and the second shepherdess followed the first and stood beside her.
Phoebe went to the piano and one of the chairs reached out its arms and perched the pretty shepherdess upon the piano stool, where she began running her fingers over the ivory keys.
“Won’t the human people hear the noise?” asked the taboret.
“No,” replied the cat; “not a sound we make can be heard outside this room. That is part of my fairy charm. Take four partners, everybody, and dance your best. Daphne, you will waltz with me.”
“I am willing,” answered the second shepherdess.
Joslyn, whose head was now pushed between the sliding doors while his body remained outside, could hear probably because he was in a dim and shadowy position. The boy was so interested in the scene being enacted that he had forgotten all about himself and so no longer felt astonishment at what he behel
d.
Phoebe played the piano very well and the merry tune was quite inspiriting. The cat and Daphne first waltzed away together and encircled the big room with movements of considerable grace. They were followed by the mahogany chair and a slender-legged arm chair, and then the taboret waltzed with the music cabinet — which obliged the mandarin to cling on for dear life — and a rocking chair slid around with a magazine rack for a partner. Soon all the furniture in the room had paired and was waltzing gaily — except the center table, which was so big and broad it waltzed alone. The table’s legs were very nimble, however, and as it tipped this way and that the books mama had so carefully arranged upon it tumbled to the floor and began dancing by themselves.
Finally the center table stepped on the cat’s tail, and with a howl of pain the yellow animal turned angrily and pushed the table over, so that it fell with a clatter upon its side. At this Phoebe ended the tune and everything stopped waltzing to take a rest. A couple of chairs raised the table to its feet with their arms, and the accident did not seem to spoil the general good nature at all, although the cat licked its tail tenderly as if it still hurt.
“That was fine!” laughed the center table, fanning itself with its embroidered cover.
“The most fun I ever had!” gurgled the taboret, taking another step or two to show it was not tired.
“I think I’d like a waltz with pretty Daphne,” called the old gentleman from his picture.
“But you are only painted from the knees up,” said the cat, looking at him critically.
“Never mind; half a leg is better than none at all,” answered the gentleman. So the high-backed chair moved up to the wall and the old man stepped out of his picture and reached the floor safely. He wore a red hunting coat and white broadcloth breeches and his face had a genial and kindly expression.
“Pray be good enough to favor me with a waltz, fair shepherdess,” said he, bowing to Daphne. As he half turned around Joslyn saw he was just as thin edgewise as the cloth he was painted upon; but from the front he looked very natural, except that his legs were cut off at the knees, ‘“Wait a minute!” cried the mandarin, rising from his usual sitting position, “I’m going to waltz with Phoebe.”
“Phoebe has to play the piano,” said the old gentleman.
“‘Cannot anyone else play it?” asked the mandarin, anxiously.
“No one else has fingers, except Daphne, and I have chosen Daphne for my partner,” was the reply.
“I’ll play the piano,” announced the cat, going to the instrument and springing upon the stool in a single bound.
So the mandarin came down from the music cabinet to waltz with Phoebe, and the cat began playing a tune that was lively and inspiring. The old gentleman whirled away with Daphne and the mandarin danced fairly well with Phoebe. In a few moments all the pieces of furniture joined in the romp and the noise and clatter were so great that Joslyn was amazed because Suzanne did not hear it and come rushing in.
While the frolic and fun was at its height the clock on the mantel suddenly began to strike. At the first stroke the scene changed with marvelous abruptness. The furniture slid and scrambled back into the places where it belonged — or almost into place — the mandarin sprang to his perch on the cabinet and the books hopped upon the table and lay down. The mahogany chair and the table first ran to the mantel, where the two china shepherdesses used them to climb to the shelf, and then they hurried to take their own places.
So swift was the action of all the contents of the room that by the time the clock had deliberately struck three, something like order had taken the place of disorder and all movement had ceased. But Joslyn saw with a feeling of dismay, that to mama’s eyes the living room would be found more disarranged than it had been yesterday, and he dreaded another scolding.
While the cat sat upon the rug calmly washing its face with its paws, the boy arose and walked boldly into the room.
“See here, you Yellow Ryl, or whatever you are,” he said, “I want you to make these things get back where they belong. It’s all right to have fun, and I don’t blame you for that, but you will be making mischief if you get me into trouble, and I’ll be scolded for this disorder unless you fix things up,”
The cat looked at him steadily, but made no reply.
“Oh, I know all about you,” continued Joslyn, “for I saw and heard everything you said and did. But I won’t tell, honest, if you’ll put the furniture back where it belongs. Mama doesn’t know ‘bout fairies and she’ll surely think I’m to blame if she finds things scattered ‘round this way.”
