Books: American Fairy Tales
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L. Frank Baum >> American Fairy Tales
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"What do you want?" she asked, straightening herself up with a
dignified air.
"Ah!--now we are coming to business," said the man, briskly. "I'm
going to be quite frank with you. To begin with, your father has
abused me in a most ungentlemanly manner."
Jane Gladys got off the window sill and pointed her small finger at
the door.
"Leave this room 'meejitly!" she cried, her voice trembling with
indignation. "My papa is the best man in the world. He never 'bused
anybody!"
"Allow me to explain, please," said the visitor, without paying any
attention to her request to go away. "Your father may be very kind
to you, for you are his little girl, you know. But when he's
down-town in his office he's inclined to be rather severe,
especially on book agents. Now, I called on him the other day and
asked him to buy the 'Complete Works of Peter Smith,' and what do
you suppose he did?"
She said nothing.
"Why," continued the man, with growing excitement, "he ordered me
from his office, and had me put out of the building by the janitor!
What do you think of such treatment as that from the 'best papa in
the world,' eh?"
"I think he was quite right," said Jane Gladys.
"Oh, you do? Well," said the man, "I resolved to be revenged for the
insult. So, as your father is big and strong and a dangerous man, I
have decided to be revenged upon his little girl."
Jane Gladys shivered.
"What are you going to do?" she asked.
"I'm going to present you with this book," he answered, taking it
from under his arm. Then he sat down on the edge of a chair, placed
his hat on the rug and drew a fountain pen from his vest pocket.
"I'll write your name in it," said he. "How do you spell Gladys?"
"G-l-a-d-y-s," she replied.
"Thank you. Now this," he continued, rising and handing her the book
with a bow, "is my revenge for your father's treatment of me.
Perhaps he'll be sorry he didn't buy the 'Complete Works of Peter
Smith.' Good-by, my dear."
He walked to the door, gave her another bow, and left the room, and
Jane Gladys could see that he was laughing to himself as if very
much amused.
When the door had closed behind the queer little man the child sat
down in the window again and glanced at the book. It had a red and
yellow cover and the word "Thingamajigs" was across the front in big
letters.
Then she opened it, curiously, and saw her name written in black
letters upon the first white leaf.
"He was a funny little man," she said to herself, thoughtfully.
She turned the next leaf, and saw a big picture of a clown, dressed
in green and red and yellow, and having a very white face with
three-cornered spots of red on each cheek and over the eyes. While
she looked at this the book trembled in her hands, the leaf crackled
and creaked and suddenly the clown jumped out of it and stood upon
the floor beside her, becoming instantly as big as any ordinary
clown.
After stretching his arms and legs and yawning in a rather impolite
manner, he gave a silly chuckle and said:
"This is better! You don't know how cramped one gets, standing so
long upon a page of flat paper."
Perhaps you can imagine how startled Jane Gladys was, and how she
stared at the clown who had just leaped out of the book.
"You didn't expect anything of this sort, did you?" he asked,
leering at her in clown fashion. Then he turned around to take a
look at the room and Jane Gladys laughed in spite of her
astonishment.
"What amuses you?" demanded the clown.
"Why, the back of you is all white!" cried the girl. "You're only a
clown in front of you."
"Quite likely," he returned, in an annoyed tone. "The artist made a
front view of me. He wasn't expected to make the back of me, for
that was against the page of the book."
"But it makes you look so funny!" said Jane Gladys, laughing until
her eyes were moist with tears.
The clown looked sulky and sat down upon a chair so she couldn't see
his back.
"I'm not the only thing in the book," he remarked, crossly.
This reminded her to turn another page, and she had scarcely noted
that it contained the picture of a monkey when the animal sprang
from the book with a great crumpling of paper and landed upon the
window seat beside her.
"He-he-he-he-he!" chattered the creature, springing to the girl's
shoulder and then to the center table. "This is great fun! Now I can
be a real monkey instead of a picture of one."
"Real monkeys can't talk," said Jane Gladys, reprovingly.
"How do you know? Have you ever been one yourself?" inquired the
animal; and then he laughed loudly, and the clown laughed, too, as
if he enjoyed the remark.
The girl was quite bewildered by this time. She thoughtlessly turned
another leaf, and before she had time to look twice a gray donkey
leaped from the book and stumbled from the window seat to the floor
with a great clatter.
