Chapter 4

"They had all intended to burst into an Indian yell, and dance round the pumpkin-glory; but the funniest papa said, 'Now all you fellows keep still half a minute,' and the next thing they knew he ran into the house, and came out, walking his wife before him with both his hands over her eyes. Then the boys saw he was going to have some fun with her, and they kept as still as mice, and waited till he walked her up to the pumpkin-glory; and she was saying all the time, 'Now, John, if this is some of your fooling, I'll _give_ it to you.' When he got her close up he took away his hands, and she gave a kind of a whoop, and then she began to laugh, the pumpkin-glory _was_ so funny, and to chase the funniest papa all round the yard to box his ears, and as soon as she had boxed them she said, 'Now let's go in and send the rest out,' and in about a quarter of a second all the other papas came out, holding their hands over the other mothers' eyes till they got them up to the pumpkin-glory; and then there was such a yelling and laughing and chasing and ear-boxing that you never heard anything like it; and all at once the funniest papa hallooed out: 'Where's gramma? Gramma's got to see it! Grandma'll enjoy it. It's just gramma's kind of joke,' and then the mothers all got round him and said he shouldn't fool the grandmother, anyway; and he said he wasn't going to: he was just going to bring her out and let her see it; and his wife went along with him to watch that he didn't begin acting up.

"The grandmother had been sitting all alone in her room ever since dinner; because she was always afraid somehow that if you enjoyed yourself it was a sign you were going to suffer for it, and she had enjoyed herself a good deal that day, and she was feeling awfully about it. When the funniest papa and his wife came in she said, 'What is it? What is it? Is the world a-burnin' up? Well, you got to wrap up warm, then, or you'll ketch your death o' cold runnin' and then stoppin' to rest with your pores all open!'

"The funniest papa's wife she went up and kissed her, and said, 'No, grandmother, the world's all right,' and then she told her just how it was, and how they wanted her to come out and see the jack-o'-lantern, just to please the children; and she must come, anyway; because it was the funniest jack-o'-lantern there ever was, and then she told how the funniest papa had fooled her, and then how they had got the other papas to fool the other mothers, and they had all had the greatest fun then you ever saw. All the time she kept putting on her things for her, and the grandmother seemed to get quite in the notion, and she laughed a little, and they thought she was going to enjoy it as much as anybody; they really did, because they were all very tender of her, and they wouldn't have scared her for anything, and everybody kept cheering her up and telling her how much they knew she would like it, till they got her to the pump. The little pumpkin-glory was feeling awfully proud and self-satisfied; for it had never seen any flower or any vegetable treated with half so much honor by human beings. It wasn't sure at first that it was very nice to be laughed at so much, but after a while it began to conclude that the papas and the mammas were just laughing at the joke of the whole thing. When the old grandmother got up close, it thought it would do something extra to please her; or else the heat of the candle had dried it up so that it cracked without intending to. Anyway, it tried to give a very broad grin, and all of a sudden it split its mouth from ear to ear."

"You didn't say it had any ears before," said the boy.

"No; it had them behind," said the papa; and the boy felt like giving him just one pound; but he thought it might stop the story, and so he let the papa go on.

"As soon as the grandmother saw it open its mouth that way she just gave one scream, 'My sakes! It's comin' to life!' And she threw up her arms, and she threw up her feet, and if the funniest papa hadn't been there to catch her, and if there hadn't been forty or fifty other sons and daughters, and grandsons and daughters, and great-grandsons and great-granddaughters, very likely she might have fallen. As it was, they piled round her, and kept her up; but there were so many of them they jostled the pump, and the first thing the pumpkin-glory knew, it fell down and burst open; and the pig that the boys had plagued, and that had kept squealing all the time because it thought that the people had come out to feed it, knocked the loose board off its pen, and flew out and gobbled the pumpkin-glory up, candle and all, and that was the end of the proud little pumpkin-glory."

