by Howard Pyle
Now I will tell you something: — I saw behind the Moon-Angel once-just a little peep. I do not know how it happened, but so it was. I was not really behind the Moon-Angel, you understand, I only just had a glimpse of what was behind him. It was by the seashore and back of the sand-hills, and the sun shone hot — as hot as fire — and the-sea gulls flew over my head, and the dry grass hissed and whispered in the hot wind that blew across the quivering sands. I could hear the breakers far away — Boom! boom! — but I could not see the ocean. Then suddenly I saw the Moon-Angel come walking across the sand. He went past me, and then I saw behind him. What did I see? Oh, I wish I could tell you. But when I try to remember what I saw, then I forget all about it. All I know is that ever since then I have seen things turned topsyturvy, and men walk on their heads instead of their heels, and trees grow upside down, and that I hear wise men talk nonsense.
However, all this is neither here nor there, nor t’other place, and if I stop to speak of such things, I shall never be able to tell you the story of David, — and that story is ever so much more worth the telling. Yes; for David knew more in his little finger about the Moon-Angel and what was behind him than I shall ever be able to learn with my whole body — at least until I have cracked through the crust of things and got back into the Land of Bight-side-up again.
Well, for a month of days David did his work, and rubbed the stars and rubbed the stars, and they never shone as brightly as they did in that time. The moon waxed and waxed, and then it waned and waned, until all was dark about the moon-house and all the shutters shut again.
David sat in the moon-kitchen, and waited and waited, and, by and by, there was the light under the door up stairs, and he knew that the Moon-Angel had come again. David ran up stairs and opened the door, and there was the Moon-Angel.
But now he was not standing looking out of the window at the star that shone first red and then blue, and flickered and blazed, and then shone red and then blue again; he was standing in the middle of the room and was looking straight at David.
And how shall I tell you what David saw and what he did? How shall any one tell i? It was all so strange, so strange that it does not fit easily into the words of A B C’s, and when a body begins telling it, it breaks all into a jumble and sounds like a fairy-tale, that is not real.
When David saw the Moon-Angel he stopped short, and stood still and as though turned to stone. He had never seen the Moon-Angel look as he looked now, and the little boy was filled with awe. For now the Moon-Angel’s face shone like white light, and across his breast was a word of five letters, the letters like forms of fire.
No wonder little David stood as though turned to stone. For, oh! little child, the Moon-Angel is terrible, terrible when you see him thus.
“David,” said the Moon-Angel, “David, I am waiting for you to come to me, and to pass beyond me.”
But for the first time David was frightened at the Moon-Angel.
“Oh, I am afraid! I am afraid!” said he.
“David, David,” said the Angel, “why are you afraid?”
“I do not know,” said David; “but I am afraid — I am afraid of you!”
Until now the moon-house and the moon-garden had seemed to David to be like a beautiful dream. Now, in his new-born fear, it was as though everything had suddenly changed; as though even they — the moon and the garden — had changed to a dream in which there was something of terror and darkness.
“Will you not come to me?” said the Moon-Angel, and when he spoke thus David could not refuse.
Slowly, slowly he went forward to meet the Moon-Angel. The Moon-Angel opened his arms and took David into them.
What had happened? Was it a dream? David found himself standing alone. At first it was cold — oh, so cold — and all around was a blank whiteness as of a drifting storm of snow. It grew colder and colder; the icy wind seemed to strike into the marrow of his hones, and he went forward staggering as through deep snow. Presently it seemed to him that he could not bear the cold any longer. But it did not last for long. Just as he began to feel that he could no longer endure the freezing cold, it began to pass away.
Then presently he felt that the air was beginning to grow mild and tepid. The icy wind had ceased to blow, and it grew warmer and warmer. In a little while the chill air had become mild and balmy. All around David was still a blank whiteness, only now it was the whiteness, not of snow, but of a silvery mist that hid everything from his sight. He could see nothing; but it seemed to him that he could hear from beyond the veil of mist the sounds of flowing waters and of rustling leaves; that he could smell the odor of flowers; that he could hear the song of birds, and far away a faint music as of piping and the echo as of distant voices talking and laughing together. All this he seemed to hear faintly and distantly, but he could see nothing for the misty whiteness all around him. This, too, lasted only for a little while, and then it also began to change.
For presently it began to grow warmer and still warmer. Then it grew hotter and still hotter. The silver mist began to fade and melt and by and by to change to a vapor of fiery copper. Then instead of these other sounds of leaves and birds and voices, which also dimmed away into silence, there came nearer and still nearer a crackling as of flames. David knew that fire lay before him; that if he went on he must pass through it. Should he turn back? No. He felt that he was every instant becoming stronger and stronger to bear the fiery trials. He did not know that he was growing into a man; that it was not moments that were passing, but years of time. Then he was in the midst of the fire. Oh, how hot it was! His brain swam dizzily, and he did not seem to feel the ground beneath his feet He was gasping for breath, and crackling sparks of fire seemed to dance before his eyes. A step or two more, and he knew that he must fall, and what would become of him then? He wondered how he was able to bear it.
