Part 5

“_Open, world, your trembling petals slowly, Here one, there one, natal to its hour, Toward the time when, holden in a vessel holy, You shall be a flower._”

Though Peter did not know what the song might mean, yet it fell sweetly upon the night, and he liked to listen. And when it was done, he went and stood before the youth.

“Sir,” he said, “the world is beginning. You must go and help the king.”

“I know, I know, little lad,” said the youth, and his voice was clear, like bird-notes that were turning into words. “I, too, tell the message, making it in a song.”

And these words made Peter glad, so that his strength was new, and he ran on with the poet’s gentle music in his ears.

I cannot tell you how far Peter went, but he went very far, and to many a lonely outpost, and away and away on a drear frontier. It was long to go and hard to do, but that is the way the world is made; and little Peter went on, now weary, now frightened, now blithe, now in good company, now alone and in the dark. I cannot tell you all the adventures he had and all the things he did--perhaps you will know these in some other way, sometime. And there were those to whom he told the message who listened, or set out in haste for the king’s palace; and some promised that they would go another day, and a few ran to tell others. But many and many were like the hundred heralds and the thousand trumpeters and the king’s High Council, and found many a reason why they might not set out. And some there were who mocked Peter, saying that the world indeed was doing very well without their help and would work itself out if only one would wait; and others would not even listen to the little lad.

At last, one morning when the whole world seemed glad that it was beginning and seemed to long to tell about it, little Peter entered a city, decorated for a festival. Everywhere were garlands of vines and of roses, bright rugs and fluttering pennons and gilded things, as if the world had been long enough begun so that already there were time to take holidays. The people were flooding the streets and crowding the windows, and through their holiday dress Peter could see how some minced and mocked a little like apes, and others peered about like giraffes, and others ravened for food and joy, like the beggar or the bear or the tiger, and others kept the best, like swine, or skulked like curs, or plodded like horses, or prattled like parrots. Animals ran about, dumb like the vegetables they had eaten. Vegetables were heaped in the stalls, mysterious as the earth which they had lately been. The buildings were piled up to resemble the hills from whose substance they had been created, and their pillars were fashioned like trees. Everywhere were the savage angles and wild lines of one thing turning into another. And Peter longed to help to fashion them all, as he fashioned his little balls of mould and loam.

“There is so much yet to do,” thought little Peter, “I wonder that they take so much time for holidays.”

So he ran quickly to a high, white place in the midst of the town, where they were making ready to erect the throne of the king of the carnival, and on that he stood and cried:--

“Hear me--hear me! The world is beginning. You must go and help the king.”

Now, if those about the carnival throne had only said: “What is that to us? Go away!” Peter would have been warned. But they only nodded, and they said kindly: “Yes, so it is--and we mean to help presently. Come and help us first!” And one of the revellers, seeing Peter, how little he was, picked him up and held him at arm’s length and cried:--

“Lo, now, this little lad. He is no bigger than a trumpet....”

(That was what the king had said, and it pleased Peter to hear it said again.)

“... Let us take him,” the revellers went on, “and _have_ him for a trumpet. And take him with us in our great procession. What think ye?”

“And may I cry out what message I please?” little Peter asked eagerly.

“Surely,” answered all the revellers, gayly. “What is that to us, so that you come with us?”

They picked him up and tossed him on their shoulders--for he was of about a brazen trumpet’s weight, no more;--and Peter clapped his hands for joy, for he was a boy and he loved to think that he would be a part of that gorgeous procession. And they took him away to the great tent on the city green where everyone was dressing for the carnival.

Peter never had seen anything so strange and wonderful as what was within that tent. In it everything and everybody had just been or was just going to be something or somebody else. Not only had the gay garments piled on the floor just been sheep’s and silkworm’s coats, not only had the colours laid upon them just been roots and stems and herb-leaves, not only had the staves been tree’s boughs and elephant’s tusks, but the very coal burning in the braziers and the oil in the torches had once been sunshine, and the very flames had been air, and before that water, and so on. But, most of all, the people showed what they had been, for in any merry-making the kinds of animals in folk can_not_ be covered up; and it was a regular menagerie.

