Chapter II: Part 2

“Would the Little Old Ancestor enjoy some sweetmeats?” suggested Lady Lotus Blossom. “Old Ancestor” is what you call the Emperor if you are properly brought up, _and_ polite, _and_ Chinese.

So Gentlemen-In-Waiting came and kowtowed and offered the Little Emperor lacquered boxes of crystallized ginger, of sugared sunflower seeds, and of litchi nuts. But do you think he was interested? Not at all. He would not even look at them.

“The wind is blowing hard. Would it amuse the Little Old Ancestor to watch the kites fly?” asked old Lord Mighty Swishing Dragon’s Tail.

The Little Emperor didn’t know whether it would or not. However, he couldn’t be more bored than he was already, so he climbed down from his throne and went out into the windy autumn garden.

First marched the musicians, beating on drums to let every one know that the Emperor was coming.

Then came the Court Ladies tottering along on their “golden lilies,” which is what they call their tiny feet that have been bound up tightly to keep them small ever since the ladies were babies.

Then the Mandarins with their long pigtails and their padded silk coats whose big sleeves held fans and tobacco and bags of betel nuts and sheets of pale green and vermilion writing paper.

Then Princess Autumn Cloud in a jade green gown embroidered with a hundred lilac butterflies, a lilac jacket, and pale rose-colored trousers tied with lilac ribbons. In her ears, around her arms, and on her fingers were jade and pearls, and her rose-colored shoes were trimmed with tassels of pearls and were so tiny that she could hardly hobble. In her shiny black hair she wore on one side a big peony, the petals made of mother-of-pearl and the leaves of jade. Each petal and leaf was on a fine wire so that when she moved her head they trembled as real flowers do when the wind blows over them. On the other side were two jade butterflies that trembled too. In front of her, walking backward, went her Lady-In-Waiting holding the golden tear bowl, in case the Princess should suddenly begin to cry.

And last of all, surrounded by his Gentlemen-In-Waiting, came the Little Emperor, dressed from head to foot in yellow, the Imperial color, so that he looked like a yellow baby duckling. And as he came every one in the Palace and in the Garden had to stop whatever they were doing—gossiping, teasing the Royal monkeys, chewing betel nuts, or sweeping up dead leaves—and kneel down and knock their heads on the ground until he had passed.

How the wind was blowing! It sent the willow branches streaming, it wrinkled the lake water and turned the lotus leaves wrong side out, it scattered the petals of the chrysanthemums. It tossed the kites high in the air. How brightly their colors shone against the gray sky! Some were made to look like pink and yellow melons with trailing leaves, some were like warriors in vermilion, some were golden fish, others were black bats, and the biggest one of all was a great blue-green dragon.

As for the Little Emperor, he took one look at them and then yawned so hard that they were afraid he would dislocate his jaw.

A little brown bird the color of a dead leaf had been hopping about on the ground under the chrysanthemums looking for something for its supper, and now suddenly flew up into a willow tree and began to sing.

The Little Emperor clapped his hands, and all his servants dropped on their knees and began to kowtow.

“Catch me that little brown bird with the beautiful song!” he said. He stopped yawning, and his eyes grew bright with eagerness.

“But, Little Old Ancestor, that is such a plain little bird,” said his aunt timidly. “Surely you would rather have a cockatoo as pink as a cloud at dawn, or a pair of lovebirds as green as leaves in spring——”

The rude Little Emperor paid not the slightest attention to her, but stamped his foot and shouted:

“_Catch me that little brown bird!_”

So his servants chased the poor little fluttering bird with butterfly nets. The wind whipped their bright silk skirts, and their pigtails streamed out behind, and they puffed and panted, for they were most of them very fat.

And at last the bird was caught, and put in a cage trimmed with tassels of purple silk and pearls, with drinking cup and seed cup made like the halves of plums from purple amethysts on brown amber twigs with green jade leaves.

For a time the Little Emperor was delighted with his new pet, and every day he carried it in its cage when he went for a walk. But it never sang, only beat against the bars of its cage, or huddled on its perch, so presently he grew tired of it, and it was hung up in its cage in a dark corner of one of the Palace rooms, where he soon forgot all about it.

How could the little bird sing? It was sick for the wide blue roads of the air, for wet green rice fields where the coolies stand with bare legs, sky-blue shirts, and bamboo hats as big as umbrellas, for the yellow rivers, and the mountains bright with red lilies. How could it sing in a cage? But sometimes it tried to cry to them: “Let me out! Please, _please_ let me out! I have never done anything to harm you! I am so unhappy I think my heart is breaking! _Please_ let me go free!”

“What a sweet song!” everybody would say. “Run and tell the Little Emperor that his bird is singing again.”

After a while the little bird realized that they did not understand, and it tried no longer, but drooped, dull-eyed and silent, in its cage.

One night the Little Emperor had a dream. Perhaps you won’t wonder when I tell you what he had for supper.

First he had tea in a bowl of jade as round and white as the moon, heaped up with honeysuckle flowers.

Then, in yellow lacquer boxes, sugared seeds, sunflower and lotus flower and watermelon seeds, boiled walnuts, and lotus buds.

Then velvety golden peaches and purple plums with a bloom of silver on them.

Pork cooked in eleven different ways: chopped, cold, with red beans and with white beans, with bamboo shoots, with onions, and with cherries, with eggs, with mushrooms, with cabbage, and with turnips.