The cat gazed observantly around the room. The piano, being a clumsy thing at best, was not at all in its place, nor were many of the other pieces of furniture. The old gentleman had jumped into his picture so carelessly that the frame had been joggled and now hung crooked on the wall. The shepherdesses were standing with their backs to the room and the table cover was half off again.
Perhaps the Yellow Ryl realized the boy was justified in making his complaint, and perhaps it feared its king, the White Ryl, might consider this romp in the nature of mischief-making. Anyway, after its inspection of the room the cat slowly waved one paw — and with a slight rustling sound everything was changed.
Even mama’s sharp eyes would not find anything wrong now, Joslyn joyfully acknowledged, and he turned to look at the cat again.
But the strange yellow animal had slipped away and was gone; nor did the boy ever see the creature again.
The Littlest Giant
An Oz Story
In a corner of Oz there is a high mountain called “The Giants’ Peak,” because all the giants who lived in that country inhabited that place. There were not many of them, thank goodness, and the people so detested them that they had driven them into this high place and kept them there although at times they would steal down into the plains and valleys to make mischief.
The royal family of the giants consisted of King Goola the Glutton, his wife Lazyliz and their little boy, Prince Kwa. This little boy giant was not very wise, for he ate a great deal and grew very fast and there was no school to send him to.
One day Kwa went out to where his father was standing on the mountain and asked:
“What can I do?”
“Don’t bother me!” growled Goola.
“Why are giants so big?” inquired the boy.
“Don’t ask fool questions,” warned his father.
“Is a fool question one that cannot be answered?”
“Yes,” said Goola the King. “Why don’t you ask about something that is useful to know? Do you remember the lessons I have taught you?”
“Perhaps so,” replied the boy giant, doubtfully.
“Well, what is the favorite slogan of the giants?”
‘“Fee, Faw, Fum! I smell the girl with the chewing-gum; be she alive or be she dead, she’ll sweep the floor and make the bed’.”
“Wrong! all wrong,” roared his father, in a rage. “It goes this way: ‘Fee, faw, fum! I smell the blood of an Englishman’.”
“But ‘man’ doesn’t rhyme with ‘fum’,” complained Kwa, “and ‘gum’ does.”
“Never mind that; you must stick to the regular formula, or I’ll smash your head.” Then, as evidence of what the threat meant, he landed such a cuff on Kwa’s ear that the boy giant toppled to the ground and split a great flat rock on which he fell. As he sat up he heard his father say:
“Try to remember that now you are only a giantino, but that when grown to full size you will become a giant. Perhaps you may be King in my place, if those blood-thirsty Jack-the-Giant-Killers down in the valleys ever capture me.”
“Are you afraid of them?” asked Kwa, slowly getting upon his feet.
“Ho, ho, ho!” laughed Goola; “me, afraid of those tiny human beings, when I — have magic to aid me?”
“There are a lot of them,” remarked Kwa.
“True, my son; and when you become a full-grown giant it will be your chief business to fight a
nd slay the humans — and to eat them. Therefore you may as well begin now to learn the ways of a warrior giant. In the first place, while on week days we usually eat oxen and elephants and such common food, we always like to have a nice fat human for our Sunday dinner.”
“I don’t care much for humans,” said Kwa; “that last one that mother baked was all skin and bones, and the flavor was bad.”
“I admit it;” replied Goola; “but humans are hard to catch, these days, and the one you refer to was an old farmer who had smoked tobacco so long that he was ill-flavored. The young ones are better and make fine broilers.”
“Do the humans eat giants, when they catch us?” inquired the boy.
“I think not. They simply kill us, stick us in the ground and cover us with earth and gravel. It is, of course, a disgrace not to be eaten when one is properly killed, but a dead giant has no power to compel men to eat him and those miserable humans do not know what is good.”
“What do they eat?” asked Kwa.
“Chili-sauce and ice-cream, I believe.”
“And mince pie,” said a voice behind them, and they now beheld the Littlest Giant, who had come up to them unobserved.
The littlest Giant was so small that the top of his head reached no higher than Kwa’s chin, but he was as large around as Goola the Glutton, and nearly as old. He was much despised by the other giants because he never grew tall, so the Littlest Giant lived all by himself in a cave of the mountains and had no wife or children. His right name was Bignonthaurus; but he was called Nibble, for short.
Goola the Glutton gave the Littlest Giant a stern look. “If you are going to interfere with my child’s education,” said he, “I will go away and leave you,” and he turned and marched into his castle and shut the door.
“That was very clever of the King,” remarked Nibble, looking after Kwa’s father without turning around, for like all that tribe of giants he had an eye in the back of his head as well as one in the center of his forehead, just over his nose. “The fact is, Kwa, that Goola wished to take a nap, for he tramped to the jungles last night and returned at daybreak this morning with an elephant under each arm and a couple of horses in his coat pocket.”
Complete Works of L. Frank Baum Page 868