“I know it. But a squirrel brought it all the way from the Public Garden and dropped it there. I saw him.”
“A common or garden squirrel?” asked the Pixie incredulously.
“Garden—when I saw him,” said Wendell. “But he might live on the Common for all I know.”
“Some nutty squirrel,” said the Pixie dejectedly, “to block my game that way!” He sat fingering the acorn as if he hoped it would turn into something else.
“Ah!” he said, brightening suddenly. “But I’ve thought of something for the third test that’s a sticker.”
“What is it? A postage stamp?” asked Wendell.
“You won’t feel so funny, young man, when you know what it is,” said the Pixie, glaring.
“I SUPPOSE it’s a beacon from Beacon Hill,” said Wendell.
“Now, that’s not bad,” conceded the Pixie. “I may use that some time. No,” triumphantly, “it’s a frog from the Frog Pond.”
“Je-hoshaphat!” exclaimed Wendell. “You’ve got me this time.”
The Pixie grinned. “I certainly think so,” said he.
For if ever a frog made its lair in the Frog Pond, it was long before the present memory of man. The Frog Pond is a pool on the Beacon Street side of Boston Common. In shape it is somewhat like a lima bean. It has a concrete bottom. Near one end there is a gushing fountain and at the other a drain, that keep the water fresh. In warm weather, hundreds of Boston children “go swimming” there every day,—brown-skinned, black-eyed Italians, little Russian Jews, a small sprinkling of native Bostonians, quite a large handful of little negroes, “Parthians and Medes and Elamites,” no doubt, and “the dwellers in Mesopotamia”; but never, never a frog.
In winter, when the pool is frozen, it is a skating pond, and Flag Staff Hill, just above it, makes an ideal start for a sled to go whizzing down across the icy glare of the Frog Pond. Popular opinion has it that it was this very slide on the Common that was made famous in the winter of 1774 and 1775 by the contest between the youngsters of Boston and General Gage’s redcoats, then quartered on the town, who tried to spoil the slide with sand and ashes. Instead of submitting timidly, the boys carried their complaint to General Gage himself, who assured them that they should be undisturbed in future and said in comment, “How can we hope to beat the notion of liberty out of this people? The very boys breathe the air of liberty!”
Historical truth compels me to state, however, that the Frog Pond was not the scene of this interesting passage. It was undoubtedly on School Street, in the neighborhood of the historic Latin School, that the boys’ slide was spoiled, and it was done by the servant of General Haldimand, who was in command under General Gage, though General Gage was indeed the court of appeal that decided in favor of the Latin School boys. As to the servant, I think his idea was a good one, for I have disastrously tried to walk down School Street myself on an icy day.
But if the Frog Pond was not the actual site of this historic strike for liberty, it may be called the direct spiritual descendant of whatever frozen pool had that honor. For the boys and girls of the Frog Pond in these modern days “breathe the air of liberty”; and the grown people of Boston know it, and the police know it. The Frog Pond, within close view of the Massachusetts State House, within three minutes’ walk of Boston’s financial center, and within a stone’s throw of the shopping district, belongs exclusively to the youngsters. Any grown person may occupy a bench on the walk and watch the fun, but he mustn’t complain if he happens to get splashed. Neither must he object to large groups of girls and boys all around him, struggling to exchange wet bathing suits for dry clothes without the shelter of a dressing room. The youngsters are required to put on their bathing suits at home; but after the swim who can be expected to traverse blocks and blocks of city streets in a wet bathing suit? They do the best they can to create for themselves a privacy that doesn’t exist. They bring newspapers and old blankets and sit under them on the grass to dress; they form close rings around each other at critical moments; and the Mayor of Boston consents, because he is very human and very sensible; and the Common police, who have all known the delights of the Frog Pond and the difficulties of dressing in public in their own boyhood days, turn their backs; and the majority of staid Boston citizens, walking home to dinner past the Pond after office hours, approves genially, and is of the opinion that the small minority that disapproves would better walk home by some other path.
To the Frog Pond, then, Wendell bent his steps the following afternoon. He wore his bathing suit under his shirt and trousers, though it was somewhat late in the season for bathing. The warm weather had brought out a number of adventurous souls, Sammy Davis among them.
