Читать книгу The Cradle Ship - Edith Howes - Страница 5

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Over the garden they went, then over the trees and high above the town. It was a glorious sail.

"Hurrah! We are going for another wonder-trip!" cried Twin.

"We have Mother and Father with us this time, and that makes it nicer," Win added.

They sailed over fields and hills and seas. At first everything was dark and shadowy; but they went so swiftly that at last they passed the Night and caught up with the Day as she flew across the world. Now there was light everywhere, and they could see far below them the little islands that dotted the sea, and the steamers going to and fro.

On they went, through the bright morning sunshine. Suddenly a thick black cloud barred their way.

"You can't stop us!" Mother called.

"You must not take your children to Babyland!" shouted a voice from behind the cloud.

"I will. It is right for them to go," Mother replied; and she steered the ship into the very middle of the cloud.

For a few moments it was dark and foggy. Then the air cleared, and the twins, looking back, saw the cloud behind them. At one end stood an old, old man, and at the other an old, old woman, holding the cloud in its place. They looked angrily at the ship.

"Those children of yours will come to grief!" they shrieked.

Mother laughed gaily.

"Not at all!" she called in her sweet voice. "I am steering them to safety."

"Who are they?" asked Twin.

"They are Mr. and Mrs. Darken," said Mother. "They are very ignorant people, who think it wrong that children should go where they did not go when they were children."

"Poor old things!" said Father. "They did try to go. When they were as young as you they wanted to see Babyland too, but they had no fairy mother to take them in a fairy ship. They and all the other children made a queer little boat from such scraps as they could pick up and put together, and in that they sailed across the sea to find Babyland. But they came to the great cloud which somebody else was holding up, and there was no fairy in their boat to guide it through, so they had to stay on the other side. They tried to peer through, but the cloud made Babyland look dark and ugly and upside down. They couldn't see anything beautiful in it. And while they waited about, a storm came on that wrecked the boat on the rocks, and some of them were drowned. Ever since then these two have tried to keep all children from seeing Babyland."

"Is it an ugly place, then?" asked Win in a disappointed tone.

"Look below!" said Mother. She stopped the ship.

Win and Twin looked over the side. Beneath them lay a wide sunny land, stretching as far as they could see, and more beautiful than any they had left behind. There were mountains in it, shining softly pink and blue and purple, and capped with glistening snow; there were rivers like streams of silver; there were deep green valleys and golden plains and beaches, and rainbow-coloured inlets of the sea. Over all shone the morning sun, making such a sparkle and glow that the twins were almost dazzled.

"Oh, it is lovely! lovely!" said Win. "Is it really truly Babyland?"

"Really truly Babyland it is," said Mother. "I will take you slowly down."

She set the ship moving very gently downwards, and they began to see more and more of the beautiful land. It was gay with flowers and fruits hanging in bright colours everywhere. Little wild animals, soft and furry, crossed the plains or played along the river banks. Brilliant birds flashed from tree to tree, or poured out happy songs from hidden resting-places in the boughs.

Clear above their singing rose another music, sweeter than anything the twins had ever heard.

"What is that?" asked Win. "It sounds like fairy music."

"So it is," said Mother. "It is the love-song of the mothers when their little ones are born. All the mothers sing it—bird-mothers, flower-mothers——"

"Flower-mothers!" cried Win. "Then are there flower-babies, too?"

"What a question! What ignorance!" said a sudden, sharp voice beside them. The twins jumped.

The strange voice came from a big pine tree whose branches the ship had almost touched on her way to the land. Mother stopped the ship, and Twin spoke to the tree.

"Do you have babies?" he asked.

The pine shook herself. A cone above Twin's head opened in a dozen places, and little winged things came fluttering down like golden butterflies.

"Oh, how pretty!" said Win. She caught some as they fell, and looked at them. "Seeds!" she said. "Seeds with wings!"

"My babies!" said the tree proudly. "Are they not beautiful?"

"I did not know such pretty things were hidden in those hard brown cones," said Twin, watching a fresh shower as it fell.

"Fancy not knowing about my babies!" said the pine. "I must tell you their story. Two springs ago I blossomed for the first time. Little red mother-cones and yellow father-flowers came on my branches. In the red cones lay little seed-eggs, two on each flap. The wind blew the yellow pollen from the father-flowers on to the little seed-eggs in the red cones, and then the cones shut their flaps and began to harden. There they have hung for these two years, growing large and brown, and so strong that the sun could not crack them, the rain could not soften them, and storms could not break them off. And all the time, shut tightly in the warm cone-mothers, each little seed-egg and pollen grain joined together, were growing into a beautiful seed-baby, with a wing as fine and light as the petal of a rose. Now they are all ready to come out, so the hard flaps of the cones grow long-stemmed and spring open. Out flutter the little babies on their pretty wings, to be carried by the wind to good growing places."