"You're clumsy enough, I'm sure!" said the child, indignantly, for
the beast had nearly upset her.
"Clumsy! And why not?" demanded the donkey, with angry voice. "If
the fool artist had drawn you out of perspective, as he did me, I
guess you'd be clumsy yourself."
"What's wrong with you?" asked Jane Gladys.
"My front and rear legs on the left side are nearly six inches too
short, that's what's the matter! If that artist didn't know how to
draw properly why did he try to make a donkey at all?"
"I don't know," replied the child, seeing an answer was expected.
"I can hardly stand up," grumbled the donkey; "and the least little
thing will topple me over."
"Don't mind that," said the monkey, making a spring at the
chandelier and swinging from it by his tail until Jane Gladys feared
he would knock all the globes off; "the same artist has made my ears
as big as that clown's and everyone knows a monkey hasn't any ears
to speak of--much less to draw."
"He should be prosecuted," remarked the clown, gloomily. "I haven't
any back."
Jane Gladys looked from one to the other with a puzzled expression
upon her sweet face, and turned another page of the book.
Swift as a flash there sprang over her shoulder a tawney, spotted
leopard, which landed upon the back of a big leather armchair and
turned upon the others with a fierce movement.
The monkey climbed to the top of the chandelier and chattered with
fright. The donkey tried to run and straightway tipped over on his
left side. The clown grew paler than ever, but he sat still in his
chair and gave a low whistle of surprise.
The leopard crouched upon the back of the chair, lashed his tail
from side to side and glared at all of them, by turns, including
Jane Gladys.
"Which of us are you going to attack first?" asked the donkey,
trying hard to get upon his feet again.
"I can't attack any of you," snarled the leopard. "The artist made
my mouth shut, so I haven't any teeth; and he forgot to make my
claws. But I'm a frightful looking creature, nevertheless; am I
not?"
"Oh, yes;" said the clown, indifferently. "I suppose you're
frightful looking enough. But if you have no teeth nor claws we
don't mind your looks at all."
This so annoyed the leopard that he growled horribly, and the monkey
laughed at him.
Just then the book slipped from the girl's lap, and as she made a
movement to catch it one of the pages near the back opened wide. She
caught a glimpse of a fierce grizzly bear looking at her from the
page, and quickly threw the book from her. It fell with a crash in
the middle of the room, but beside it stood the great grizzly, who
had wrenched himself from the page before the book closed.
"Now," cried the leopard from his perch, "you'd better look out for
yourselves! You can't laugh at him as you did at me. The bear has
both claws and teeth."
"Indeed I have," said the bear, in a low, deep, growling voice. "And
I know how to use them, too. If you read in that book you'll find
I'm described as a horrible, cruel and remorseless grizzly, whose
only business in life is to eat up little girls--shoes, dresses,
ribbons and all! And then, the author says, I smack my lips and
glory in my wickedness."
"That's awful!" said the donkey, sitting upon his haunches and
shaking his head sadly. "What do you suppose possessed the author to
make you so hungry for girls? Do you eat animals, also?"
"The author does not mention my eating anything but little girls,"
replied the bear.
"Very good," remarked the clown, drawing a long breath of relief.
"you may begin eating Jane Gladys as soon as you wish. She laughed
because I had no back."
"And she laughed because my legs are out of perspective," brayed the
donkey.
"But you also deserve to be eaten," screamed the leopard from the
back of the leather chair; "for you laughed and poked fun at me
because I had no claws nor teeth! Don't you suppose Mr. Grizzly, you
could manage to eat a clown, a donkey and a monkey after you finish
the girl?"
"Perhaps so, and a leopard into the bargain," growled the bear. "It
will depend on how hungry I am. But I must begin on the little girl
first, because the author says I prefer girls to anything."
Jane Gladys was much frightened on hearing this conversation, and
she began to realize what the man meant when he said he gave her the
book to be revenged. Surely papa would be sorry he hadn't bought the
"Complete Works of Peter Smith" when he came home and found his
little girl eaten up by a grizzly bear--shoes, dress, ribbons and
all!
The bear stood up and balanced himself on his rear legs.
"This is the way I look in the book," he said. "Now watch me eat the
little girl."
He advanced slowly toward Jane Gladys, and the monkey, the leopard,
the donkey and the clown all stood around in a circle and watched
the bear with much interest.
But before the grizzly reached her the child had a sudden thought,
and cried out:
"Stop! You mustn't eat me. It would be wrong."