“Hi, Wendell, come on in,” yelled Sammy.
“How is it?” asked Wendell.
“Fine! Warm as can be.”
Wendell didn’t believe it. He knew the old trick of telling the newest comer how warm the water is. He stood undecided on the brick walk.
“Seen any frogs in there, Sammy?” he asked.
Of course it was a foolish question, but it popped out before he could check it.
“Frogs? Naw!” said Sammy in exaggerated denial.
“Frogs! Yah!” said the other boys, and hooted in derision.
“I seen a frog,” piped up a bright-eyed colored baby in a bathing suit improvised from underclothes, who sat on the stone curb and paddled his wriggling brown feet in the water.
“Seen a frog! Yes, like fun you did,” jeered his big brother.
“I did seen a frog,” reiterated the baby. “There, on the grass. There he is now.”
Wendell looked where the brown finger pointed. Could he believe his eyes? There on the grassy slope of the hill below the Soldiers’ Monument actually sat and blinked a green and speckled frog.
The brown baby and Wendell were not the only people who had seen him. A shout went up from the water, and at the same time an echoing shout arose from a group of small boys who were climbing around on a captured German tank on the crest of the hill. The boys on the tank began to scramble down.
The frog sat and blinked stupidly. It seemed dazed or injured, but as the tank contingent cast themselves down the hill, it leaped with that surprising suddenness that characterizes frogs, and with its long legs shooting behind, plunged head first down the slope and into the water. For the first time within the memory of this generation, there was a frog in the Frog Pond.
Wendell cast off his clothes and shoes and shot in after it. Whew! but the water was cold! And how to locate the frog? A needle in a hay stack couldn’t compare with it.
Excitement reigned in the Frog Pond. Every one gave chase. The water was not clear enough to show the reptile plainly, but occasional glimpses of it spurred on its hunters. They made futile grabs below the water; they swam and dove after that frog. Several times some boy’s hand closed over it, only to find its slippery length wriggling through his fingers. At length it was captured by Izzy Icklebaum, who brought it triumphantly to the surface and held it in a tight grasp.
“Oh, Izzy, give it to me,” begged Wendell. “I’ll give you anything you want for it.”
Izzy lent a business-like ear to this offer.
“You will, eh?” he said, showing a large degree of interest. “Will you give me your aeroplane?”
In spite of his deep regret, there was not even a moment’s hesitation on Wendell’s part.
“It’s yours,” he said. “Here, give us the frog here in my stocking. Put your hands ’way in with him. That’s the big idea. Now I’ve got him.”
Released by Izzy, the frog gave a futile leap, only to find itself entangled in the stocking foot. The capture was complete. Wendell put on his clothes over his wet bathing suit, slipped his feet stockingless into his shoes, slung the frog over his shoulder and started for home.
“I’ll come in for it this aft.,” shouted Izzy after him.
“Right-o,” returned Wendell over his shoulder, and sped on, his heart lightened of a tremendous burden, the last of the three tasks accomplished.
True to his word, Izzy came over an hour later and bore off the aeroplane. Wendell tried not to care. He pinched the frog gently through the stocking to make sure it was there, and anticipated the Pixie’s disappointment.
The Pixie certainly was surprised. Wendell handed him the stocking and told him to feel inside, and when the Pixie’s hand came in contact with the cold smooth skin of the frog, it gave the Pixie his first shock. He got his second when Froggy, catching a glimpse of light through the opening, leaped violently out, almost in the Pixie’s face.
“Well, I suppose that’s settled,” said the Pixie, when the frog had finally come to rest in a corner of the room. “You really found it in the Frog Pond?”
“Yes, I did,” said Wendell, “really and truly. So now I’ve finished the tasks, I’m glad to say.”
“Well, I must say it’s a great relief to me,” returned the Pixie. “I never do know what to do with boys when I find them belonging to me. It’s a great responsibility. I’m glad I’m not a mother.”
In spite of his relief, the Pixie continued to look gloomy and to fiddle uneasily with a pencil on Wendell’s desk. At last he broke out:
“Of course, I’m not doubting your word, but you know and I know that you couldn’t find a frog in the Frog Pond because there aren’t any.”
