Part 9

“That’s like the Jane Ellen,” said Phyllisy.

“Yes, but the ships were very different. This was the good ship Argo: Captain Little Bear. And they made a wonderful voyage, because they were all good sailors on the Sea of Make-Believe. There were storms and pirates; and they stopped at a cannibal island, off the coast of Borneo, rescued a captive damsel, who was just about to be eaten, and restored her to her parents in Scotland in three shakes of Little Bear’s tail. There never was a captain like him, nor such a happy Little Bear. And when they were tired of thrilling adventures, the Pleiades girls danced, and Castor and Pollux sang songs for them—while the Ship took care of herself.

“On shipboard, when the sea is smooth is a proper time to spin yarns; so, at the end of one of the dances, Maia said: ‘Now somebody must tell a story.’

“‘Hercules,’ said Andromeda. ‘This is his party.’

“‘His surprise party,’ corrected Orion. And they never were more surprised than to hear him say:—

“‘I will. What about?’

“‘Bears,’ said Andromeda. ‘Because it’s for Little Bear.’

“‘All right,’ agreed Hercules. ‘I’d just as soon have it that as anything.’

“They settled themselves around him to hear the story. ‘Now go on—about the bears,’ said Andromeda, giving Little Bear a squeeze.

“‘Before there were any Star People in the Sky, it was full of bears,’ began Hercules.

“‘Little Bears?’ asked Orion.

“‘No. Great, big, horrible bears.’

“‘Ath big ath Major?’ asked Draco.

“‘Bigger—twice over; and bad. They’d go roarin’ and fightin’ around, and they’d eat up a girl—like Taygeta, here—as quick as they’d look at her; but there weren’t any girls here to eat.’

“‘Were they polar bears?’ asked Perseus.

“‘No. They were—were—_China_ bears. The worst kind there is. There weren’t any girls then, nor any Star People. There were just bears, and not so many stars as there are now. There were just exactly one thousand; but there were meteors—and the bears liked ’em better than anything.’ (Little Bear gave a shiver of joy, and Hercules went on.) ‘The meteors were big, too, bigger than any you ever saw. When they were ripe, they were bigger than a bear’s head; but sometimes they wouldn’t go off—and that’s what made the bears do what they did.’

“‘What did they do?’ asked Perseus.

“‘That’s what I’m telling you,’ said Hercules.

“‘S—sh!’ said Cassiopeia. ‘Don’t interrupt. _When_ didn’t they go off?’

“‘For the biggest bear’s party. There was going to be a party, and the bears all came; and not one of them would go off.’

“‘The bearth?’ asked Draco.

“‘S—sh!’ said Cassiopeia. ‘The meteors, of course.’

“‘It thounded ath if he meant the bearth,’ explained Draco; but Hercules went on, undisturbed. It was remarkable how he could talk, now he was started. He looked right at Little Bear while he told his story, and Little Bear looked back at him in perfect delight.

“‘There wouldn’t one of ’em go off,’ he repeated, ‘and that made the great big horrible bears madder than hornets—and they went tearin’ around, and they would have smashed all the meteors and eaten each other up; but there was one bear that was a funny fellow, and he used to make ’em laugh. And they liked that sometimes, when they were tired of fightin’.

“‘So this bear said to the others: “I’ve thought of something. Let’s have some fun. I know what to do with these meteors.”’

“‘What?’ asked Perseus.

“‘S—sh!’ said Cassiopeia; and ‘You wait,’ said Hercules.

“‘So the other bears said: “All right. You tell us what it is.” And the funny bear told ’em what to do, and they all went to work, and they gnawed out the inside of the meteors. And they were bigger than the bears’ heads—so their heads went inside; and they gnawed ’em out until there wasn’t anything left but the thin shell; and they gnawed holes through that in places, besides—just the way the funny bear told ’em to. And it was a cloudy night, and those bears all worked like sixty, and before morning they had just a thousand meteors all gnawed out.

“‘The next night began by being cloudy too; but about two hours after dark, it all cleared off. The clouds rolled up from one side, all together, like a curtain in front of a tableau. And the first man that looked up at the sky fell right down in a fit, so everybody around had to attend to him. But when he began to come out of it, the rest of them looked up—just to see what the weather was; and every one of ’em yelled right out!’

“Hercules stopped and looked around at his audience. They were listening so breathlessly they couldn’t even ask questions, and he must have been proud of his success. He paused to enjoy it, until Cassiopeia said, ‘Oh, go on!’