"And when the pig ate the candle it looked like the magician when he puts burning tow in his mouth," said the boy.

"Exactly," said the papa.

The children were both silent for a moment. Then the boy said, "This story never had any moral, I believe, papa?"

"Not a bit," said the papa. "Unless," he added, "the moral was that you had better not be ambitious, unless you want to come to the sad end of this proud little pumpkin-glory."

"Why, but the good little pumpkin was eaten up, too," said the boy.

"That's true," the papa acknowledged.

"Well," said the little girl, "there's a great deal of difference between being eaten by persons and eaten by pigs."

"All the difference in the world," said the papa; and he laughed, and ran out of the library before the boy could get at him.

Butterflyflutterby and Flutterbybutterfly

One morning when the papa was on a visit to the grandfather, the nephew and the niece came rushing into his room and got into bed with him. He pretended to be asleep, and even when they grabbed hold of him and shook him, he just let his teeth clatter, and made no sign of waking up. But they knew he was fooling, and they kept shaking him till he opened his eyes and looked round, and said, "Oh, oh! where am I?" as if he were all bewildered.

"You're in bed with _us_!" they shouted; and they acted as if they were afraid he would try to get away from them by the way they held on to his arms.

But he lay quite still, and he only said, "I should say _you_ were in bed with _me_. It seems to be my bed."

"It's the same thing!" said the nephew.

"How do you make that out?" asked the papa. "It's the same thing if it's enchantment. But if it isn't, it isn't."

The niece said, "What enchantment?" for she thought that would be a pretty good chance to get what they had come for.

She was perfectly delighted, and gave a joyful thrill all over when the papa said, "Oh, that's a long story."

"Well, the longer the better, _I_ should say; shouldn't you, brother?" she returned.

The nephew hemmed twice in his throat, and asked, drowsily, "Is it a little-pig story, or a fairy-prince story?" for he had heard from his cousins that their papa would tell you a little-pig story if he got the chance; and you had to look out and ask him which it was going to be beforehand.

"Well, I can't tell," said the papa. "It's a fairy-prince story to begin with, but it may turn out a little-pig story before it gets to the end. It depends upon how the Prince behaves. But _I'm_ not anxious to tell it," and the papa put his face into the pillow and pretended to fall instantly asleep again.

"Now, brother, you see!" said the niece. "Being so particular!"

"Well, sister," said the nephew, "it wasn't my fault. I _had_ to ask him. You know what they said."

"Well, I suppose we've got to wake him up all over again," said the niece, with a little sigh; and they began to pull at the papa this way and that, but they could not budge him. As soon as they stopped, he opened his eyes.

"Now don't say, 'Where am I?'" said the niece.

The papa could not help laughing, because that was just the very thing he was going to say. "Well, all right! What about that story? Do you want to hear it, and take your chances of its being a Prince to the end?"

"I suppose we'll have to; won't we, sister?"

"Yes, we'll leave it all to you, uncle," said the niece; and she thought she would coax him up a little, and so she went on: "I know you won't be mean about it. Will he, brother?"

"No," said the nephew. "I'll bet the Prince will keep a Prince all the way through. What'll _you_ bet, sister?"

"I won't bet anything," said the niece, and she put her arm round the papa's neck, and pressed her cheek up against his. "I'll just leave it to uncle, and if it _does_ turn into a little-pig story, it'll be for the moral."

The nephew was not quite sure what a moral was; but at the bottom of his heart he would just as soon have it a little-pig story as not. He had got to thinking how funny a little pig would look in a Prince's clothes, and he said, "Yes, it'll be for the moral."

The papa was very contrary that morning. "Well," said he, "I don't know about that. I'm not sure there's going to be any moral."

"Oh, goody!" said the niece, and she clapped her hands in great delight. "Then it's going to be a Prince story all through!"

"If you interrupt me in that way, it's not going to be any story at all."

"I didn't know you had begun it, uncle," pleaded the niece.