“But this one really was,” said Wendell, distressed to see that the Pixie was not quite convinced that he spoke the truth. “I saw him jump in myself, and Izzy Icklebaum fished him out.”
“Well, it’s very fishy! I can’t account for it,” said the Pixie.
He remained in a brown study for several seconds; then a bright thought illumined his little old face.
“I have it. I bet I have it. Which side did the frog jump in from?”
“Why, it came jumping down the hill from the Soldiers’ Monument. When I first saw it, it was near the top of the hill.”
“Of course it was!” cried the Pixie, slapping his leg. “That’s where the old Kobold lives. This is just like his work. He never had an original idea in his life.”
“You mean—?” questioned Wendell.
“I mean this isn’t a real frog at all. It’s a person changed into a frog—by enchantment, you know. He’s always doing it, pulling that frog stuff. Why, I can count one, two, three—seven times anyway he’s used that same spell since Cinderella’s godmother first suggested it. I should think he’d be tired of it himself.”
The frog sat and blinked at them with its goggle eyes. Wendell didn’t like its stare. He began to feel uneasy. Suppose it was enchanted. Suppose it should go back to its natural shape. He somehow felt sure he shouldn’t like that shape, whatever it might be.
“Of course, this complicates things for you a bit,” said the Pixie briskly.
“For me?” faltered Wendell.
“Yes, you’ll have to break the spell, you know. You seem to forget this is your fairy story, young man.”
“But how?” queried Wendell. “It seems to me this business of living in a fairy story is just nothing but getting out of the frying pan into the fire.”
“Well, you wished it, you know,” said the Pixie. He uncrossed his legs, crossed them the other way, gazed around the room, hummed a little tune. He seemed to be washing his hands of all responsibility.
“Sometimes if you throw a frog against a wall it will do it,” volunteered the Pixie. He spoke as if he had no interest in the matter.
“Do what?” asked Wendell.
“Break the spell, of course.”
Wendell hated to do it. He didn’t like the frog, to be sure, but that was no reason for hurting it. However, he advanced, under the compulsion of the Pixie’s words, grasped the smooth, cold creature, and hurled it against the wall—then jumped back startled.
IN place of the frog, before him stood a beauteous maiden. She had a dazzlingly clear complexion, big infantile blue eyes, and a wealth of golden hair which she wore so as to conceal her ears. She was dressed simply but charmingly in a sport blouse and skirt, silk stockings and low shoes.
“Jumping caterpillars!” ejaculated the Pixie. “I guessed right.”
“You are naturally surprised,” said the Beauteous Maiden, in a low melodious voice, “to see me in place of that odious frog. I cannot tell you how grateful I am to you for giving me back my natural form, though it can be only for a brief time.”
“Have a chair,” said Wendell as soon as he could recover from the shock.
“Thank you,” said the maiden, seating herself and gracefully crossing one knee over the other. “As the story of my life is a long one and my time is short, I will begin it at once.”
“Once upon a time there lived a maiden who was so beautiful and so good that everyone loved her. That maiden, of course, was myself. While I was still an infant, my mother died and my father married again. He chose for his second wife a woman who had a daughter of my own age. For many years we were a happy household, but after a time my stepmother was transformed into a cruel witch by the magic charms of an old Kobold.”
“Hold on!” cried the Pixie. “Does he live under Flag Staff Hill on the Common?”
“He does,” said the Beauteous Maiden.
“There, didn’t I tell you this thing was mixed up with him?” said the Pixie, turning triumphantly to Wendell. “I can always pick out his style.”
“The old Kobold,” went on the Beauteous Maiden, “gave my stepmother three magic gifts. The first was a cloak that rendered the wearer invisible. The second was a cap, and whoever put it on could read the thoughts of those about him. The third was a book of spells, containing all the spells and charms ordinarily used by magicians. The old Kobold decreed that my stepmother should remain under his spell as long as she held these gifts in her possession; but if she should be robbed of them, she would lose her base powers as a witch and be restored to her original virtuous self.”
“I see your work cut out for you,” said the Pixie in a low aside to Wendell.
“I cannot tell you,” continued the Beauteous Maiden, “what a wretched life I led from this time on. I was dressed in rags, had only cold scraps to eat, and was forced to do the most menial work of the house, while my stepsister wore beautiful clothes and went to balls every night.”