"Why?" asked the bear, in surprise.
"Because I own you. You're my private property," she answered.
"I don't see how you make that out," said the bear, in a
disappointed tone.
"Why, the book was given to me; my name's on the front leaf. And you
belong, by rights, in the book. So you mustn't dare to eat your
owner!"
The Grizzly hesitated.
"Can any of you read?" he asked.
"I can," said the clown.
"Then see if she speaks the truth. Is her name really in the book?"
The clown picked it up and looked at the name.
"It is," said he. "'Jane Gladys Brown;' and written quite plainly in
big letters."
The bear sighed.
"Then, of course, I can't eat her," he decided. "That author is as
disappointing as most authors are."
"But he's not as bad as the artist," exclaimed the donkey, who was
still trying to stand up straight.
"The fault lies with yourselves," said Jane Gladys, severely. "Why
didn't you stay in the book, where you were put?"
The animals looked at each other in a foolish way, and the clown
blushed under his white paint.
"Really--" began the bear, and then he stopped short.
The door bell rang loudly.
"It's mamma!" cried Jane Gladys, springing to her feet. "She's come
home at last. Now, you stupid creatures--"
But she was interrupted by them all making a rush for the book.
There was a swish and a whirr and a rustling of leaves, and an
instant later the book lay upon the floor looking just like any
other book, while Jane Gladys' strange companions had all
disappeared.
* * * * *
This story should teach us to think quickly and clearly upon all
occasions; for had Jane Gladys not remembered that she owned the
bear he probably would have eaten her before the bell rang.
THE ENCHANTED TYPES
One time a knook became tired of his beautiful life and longed for
something new to do. The knooks have more wonderful powers than any
other immortal folk--except, perhaps, the fairies and ryls. So one
would suppose that a knook who might gain anything he desired by a
simple wish could not be otherwise than happy and contented. But
such was not the case with Popopo, the knook we are speaking of. He
had lived thousands of years, and had enjoyed all the wonders he
could think of. Yet life had become as tedious to him now as it
might be to one who was unable to gratify a single wish.
Finally, by chance, Popopo thought of the earth people who dwell in
cities, and so he resolved to visit them and see how they lived.
This would surely be fine amusement, and serve to pass away many
wearisome hours.
Therefore one morning, after a breakfast so dainty that you could
scarcely imagine it, Popopo set out for the earth and at once was in
the midst of a big city.
His own dwelling was so quiet and peaceful that the roaring noise of
the town startled him. His nerves were so shocked that before he had
looked around three minutes he decided to give up the adventure, and
instantly returned home.
This satisfied for a time his desire to visit the earth cities, but
soon the monotony of his existence again made him restless and gave
him another thought. At night the people slept and the cities would
be quiet. He would visit them at night.
So at the proper time Popopo transported himself in a jiffy to a
great city, where he began wandering about the streets. Everyone was
in bed. No wagons rattled along the pavements; no throngs of busy
men shouted and halloaed. Even the policemen slumbered slyly and
there happened to be no prowling thieves abroad.
His nerves being soothed by the stillness, Popopo began to enjoy
himself. He entered many of the houses and examined their rooms with
much curiosity. Locks and bolts made no difference to a knook, and
he saw as well in darkness as in daylight.
After a time he strolled into the business portion of the city.
Stores are unknown among the immortals, who have no need of money or
of barter and exchange; so Popopo was greatly interested by the
novel sight of so many collections of goods and merchandise.
During his wanderings he entered a millinery shop, and was surprised
to see within a large glass case a great number of women's hats,
each bearing in one position or another a stuffed bird. Indeed, some
of the most elaborate hats had two or three birds upon them.
Now knooks are the especial guardians of birds, and love them
dearly. To see so many of his little friends shut up in a glass case
annoyed and grieved Popopo, who had no idea they had purposely been
placed upon the hats by the milliner. So he slid back one of the
doors of the case, gave the little chirruping whistle of the knooks
that all birds know well, and called:
"Come, friends; the door is open--fly out!"
Popopo did not know the birds were stuffed; but, stuffed or not,
every bird is bound to obey a knook's whistle and a knook's call. So
they left the hats, flew out of the case and began fluttering about
the room.
"Poor dears!" said the kind-hearted knook, "you long to be in the
fields and forests again."
Then he opened the outer door for them and cried: "Off with you! Fly
away, my beauties, and be happy again."