"Thank you," said Win. "That is a lovely story."

"Do all trees have babies?" asked Twin.

"Of course. How could we make forests if we didn't? There would be no young ones to take our places when we are gone. We can't live for ever, you know."

"No, I suppose not," said Twin thoughtfully. "How long can you live?"

"Oh, a few hundred years, if no one cuts us down."

A few hundred years! The children stared at the tree.

"That is a very long time," said Win. "Are you sure?"

The pine was offended. "Very well. You needn't believe me," she said sulkily. "Go and ask the oak over there."

Mother steered the ship to the oak tree.

"How long will you live?" Twin asked.

"Oh, hundreds of years," replied the oak in a drowsy way. "Perhaps a thousand." She seemed half asleep.

"Please may we see your babies?" asked Win.

"My babies!" The oak seemed to wake up. "Of course you shall see them, the darlings."

She shook a branch beside Win.

"Lift the leaves," she said. "The babies are under them."

Win looked, and Twin looked over her shoulder.

"I see some tiny green things," said Win in a disappointed tone, "but they are so very small!"

"They have been smaller still, and they are going to be bigger," said the oak. "Look farther along the branch. Do you see tiny, red mother-flowers, and yellow father-catkins hanging on long, green threads?"

"Oh, yes, here they are," said Twin. "What funny little things!"

"Pretty, I call them," said the oak in a hurt tone. "You needn't apologise," she went on before Twin could speak; "but pretend you are the wind, and shake some of the pollen from the father-catkins on to the mother-flowers."

Twin lifted the catkins and shook them over the mother-flowers. A little cloud of pollen floated out.

"Thank you," said the tree. "Now the seed-eggs in the red flowers will grow into acorns."

"Acorns! Oh, acorns! Now I can see what these wee green things are going to be," cried Win.

"Yes, acorns! My smooth green babies in their pretty cup-cradles," sang the oak in a lullaby voice. "Rest and grow, little babies of mine, soon you shall be springing trees." She seemed to be dozing again.

"Your babies haven't any wings," said Twin.

She roused herself a little. "Wings? No; but they will be able to roll. And they will have plenty of food—food within their shining skins to last them many a day."

"Will it be two years before they fall?" Win asked.

"Oh, dear me, no! They are not so slow as the pine-tree babies. A few months. A few months. Excuse my sleepiness," she said. "It's the sun on my head, you know. I am often like this in these warm mornings." Her voice died quite away.

Mother laughed. "I smell violets," she said. "Suppose we look for them."

No wonder she could smell violets. There lay a great patch of them, sweet and blue with blossoms. The scent came up in waves.

"Oh, please don't crush us!" they called, as the Cradle Ship came down.

"Don't be afraid," said Mother. "We shall not touch you."

She stopped the ship just over their heads. "I have brought my babies to see your babies," she said.

"Mother! We are not babies!" cried Twin.

Mother only laughed and kissed him.

The twins looked over the edge of the ship, and a hundred little faces looked up at them, each set in the middle of a violet plant.

"Have you father-flowers and mother-flowers?" asked Twin.

"Father and mother live together in one house, one little house with soft blue walls and the sweetest scent in the world!" came from the face in the biggest plant.

"You mean your blossoms," said Win. She raised one to look at it.

"Are you a fairy?" asked Twin.

"Yes. Lift the little orange flaps in the middle," she said to Win. "Please do it gently. Under them you will see the wee stamen-fathers, and in the middle stands up the pistil-mother. She is tall and thin there, but she is full and round lower down, because there the seed-eggs lie waiting for the pollen grains to make them grow into sweet white babies."

"But how can the wind get in there to shake the pollen off?" asked Twin.

"He can't! We don't want him to!" cried the fairy. "It is a bee we are waiting for. She will break the pollen bags when she dips her long tongue into the honey-spur. We like her to come, because she may bring pollen on her hairs from another plant, and that makes the very best babies. That is why the mother raises her head high above the little fathers in her house. She wants pollen from another flower; the little fathers may send their pollen to other mothers."

Father asked a question. "Suppose no bee comes? Violets bloom so early in the year that sometimes the bees are not out of their winter sleep."

"It doesn't matter. We can manage without them. We grow smaller closed flowers later on. Haven't you noticed them under the leaves? In these the mothers do not stand taller than the fathers, but take their pollen thankfully as the fine bags burst. So dear little babies can still grow. Sometimes their mother opens and scatters them on the ground; sometimes she pushes herself under the ground and opens there, where the babies are safe and sure to grow."