“Why didn’t your father stop it?” put in Wendell. “I’ve always wondered about that in these stepmother stories—why the father stood for it.”
“I was coming to that,” said the Beauteous Maiden graciously. “My father died soon after his second marriage, and my stepmother married again.”
“I see,” said the Pixie thoughtfully. “She took a step farther.”
“Yes,” assented the Beauteous Maiden, “and he was a horrible giant whose favorite diet was little boys. In addition, my stepmother made life a burden to me by her magic arts. She spied upon all my actions with the Cloak of Darkness, and she spied upon all my thoughts with the Cap of Thought, and she was constantly using her Book of Spells to annoy me. When I was making doughnuts, she would change the rolling pin into an eel which would wriggle away from me, and annoying things of that kind. My stepsister, too, once as dear to me as my own sister could have been, seemed to come gradually under the Kobold’s spell. While every one admired and loved me for my youth, innocence, and beauty, she was so jealous that she constantly sought to do me an injury. At length, matters came to a climax. One of the Boston papers held a beauty contest, and, all unknown to me, a good neighbor sent in my photograph in competition. It had been advertised that the winner of the contest would be offered a contract with one of the moving-picture companies as a prize, but I knew nothing of it. Judge, then, of my surprise and delight, when a reporter for the paper called to say that I had won the competition and with it the contract as a movie star. But my joy was equalled only by the rage of my cruel stepmother and the jealousy of my ugly stepsister. They resolved that I should never sign that contract, and my stepmother sent me at once with a letter to be delivered to the old Kobold, requesting him to put the bearer to death.
“This horrible design would doubtless have been carried out, but on the way to Boston I sat down to rest for a few moments in the Fenway and fell asleep. While I was asleep, a Metropolitan Park policeman happened that way, and stood transfixed at the sight of my beauty. Noticing the letter, which I held in my hand, he took it, opened and read it, and was shocked beyond measure at the dreadful fate designed for me. He cast about for means to avert it, and at length wrote another letter, requesting the Kobold to change the bearer into a fairy, and substituted this letter for the original one. Soon after, I awoke and went on my way, all unconscious of these events. I presented the letter to the Kobold, who immediately used his magic charm to transform me. Unfortunately, the policeman did not write a very legible hand. The Kobold read frog for fairy and changed me to the horrible form in which you first beheld me.”
“There’s a lesson for you, young man,” said the Pixie severely. “You don’t write any too good a hand yourself.”
“My time is short,” went on the Beauteous Maiden. “The courage and devotion of my rescuer,” she turned a sad little smile on Wendell, who wriggled uncomfortably, “has made it possible for me to resume my natural form for a short time, in order to tell my story, but soon I must return to the shape of a frog. So I will tell you of the further task that lies before you.
“You must go alone at midnight to the hill where the Kobold dwells, and summon him forth by saying these magic words:—
“Well, if that isn’t conceited!” said the Pixie scornfully. “Of all the nonsense! ‘The wise old Kobold’! My word!”
“When the Kobold comes out, you must tell him that you have come to rescue the Beauteous Maiden and inquire his terms. He will ask you to perform a task for him, and when it is completed, I shall be free.”
“I know just what he’ll ask you, too,” put in the Pixie. “Same superannuated stuff! He’ll ask you to guess his name.”
“Well, what is his name?” asked Wendell, looking from the Pixie to the Beauteous Maiden and back again.
“How should I know?” shrugged the Pixie. “He doesn’t know, himself, really. He stuck to Rumpelstiltskin a few hundred years, but lately he changes it every time. He has to, you know, because he always gives it away, himself, spinning ’round on one leg. That’s just how much sense he has.”
“Which side of the hill, I wonder,” went on Wendell, turning to the Beauteous Maiden, but to his startled surprise, she had vanished, and there sat the frog, as green, as goggle-eyed, as unintelligent, as altogether repulsive as if it had never won a beauty contest in its life.
“HOW did she get that way?” he asked the Pixie, who only smiled gleefully and returned, “It’s a great life, isn’t it, this fairy story business!”
“Well, I suppose I’ve got to do it,” said the harassed boy. “How I’m ever going to stay awake till midnight, I don’t see.”