Ducks and chickens stuffed with pine needles and roasted.

Smoked fish.

Shrimps and crabs, fried together.

Shark fins.

Boiled birds’ nests.

Porridge of tiny yellow seeds like bird seed.

Cakes in the shapes of seashells, fish, dragons, butterflies, and flowers.

Chrysanthemum soup, steaming in a yellow bowl with a green dragon twisting around it.

Not one other thing did that poor Little Emperor have for his supper!

When he was so full that he couldn’t hold anything more, not even one sugared watermelon seed, they took off his silk napkin embroidered with little brown monkeys eating pink and orange persimmons. He was so sleepy that he did not even stamp his feet when they washed his face and hands. Then they took off his red silk gown embroidered with gold dragons and blue clouds and lined with soft gray fur, his yellow silk shirt and his red satin shoes with their thick white soles. But he went to bed in his pale yellow pantaloons, tied around the ankles with rose-colored ribbons.

I must tell you about his bed. It was made of brick, and inside of it a small fire was built to keep the Little Emperor warm. On top of this three yellow silk mattresses were placed, then silk sheets, red, yellow, green, blue, and violet, then a coverlet of yellow satin embroidered with stars. Under his head were pillows stuffed with tea leaves; and above him was a canopy of yellow silk, embroidered with a great round moon whose golden rays streamed down the yellow silk curtains drawn around him.

He fell asleep, and this is what he dreamed.

The long golden rays seemed to turn into the bars of a cage. Yes, he was in a huge cage! He tried frantically to get out! He beat against the bars! Then he saw what looked like the roots of trees, and brown tree trunks, a grove all around the cage. But the trees moved and stepped about, and, looking up the trunks, instead of leaves he saw feathers, and still farther, sharp beaks, and then bright eyes looking at him. They were birds!

What he had thought were the roots of trees were their claws, and the trunks of the trees were their legs. But what enormous birds! They were as big as men, while he was as small as a bird.

“Let me out!” he shouted. “Don’t you know I am the Emperor, and every one must obey me? Let me out, I say!”

“Ah, he is beginning to sing,” said one bird to another.

“Not a very musical song. Too shrill by far! Take my advice, wring his neck and roast him. He would make a tender, juicy morsel for our supper.”

“Oh, let me out! Please, _please_ let me out!” cried the poor Little Emperor in terror.

“He is singing more sweetly now,” remarked one of the birds.

“Too loud! Quite ear-splitting!” said a lady bird, fluffing out her breast feathers and lifting her wings to show how sensitive she was.

“If he were mine I should pluck him. His little yellow silk trousers would line my nest so softly.”

“Oh, please, _please_ set me free!”

“Really, his song is growing quite charming! But one can’t stand listening to it all day.”

And with a great whir and flap and rustle of wings the birds flew away and left him in his cage, alone.

He called for help and threw himself against the bars until he was exhausted. Then bruised, panting, his heart nearly breaking out of his body, he lay on the floor of the cage. Finally, growing hungry and thirsty, he looked in his seed and water cups, drank a little lukewarm water, and ate a dry bread crumb. Now and then birds came and looked at him. Some of them tried to catch his pigtail with their beaks or claws.

Next day the Little Emperor was thoughtful. Could it be, he wondered, that a little bird’s nest was as dear to it as his own bed with its rainbow coverlets and its moon and stars was to him? That a little bird liked ripe berries and cold brook water as much as he liked ripe peaches and tea with jasmine flowers? That a little bird was as frightened when he tried to catch its tail in his fingers as he was when the birds tried to catch his pigtail?

And then he thought of how he had felt when the lady bird had wanted his pantaloons to line her nest, and, hot with shame, he remembered his glistening jewel-bright blue cloak made of thousands of kingfishers’ feathers. It had made him miserable to think of their taking his clothes, but suppose his clothes grew on him as their feathers did on them? How would he have felt then, hearing the bird say: “_I_ should pluck him. His little silk trousers would line my nest so softly”?

He went to bed thinking about his little brown bird, and before he shut his eyes he made up his mind to set it free in the morning.

Then he fell asleep, and once again he dreamed that he was in the golden cage.

Whir-rr! One of the great birds flew down by the cage door. With his claw he unfastened it—opened it!

Oh, how exciting! The Little Emperor tore out, so afraid he would be stopped and put back in the cage!

Oh, how he ran across the room and through the open door! Free! He was free! Tears rushed to his eyes, and his heart felt as if it would burst with happiness.

But it was winter. The garden was deep in snow that was falling as if it would never stop. The peaches and plums were gone, and the lotus pond was frozen hard as stone.

The Little Emperor had never been out in the snow before except when he was dressed in his warm padded clothes, with one Gentleman-In-Waiting carrying his porcelain stove, and another bringing tea, and a third with cakes in a box of yellow lacquer, and a fourth holding between the snowflakes and the Imperial head a great, moss-green umbrella. So small and helpless in so big and cold a world, what could a little boy find to eat or drink? Where could he warm himself? He ran frantically through the snow. The rose-colored ribbons that tied his pantaloons came untied and trailed behind him, and the cold snow went up his bare legs.