Suddenly an iron door stood before him, and he knew that thence he might escape. He flung himself against it, but it did not open. It was burning hot to his hands, but he felt and found the latch. He pushed it, and then the door swung open, and he fell headlong out upon the ground beyond.
*
It was over. It was done. He had passed beyond the Moon-Angel, and so much of his labor was over. He lay there upon the ground gasping and panting. A cool, moist breeze played around him, and seemed to bathe him with a balm of comfort. Then it began to come to him that he was upon the rocky shore of the sea. The thunder of the breakers and the rattling hiss of the receding waters, the rushing of the wind, and the clamoring of the sea-gulls, filled his ears with sound.
He lay there upon the cool, damp stones, motionless, panting, but quiet and at peace. But he was no longer a little boy; he was a grown man.
Yes; he thought that he had been only a few minutes in passing beyond the Moon-Angel; but it had really been ten years, and in that time he had grown from a child into a man.
Few there are who grow to manhood thus, little child. Do you not understand? No? Perhaps some day you will — perhaps, perhaps.
XI. The Land of Nowhere
BY AND BY David arose and stood upon his feet. Then he looked down at himself and saw as with a sudden shock of wonder that he had grown into a man. He could not believe it at first. What wonder! What delight! — a great tall man with strong limbs and a big body. He swung his arms and felt their strength; he filled out his chest, breathing in great volumes of the cool, salt air. He felt strong to do anything. He was strong to do anything, for he had passed through frost and fire and beyond the Moon-Angel, and he who has done that can do anything. Then he looked around him. On one side was the ocean, on the other side rose beetling cliffs that towered high, high into the air, the summit swimming dizzily against the blue sky and the floating clouds. High aloft against the face of the cliffs flicked and fluttered the white wings of the sea-gulls, and their clamor sounded incessantly through the ceaseless thunder and crash of the breakers.
Away on the top of the cliff, some distance beyond where he stood, he
could just see the roof of a cottage, and the red chimney, from which the blue smoke drifted away into the air. In front of the cottage was a woman with a red petticoat that flamed like a spark of fire against the blue sky. She was hanging out clothes upon a line, but David knew that that must he the old woman with the red petticoat of whom the lady of the moon-garden had spoken — the old woman who knew everything and more beside.
He went forward along the seashore, the seagulls rising everywhere from the cliffs at his coming, clamoring and screaming with a multitudinous outcry of voices. So with the noise of the sea-gulls dinning in his ears, and the thunder of the breakers filling his soul, David walked forward along the shore until, by and by, he came to a path that led to the face of the cliff, where there was a flight of stone steps built up through the clefts of the crags to the top of the pinnacled rocks. Up these steps he climbed, up and up, the moon-ocean spreading out wider and wider below him the higher he climbed. By and by he was at the top, and he could look out and down upon the crawling, wrinkled water beneath him, stretching away as boundless and empty as nothing at all. There was not a boat or a sail in sight, but only far away the long line of horizon, and from that the pearly sky that arched up into a deep blue dome overhead. Below him flicked and flitted the sea-gulls about the rocky face of the cliff, their screaming clamor coming up to him commingled with the ceaseless noise of the distant waters.
Then he turned around, and there was the cottage a little distance away. The old woman with the red petticoat had gone back into the house, but the clothes were hanging on the line, snowy white and fluttering in the wind.
Then David saw what they were.
They were the souls of men.
From the outside they looked only like linen clothes, but David was able now to see things from the inside, and so could see that they were the souls of men.
Aye, aye; this is true, little child. That dear old woman who lives up on the cliff in the Land of Nowhere — that dear old woman with the red petticoat — that is what she does. Day after day, day after day, she washes white the souls of men, and hangs them out in the sun and the sweet warm air to dry. She has been doing so ever since the beginning of time; ever since the moment that the first baby came into the world and lifted up its voice and cried. Ever since then she has been washing, washing, washing the souls of men, which grow so soiled by use that after a while they would become unfit to wear if it were not for that dear old woman upon the cliff, who washes them until they are as white as snow, and then hangs them out in the sun to dry.
David went up to the door, but before he could knock the old woman called out to him to come in, and in he went.
“Are you hungry?” said she.
“Yes; I am,” said David.
“Then you must eat something,” said she, “for no man can do his best work unless he eats.”
So David sat down to the table, and the old woman brought him a bowl of milk and a piece of bread. David did not know how hungry he was until he began eating. Then it seemed to him he could not eat enough. He ate and ate and ate, and as he ate, he looked across the table at the old woman, who sat with her hands folded, looking placidly back at him. He thought he had never seen such a sweet, lovable face in all his life before. Her hair was as white as snow, and was brushed back under a cap that was still whiter than that. Her face was covered all over with wrinkles, so close and so fine that it made David think of the Man-in-the-moon.