“Oh, I’ll wake you, my boy,” said the Pixie obligingly. “You go to bed.”
“And what am I going to do with him—with her?” pursued Wendell, pointing vindictively to the frog. “Now I know what she is, I’ve got to make her comfortable somewhere. She can’t sleep in a stocking.”
The frog blinked and stared at him. Wendell stared back gloomily. He wondered if different frogs looked different to each other, like boys and dogs. It seemed to him that this frog was particularly ugly, even judged by frog standards of beauty. Well, poor thing! that was probably the Kobold’s fault.
“I know what I’ll do with her,” he said. “I’ll put her in the guest chamber for the night. She’ll like that. Virginia’s away overnight.”
It wasn’t very easy to catch the frog. It eluded Wendell with long-legged leaps, but Wendell cornered it at last, with the help of the Pixie, and carried it, its little heart pulsating with fright, to the dainty room that Cousin Virginia occupied, and tucked it into bed.
“One good job done,” said Wendell to himself. “I won’t have to sleep with that in the room to-night.”
“Well, old chap, I guess I’ll go to bed now,” he said, yawning, to the Pixie, “and if you will call me, say about eleven-thirty, I’ll be much obliged.”
As he slid under the bed clothes and sprawled out in solid comfort, his foot touched something cold, clammy, repellent. He barely repressed a shriek. He threw back the bed clothes. Yes, the frog again!
“Now, how did he ever get there?” cried Wendell in bewilderment. “I’m sure he couldn’t open the door. It is magic, for sure.”
“She, you mean. You can’t shake her,” rejoined the Pixie maliciously. “It’s your fairy tale, you know, and you are The Rescuer.”
“Well, what shall I do with her now?” asked Wendell in despair. “Do you suppose she’d stay here if I went into Cousin Virginia’s room?”
“Not for a moment,” said the Pixie. “I tell you. You put her under the down puff, on the foot of the bed, and I’ll keep an eye on her.”
It seemed about five minutes after Wendell was in bed, when he awoke suddenly and found that the Pixie was pounding him severely.
“Hold on! Hold on!” he called. “What’s the matter?”
“The matter is, I’ve been trying for the last ten minutes to wake you,” said the Pixie, exasperated. “The Sleeping Beauty had nothing on you. Hurry up, now, or you won’t get there at midnight.”
Wendell tumbled into his clothes and tiptoed, as noiselessly as in him lay, down the broad old-fashioned stairs, and still another flight to the basement. He did not dare risk the noise of the front door, so he emerged from the kitchen into the back alley, and thence to the street. Not a person was in sight. Only a black and white cat prowled the gutters. A strange silence covered the city. Even the surging, seething roar of West End children at play, which rises all the evening, was stilled. Wendell’s running footsteps, beating rhythmic time on the brick pavement of Old Boston, alone broke the stillness. No traffic policemen presided over Beacon Street. He gained the Common, skirted the Frog Pond, and faced Flag Staff Hill and, brave boy though he was, he did tremble in his boots.
The frequent electric lights along the thoroughfares that bound the Common drew glowing lines of light around it; and there were bright lights at the intersection of the walks. But here, on the gentle slope of Flag Staff Hill, under the tall elms, a great black shadow lay. No Boston boy, born and reared among the historic traditions of the Commonwealth, but knows the somber legend of this site, that under this soil lie buried the Quakers and the pirates whom Puritan zeal executed on this spot in the early days of the colony. Cold chills ran up and down Wendell’s spine as he stood here in the shadow and listened for the stroke of midnight. Presently it boomed forth from the old church on Mount Vernon Street—the same metal voice that struck the hour to the poet Longfellow when he stood on the bridge at midnight. Now was the fateful moment! And do you know, whether it was magic or whether it was scare I can’t say, but Wendell couldn’t for the life of him remember that charm that was to summon the Kobold! The striking of the clock, bringing with it the memory of that well known poem which he had learned in school, had driven every bit of verse out of his mind, except his Cousin Virginia’s irreverent version of the same poem:—
On the eleventh stroke of the old church bell, the Park Street Church at Brimstone Corner took up the echo. Wendell by a mighty effort recalled the charm before the second sonorous voice had died on the still air.
repeated Wendell.