The astonished birds at once obeyed, and when they had soared away
into the night air the knook closed the door and continued his
wandering through the streets.
By dawn he saw many interesting sights, but day broke before he had
finished the city, and he resolved to come the next evening a few
hours earlier.
As soon as it was dark the following day he came again to the city
and on passing the millinery shop noticed a light within. Entering
he found two women, one of whom leaned her head upon the table and
sobbed bitterly, while the other strove to comfort her.
Of course Popopo was invisible to mortal eyes, so he stood by and
listened to their conversation.
"Cheer up, sister," said one. "Even though your pretty birds have
all been stolen the hats themselves remain."
"Alas!" cried the other, who was the milliner, "no one will buy my
hats partly trimmed, for the fashion is to wear birds upon them. And
if I cannot sell my goods I shall be utterly ruined."
Then she renewed her sobbing and the knook stole away, feeling a
little ashamed to realized that in his love for the birds he had
unconsciously wronged one of the earth people and made her unhappy.
This thought brought him back to the millinery shop later in the
night, when the two women had gone home. He wanted, in some way, to
replace the birds upon the hats, that the poor woman might be happy
again. So he searched until he came upon a nearby cellar full of
little gray mice, who lived quite undisturbed and gained a
livelihood by gnawing through the walls into neighboring houses and
stealing food from the pantries.
"Here are just the creatures," thought Popopo, "to place upon the
woman's hats. Their fur is almost as soft as the plumage of the
birds, and it strikes me the mice are remarkably pretty and graceful
animals. Moreover, they now pass their lives in stealing, and were
they obliged to remain always upon women's hats their morals would
be much improved."
So he exercised a charm that drew all the mice from the cellar and
placed them upon the hats in the glass case, where they occupied the
places the birds had vacated and looked very becoming--at least, in
the eyes of the unworldly knook. To prevent their running about and
leaving the hats Popopo rendered them motionless, and then he was so
pleased with his work that he decided to remain in the shop and
witness the delight of the milliner when she saw how daintily her
hats were now trimmed.
She came in the early morning, accompanied by her sister, and her
face wore a sad and resigned expression. After sweeping and dusting
the shop and drawing the blinds she opened the glass case and took
out a hat.
But when she saw a tiny gray mouse nestling among the ribbons and
laces she gave a loud shriek, and, dropping the hat, sprang with one
bound to the top of the table. The sister, knowing the shriek to be
one of fear, leaped upon a chair and exclaimed:
"What is it? Oh! what is it?"
"A mouse!" gasped the milliner, trembling with terror.
Popopo, seeing this commotion, now realized that mice are especially
disagreeable to human beings, and that he had made a grave mistake
in placing them upon the hats; so he gave a low whistle of command
that was heard only by the mice.
Instantly they all jumpped from the hats, dashed out the open door
of the glass case and scampered away to their cellar. But this
action so frightened the milliner and her sister that after giving
several loud screams they fell upon their backs on the floor and
fainted away.
Popopo was a kind-hearted knook, but on witnessing all this misery,
caused by his own ignorance of the ways of humans, he straightway
wished himself at home, and so left the poor women to recover as
best they could.
Yet he could not escape a sad feeling of responsibility, and after
thinking upon the matter he decided that since he had caused the
milliner's unhappiness by freeing the birds, he could set the matter
right by restoring them to the glass case. He loved the birds, and
disliked to condemn them to slavery again; but that seemed the only
way to end the trouble.
So he set off to find the birds. They had flown a long distance, but
it was nothing to Popopo to reach them in a second, and he
discovered them sitting upon the branches of a big chestnut tree and
singing gayly.
When they saw the knook the birds cried:
"Thank you, Popopo. Thank you for setting us free."
"Do not thank me," returned the knook, "for I have come to send you
back to the millinery shop."
"Why?" demanded a blue jay, angrily, while the others stopped their
songs.
"Because I find the woman considers you her property, and your loss
has caused her much unhappiness," answered Popopo.
"But remember how unhappy we were in her glass case," said a robin
redbreast, gravely. "And as for being her property, you are a knook,
and the natural guardian of all birds; so you know that Nature
created us free. To be sure, wicked men shot and stuffed us, and
sold us to the milliner; but the idea of our being her property is
nonsense!"
Popopo was puzzled.
"If I leave you free," he said, "wicked men will shoot you again,
and you will be no better off than before."