They took little Peter and dressed him like a trumpet. They thrust both his legs into one long cloth-of-gold stocking, and he held his arms tightly at his sides while they wound his little body in ruffles of gold-coloured silk, growing broader and broader into a full-gathered ruff from which his laughing face peeped out. And he was so slender and graceful that you could hardly have told him from a real, true, golden trumpet.

Then the procession was ready to start, all lined up in the great tent. And the heralds and the music all burst out at once as the green curtain of the tent was drawn aside, and the long, glittering line began to move. Little heralds, darting about for all the world like squirrels and chipmunks; a great elephant of a master of ceremonies, bellowing out the order of the day as if he had been presiding over the jungle; a group of men high in the town’s confidence, whose spots proclaimed them once to have been leopards, and other things; long, lithe harlequins descended from serpents; little, fat clowns still showing the magpie; prominent citizens, unable as yet to conceal the fox and the wolf in their faces; the mayor of the town, revealing the chameleon in his blood; little donkey men; and a fine old gentleman or two made like eagles--all of them getting done into men as quickly as possible. In the midst rode the king of the carnival, who had evidently not long since been a lion, and that no doubt was why they picked him out. He rode on a golden car from which sprays of green sprang out to reach from side to side of the broad street. And at his lips, held like a trumpet, he carried little Peter, one hand on Peter’s feet set to the kingly lips, and the other stretched out to Peter’s breast.

Then Peter lifted up his shrill little voice and shouted loud his message:--

“_The world is beginning! The world is beginning! The world is beginning! You must go and help the king. You must go-o-o and help the king!_”

But just as he cried that, the carnival band struck into a merry march, and all the heralds were calling, and the people were shouting, and Peter’s little voice did not reach very far.

“Shout again!” bade the king of the carnival, who did not care in the least what Peter said, so long only as he acted like a trumpet.

So Peter shouted again--shouted his very best. He shouted as loudly as he did at play, as loudly as when he swam and raced in the water, as loudly as any boy could shout. But it seemed to him that his voice carried hardly farther than the little chipmunk-and-squirrel heralds before him, and that nobody heard him.

Still, it was all such fun! The glitter of the procession, the eagerness of the people, the lilt and rhythm of the music. And fun over all was it to be carried by the carnival king himself, high above everyone and dressed like a golden trumpet. Surely, surely no boy ever had more fun than that! Surely, surely it was no great marvel that after a little time, so loud was the clamour and so fast the excitement, that Peter stopped crying his message, and merely watched and laughed and delighted with the rest.

Up and down through the thronged streets they went, that great, glittering procession, winding its mile or more of spangles and gilding and gay dress and animals richly caparisoned. Everywhere the crowded walks and windows and balconies sent cheers into the air, everywhere flowers were thrown and messages tossed and melody flooded. And wherever that long line passed, everyone noted the king’s trumpet and pointed it out and clapped hands and tried to throw upon it garlands. And there was so much to see, and so much excitement there was in the hour, that at last little Peter did not even think of his message, and only jested and made merry. For it was the most wonderful game that ever he had played.

“How now, my little trumpeter?” the king of the carnival would say sometimes, when he rested his arms and held Peter at his side.

“Oh, _well_, your majesty!” Peter would cry, laughing up at him.

“This is all a fine game and nothing more,” the king of the carnival would tell him. “Is this not so?”

Then he would toss the boy on high again, away above the golden car, and Peter would cry out with the delight of it. And though there were no wings and no great brightness in the air, yet the hour was golden and joy was abroad like a person.

Presently, a band of mountebanks, dressed like ploughmen and harvesters, came tumbling and racing by the procession, and calling to everyone to come to a corn husking on the city green.