Suddenly another electric light on the path below sprang into brightness, and sent a light streak across the shadow of the elms. For a moment Wendell fancied, and decided that it must be only fancy, that the ground trembled slightly under his feet. Then, before his eyes there came a crack in the earth, as if a giant seed were germinating and pushing up a shoot. The crack widened. It became a tunnel extending apparently into the very heart of the hill; and suddenly, like a cut moving-picture film that jerks a sudden change upon the screen, he saw that the mouth of the tunnel was occupied by an unexpected grotesque figure that could be none other than the Kobold.
Wendell had expected that the Kobold would look somewhat like the Pixie, but they had nothing in common except smallness of stature. The Kobold was about the size of a six-year-old, and had white hair and white whiskers and a very long white beard that reached to his waist. He appeared to be wearing a belted velvet suit, with full sleeves and breeches, and he was very stout and stocky.
“Who summons me?” he said with dignity.
“I do,” said Wendell advancing boldly, now that there was need for action. “I should like to know how to free the Beauteous Maiden from your spell.”
The Kobold chuckled grimly—an exclusive sort of chuckle that made Wendell feel very much out of the joke.
“If you wish to win the Maiden’s freedom,” he said slowly, “you will first have to guess a riddle. You may have three chances to give the answer. If you guess correctly on any one of those trials, the Maiden shall be restored to her original form. If
you fail, she shall still remain a frog, and you too shall be transformed into another shape at my will.”
“Good gracious!” cried Wendell. “Is there as much to it as all that? I’m not going to be changed into anything at anybody’s will. You can keep your old riddle and your frog, too, for all of me.” He turned to go.
“Stay!” cried the Kobold, so he stayed to listen.
“I might add,” said the Kobold, “that while the above terms are my regular ones, I might make a slight reduction in your case, as business is particularly dull just now. Indeed, to be candid, it is nearly a hundred years since I have had any opportunity to hold this guessing contest.”
“Well, how much of a reduction?” asked Wendell. “Will you leave out the part about transforming me? Say, if I win, the frog changes back to the Maiden, and if I lose, it stays a frog?”
“No, no,” returned the Kobold. “Such is not my method of doing business. The princes that have entered this contest in times past have at least agreed to be transformed for a limited time.”
“Not for a moment, for me,” said Wendell. “Times have changed.”
“A week, say,” urged the Kobold. “I tell you frankly I shall not release the Maiden for less, and if she is not released before one more year is run, she will be turned into a loathly dragon for life.”
“Well, make it a week, then,” said Wendell sulkily.
“Agreed!” said the Kobold. “Here, then, is the riddle you must answer:—What is Boston?”
Without a moment’s hesitation, just as promptly as if he had been asked his own name, Wendell replied in Dr. Holmes’ words, as any Boston boy would,
“Boston is the Hub of the Universe.”
“Wrong! Wrong!” chuckled the Kobold maliciously. “I knew you’d say that. But there is another answer.”
“Well,” said the crestfallen Wendell, “I’ll go home and think it over. And say, do I have to come at midnight every time? It’s mighty hard to sneak out just then.”
“No, I will make an appointment with you for any time you say,” returned the Kobold obligingly. “Morning, evening, whatever you wish.”
“Let’s make it eight o’clock in the morning,” said Wendell. “I could drop in here on the way to school.”
“To-morrow?” asked the Kobold.
“N-no,” hesitated Wendell. “I’ll need a little time on this thing.”
“I’ll wager you will,” chuckled the old Kobold, growing almost slangy in his dignified glee.
“Say the day after to-morrow,” suggested Wendell.
“Agreed!” said the Kobold. “You will find me here outside the hill. And mind you bring back that frog. It is not your property, you must remember.”
“I will. I’ll be glad to,” returned Wendell hurriedly. The frog was already on his nerves.
“And only two more guesses,” added the Kobold.
“I know,” said Wendell meekly. He was very much mortified to have failed so quickly through his own assurance. He went back through the silent streets, let himself in quietly and bolted the back door, took off his shoes and groped up to his room, where the Pixie sat awaiting him.