Pausing to catch his sobbing breath, he looked up to see the thick snow sliding from a pine tree branch, and jumped aside just in time to keep from being buried beneath it. Then on he plunged again, growing with each step more weak and cold and hungry; stopping now and then to call for help in a quavering voice that grew feebler every time; blinking back the tears that froze on his lashes as he tried to remember that emperors must never cry; then struggling on through the blinding snow, a little boy lost and alone.

Then, as it began to grow dark, he saw two great lanterns shining through the snow, coming slowly nearer. Perhaps his aunt and his Chief Gentleman-In-Waiting, Lord Mighty Swishing Dragon’s Tail (Lord Dragon Tail, for short) had missed him and had come with lanterns to look for him! He tried to go toward them, to call, but he was too exhausted to move or make a sound.

And then, imagine his terror when he realized that the glowing green lights were not lanterns at all, but the eyes of a great crouching animal—a cat!

Gathering all his strength for one last desperate effort, he tried to run. But with a leap the cat was after him, and with a paw now rolled into a velvet ball, now unsheathing sharp curved claws, tapped him first on one side, then on the other, nearly let him go, caught him again with one bound, and with a harder blow sent him spinning into stars and darkness.

Some one was shaking him. Was it the cat? The Little Emperor opened his eyes and saw the frightened face of Princess Autumn Cloud bending over him, as yellow as a lemon, for she had jumped up out of bed when she heard him cry out in his sleep, and there hadn’t been time to put on the honey and the powder, to paint on the surprised black eyebrows or the round red mouth.

“Wake up, wake up, Little Old Ancestor!” she was crying as she shook him. “You’re having a bad dream!”

“Aren’t you the cat?” asked the Little Emperor, who wasn’t really awake yet.

“Certainly _not_, Little Old Ancestor!” replied his aunt, rather offended.

The Little Emperor climbed out of his bed. The room was full of the still white light that comes from snow, and looking out of the window he saw that the plum trees and the cherry trees looked as if they had blossomed in the night, the snow lay so white and light on every twig. Softly the snow fell, deep, deep it lay, and the people who passed by his windows went as silently as though they were shod in white velvet.

The Little Emperor thought of his dream, and decided that his little bird might suffer and die if he let it go free before winter was over. But he explained to the bird, and tried to make it happier.

“When summer comes, you shall fly away into the sky,” he told it. He brought it fruit and green leaves to peck at, talking to it gently. And the little bird seemed to understand. The dull eyes grew brighter; and though it never sang it sometimes chirped as if it were trying to say: “Thank you.”

On the first night of summer when the moon lay like a great round pearl in the deep blue sea of the sky, the Little Emperor slept, and dreamed again that the cage door opened for him and let him go free. But oh, what happiness now, happiness almost too great for a little boy to bear.

Peonies were in bloom, each petal like a big seashell, and blue butterflies floated over them in the warm sunshine. Half hidden in the grass the Little Emperor found a great purple fruit—a mulberry. How good it was!

The dewy spider webs glistened like the great tinsel Bridge to Heaven they built for him on every birthday. How happy he was! How happy! Free and safe! With the sun to warm him and the breeze to cool him; with food tumbling down from Heaven or the mulberry trees, he wasn’t sure which, with a crystal clear dewdrop to drink on every blade of grass. How happy he was!

The lake was full of great rustling leaves and big pink lotus flowers. Venturing out on one of the leaves, he paddled his feet over its edge in the gently lapping water. Then, climbing into one of the pink blossoms, he lay, so happy, so happy, looking up at the blue-green dragon flies darting overhead, and rocking gently in his rosy boat.

No, it was not the lotus flower that rocked him on the water. It was Princess Autumn Cloud who was gently shaking him, and saying: “Wake up, if you please, dear Little Old Ancestor!” And hard as it is to believe, she was really smiling. The Little Emperor had been so good lately, and then it was such a beautiful day!

He could not wait until after breakfast to let his little brown bird go free. As soon as he was dressed he ran as fast as he could to the room where the bird cage hung. Pat-a-pat-pat went his little feet in their blue satin shoes, and thud, thud! puff, puff! his fat old Gentlemen-In-Waiting lumbered along behind him.

“I’ve come to set you free!” he whispered, as he carried the cage with its tassels of purple and pearls out into the beautiful day. For one minute he wanted to cry, for he had grown to love the little bird. But he remembered again that emperors must not cry. He opened the door of the cage.

“Little Old Ancestor’s bird has flown away!” cried the Mandarins.

“It has flown so high in the sky that we can hardly see it,” the Court Ladies answered; and they all wished that the Little Emperor would stop gazing up into the sky at the little dark speck, so that they might go in and have their breakfasts.

But the Little Emperor, the empty bird cage in his hand, still looked up. High, high in the sky! And now, really, he could no longer see it. But a thread of song dropped down to him, a silver thread of song, a golden thread of love between the hearts of a little bird and a little boy.

“Thank you, oh, thank you, my Little Emperor!”

“King” Philippe’s Dream

Up into the sky rose the hundred horses and their great Coach, until the roof of the Little Emperor’s Palace with its bright yellow tiles looked only as big as a yellow autumn leaf—as a jasmine petal—as nothing at all! And along the Road of Stars they galloped, while notes of music sprayed from the wheels of the Coach, and, dropping to earth, gave the nightingales ideas for beautiful new songs.