"Zing, zing, zing!" It was a bee flying fast to the violets. Another followed, and another. The tiny fairies were all excitement at once. They lifted their pretty heads high above the leaves and called: "Please come to my flowers! Please come to my flowers!" The bees hurried from honey-spur to honey-spur, rustling and singing as they went, and dusting themselves with pollen.

The children watched, smiling with pleasure at the pretty scene.

"There is a grassy patch beyond the violets," said Win. "Couldn't we stand on that? I want to be close to the flowers and bees."

Mother took the ship to the grassy patch, and Win stepped out. The instant she touched the grass, instead of bending to the violets she stooped to the earth as if listening. "There is someone singing under the ground!" she said.

They all stepped out and bent to listen. "It is the song of the bulbs," said Mother.

"It has stopped!" cried Twin, with a disappointed face. "Just as we came, too! No—there it is again—here, nearer me this time."

They crowded round and listened. A sweet song came up in a tiny voice from below their feet:

"Sleep, little baby flower,

Safe here, and warm.

No frost can come, nor shower,

No cruel storm.

"Rest, little bud of mine.

Flower in the ground

My body, white and fine,

Wraps you around.

"Grow, little flower so bright!

Rest time is done.

Push through my body white,

Up to the sun.

"Fair is the world above;

Spring waits for you.

Go from your mother's love,

Spring work to do.

"Here in the dark I'll stay,

Feed you each hour.

Up where the sunbeams play,

There bloom, my flower."

Win was just going to say, "What a pretty song!" when a sudden ringing of bells made everybody look round. A little fairy in a blue silk frock came flying past, ringing a great stalk of bluebells.

"A holiday! A holiday!" she called. "A fairy-mother has brought her little ones to Babyland. You are free, my sisters, free to fly."

She smiled at Mother as she passed, and Mother smiled back; but before the wondering twins could ask what she meant, a soft fluttering sounded all round them, and in a moment the air was filled with flower-babies. They rose from the violet patch in a purple cloud, the tiny, bright-eyed fairies who had talked to the twins from the centres of the plants; they broke through the ground at the children's feet—tall daffodil fairies in yellow satin, snowdrop fairies in pure white, lily fairies in orange, scarlet or gold; they came flying from round about, pansy fairies in velvet, apple fairies in palest pink, rose fairies and daisy fairies, fairies from every flower and tree. When they saw Mother, they all smiled and bowed to her. Then they flew up and down, laughing and talking like children let loose from school; whirling and chasing one another till the air was filled with their colours. It was a beautiful sight!

The oak fairy came flitting from her tree, wide awake and smiling. She was dressed in pale green, and on her head she wore a pretty crinkled cap, very like one of her acorn cups. She flew to the fairy ship and sat on its mast, looking at Mother.

"Thank you for setting us free," she said.

"How? What did Mother do?" asked the twins, both together.

The fairy laughed at them. "Really, I am surprised that you know so little about your own mother," she said.

She waved her hand at the other fairies.

"See how happy they are," she said. "That is because you are here. Year after year we live in our plants, caring for them and never free to leave them. But whenever a fairy-mother brings her children to Babyland we all have a holiday, tree fairies and flower fairies too. Our wings suddenly grow—wings that will last only one day—and we are free to fly where we like and do as we like."

"How nice!" said Win.

"Nice! I should think so. If you lived in a tree for hundreds of years you would be glad of a change, I can tell you."

"I am so glad Mother is a fairy-mother," said Win.

"But you—are you not a fairy-mother, too?" asked Twin.

"No," replied the oak fairy. "We are fairies, but not mothers. We take care of the mothers and fathers and babies too, but to be both a fairy and a mother is a wonderful thing. Well, I must make the most of my time. I only stopped to say thank you. Good-bye."

"A meeting! A meeting of flower fairies in the Hall of Rose Petals! We are to speak of our grievances and see what can be done."

It was Bluebell again, ringing her chimes. She paused beside the Cradle Ship.

"We are all grateful to you," she said to Mother. "Is there anything we can do to show our gratitude?"

"May we come to the meeting?" asked Mother.

"Nothing would give us greater pleasure," replied Bluebell. "Please wait one moment; things must be done properly."

She flew in amongst the fairies, said something quickly, and came back surrounded by a fluttering crowd. In front of Mother they all stopped, raised their wings above their heads, and spread their hands out before them. "We ask you to honour us by attending our meeting in the Hall of Rose Petals," they said, speaking all together.

"Thank you," said Mother, bowing politely; "we shall be delighted to come."

"We will show you the way," they said.

Mother stepped into the Cradle Ship and took her place at the helm. Father and the twins took their seats, and off they started. The fairies flew high and low beside them, some over and some under the ship, some going on far ahead, and some returning to talk with the family.