"Well, I hadn't. But I was just going to." The papa lay quiet a while. The fact is, he had not thought up any story at all; and he was so tired of all the stories he used to tell his own children that he could not bear to tell one of them, though he knew very well that the niece and nephew would be just as glad of it as if it were new, and maybe gladder; for they had heard a great deal about these stories, how perfectly splendid they were--like the Pumpkin-Glory, and the Little Pig that took the Poison Pills, and the Proud Little Horse-car that fell in Love with the Pullman Sleeper, and Jap Doll Hopsing's Adventures in Crossing the Continent, and the Enchantment of the Greedy Travellers, and the Little Boy whose Legs turned into Bicycle Wheels. At last the papa said, "This is a very peculiar kind of a story. It's about a Prince and a Princess."

"Oh!" went both of the children; and then they stopped themselves, and stuffed the covering into their mouths.

The papa lifted himself on his elbow and stared severely at them, first at one, and then at the other. "Have you finished?" he asked, as if they had interrupted him; but he really wanted to gain time, so as to think up a story of some kind. The children were afraid to say anything, and the papa went on with freezing politeness: "Because if you have, I might like to say something myself. This story is about a Prince and a Princess, but the thing of it is that they had names almost exactly alike. They were twins; the Prince was a boy and the Princess was a girl; that was a point that their fairy godmother carried against the wicked enchantress who tried to have it just the other way; but it made the wicked enchantress so mad that the fairy godmother had to give in to her a little, and let them be named almost exactly alike."

Here the papa stopped, and after waiting for him to go on, the nephew ventured to ask, very respectfully indeed, "Would you mind telling us what their names were, uncle?"

The papa rubbed his forehead. "I have such a bad memory for names. Hold on! Wait a minute! I remember now! Their names were Butterflyflutterby and Flutterbybutterfly." Of course he had just thought up the names.

"And which was which, uncle dear?" asked the niece, not only very respectfully, but very affectionately, too; she was so afraid he would get mad again, and stop altogether.

"Why, I should think you would know a girl's name when you heard it. Butterflyflutterby was the Prince and Flutterbybutterfly was the Princess."

"I don't see how we're ever going to keep them apart," sighed the niece.

"You've _got_ to keep them apart," said the papa. "Because it's the great thing about the story that if you can't remember which is the Prince and which is the Princess whenever I ask you, the story has to stop. It can't help it, and _I_ can't help it."

They knew he was just setting a trap for them, and the same thought struck them both at once. They rose up and leaned over the papa, with their arms across and their fluffy heads together in the form of a capital letter A, and whispered in each other's ears, "You say it's one, and I'll say it's the other, and then we'll have it right between us."

They dropped back and pulled the covering up to their chins, and shouted, "Don't you tell! don't you tell!" and just perfectly wriggled with triumph.

The papa had heard every word; they were laughing so that they whispered almost as loud as talking; but he pretended that he had not understood, and he made up his mind that he would have them yet. "A little and a more," he said, "and I should never have gone on again."

"Go on! Go on!" they called out, and then they wriggled and giggled till anybody would have thought they were both crazy.

"Well, where was I?" This was another of the papa's tricks to gain time. Whenever he could not think of anything more, he always asked, "Well, where was I?" He now added: "Oh yes! I remember! Well, once there were a Prince and a Princess, and their names were Butterflyflutterby and Flutterbybutterfly; and they were both twins, and both orphans; but they made their home with their fairy godmother as long as they were little, and they used to help her about the house for part board, and she helped them about their kingdom, and kept it in good order for them, and left them plenty of time to play and enjoy themselves. She was the greatest person for order there ever was; and if she found a speck of dust or dirt on the kingdom anywhere, she would have out the whole army and make them wash it up, and then sand-paper the place, and polish it with a coarse towel till it perfectly glistened. The father of the Prince and Princess had taken the precaution, before he died, to subdue all his enemies; and the consequence was that the longest kind of peace had set in, and the army had nothing to do but keep the kingdom clean. That was the reason why the fairy godmother had made the General-in-Chief take their guns away, and arm them with long feather-dusters. They marched with the poles on their shoulders, and carried the dusters in their belts, like bayonets; and whenever they came to a place that the fairy godmother said needed dusting--she always went along with them in a diamond chariot--she made the General halloo out: 'Fix dusters! Make ready! Aim! Dust!' And then the place would be cleaned up. But the General-in-Chief used to go out behind the church and cry, it mortified him so to have to give such orders, and it reminded him so painfully of the good old times when he would order his men to charge the enemy, and cover the field with gore and blood, instead of having it so awfully spick-and-span as it was now. Still he did what the fairy godmother told him, because he said it was his duty; and he kept his troops supplied with sudsine and dustene, to clean up with, and brushes and towels. The fairy godmother--"