On through the sky and above the earth until the night was over, and at last, instead of a road, the hundred horses were galloping along a river. All along the river bank tall poplars rustled and whispered in the wind of the Coach’s passing, and little waves, stirred up by the horses’ hoofs, slapped against the small houses that rose from the water, small pink houses and blue houses and white red-roofed houses, each with its rowboat tied to its steps. White swans and green ducks rocked on the ripples, their feathers gilded by sunshine, for it was bright day now, and the rain that had been pouring down had stopped. It was bright day, and yet no one saw the Dream Coach except a little French boy, whose eyes were falling shut in one little pink cottage.

“Philippe! Philippe!” the Driver called. “One last dream is left for you!”

What was Philippe’s dream?

That you shall hear.

“Hold still then, my little monkey!”

“But mother,” wailed Philippe, “I have the soap in my eye!”

“Soap is it, my angel?” asked his mother, lifting his face in her two wet hands. “Oh, but there is really no soap at all to speak about, just a bubble or two of suds. _There!_” and with the corner of her apron she wiped away the thick white lather around his eyelashes, so that Philippe looked like a little boy made of snow, except for his eyes which were large and brown and filled with tears from the painful smarting. From head to ankles he was covered with a froth of soapsuds, and his feet had stirred the warm water in the bottom of the wooden tub into rainbow-tinted mounds of bubbles which grew and grew and cascaded over the sides with a tiny fizzing sound.

“You are giving our young one a very thorough tubbing,” remarked Philippe’s father. He was sitting under the narrow window of their cottage, cutting the yellow-white sprouts from a bag of potatoes which he intended to plant in the dark of the next moon.

“Indeed I am. I shall scrub and rub and polish until he looks like a wax image, or as pink and shining as the inside of the seashell his Uncle Pablôt sent him from Paimpol.”

Philippe’s father held a large brown potato at arm’s length, and, regarding it with his head cocked to one side, said: “Very fine! Yes, very fine!”

“A good size,” agreed his wife, looking over her shoulder, while she absently bored into the ear of her long-suffering son with a bit of soapy rag.

“Yes—but I was thinking rather of Philippe’s Uncle Pablôt. It is he who is very fine, a grand gentleman who carries a gold-headed cane and has traveled far—to the very borders of our beloved France, and even beyond, so I hear.”

“Oh, very much beyond! He has been in every country in the world, according to the wonderful stories he tells, and the world, Pierre, I understand to be of a tremendous bigness; indeed, if what I am told is the truth, it must be three or four times as big as our own country!”

“Is that so?” replied Pierre doubtfully, starting to cut the pallid sprouts again with quick motions of his work-hardened hands. “It may all be the truth, my good wife, but I have always taken the words of Pablôt with a grain of salt; I think, for that matter, that he is a little inclined to blow.”

“‘Blow’?” asked Philippe from his tub. “I thought it was only the wind that could blow.”

But of course no one answered him, for he was only a little boy, and not expected to understand; instead, his father bent over his bag of potatoes to hide his smile, and his mother remembered that the _pot-au-feu_ (which is a thick soup made of odds and ends and bits and scraps and almost everything you can think of mixed with water in a large pot and left on the fire to bubble sluggishly for many hours) needed stirring right away.

“Take care,” warned her husband, “that you do not drop soap into the soup from your wet hands, for I know of nothing that gives it a more curious flavor.”

“Just the same,” said Philippe’s mother, turning from the hearth, her cheeks flushed rosy red by the bright, hot embers, “just the same, it is a good thing that our little one should be invited to meet such a fine gentleman. It will teach him how to say the most ordinary thing elegantly, and how to carry his head high as if he were a born dandy. Philippe, repeat to your father the little speech you are to say when you meet your uncle.”

“Good health to you, my dear and illustrated uncle! It gives——”

“No, no, my pet, ‘my dear and _illustrious_ uncle,’ and was there not something that you forgot?”

“Yes, Mother. I forgot to make my bow. Shall I make a new beginning?”

“Do so.”

Whereupon Philippe bent nearly double over the edge of the tub, scattering drops of water upon the floor.

“Good health to you, my dear and illustrious uncle. It gives me the most great pleasure to have—_eugh!_ soap in my mouth.... _Ptu!_——”

“Wait, then, until you are dressed in the new suit I have sewn for you,” and his mother, taking an earthen jar of water from the side of the fire where it had been put to warm, poured it over his head, leaving him no longer a snow boy, but a boy made of the shiniest china you can imagine. “Is that pleasant, my brave one?”

“It is warm, like rain,” said Philippe, lifting his arms above his head. “I will not need another washing for a long, long time, will I, Mother?”

Philippe’s grandparents lived the distance of twelve fields, a small woods, three stiles, and the width of a brook from his own home. Just how far that is, is hard to say. You see it makes such a difference whom you ask. Ask the swallows and they will tell you airily that it is no distance at all, just a flick of the wing, and you are there. But ask the snails who live under the broad leaves of the flowering mulleins, and after pondering a long time, they will tell you that it gives them a headache to think of such a tremendous distance, that it would surely take several lifetimes to travel so far, and as for themselves, they would consider it very foolish to start out on such a dangerous adventure when there were plenty of young lettuces so close at hand! To a small boy of eight, it was quite a long journey, taken alone, particularly when he could not take the short cut by wriggling through the tangled copse for fear of tearing his new suit, or being covered with last year’s burrs and barbed seeds of the undergrowth. But he reached his Grandparents’ house at last.