“Husks! Husks! A corn husking on the city green. Husks--husks--husks!” they cried.

But there was such a tumult that no one could well hear what they said, and presently they appealed to the carnival king to tell the people.

“Nay, O king, they hear us not for the noise of thy passing,” said they. “Prithee tell the people what we would say.”

“Tell the people, my little trumpeter!” cried the king, and lifted Peter to his lips.

And Peter shouted out with all his might.

“Husks! Husks! A corn husking on the city green. Husks--husks--husks!”

“Bravely done!” called the mountebanks, in delight, and ran alongside the car, leaping and tumbling and grotesquely showing their delight. “Bravely done! Tell the people--bid the people come!”

So Peter called again, and yet again, at the full strength of his little voice. And it seemed to him that the people surely listened, and it was a delight and a flattery to be the one voice in the great procession, save only the music’s voice.

At last, for one moment it chanced that the bands ceased altogether their playing, so that there was an instant of almost silence.

“_Husks, husks, husks!_” he cried, with all his might.

And as he did that, thin and clear through the silence, vexed somewhat by the voices of the people,--now barks, now whines, now bellows, now words,--Peter caught a little wandering melody, as though a bird’s singing were turning into words:--

“_Open, world, your trembling petals slowly, Here one, there one, natal to its hour_....”

and in the midst of that motley throng, Peter, looking down, saw the poet whom he had left on the hill-top, now wandering alone and singing his message to his lute.

“Oh, the king! Oh, _my_ king!” cried little Peter, as if he had had a great wound.

“What now, my little trumpeter?” asked the carnival king.

“Not you--_not_ you!” cried Peter. “Oh, set me down,--set me down. Oh, what have I done?”

“How _now_, little Trumpet?” cried the carnival king. But Peter, instead of stretching out his little body, slim and trumpet-graceful, turned and fell at the king’s feet in the car and slipped from his grasp and scrambled through the branching green and reached the street.

There, in the wonder and then the mockery of the people, he began struggling to free himself from the ruffles of cloth-of-gold about his body. Some laughed, some ran from him as if he were mad, and some, wishing for themselves the golden ruffles, helped him to pull them off and to strip down the clinging golden stocking that bound his limbs. And then, being close to the city gates, little Peter ran, all naked as he was, without the gates and on to the empty road. And he ran sobbing out his heart:--

“Oh, my king! I would have told them that the world is beginning--but, instead I have told them only to get them husks!”

Now the poet, who had seen it all--and who understood--ceased his song and made his way as quickly as might be for the press of the people, and ran after Peter, and fared along the road beside him, trying to comfort him. But the little lad might not be comforted, and he only cried out again:--

“The king--the king! I would have given them his message--and I bade them only to get them husks!”

So the poet--who understood--said no word at all, but he shielded Peter with his mantle; and then he took his lute and walked beside the little lad, singing.

They had gone but a short distance when they reached the top of a hill, where the sun shone with exceeding brightness, and the poet noted that the light fell almost like little wings. Peter saw none of this, for his hands were still covering his face. But he heard the poet’s singing interrupted by a voice. The voice was uneven--like a bark or a whine that is turning into words--but yet its words were clear and unmistakable. And they were:--

“_Sirs, the world is beginning. You must go and help the king._”

Peter looked up and he saw the man who had spoken, a man twisted and ragged, but who smiled down into the little boy’s face so gently that, for a moment, Peter did not know him; and then he recognized that beggar to whom, on that night long ago, he had given food and the message.

“Ay, friend!” the poet was answering him ringingly, “and we go!”

The beggar hurried on, and the poet touched Peter’s hand.

“Nay, now, little Peter,” he said, “grieve not your heart too much. For you it was who told the beggar the message--from the top of the hill I heard--and I saw you give him food. Can you tell any man without some good coming true of the tidings? Then it may well be that there are those in the town to whom you told the king’s message who will remember, too. Go we forth together to try again!”