"Excuse me, uncle," said the nephew, with extreme deference, "but I should just like to ask you one question. Will you let me?"

"What is it?" said the papa, in the grimmest kind of manner he could put on.

"Ah, brother!" murmured the niece; for she knew that he was rather sarcastic, and she was afraid that something ironical was coming.

"Well, I just wanted to ask whether this story was about the fairy godmother, or about the Prince and Princess."

"Very well, now," said the papa. "You've asked your question. I didn't promise to answer it, and I'm happy to say it stops the story. I'll guess _I'll_ go to sleep again. I don't like being waked up this way in the middle of the night, anyhow."

"Now, brother, I hope you're satisfied!" said the niece.

The nephew evaded the point. He said: "Well, sister, if the story really isn't going on, I should like to ask uncle another question. How big was the fairy godmother's diamond chariot?"

"It was the usual sized chariot," answered the papa.

"Whew! It must have been a pretty big diamond, then!"

"It was a _very_ big diamond," said the papa; and he seemed to forget all about being mad, or else he had thought up some more of the story to tell, for he went on just as if nothing had happened. "The fairy godmother was so severe with the dirt she found because it was a royal prerogative--that is, nobody but the King, or the King's family, had a right to make a mess, and if other people did it, they were infringing on the royal prerogative.

"You know," the papa explained, "that in old times and countries the royal family have been allowed to do things that no other family would have been associated with if they had done them. That is about the only use there is in having a royal family. But the fairy godmother of Prince--"

"Butterflyflutterby," said the niece.

"And Princess--"

"Flutterbybutterfly," said the nephew.

"Correct," said the papa.

The children rose up into a capital A again, and whispered, "He didn't catch us _that_ time," and fell back, laughing, and the papa had to go on.

"The fairy godmother thought she would try to bring up the Prince and Princess rather better than most Princes and Princesses were brought up, and so she said that the only thing they should be allowed to do different from other people was to make a mess. If any other persons were caught making a mess they were banished; and there was another law that was perfectly awful."

"What-was-it-go-ahead?" said the nephew, running all his words together, he was so anxious to know.

"Why, if any person was found clearing up anywhere, and it turned out to be a mess that the royal twins had made, the person was thrown from a tower."

"Did it kill them?" the niece inquired, rather faintly.

"Well, no, it didn't _kill_ them exactly, but it bounced them up pretty high. You see, they fell on a bed of India-rubber about twenty feet deep. It gave them a good scare; and that's the great thing in throwing persons from a high tower."

The nephew hastened to improve the opportunity which seemed to be given for asking questions.

"What do you mean exactly by making a mess, uncle?"

"Oh, scattering scraps of paper about, or scuffing the landscape, or getting jam or molasses on the face of nature, or having bonfires in the back yard of the palace, or leaving dolls around on the throne. But what did I say about asking questions? Now there's another thing about this story: when it comes to the exciting part, if you move the least bit, or even breathe loud, the story stops, just as if you didn't know which was the Prince and which was the Princess. _Now_ do you understand?"