It was a little house built by the side of a river, actually touching the water on one side, so that you could step out of a door, down a step, and into a rowboat. And there were white swans and yellow-breasted ducks with bronze-green backs swimming in the reflection of the pink walls. On the land side was a poplar tree, very tall and dressed in silvery blue leaves, standing erect like a giant soldier on guard before a toy house. Once Philippe’s Grandfather had explained to him how he could tell the time of day by the shadow this tree cast: when it struck across the chimney at the corner of the house, it was time to go into the fields; when it crossed the front door, it was time to enter therein for the midday meal, and when it pointed out toward the fields, that was a signal for Grandmother to ring the great bell that would call the workers home.

“And what,” Philippe had asked, “do you do, Grandfather, when the sun is under the clouds, and there is no shadow to tell the time?”

“Well, then we must needs look at the clock which ticks on the mantelshelf over the fire,” Grandfather said with a twinkle of his old, blue eyes, eyes half hidden by the tufts of white eyebrows.

Although the day had commenced unusually fine, and the calm, blue sea of sky had been without an island reef or bar of cloud to wreck the golden galleon of the sun, by the time Philippe had been tubbed, scrubbed, dressed in his best, had been rehearsed in his address to his uncle, kissed good-by, and given a little nosegay of pansies and lilies of the valley in a paper twist for his Grandmother, and had crossed the twelve fields and picked his way carefully through the woods to avoid the sharp brambles that reached out after him with long and sinuous arms—by the time all this had come to pass, and Philippe was actually in sight of his grandparents’ cottage, it began to rain from a sky as heavily gray as it had been brightly blue before. It started so suddenly that Philippe had to run across the last field to keep the big drops from ruining his new black velvet cap.

The inside of the house was very dark, with only two windows, like half-closed eyes, looking out on the world. Through these windows entered shafts of pale, watery light that cut blue paths in the wreaths of wood smoke creeping around the rafters. Pots, pans, and kettles of burnished copper hung from hooks in the ceiling, and mirrored in tiny points the flames leaping on the hearth. It was like another world, small but complete, inside Grandmother’s and Grandfather’s house: the floor was the earth itself, trampled until it was as hard as brick, the wreaths of smoke were thin clouds flung across a dark sky where yellow and red stars winked and twinkled. At one end of the room, where Grandmother and Anjou, the cat, were busy preparing dinner over the bright fire, it was gay and warm: _Day_; but at the farther end, where Grandfather sat stroking his long white beard, it was dark and chilly: _Night_.

When Philippe entered, he had to blink his eyes for some time before he could adjust himself to the darkness. Then he handed his Grandmother the bouquet he had carried so carefully, politely wishing her health and happiness.

There were tears in Grandmother’s eyes as she bent over and kissed her Grandson’s pink and shining cheek, but then there were always tears in Grandmother’s eyes—why, Philippe never could understand. Did she weep because of the stinging smoke that the chimney seemed too small to carry off? Or because she was sad? Not sad, thought Philippe, or Grandmother would not be all the time smiling.

“Hey-O!” sang Grandmother in her high little voice, dropping a tear in the yellow heart of a purple pansy. “What pretty flowers you have brought me, my Philippe, and see, here is a raindrop in one of them shining as prettily as a glass bead!”

Philippe did not like to tell her that it was her own tear.

“Then it is raining out?” she asked. “It will make a wet home-coming for your uncle, but it is lovely, nevertheless, and if it comes down hard enough, it will make the river flow along more happily than it has for a long day. Won’t that be beautiful, Philippe?”

“Yes, Grandmother Marianne,” Philippe agreed politely, and then asked: “When will my Uncle Pablôt be here? Mother has taught me what to say when I make my bow to him, and if he is too long in coming, I am afraid that I may forget it.”

“He will come,” said Grandmother, “when he has a mind to.”

“And is he coming from a great distance, maybe all the way from Paris?” (Philippe thought that Paris was the only city in the world, built on the world’s very edge.)

“Maybe, and then maybe not,” Grandmother told him. “There is no telling where your uncle will come from; he is apt to blow in from any quarter.”

“Ah, then that explains it!” remarked Philippe innocently. “Father said he always thought Uncle Pablôt was a little inclined to blow.”

“Now did he!” Grandmother was frowning and smiling at one and the same time. “Have you spoken to your Grandfather yet?”

“I did not know that Grandfather Joseph was home; I did not see him,” said Philippe truthfully.

“Use your young eyes sharply and look into every corner,” advised Grandmother. “Anjou!” she cried warningly, “you will burn your nose if you get too close to that roasting duck.”

Philippe gazed into the farthest corner of the room where he saw two dim spots of white glowing like snow in the night; he had to advance quite near before he could be sure that what he saw was the long white hair and the long white beard of Grandfather.

“Good day, Grandfather Joseph,” said Philippe, bowing low before the old man who sat huddled in a chair, the arms of which were worn shiny by the grip of thin fingers.

“‘Good day’? A very _bad_ day, Grandson. Though I no longer hear nor see as I used to, I can feel that it is raining. Tell me, is it raining?”

“Yes, Grandfather,” replied Philippe from the top of a churn where he had climbed to look out of the small window at the river. “It is falling so hard that the raindrops are bouncing from the surface of the water.” Remembering what his Grandmother had told him, he added, “It will make the river flow along more happily than it has for a long time, and that will be very beautiful!”