“‘What do you suppose made ’em?’ he asked, looking at Little Bear,—‘made ’em yell, I mean. In that sky, there ought to have been just one thousand stars, spread around equally; instead of that, there were one thousand _Chinamen’s heads_, grinnin’ at ’em, over each other’s shoulders, all on one half of the sky.’ (‘Oh!’ gasped the Star People.) ‘Those horrible bears had popped one star inside of each of those gnawed-out meteors, and arranged ’em like that.’”

(“Like the heads on the Chinese plates,” whispered Phyllisy, and the Princess twinkled at her with her eyes.)

“‘Made jack-o’ lanterns of them,’ said Cepheus.

“‘Yes,’said Hercules. ‘One thousand jack-o’lanterns, because that funny bear said it would be a joke.’

“‘I should think it was,’ said Orion.

“‘Well, it _wasn’t_,’ said Hercules. ‘At least, it was the poorest joke those bears ever tried. It did for them! Of course, people couldn’t stand such goings on with the stars. So they said: “Those bears have got to be cleared out; and we’ll have some Star People to take care of our sky.” So they picked out some people they knew were good at huntin’ wild animals and weren’t afraid; and Orion and Perseus and I—and some more of us—came first; and we just cleared out those horrible bears that weren’t fit to be here, and made this the right kind of a Starland for us all to live in.’

“‘Did you drive them, every one, out?’ asked Alcyone.

“‘Yes,’ said Hercules. ‘At least—almost; but there was just one little bit of a bear that didn’t seem at all like the others,’—Little Bear wriggled with delight—‘and Orion said to me, “I guess we’ll keep this little chap. He seems a pretty good kind of a bear.” And I said, “All right. We’ll try him; but if he goes to cuttin’ up—out he’ll go, after the others!”’

“‘But he didn’t!’ said Andromeda, squeezing him, ‘and we couldn’t live without him! Is one single bit of that story true?’

“‘There’s Little Bear, to prove it,’ said Orion. And it was not fair to ask; for it was an absorbing story while it lasted, and that’s more than can be said for a great many stories,” finished the Princess.

“Not yours, Dearie,” said Miss Phyllisy. “Yours are always as good as that—and better.”

“They interrupt just like us, don’t they?” asked Pat.

“Just as we’re interrupting now,” said Phyllisy. “What came next, Dearie?”

She was looking off, over their heads, at the sky beyond the treetops; she looked back quickly, smiling at the Others. “Next, Miss Phyllisy? Not very much. When the laughter and talk about the story had died away, every one sat quiet, a little tired and ready to be serious—and they fell to talking about the Ship.

“‘Isn’t she beautiful?’ said Celeno. ‘Wouldn’t you love to see her sailing?’

“‘We shall, some time,’ said Orion.

“‘Do you really believe it?’ asked Maia.

“‘Surely,’ said Castor. ‘She’s lighter now than she used to be.’

“‘A good deal,’ agreed Hercules. ‘I measure every once in a while, and she keeps going up—every year a little.’

“‘Sing the song about it, Castor,’ said Andromeda. But he didn’t, because Draco exclaimed suddenly: ‘It’th going to clear!’

“They had forgotten all about the weather!

“‘Goodness!’ cried Cassiopeia. ‘I do believe it is! And we’ve all that way to go! Come this second, or we’ll be caught in it!’

“And, just as we’re going to scurry in before that big black cloud catches us, those careless Star People had to scamper, laughing all the way, back to their places, to be there before the clouds drifted away. They were lucky that it cleared so late. All they lost of the party was Castor’s song about the ship. And they knew it as well as he did.”

“But we don’t know it,” said Phyllisy.

Pat twisted her eyebrow and glanced up for an instant. “If we go now, we can’t scurry. It won’t come soon enough. You can tell it.”

The Kitten looked up, too, weatherwise. Then she folded her hands very comfortably in her lap. “It truly won’t,” she said. And the Princess believed her, and leaned back once more in the flowery chair.

“I’d like to sing it to you,” she said, “because it’s such a pretty song, and it explains what they meant by the Ship’s growing lighter.”

The wind of the shower stirred the plumes of asters behind the Princess’s head while she sang; but even when the song was ended they weren’t obliged to scurry. So they waited a little longer for an excuse to scamper, because they wanted to.