The children both said "Yes" in a very small whisper, and cowered down almost under the clothing, and held on tight, so as to keep from stirring.

The papa went on: "Well, about the time they had got these two laws in full force, and forty or fifty thousand boys and girls had been banished for making a mess, and pretty nearly all the neat old ladies in the kingdom had been thrown from a high tower for cleaning up after the Prince and Princess Butterflyflutterby and Flutterbybutterfly, the young Khan and Khant of Tartary entered the kingdom with a magnificent retinue of followers, to select a bride and groom from the children of the royal family. As there were no children in the royal family except the twins, the choice of the Khan and Khant naturally fell upon the Prince--"

"Butterflyflutterby!"

"And the Princess--"

"Flutterbybutterfly!"

"Correct. It also happened that the Khan and the Khant were brother and sister; but if you can't tell which was the brother and which was the sister, the story stops at this point."

"Why, but, uncle," said the little girl, reproachfully, "you haven't ever told us which is which yourself yet!"

"I know it. Because I'm waiting to find out. You see, with these Asiatic names it's impossible sometimes to tell which is which. You have to wait and see how they will act. If there had been a battle anywhere, and one of them had screamed, and run away, then I suppose I should have been pretty sure it was the sister; but even then I shouldn't know which was the Khan and which was the Khant."

"Well, what are we going to do about it, then?" asked the nephew.

"I don't know," said the papa. "We shall just have to keep on and see. Perhaps when they meet the Prince and Princess we shall find out. I don't suppose a boy would fall in love with a boy."

"No," said the niece; "but he might want to go off with him and have fun, or something."

"That's true," said the papa. "We've got to all watch out. Of course the Khan and the Khant scuffed the landscape awfully, as they came along through the kingdom, and got the face of nature all daubed up with marmalade--they were the greatest persons for marmalade--and when they reached the palace of the Prince and Princess they had to camp out in the back yard, and they had to have bonfires to cook by, and they made a frightful mess.

"Well, there was the greatest excitement about it that there ever was. The General-in-Chief kept his men under arms night and day, and the fairy godmother was so worked up she almost had a brain-fever; and if she had not taken six of aconite every night when she went to bed she _would_ have had. You see, the question was what to do about the mess that the Khan and Khant made. They were visitors, and it wouldn't have been polite to banish them; and they belonged to a royal family, and so nobody dared to clean up after them. The whole kingdom was in the most disgusting state, and whenever the fairy godmother looked into the back yard of the palace she felt as if she would go through the floor.

"Well, it kept on going from bad to worse. The only person that enjoyed herself was the wicked enchantress; _she_ never had such a good time in her life; and when the fairy godmother got hold of the Grand Vizier and the Cadi, and told them to make a new law so as to allow the army to clean up after royal visitors, without being thrown from a high tower, the wicked enchantress enchanted the whole mess, so that the army could not tell which the Prince and Princess had made, and which the Khan and Khant had made; they were all four always playing together, anyway.

"It seemed as if the poor old fairy godmother would go perfectly wild, and she almost made the General crazy giving orders in one breath, and taking them back in the next. She said that now something had got to be done; she had stood it long enough; and she was going to take the case into her own hands. She saw that she should have no peace of her life till the Prince and Princess and the Khan and Khant were married. She sent for the head Imam, and told him to bring those children right in and marry them, and she would be responsible.

"The Imam put his head to the floor--and it was pretty hard on him, for he was short and stout, and he had to do it kind of sideways--and said to hear was to obey; but he could not marry them unless he knew which was which.

"The fairy godmother screamed out: 'I don't _care_ which is which! Marry them all, just as they are!'

"But when she came to think it over, she saw that this would not do, and so she tried to invent some way out of the trouble. One morning she woke up with a splendid idea, and she could hardly wait to have breakfast before she sent for the General-in-Chief. Her nerves were all gone, and as soon as she saw him, she yelled at him: 'A sham battle--to-day--now--this very instant! Right away, right away, right away!'