“_Horrible!_” said Grandfather with a sigh that was almost too soft to be heard. “It makes me feel weak clear through,” he continued. “Give me the sharp cold and the sparkling frost when the river freezes so hard that it cracks and roars like a cannon. When I was a boy, I used to spread my cape and let the wind push me across the slippery ice—— This soft weather will be the end of me!”

There were three people living in the house that Philippe visited; besides Grandmother and Grandfather, there was little Avril, their grandniece, and therefore Philippe’s cousin. Avril was a child of tender beauty, younger than Philippe, quite a baby in the sight of eyes that were eight long years old. Avril was very shy, so shy that she had hidden under the table when Philippe had entered the door, and it was not until he had paid his respects to Grandmother and Grandfather that he saw her there, peeking out at him like a flower from the dark shadow of a garden wall. “Hello, my little cousin,” said Philippe with a grand and grown-up air. “Would you like to play a very important game with me that I have just thought of?”

Avril laughed her pleasure.

It was a most excellent game, so Philippe thought. He was King, enthroned on the churn, and Avril was his slave, and had to bring him anything he might request, with the penalty of having her head chopped off if she failed. King Philippe had just commanded the brightest star in the heavens to be brought him, when there was all at once a loud rapping and rattling of the wooden latch. The door flew open before anyone had time to answer, and a gust of chilly wind swept through the room, breaking the weaving rings of smoke, making the fire leap up the chimney, causing Grandmother in her excitement to drop the wooden spoon into the pudding, and even waving Grandfather’s beard like a white flag.

“_Behold!_ I am here!” cried Uncle Pablôt from the threshold, withdrawing his right arm from the voluminous folds of his cape and making a magnificent sweeping gesture ending with his fingertips being pressed lightly against his expanded chest.

“So I see,” said Grandfather in a thin, complaining voice from his dark corner. “Close the door,” he pleaded, tucking the end of his waving beard into his blue smock. “Close the door—the rain makes me feel very weak——”

But no one paid the least bit of attention to him. Grandmother ran forward with squeaking noises of delight, throwing her arms around the newcomer, draping him with a link of sausage, which she had forgotten to put down in her hurry, in the manner of a necklace. Avril shyly retreated beneath the table again, and Philippe tried desperately to remember the pretty sentences with which he was to address the great man. He was in the very middle of trying to remember when his Grandmother took him by the hand.

“And here is your little nephew,” said Grandmother, “who has come all by himself a great distance to welcome you.”

Philippe stared dumbly, wishing that he had had the presence of mind to slip under the table with Avril.

“_Come!_ What do you say to your uncle, Philippe?” asked Grandmother.

“I forget what I say,” answered Philippe miserably, “but I am very glad to see you, my—my——Ah! Now it comes to me!” And he started again: “Good health to you, my dear and illustrious uncle. It gives me the most——”

“Fiddlesticks!” interposed Uncle Pablôt, laughing.

“—the most great pleasure to welcome you, and——”

“Yes, yes—” said Uncle Pablôt, cutting him short again. “But what do you say to this?” and he reached into the folds of his cape and handed Philippe something small and shining.

“What is it?” asked Philippe.

“Ho! That is better. At least you did not learn that by heart, did you, my boy? Here, I will show you.” Whereupon he put the bright present to his lips and blew a shrill blast that rattled the pots and made Grandmother drop her sausages in alarm. (She dusted them very carefully before putting them in the hot pan that was waiting to cook them.)

“A _whistle_!” shouted Philippe, dancing with joy. Then he ducked under the table to show his beautiful new present to Avril.

“And here is a present for the other little one,” said Uncle Pablôt, handing the shyly smiling girl a toy spade with a bright green handle and a wreath of early spring flowers painted on the tiny blade.

What a feast they had in honor of their distinguished guest!

“I suppose,” said Grandmother to Uncle Pablôt, “that you have traveled a great distance since last you visited us?”

“Yes, yes,” said Uncle Pablôt, flourishing the wing of a duck. “I have breezed about a bit, here, there, and everywhere. Would you like to hear a little about my travels?”

“Oh, _please_!” begged Philippe, although the question had not been addressed to him.

“Now there is India,” commenced Uncle Pablôt, “a very hot country, but as gay as a circus——” And over the roast duck he told them many things in his soft and flowing voice, of elephants, their enormous bodies painted brilliantly in curlicues, circles, and zigzags, swaying through narrow streets like clumsy ships of the land, ridden by dark-skinned potentates robed in ivory satin and scarlet brocades, wearing precious jewels more sparkling than broken bits of colored glass ... of softly stepping and treacherous tigers prowling in deep jungles, of lions and leopards, crouching panthers and laughing hyenas and all manner of beasts ... of birds with emerald crests, sapphire wings, breasts of flaming orange, long, sweeping tails and screaming falsetto voices that seemed to shatter the air into sharp and hurtling splinters ... of gorilla fathers with so terrible a power in their long arms that they could uproot a tree as easily as one would pick a dandelion, and gorilla mothers holding babies to their breasts as gently and lovingly as any human mothers ... of chattering pink monkeys shouting in derisive laughter from their hiding places in the tree tops at passers-by. Leaving the wildness of the tropic forests, he told them of queer-shaped temples and pagodas, lifting to the blue of the sky, made of stone carved as beautifully as lace, where lived the leering and laughing gods of the heathen.

