Part 4 (1/2)
”Ha, ha, ha!” again laughed the dwarf, ”hear him talk! This is the way with all of them. No feet, does he say? Why, he has a thousand, if he only knew it; hands too, more than he can count. Ask him, sister, and see what he will say to you.”
With that a soft little voice said cheerfully, ”Give me your hand, that I may lead you on the upward part of your journey; for, poor little fellow, it is indeed true that you do not know how to live out of your cradle, and we must show you the way!” Encouraged by this kindly speech, Alba turned a little towards the speaker, and was about to say (as his mother had long ago taught him that he should in all difficulties), ”I'll try,” when a little cracking noise startled the whole company; and, hardly knowing what he did, Alba thrust out, through a slit in his s.h.i.+ny brown skin, a little foot reaching downward to follow the dwarf's lead, and a little hand extending upward, quickly clasped by that of the fairy, who stood smiling and lovely in her fair green garments, with a tender, tiny gra.s.s-blade binding back her golden hair. Oh, what a thrill went through Alba as he felt this new possession,--a hand and a foot! A thousand such, had they not said? What it all meant he could only wonder; but the one real possession was at least certain, and in that he began to feel that all things were possible.
And now shall we see where the dwarf led him, and where the fairy, and what was actually done in the underground tour?
The dwarf had need of his bright eyes and his skilful hands; for the soft, tiny foot intrusted to him was a mere baby, that had to find its way through a strange, dark world; and, what was more, it must not only be guided, but also fed and tended carefully: so the bright eyes go before, and the brown fingers dig out a roadway, and the foot that has learned to trust its guide utterly follows on. There is no longer any danger: he runs against no rocks; he loses his way among no tangled roots; and the hard earth seems to open gently before him, leading him to the fields where his own best food lies, and to hidden springs of sweet, fresh water.
Do you wonder when I say the foot must be fed? Aren't your feet fed? To be sure, your feet have no mouths of their own; but doesn't the mouth in your face eat for your whole body, hands and feet, ears and eyes, and all the rest? else how do they grow? The only difference here between you and Alba is, that his foot has mouths of its own, and as it wanders on through the earth, and finds any thing good for food, eats both for itself and for the rest of the body; for I must tell you, that, as the little foot progresses, it does not take the body with it, but only grows longer and longer and longer, until, while one end remains at home fastened to the body, the other end has travelled a distance, such as would be counted miles by the atoms of people who live in the under- world. And, moreover, the foot no longer goes on alone: others have come by tens, even by hundreds, to join it; and Alba begins to understand what the dwarf meant by thousands. Thus the feet travel on, running some to this side, some to that; here digging through a bed of clay, and there burying themselves in a soft sand-hill, taking a mouthful of carbon here, and of nitrogen there. But what are these two strange articles of food? Nothing at all like bread and b.u.t.ter, you think.
Different, indeed, they seem; but you will one day learn that bread and b.u.t.ter are made in part of these very same things, and they are just as useful to Alba as your breakfast, dinner, and supper are to you. For just as bread and b.u.t.ter, and other food, build your body, so carbon and nitrogen are going to build his; and you will presently see what a fine, large, strong body they can make. Then, perhaps, you will be better able to understand what they are.
Shall we leave the feet to travel their own way for a while, and see where the fairy has led the little hand?
QUERCUS ALBA'S NEW SIGHT OF THE UPPER-WORLD
It was a soft, helpless, little baby hand. Its folded fingers lay listlessly in the fairy's gentle grasp. ”Now we will go up,” she said.
He had thought he was going down, and he had heard the chipping-birds say he would never come back again. But he had no will to resist the gentle motion, which seemed, after all, to be exactly what he wanted: so he presently found himself lifted out of the dark earth, feeling the suns.h.i.+ne again, and stirred by the breeze that rustled the dry leaves that lay all about him. Here again were all his old companions,--the chipping-birds, his cousins, old grandfather Rubra, and, best of all, his dear mother. But the odd thing about it all was, that n.o.body seemed to know him: even his mother, though she stretched her arms towards him, turned her head away, looking here and there for her lost baby, and never seeing how he stood gazing up into her face. Now he began to understand why the chipping-birds said, ”They never came back! they never came back!” for they truly came in so new a form that none of their old friends recognized them.
Every thing that has hands wants to work; that is, hands are such excellent tools, that no one who is the happy possessor of a pair is quite happy until he uses them: so Alba began to have a longing desire to build a stem, and lift himself up among his neighbors. But what should he build with? Here the little feet answered promptly, ”You want to build, do you? Well, here is carbon, the very best material; there is nothing like it for walls; it makes the most beautiful, firm wood. Wait a minute, and we will send up some that we have been storing for your use.”