Peter looked down the long highway, stretching between the mysterious green, where shrubs changed to animals in so little a space; and then he looked away to the king’s kingdom and saw how it was not finished--because the world had just stopped being nothing and was beginning to be something--and he looked back towards the city where, as at the court, men had not yet done being animals. Everything was changing, as if nothing were meant to be merely what it is. And everything was in savage angles and wild lines. The world was beginning. The people _must_ be told to go and help the king.

“Go we forth together to try again,” the poet repeated.

He touched his lute, and its melody slipped into the sunshine.

“_Toward the time when, holden in a vessel holy, You shall be a flower._”

Then Peter stretched out his arms, and his whole slender little body became like one trumpet voice, and that voice strong and clear to reach round the world itself.

“I try once again!” he answered. “The world is beginning. _I must go and help the king._”

VI

MY LADY OF THE APPLE TREE

Our lawn was nine apple trees large. There were none in front, where only Evergreens grew, and two silver Lombardy poplars, heaven-tall. The apple trees began with the Cooking-apple tree by the side porch. This was, of course, no true tree except in apple-blossom time, and at other times hardly counted. The length of twenty jumping ropes--they call them skipping ropes now, but we never called them so--laid one after another along the path would have brought one to the second tree, the Eating-apple tree, whose fruit was red without and pink-white within. To this day I do not know what kind of apples those were, whether Duchess, Gilliflower, Russet, Sweet, or Snow. But after all, these only name the body of the apple, as Jasper or Edith names the body of you. The soul of you, like the real sense of Apple, lives nameless all its days. Sometime we must play the game of giving us a secret name--the Pathfinder, the Lamplighter, the Starseeker, and so on. But colours and flavours are harder to name and must wait longer than we.

... Under this Nameless tree, then, the swing hung, and to sit in the swing and have one’s head touch apple-blossoms, and mind, not touch them with one’s foot, was precisely like having one’s swing knotted to the sky, so that one might rise in rhythm, head and toe, up among the living stars. I can think of no difference worth the mentioning, so high it seemed. And if one does not know what rhythm is, one has only to say it over: Spring, Summer, apple-blossom, apple; new moon, old moon, running river, echo--and then one will know.

“I would pick some,” said Mother, looking up at the apple-blossoms, “if I only knew which ones will never be apples.”

So some of the blossoms would never be apples! Which ones? _And why?_

“Why will some be apples and some others never be apples?” I inquired.

But Mother was singing and swinging me, and she did not tell.

“Why will you be apples and you not be apples, and me not know which, and you not know which?” I said to the apple-blossoms when next my head touched them. Of course, you never really speak to things with your throat voice, but you think it at them with your head voice. Perhaps that is the way they answer, and that is why one does not always hear what they say....

The apple-blossoms did not say anything that I could hear. The stillness of things never ceased to surprise me. It would have been far less wonderful to me if the apple-blossoms and the Lombardy poplars and my new shoes had answered me sometimes than that they always kept their unfriendly silence. One’s new shoes _look_ so friendly, with their winking button eyes and their placid noses! And yet they act as cross about answering as do some little boys who move into the neighbourhood.

... Indeed, if one comes to think of it, one’s shoes are rather like the sturdy little boys among one’s clothes. One’s slippers are more like little girls, all straps and bows and tiptoes. Then one’s aprons must be the babies, long and white and dainty. And one’s frocks and suits--that is to say, one’s _new_ frocks and suits--are the ladies and gentlemen, important and elegant; and one’s everyday things are the men and women, neither important nor elegant, but best of all; and one’s oldest garments are the witches, shapeless and sad and haunted. This leaves ribbons and sashes and beads to be fairies--both good and bad.