By the time Grandmother had put the crisp green lettuces on the table, Uncle Pablôt had carried his little audience to far-away China and, without so much as a “by your leave,” into the gardens of mandarins and emperors where jasmine filled the air with sweetness, and rose and white peonies bowed their heavy heads around the lily ponds. Far away and far away they flew on Uncle Pablôt’s winged words: over snowy mountains tinted with the pink and lavender radiance of the dawn, through the fiery furnace of desert sands where haughty camels plodded their weary course to the beat of Arab drum and the mystical rhythm of Arab song, up broad rivers where crocodiles basked in the sun ... past cities with towers and turrets, through the courtyards of palace and castle, into the riot of crowded markets with their laughter and shouting, buying and selling, into a land where the streets were water, where the buildings had wings that turned and turned, where the men and boys wore tight little jackets of velvet fastened with brass buttons, and trousers as big as two sacks sewn together. “Oh, yes,” said Uncle Pablôt, “and they all wear wooden shoes so that they can walk safely across the streets of water without sinking.”

“Remarkable!” said Grandmother.

“If true,” said Grandfather, but he spoke so low that every one thought that he was merely choking, and paid no attention to him.

“More!” pleaded Philippe.

“And I was in England the other day,” continued Uncle Pablôt, who needed little urging, “where I visited the Royal Family. That is nothing,” he said, in answer to a look of proud astonishment from Grandmother. “I have a great many acquaintances in all walks of life. Once I mussed up the hair of a prince and ran off with the parasol of a duchess, just by way of a little joke, you know. Did I ever tell you——”

But if he ever had, he told them again, and at such length that, though the dinner had come to an end, and Grandmother had cleared away the dishes and given Anjou a saucer of milk and a bone, he was still telling them this and other monstrous adventures in his quick, easy voice. How thrilling it all was to Philippe. It seemed to him that the gay words flew from his uncle’s mouth and over his head like flocks of wild birds. Some of them were quite ordinary little words, as sparrows are ordinary little birds, but others were long and strange like the queer birds his uncle had told him about. Or again—this tale of other lands and peoples was like music to which the crackling of the fire and the drip, drip of the rain outside made a soothing accompaniment. He tried hard to keep his eyes and ears wide open, but, to tell the truth, he had eaten very heartily of Grandmother’s delicious dinner, and that, with the darkness of the room, the lullaby singsong of his uncle’s voice, and the soft purring of Anjou, made him heavy-headed and in danger of falling into sleep at any moment. Voices came to him through the fog of smoke, sounding far, far away. He heard his uncle say, “But you, Grandfather Joseph, you should go about the world a bit and see for yourself these wonderful things.”

“I am content,” replied a soft, old voice.

“Yes, you are content to stay where you are put, or at best to drift around a bit, eh?”

And then the old man saying, “I drift—I drift—I drift——”

Maybe it was then that Philippe went to sleep, or, on the other hand, maybe it was then that Philippe overcame his drowsiness and woke up to a new interest in things. Certainly, strange and exciting happenings took place in rapid succession.

It started with Grandmother going to the window where she stood on tiptoe and looked out at the river. “Oh,” she cried, and her voice was younger and happier than Philippe had ever heard it before. “Oh! The river has grown up; never before have I seen my darling child so strong and beautiful. And how he runs and laughs! In another minute he will be at the sill of the window. I will open the door and invite him in.”

“No, no!” cried Grandfather weakly, jumping up from the chair and staring wildly about the room. “It will be the end of me.”

“But think, Joseph, how my child will love it! He will splash and laugh—why, even now I can see him creeping under the door in his eagerness.”

Without a word, gathering the baby Avril into his arms, Grandfather dashed out of the other door; and they watched him running across the fields and meadows, his white hair and beard flying back over his shoulders in the mad speed of his flight.

“Now there is a strange man,” Grandmother said to Uncle Pablôt.

Pablôt only whistled softly and looked wise.

“One would think,” continued Grandmother, “that he would be grateful for a nice trip on the back of my child. He will come to my way of thinking all in good time.” She looked around her critically. “The fire!” she said. “How fiercely the fire is burning! It quite makes me boil with anger; I won’t have it, I hate it!” and she ran upon it, scattering the embers with a great hissing sound. “There now!” turning again to Pablôt. “Do you think that the room is in readiness for my son? Shall I open the floodgates and let him in?”

“How about Anjou?” asked Uncle Pablôt.

“Anjou can ride in his basket.”

“And Philippe?”

“The little cradle by the bed that Avril sleeps in—an excellent boat! Jump in, Philippe, run and jump in, for we are going to make a voyage. I—let me see—this tub will suit me nicely; I have a fondness for tubs; and you, Pablôt, can run along the bank. Into your basket, Anjou, _quick_! You look strangely unhappy, my pet. Are we all ready? _Enter, my son!_”

Grandmother unlatched the door facing on the river; it flew back against the wall with a crash. What happened next was very confused in the mind of the startled Philippe. There was a great, swishing roar as the water of the river, swollen to unheard-of heights by the hard rain, leaped and tumbled into the room in masses and billows of silver foam. Tightly he clutched the rail of the crib as his strange boat tossed and turned and ducked and pitched and bobbed and spun around and around in the currents and cross currents and boiling waves. At last, when the water in the room had reached the level of the water outside, and therefore had suddenly quieted, he dared to look about him. Uncle Pablôt had disappeared; Grandmother was calmly sitting in her tub with a rapturous smile on her old face. “So impulsive!” she remarked conversationally to Philippe. “My son, the River,” she explained. “He is so very glad to see me. Did you notice how he jumped and romped when I let him in? It made me very proud! But we must not waste our time floating idly here; there is to be a very important reunion of my whole family.” And with that they were caught in an eddying current and swept out of the door: Anjou, with tail as erect as a mast; Philippe, wide-eyed and silent in his cradle boat; and Grandmother in her wooden tub, pleased and proud, the happy tears streaming down her cheeks.