THE SONG OF THE SHIP

“I’ll build you a palace of gold, my dear, With diamond knobs for its doors; With banqueting-halls, And rooms to give balls, And thistle-down rugs on the floors. And other splendors untold, my dear, Shall be yours. When I once begin To build the palace, it won’t take long.” “Oh, when?” “When my ship comes in.”

“Would you ride in an ivory chariot, my dear, With steeds that are swift as the wind? Six zebras shall stand To wait your command; Then, away!—and leave dullness behind! Their harness of silk all a-tinkle with bells Of crystal, makes musical din. They shall surely be yours, if you’ll say but the word.” “But _when_?” “When my ship comes in.”

There’s a Ship that is freighted with heart’s desires; Fast moored ’midst the stars she must lie, Till the last, least weight Of greed or of hate Shall out of her cargo fly. When the wish of each heart is gentle and kind, With no taint of a selfish sin, Then—light as a dream—the buoyant Ship, The Ship from the Stars shall come in!

X TRAVELERS’ TALES

There came a frost one night, and it was most exciting in the morning to see the bewitchments everywhere. Sometimes it was whole trees and rows of trees solid gold, and sometimes it was only one tiny branch blazing red by itself out of plain green. It was joyful surprises every minute to walk in it. They filled their hands with leaves, more than they could hold, gathered one by one—and each the most beautiful they had found. The Others gave them to the Princess until her hands were brimming; then they filled their own, but they were still for her.

Before they could believe it, they came to the hill that was the round top of the world. It was covered with short grass, very slippery to climb but worth while, for from it they could see World-without-end, and Ocean. There were mountains, far away, on three sides, and on the fourth—also far away—was the Ocean, set up on edge. The sharp top line of it came opposite, but everything was below them, with long slopes going wide, and they were up in the middle, directly under the deep blue sky. And they could see frost-bewitchments over all the land.

On the face of the very blue sea were tiny white flecks that were ships. They looked as if they were climbing up, or slipping down, on account of the sea being set up on edge.

“Suppose this,” said Miss Phyllisy to Pat and the Kitten (the Princess was looking off, thinking: “What if the finest ship afloat were coming?” and the Others wouldn’t disturb her). “Suppose this: Wouldn’t it be funny if a ship went straight up; and it climbed up until it came to the edge, and then kept going straight on ahead—off into the air?”

“But it couldn’t,” said Pat. “It has to stick right on; and then it keeps rounding over until it is curling under. It _does, truly_,” she insisted, though they didn’t contradict her, “because I’ve done it—when I came; and it goes right along and nobody would know, but still it is curling under; and you would think it was going straight ahead, because—I ought to know, because I’ve been clear under, halfway around; and it’s night there now. Now that is really true. _Honestly!_”

“That is the way it is, honestly,” said the Princess, for she had heard all they said. “You can’t get off. Straight ahead you go and seem to go and keep going; and back you come to the place you started from—if you go long enough, because you’re tied down to it. But it’s a beautiful old Earth to travel on, isn’t it?—and Starland to see besides.”

“Orion could sail straight off in a Star-Ship,” said the Kitten.

“Of course the Star People could go anywhere,” agreed Phyllisy. “How far could they go, truly straight ahead, Dearie?”

“To the other end of Nowhere, and be no nearer the end—I should say. But they don’t go, because their Law says they are to stay in their own Starland.”

“Then they’ll be there at night,” said the Kitten.

“Where would they go?” asked Pat.

“To other Starlands,” said the Princess. And that was a surprising answer, because not one of them supposed there could be any others. “The Star People say there are,” the Princess assured them, “and I should think they ought to know.”

“But how would they know, if they never go to them?” Miss Phyllisy objected.

“Partly by seeing. For instance, there are the Far-Away Isles—two little filmy streaks of light away down in the Southern sky, that look like scraps of the Milky Way. The Star People often talk about them; and from time to time some bit of news comes trickling in about outside places, nobody knows how—vague rumors. It made a story one time, news coming that way,” she ended, looking very attentively at a leaf in her hand, and turning it over to examine the back, as if she didn’t know what was expected of her!

But the Others were immediately disposing of their leaves where they would be safe under stones, hopping and chirping like birds in a bush, to settle themselves on the smooth ledges of rock that came through the hill where it was thin on top, and were toasty warm from the sun. And the Princess watched them, smiling to herself, but not saying a word until everybody was comfortable.