The silence of the Nameless tree was to lift a little that very day. When Mother had gone in the house,--something seemed always to be pulling at Mother to be back in the house as, in the house, something always pulled at me to be back out-of-doors,--I remember that I was twisting the rope and then lying back over the board, head down, for the untwisting. And while my head was whirling and my feet were guiding, I looked up at the tree and saw it as I had never seen it before: soft falling skirts of white with lacy edges and flowery patterns, drooping and billowing all about a pedestal, which was the tree trunk, and up-tapering at the top like a waist--why, the tree was a lady! Leaning in the air there above the branches, surely I could see her beautiful shoulders and her white arms, her calm face and her bright hair against the blue. She had risen out of the trunk at the tree’s blossoming and was waiting for someone to greet her.

I struggled out of the swing and scrambled, breathless, back from the tree and looked where she should be. Already I knew her. Nearly, I knew the things that she would say to me--sometimes now I know the things that she would have said if we had not been interrupted.

The interruption came from four girls who lived, as I thought, outside my world,--for those were the little days when I did not yet know that this cannot be. They were the Eversley sisters, in full-skirted, figured calico, and they all had large, chapped hands and wide teeth and stout shoes. For a year they had been wont to pass our house on the way to the public school, but they had spoken to me no more than if I had been invisible--until the day when I had first entered school. After that, it was as if I had been born into their air, or thrown in the same cage, or had somehow become one of them. And I was in terror of them.

“Come ’ere once!” they commanded, their voices falling like sharp pebbles about the Apple-blossom lady and me.

Obediently I ran to the front fence, though my throat felt sick when I saw them coming. “Have an apple core? Give us some of them flowers. Shut your eyes so’s you’ll look just like you was dead.” These were the things that they always said. Something kept telling me that I ought not to tell them about my lady, but I was always wanting to win their approval and to let them know that I was really more one of them than they thought. So I disobeyed, and I told them. Mysteriously, breathlessly I led them back to the tree; and feeling all the time that I was not keeping faith, I pointed her out to them. I showed them just where to look, beginning with the skirts, which surely anybody could see.... I used often to dream that a crowd of apish, impish little folk was making fun of me, and that afternoon I lived it, standing out alone against those four who fell to instant jeering. If they had stooped and put their hands on their knees and hopped about making faces, it would have been no more horrible to me than their laughter. It held for me all the sense of bad dreams, and then of waking alone, in the middle of the night. The worst was that I could find no words to make them know. I could only keep saying, “She is there, she is there, she is there.” By some means I managed not to cry, not even when they each broke a great branch of blossoms from the Eating-apple tree and ran away, flat-footed, down the path; not indeed until the gate had slammed and I turned back to the tree and saw that my lady had gone.

There was no doubt about it. Here were no longer soft skirts, but only flowery branches where the sunlight thickened and the bees drowsed. My lady was gone. Try as I might, I could not bring her back. So she had been mocking me too! Otherwise, why had she let me see her so that I should be laughed at, and then herself vanished? Yet, even then, I remember that I did not doubt her, or for a moment cease to believe that she was really there; only I felt a kind of shame that I could see her, and that the others could not see her. I had felt the same kind of shame before, never when I was alone, but always when I was with people. We played together well enough,--Pom, pom, pullaway, Minny-minny motion, Crack-the-whip, London Bridge, and the rest, save that I could not run as fast as nearly everybody. But the minute we stopped playing and _talked_, then I was always saying something so that the same kind of shame came over me.

I saw Delia crossing the street. In one hand she held two cookies which she was biting down sandwich-wise, and in the other hand two cookies, as yet unbitten. The latter she shook at me.

“I knew I’d see you,” she called resentfully. “I says I’d give ’em to you if I saw you, and if I didn’t see you--”

She left it unfinished at a point which gave no doubt as to whose cookies they might have been had I not been offensively about. But the cookies were fresh, and I felt no false delicacy. However, after deliberation, I ate my own, one at a time, rejecting the sandwich method.

“It lasts them longest,” I explained.

“The other way they bite thicker,” Delia contended.