Once you get over being frightened, it is really great good fun, so Philippe found, to go racing along a swift-flowing river in a little boat that nods to each passing wave. They passed tall reeds and rushes that waved gracefully to them from the shore, weeping willow trees, their wands gray-green and crystal with rain, gently caressing the surface of the water, emerald fields patterned with yellow flowers shining wet, mallows by the River’s edge, white with glowing hearts of deep pink, deep pink with hearts of white.

Sometimes swiftly, sometimes slowly, but always and ever onward, “Grandmother’s Son” carried them on his strong back; now through lowlands, and now between high banks of dark chocolaty mud, where, from the black portals of burrows and tunnels, the bright eyes of water animals gazed at them in astonishment. Yes, it was thoroughly delightful, but it was puzzling to Philippe; there were many things that he did not understand. He decided that he would ask Grandmother, who was floating close to him in her wooden tub.

“Grandmother Marianne,” he called to her, “why do you call the river your son?”

“Look at me, Philippe. Have I not changed?” asked Grandmother. “I am no longer Grandmother Marianne,” she said, “I am Grandmother Rain!... Without me there would be no puddles, no pools, no lakes, no ponds, no rills and runs and rivulets, no brooks and streams, no waterfalls, no rivers—their lovely and happy voices would die from the land. They are all my children. And if it were not for my children, there would be no ocean.”

“What is the ocean?” asked Philippe, who had never been to the seashore.

“That, my Philippe,” said Grandmother Rain, “is where I was born, and where all my children return. It is a beautiful place! And how your uncle loves to play there—a decidedly worthy man, your uncle, though at times a trifle flighty.”

They passed a grove of trees, their bright branches reaching out over the water.

“How fresh and strong they look,” cried Grandmother Rain. “They are always glad to see me, I can assure you. Oh, I have strange adventures, Philippe. Sometimes I am buried in the soft, brown earth, and you would think that would be the end of me, now wouldn’t you? But no! I creep back into the air through trunks of trees, through blades of grass and stalks of flowers, and through the shoots of young corn. I trickle through an endless maze of underground passages into deep wells, or until I find a place where I can come bubbling up to the surface. Every living thing needs me and every living thing loves me, except sometimes little boys kept in from play—eh?”

Philippe felt guilty, and was about to apologize when Grandmother Rain put him at rest. “That is not quite true. There are others,” she said, “who do a good deal of complaining about me; they say that I am an old spoil-sport just because I try to make myself pleasant at their parties and picnics. But if I were to leave them forever——” she made an odd little gesture of despair. “Would you like me to sing you a song?” she asked unexpectedly. “It might serve to pass the time.”

“Please,” said Philippe, who was getting a bit tired of floating aimlessly and never arriving anywhere.

“Very well.” And this is what she sang:

_GRANDMOTHER RAIN’S SONG_

_“Pitapat, pitapat, drip, drip, drip—
Pitapat, pitapat, slip, slip, slip,
Over roofs and windows, over garden walls,
Over fields and meadows—the gray rain falls!_

“I fall upon the countryside, upon the city square;
I tap the silk umbrellas that are opened everywhere;
I wash away the dirt and dust that cloud the flower’s face;
I fall on royal palaces, and in the market place——
For no one is too regal, and no one is too low
To receive the crystal blessing that I scatter as I go.
I freshen up the thirsty world, and make it clean and green,
The grass grows tall, and flowers bloom wherever I have been.
Although I lie in gutters, and slip through hole and crack,
And sometimes have my little joke by running down your back,
I make small children happy, for on me they may float
Their shiny bright, their red and white, their little new toy boat.
So think not that because I fall like tears I may be sad:
The sparkle in each drop of me is proof that I am glad!

“_Pitapat, pitapat, drip, drip, drip—
Pitapat, pita——_

“Ah! _There_ he comes!” cried Grandmother Rain excitedly, forgetting to finish her song.

“Who?” asked Philippe, curious, like most boys.

“Who indeed?” replied Grandmother. “Look up the shore. Now we will have some sport!”

Philippe did as he was told, and saw a small figure hurrying toward them at a great pace. As the figure drew nearer, he saw that it was Uncle Pablôt, running along the edge of the water and stirring it to frenzy.

“Hold tight!” warned Grandmother from her tub.

Philippe needed no warning, for as Uncle Pablôt drew opposite to them, waves broke the smooth surface of the river and tossed his little crib about like a cockle shell. He could see, as he was twisted about, that the rising waves were creeping over the edge of Grandmother Rain’s tub and swamping it—it was sinking lower and lower. “Be careful, Grandmother!” he cried frantically.