“As I told you,” she began, “there are often bits of news floating about in Starland—a sort of impression of something, very vague, that comes—nobody knows how,—comets, possibly. And nobody would depend on what they said.”

The Others were very sure _they_ wouldn’t.

“Neither would I,” said the Princess. “And perhaps that isn’t the way it comes. But it comes some way. Sometimes vaguer and other times more distinct. This time, all at once, there sprang up a real, definite rumor: They were to have a visitor!

“Orion was the person who first spoke of it to the Pleiades girls. They were dancing a pretty, twisty dance when he came strolling along and called to them:—

“‘Are you practicing to be ready for company?’

“They didn’t catch what he said, and Taygeta would have stopped, but Maia wouldn’t let them. So Orion waited and watched while they untangled and finished in a straight line; and he might have gone far to see anything so pretty as they were, in their gauzy gowns all a-glimmer with tiny stars.

“‘Now you may talk, if you like,’ said Maia. ‘Alcyone often makes a mistake in that, so I wanted to go straight through it.’

“‘What dance was that?’ asked Orion.

“‘That’s one of the “Sailor’s Knots,”’ said Taygeta. ‘There’s such a lot of them!’

“‘Yes,’ said Alcyone, ‘and they are a good deal alike and entirely different. Any one might be mixed. You have to tie them up, first, and then untangle them.’

“‘She can do it perfectly well when she wants to,’ said Maia. ‘All our family know about ocean things; but any one can make her giggle and be silly.’

“‘What was it you said as you came?’ asked Merope, quickly. She had tact about changing the subject.

“‘I don’t remember. Nothing much,’ said Orion.

“‘Yes, it was,’ said Taygeta. ‘Something about company.’

“‘Oh, yes. Haven’t you heard?’

“‘Heard what?’

“‘Tell us—quick!’ They all spoke together; and they should have known better than to let Orion see how eager they were. It gave him a chance to tease.

“‘Why—some one. Oh, I’m sure you must have heard. You don’t want me to tell it all over again?’

“‘Yes, we do—’

“‘No, we haven’t—’

“‘Now, don’t be so mean—’

“‘Don’t ask him,’ said Maia. ‘He’s dying to tell.’

“Then they said not another word, but stood in a lovely row, locking arms and balancing on their toes, and looked at him; and Orion looked back at them. Then he pushed his lion’s skin up over his shoulder and spoke to his dogs:—

“‘Come, Sirius! We’d better go and get ready before the Stranger comes,’ and he turned to go. But there were seven girls to stop him, and they were around him in a second.

“‘No, you shall not—’

“‘Now, Orion—’

“‘Oh, _please_—’

“‘What is it?’ they asked; and he _was_ dying to tell!

“‘I can’t tell you so very much,’ he said. ‘But they say we are to have a visitor from the Far-Away Isles.’

“‘Who says so?’

“‘Who is coming?’

“‘When will he be here?’

“‘What is he coming for?’ They were like seven interrogation points!

“‘I don’t know,’ said Orion. ‘I don’t remember who told me—and I’m not quite sure what. Everybody but you seems to know about it.’

“‘Did you ever know any one so tiresome?’ asked Maia. And six Pleiades girls said they never had, and ‘We’ll have to ask some one else.’

“So, off they went to try to find out what was going to happen; and how anybody knew about it.

“It was a curious thing, but by the time they had talked with the other Star People, they were in the same state as Orion and all the others. No one could tell quite where he had heard it, and no one knew exactly what he had heard; but every one had a perfectly clear impression that a visitor was coming from the Far-Away Isles.

“When they tried to talk a little more definitely about him, they did not altogether agree. Still, there was a strong idea that he was young and splendid and handsome, of course; some one very distinguished in his own country.”

“A prince, for instance?” asked Phyllisy.

“More than likely.—

“‘What do you suppose he is coming for?’ asked Maia.

“‘Perhapth, becauth he’th going to all the Thtar-Countrieth,’ said Draco. ‘He couldn’t do that unleth he came here.’

“‘That’s so,’ said Hercules. ‘We’re one of ’em.’

“‘You’re mistaken,’ said Cepheus. ‘He’s heard about the prettiest seven sisters in Starland, and he wants to take his choice of them back with him. You’ll have to polish up your stars, girls, and dance your best for him.’ (That was his idea of a joke!)

“‘Indeed we _won’t_!’ said Electra, with her nose very high. ‘We care nothing about him.’