So David looked at her as he ate his bread and drank his milk, and when he had ended his meal he pushed back his bowl and spoon, and looked at her again and yet again. She smiled. “Well,” said she; “and what do you think of me?”
“I think you are very beautiful,” said David. The old woman laughed. “Do you?” said she. “Most men think I am very ugly. And so you have come from the other side of the Moon-Angel to find the Wonder-Box and the Know-All Book to take them back to the brown earth, where they belong, have you?”
“Yes,” said David; “that is what I have come to do, if you will tell me how I am to do it.”
“If I will tell you?” said the old woman of the cliff. “Why else am I here except to tell you that? Why, David, lad, that is why I live here. But have you had enough to eat?”
“Yes, I have,” said David.
“That is good; for he must not go hungry who has such work to do as lies before you.”
“But, first of all, tell me,” said David, “what is this Wonder-Box, and what is the Know-All Book? And why am I to take them back to the brown earth again?”
“Am I to tell you the whole story?” said the old woman of the cliff, “the whole story?”
“Yes,” said David, “the whole story.”
“Very well,” said the old woman. And so she did, and this was how she told The Story of the Know-All Book.
Once in that far-away beginning of time when everything was young and innocent, and the sky was fresh, and the sunshine new, and there was no such thing as sadness and sorrow (or joy and delight, for the matter of that), there was a woman and a man who lived like innocent little children in a beautiful garden of paradise.
“That was Adam and Eve,” said David.
“No,” said the old woman of the cliff; “it was Eve and Adam.”
“And what is the difference?” said David.
“What is the difference when you say ‘the light grows dim,’ instead of saying ‘the dim grows light’?” said the old woman.
“I don’t know,” said David.
“I do,” said the old woman.
And this garden of paradise was a beautiful, beautiful place, with soft green grass shaded by trees that bore blossoms and fruit at the same time; where sweet birds sang from morning to night, and all was innocence and peace.
“That was like the moon-garden,” said David.
“Aye,” said the old woman. “It was the moon-garden, too.”
Well, one time a man came walking into this garden where the innocent woman and innocent man lived. The two saw him coming among the trees and the blossoms — a tall, stately figure dressed in a long gray robe that sparkled all over with dim stars.
“That was like the Moon-Angel,” said David.
“It was the Moon-Angel,” said the old woman.
Under his arm the man carried a box of iron, shut and locked, but with a golden key in the keyhole. “Children,” said he, “here is a box for you to keep. In it is the greatest joy and the greatest sorrow in the world. Keep it closed, and you will always be happy as you now are. But if you open it, sorrow will come upon you.” Then he went away, leaving the box behind him. Seven days passed, and then one day the woman said to the man, “I wonder what there can be in that box? The tall man said that in it was the greatest joy in the world.”
“He said that the greatest sorrow of the world was in it also,” said the man. “But,” said the woman, “if we open it we will behold the greatest joy in the world.”
“And we will let the greatest sorrow out into the world,” said the man.
“Now, what would you have done, David ?” said the old woman of the cliff.
David spoke up boldly (you must remember he was a man now). “I would have opened the box,” said he, “for surely it is worth suffering the greatest sorrow for the sake of the greatest joy.” The old woman smiled. “Ah, David,” said she, “you say that because you have passed through the ice and the fire, and out beyond the Moon-Angel. But what you say is true enough; it is worth suffering the greatest sorrow for the sake of the greatest joy. That was why the Moon-Angel brought the iron box to the man and the woman — it was the Wonder-Box, David.”
“And the Know-All Book was the greatest joy?” said David.
“Yes,” said the old woman.
“And the man opened it?” said David.
“Yes,” said the old woman.
The man turned the golden key in the lock of the box, and as he did so he shivered and trembled. The birds had ceased to sing, the leaves had ceased to ru
stle in the breezes, and the air hung as silent as death; the sky became overcast as with a thin sheet of cloud, and there was a sound as of distant thunder. “Open the box!” cried the woman in a piercing voice, and then the man lifted the lid.
Instantly it flew hack wide open, and out belched a great cloud of terror like a great volume of smoke. It rose higher and higher into the air above the tops of the trees, spreading out wide into a huge dark cloud. The man and the woman clung together, trembling with terror. Then they saw that the smoke was beginning to form itself into the image of a man, and then the two turned and ran away through the garden.
“But did they then not see the joy that was within the Wonder-Box?” said David.
The old woman shook her head. “No, David,” said she, “few there are who pause to see the joy that lies behind when black sorrow stands between.”
The man and the woman fled away through the garden. All about them was that darkness of terror, for the sky was overcast with gloom, and Sorrow was coming fast after them. On it came through the trees, scattering fruit and flowers, rending and tearing. On and on sped the man and the woman, until at last they suddenly came to an iron door that was shut against them. The man leaped forward and pressed the latch. The door flew open, and the two ran out into the world beyond. They stood upon a shingled beach, with the ocean stretching away before them. But Sorrow had followed after them, and Joy was left behind in the iron-box.