And the busy hands go to work, and the child grows day by day. His body and limbs are brown now, but his hands of a fine s.h.i.+ning green. And, having learned the use of carbon, these busy hands undertake to gather it for themselves out of the air about them, which is a great storehouse full of many materials that our eyes cannot see. And he has also learned that to grow and to build are indeed the same thing: for his body is taking the form of a strong young tree; his branches are spreading for a roof over the heads of a hundred delicate flowers, making a home for many a bushy-tailed squirrel and pleasant-voiced wood-bird. For, you see, whoever builds cannot build for himself alone: all his neighbors have the benefit of his work, and all enjoy it together.
What at the first was so hard to attempt, became grand and beautiful in the doing; and little Alba, instead of serving merely for a squirrel's breakfast, as he might have done had he not bravely ventured on his journey, stands before us a n.o.ble tree, which is to live a hundred years or more.
Do you want to know what kind of a tree?
Well, Lillie, who studies Latin, will tell you that Quercus means oak.
And now can you tell me what Alba's rustic cradle was, and who were his cousins Rubra and Coccinea?
We all have our treasure-boxes. Misers have strong iron-bound chests full of gold; stately ladies, pearl inlaid caskets for their jewels; and even you and I, dear child, have our own. Your little box with lock and key, that aunt Lucy gave you, where you have kept for a long time your choicest paper doll, the peac.o.c.k with spun-gla.s.s tail, and the robin's egg that we picked up on the path under the great trees that windy day last spring,--that is your treasure-box. I no less have mine; and, if you will look with me, I will show you how the trees and flowers have theirs, and what is packed away in them.
Come out in the orchard this September day, under the low-bowed peach- trees, where great downy-cheeked peaches almost drop into our hands. Sit on the gra.s.sy bank with me, and I will show you the peach-tree's treasure-box.
What does the peach-tree regard as most precious? If it could speak in words, it would tell you its seed is the one thing for which it cares most; for which it has worked ever since spring, storing food, and drinking in suns.h.i.+ne. And it is so dear and valued, because, when the peach-tree itself dies, this seed, its child, may still live on, growing into a beautiful and fruitful tree; therefore, the mother tree cherishes her seed as her greatest treasure, and has made for it a casket more beautiful than Mrs. Williams's sandal-wood jewel-box.
See the great crack where this peach broke from the bough. We will pull it open; this is opening the cover of the outside casket. See how rich was its outside color, but how wonderfully beautiful the deep crimson fibres which cling about the hard sh.e.l.l inside. For this seed cannot be trusted in a single covering; moreover, the inner box is locked securely, and, I am sorry to say, we haven't the key: so, if I would show you the inside, we must break the pretty box, with its strong, ribbed walls, and then at last we shall see what the peach-tree's treasure-box holds.
Here, too, are the apples, lying on the gra.s.s at our feet; we will cut one, for it too holds the apple-tree's treasure. First comes the skin, rosy and yellow, a pretty firm wrapping for the outside; but it sometimes breaks, when a strong wind tosses the apples to the ground, and sometimes the insects eat holes in it: so, if this were the only covering, the treasure would hardly be very safe. Therefore, next we come to the firm, juicy flesh of the apple,--seldom to be broken through by a fall, not often eaten through by insects; but lest even this should fail, we come at last, far in the middle, to h.o.r.n.y sheaths, or cells, built up together like a little fortress, surrounding and protecting the brown, s.h.i.+ning seeds, which we reach in the very centre of all.
One thing more let us look at before we leave the apple. Cut it horizontally through the middle with a sharp knife, and try how thin and smooth a slice you can make; hold it up to the light, and we shall see something very beautiful. There in the centre of the round slice is the delicate figure of a perfect apple-blossom, with all its petals spread; for it was that lovely pink-and-white blossom from which the apple was formed,--a tiny green ball at first, which you may see in the spring, if you look where the blossoms have just fallen. As this little green apple grew, it kept in its very heart always the image of the fair blossom; and now that the fruit has reached this ripe perfection, we may still see the same form.
The pears, too, the apricots and plums, you may see for yourselves; you do not need me to tell their stories.
But come down to the garden, for there I have some of the oddest and prettiest boxes to show. The pease and beans have long canoes, satin- lined and waterproof. On what voyage they are bound, I cannot say.
The tall milk-weed that grew so fast all summer, and threatened to over- run the garden, now pays well for its lodging by the exquisite treasure which its rough-covered, pale-green bag holds. Press your thumb on its closed edges; for this casket opens with a spring, and, if it is ripe and ready, it will unclose with a touch, and show you a little fish, with silver scales laid over a covering of long, silken threads, finer and more delicate than any of the sewing-silk in your mother's work-box.
This silk is really a wing-like float for each scale; and the scales are seeds, which will not stay upon the little fish, but long to float away with their silken trails, and, alighting here and there, cling and seek for a good place to plant themselves.