“‘No,’ said Alcyone. ‘We won’t do one thing!’

“‘Now, don’t you put nonsense into their heads,’ said Cassiopeia to Cepheus. ‘He’s just coming to be friendly, and because he can; and I think it’s lovely. We are going to do everything possible to give him a fine welcome; and the girls will look just as pretty as they can, to be a credit to us all.’

“‘I wish Merope’s star were brighter,’ said Celeno. ‘Do you think there is anything we could do about it?’

“There was one thing they could do: they could talk! And they began that very minute. It seems hardly possible that people could talk so much about so little! No one had thought before that Merope was not quite as she should be. If her star was faint and vanished when one looked hard at it, that was the way of Merope’s star, and that was all there was about it.

“But now, with the thought of stranger eyes, they began to feel that perhaps it was extraordinary that she should be different from her sisters. And the more they thought and talked about it, the more important it seemed to be.

“Every one had some suggestion to make, except poor Merope herself; she never had given it a thought, and now she declared she didn’t care.

“‘But _we_ care,’ said Maia. ‘It isn’t creditable to our family. What will the Stranger think, to see you different from us?’

“So they talked—and talked—”

“Why didn’t they give her a star?—like Little Bear?” asked the Kitten.

“They would have given it, gladly, but Merope wouldn’t take it; and, what is more, none of them had a star of the right kind to give.”

“They’re terribly particular about them, aren’t they?” said Phyllisy.

“They have to be,” answered the Princess. “But not in the way they were now. Those foolish people went on talking, and fixed their eyes and their thoughts on the star until they quite lost their senses, and it seemed the most calamitous thing that could happen—that the splendid Stranger should come from the Far-Away Isles and see Merope with the puzzling star above her forehead.

“One night, at this time, Perseus came along by the river, and there he found Merope sitting alone. She was thinking so deeply she didn’t see him until he was close beside her.

“‘Where are the rest of you?’ he asked.

“‘Dancing somewhere; I don’t know where. I came here to think.’

“That sounded pretty sad to Perseus, and he tried to say something to cheer her.

“‘I wouldn’t worry about that star. You look all right.’

“‘I wouldn’t mind for myself,’ said Merope; ‘but I’m not going to disgrace my family.’

“It was not long after this that the six Pleiades began to say: ‘Where is Merope?’ and then the other Star People said: ‘Where can Merope be?’—until the whole Sky seemed one great Question; and the nearest it came to an answer was that Perseus had seen her sitting on the bank of the river, quite downcast, but plainly resolved to do something.

“Cassiopeia was so worried, she lost her temper.

“‘I hope you girls are satisfied _now_’ she said. ‘Persecuting that poor child!—and all for vanity. If anything has happened to her, I don’t know how you’ll forgive yourselves!’

“‘You were in it, too,’ observed Perseus; and she was.

“‘I know it,’ she said, after a pause. ‘That’s how I know how they ought to feel.’

“‘I don’t see how anything _could_ have happened to her.’ said Orion.

“‘Then where is she?’ asked Perseus. And that was what no one of them could answer; and Starland wasn’t a happy place.”

“They could think she’d run away,” suggested the Kitten.

“Or drowned in the river,” said Miss Phyllisy in a tragic voice.

“They couldn’t bear to think it was anything serious; but it was a mystery where she could be. They wandered from place to place, asking one another what it could mean. And everywhere they ran across Little Bear, roaming uneasy and disconsolate: even old Major was restless.

“‘You don’t suppose the Stranger came and carried her off to the Far-Away Isles, do you?’ asked Andromeda.

“‘No, I do not,’ said Orion, very positively.

“‘She wouldn’t have gone! She wouldn’t have left us,’ Taygeta declared.

“‘Suppose he _took_ her?’ insisted Andromeda.

“‘_Nonsense!_’ said Cassiopeia.

“But when the night was gone without any sign of her, and a cloudless night followed and there were only six girls in the group where there should have been seven, what could they think? What could keep one of the Star People from her place, unless something really had happened to her? And when they had borne her absence for two cloudless nights, their hearts had grown heavier and heavier, and they had almost given up any hope of seeing their dear Merope again.”

“And they couldn’t hunt for her when it was clear,” said Phyllisy.

“No. They could only stand still and brood over it for two endless nights.

“The third night came, cloudless still. The daylight grew dim until it was nearly gone, and one after another, each star glimmered in its place. When——

“Who was it?—coming—far down the Sky?