"Pooh!" exclaimed the blue jay, "we cannot be shot now, for we are
stuffed. Indeed, two men fired several shots at us this morning, but
the bullets only ruffled our feathers and buried themselves in our
stuffing. We do not fear men now."
"Listen!" said Popopo, sternly, for he felt the birds were getting
the best of the argument; "the poor milliner's business will be
ruined if I do not return you to her shop. It seems you are
necessary to trim the hats properly. It is the fashion for women to
wear birds upon their headgear. So the poor milliner's wares,
although beautified by lace and ribbons, are worthless unless you
are perched upon them."
"Fashions," said a black bird, solemnly, "are made by men. What law
is there, among birds or knooks, that requires us to be the slaves
of fashion?"
"What have we to do with fashions, anyway?" screamed a linnet. "If
it were the fashion to wear knooks perched upon women's hats would
you be contented to stay there? Answer me, Popopo!"
But Popopo was in despair. He could not wrong the birds by sending
them back to the milliner, nor did he wish the milliner to suffer by
their loss. So he went home to think what could be done.
After much meditation he decided to consult the king of the knooks,
and going at once to his majesty he told him the whole story.
The king frowned.
"This should teach you the folly of interfering with earth people,"
he said. "But since you have caused all this trouble, it is your
duty to remedy it. Our birds cannot be enslaved, that is certain;
therefore you must have the fashions changed, so it will no longer
be stylish for women to wear birds upon their hats."
"How shall I do that?" asked Popopo.
"Easily enough. Fashions often change among the earth people, who
tire quickly of any one thing. When they read in their newspapers
and magazines that the style is so-and-so, they never question the
matter, but at once obey the mandate of fashion. So you must visit
the newspapers and magazines and enchant the types."
"Enchant the types!" echoed Popopo, in wonder.
"Just so. Make them read that it is no longer the fashion to wear
birds upon hats. That will afford relief to your poor milliner and
at the same time set free thousands of our darling birds who have
been so cruelly used."
Popopo thanked the wise king and followed his advice.
The office of every newspaper and magazine in the city was visited by
the knook, and then he went to other cities, until there was not a
publication in the land that had not a "new fashion note" in its
pages. Sometimes Popopo enchanted the types, so that whoever read
the print would see only what the knook wished them to. Sometimes he
called upon the busy editors and befuddled their brains until they
wrote exactly what he wanted them to. Mortals seldom know how
greatly they are influenced by fairies, knooks and ryls, who often
put thoughts into their heads that only the wise little immortals
could have conceived.
The following morning when the poor milliner looked over her
newspaper she was overjoyed to read that "no woman could now wear a
bird upon her hat and be in style, for the newest fashion required
only ribbons and laces."
Popopo after this found much enjoyment in visiting every millinery
shop he could find and giving new life to the stuffed birds which
were carelessly tossed aside as useless. And they flew to the fields
and forests with songs of thanks to the good knook who had rescued
them.
Sometimes a hunter fires his gun at a bird and then wonders why he
did not hit it. But, having read this story, you will understand
that the bird must have been a stuffed one from some millinery shop,
which cannot, of course, be killed by a gun.
THE LAUGHING HIPPOPOTAMUS
On one of the upper branches of the Congo river lived an ancient and
aristocratic family of hippopotamuses, which boasted a pedigree
dating back beyond the days of Noah--beyond the existence of
mankind--far into the dim ages when the world was new.
They had always lived upon the banks of this same river, so that
every curve and sweep of its waters, every pit and shallow of its
bed, every rock and stump and wallow upon its bank was as familiar
to them as their own mothers. And they are living there yet, I
suppose.
Not long ago the queen of this tribe of hippopotamuses had a child
which she named Keo, because it was so fat and round. Still, that
you may not be misled, I will say that in the hippopotamus language
"Keo," properly translated, means "fat and lazy" instead of fat and
round. However, no one called the queen's attention to this error,
because her tusks were monstrous long and sharp, and she thought Keo
the sweetest baby in the world.
He was, indeed, all right for a hippopotamus. He rolled and played
in the soft mud of the river bank, and waddled inland to nibble the
leaves of the wild cabbage that grew there, and was happy and
contented from morning till night. And he was the jolliest
hippopotamus that ancient family had ever known. His little red eyes
were forever twinkling with fun, and he laughed his merry laugh on
all occasions, whether there was anything to laugh at or not.
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