“WELL, you deserved to lose,” said the Pixie when he had heard the whole story, “answering right off like that on the spur of the moment. You have to think these things over a bit. Besides, the Hub has been moving slowly westward since Holmes’ time. It’s nearer Chicago, now, I believe. But what did I tell you about old White-Hairs? Isn’t he a back number? Trying to do business in the twentieth century the way he used to do it with those princes in slashed doublets! Why doesn’t he wake up and hear the birdies sing?”
“How’s the frog?” asked Wendell anxiously.
“An awful nuisance,” responded the Pixie frankly. “I think she’s thirsty but she won’t drink.”
“Oh, they can’t drink, you know,” explained Wendell. “They take it in through the skin. That mug is too small. Here, I’ll fill the basin and put her in.”
That seemed to content the frog. It sat and soaked and absorbed and goggled at Wendell, who regarded it moodily.
“If I can’t do anything more for you,” said the Pixie, “I’ll move on. Hope you guess the riddle.”
“Thanks, old fellow,” said Wendell soberly. He was very sleepy and discouraged. But the frog looked a bit cheerier.
Hardly was Wendell in bed when he dropped off to sleep, and five minutes later, blop! the frog leaped from the basin and landed on the boy’s face, all wet and soggy and cold. Wendell, half asleep, struck out in self-defense, and landed a whacking blow on the poor reptile, that sent it halfway across the room. He realized instantly what he had done, and much ashamed of himself, he turned on the light, located the panting frog, and tucked it under the down quilt at the foot of the bed. Bitterly he regretted that he had not made an appointment with the Kobold to return the creature the very next morning.
When he left for school, he hid the frog away again in his stocking, in a chiffonier drawer, but even his preoccupation with the Boston riddle did not entirely obliterate his uneasy fear that the frog might escape or be turned out of the house in his absence, and thus plunge him into some other awful rescuing problem.
He had hoped that the geography or history or literature lesson might enlighten him on the definition of Boston, and his attention to study was so strict that his teachers thought best to watch him even more closely than usual, to forestall whatever mischief must be brewing. But no ray of light came to him from any of his lessons. He went home despondently, assured himself that the frog was still safe, and went out to play with cheerful Sammy Davis and the other fellows. It seemed a long while since he, too, had been a care-free, whistling boy, with no greater anxiety than being kept after school for fractions, or being chased by Sammy’s cross janitor.
He had almost forgotten his troubles when he went in to dinner, but as soon as he ascended to his room to study they all came back, for there sat the frog on his table, popping its eyes out at him most unpleasantly.
“I guess I’ll study downstairs,” he thought. “I’ll have the library to myself to-night. Mother and Father have gone to the Symphony, and I guess Cousin Virginia’s out somewhere.”
He settled down comfortably in the library, and was getting on famously with his lessons when the bell rang and a masculine voice asked for his Cousin Virginia. She came down presently and a lively conversation began in the front room just out of sight but not out of sound of Wendell. He managed, however, to keep his mind on his work, for it was very silly talk and not at all interesting. The man was a Harvard student from New York, and they chattered on about strangers to Wendell whom they knew in common.
“Do you like Boston?” Wendell heard the man say, and Virginia’s clear and rather high-pitched voice answered,
“Of course I like Boston. I’ll put it more strongly, I thoroughly enjoy Boston. I never supposed any place could be so—so historical, so absolutely, thoroughly, naively, unselfconsciously historical. Why, even little Wendell—”
“She needn’t little me,” thought Wendell savagely.
“—invited me to see a play he was to be in, in school, and what do you suppose? it was Revolutionary. All about hiding away a wounded soldier, with allusions to the British encamped on Boston Common, and the tax on tea. I don’t believe Boston knows anything has happened in history since the Boston Tea Party.”
“You’ve said it,” said the young man, who seemed to admire Virginia very much.
“And their holidays,” went on the foolish girl. “When I was here last spring, I went out to shop on the nineteenth of April, and would you believe it? the shops were closed. Patriots’ Day, if you please, when the farmers fired the shot heard round the world! I came in and said to Auntie, ‘Do you by any chance have a holiday in Boston on the fourth of July, Auntie?’ ‘Why, yes, dear,’ she said, ‘of course.’ I said, ‘But why? It isn’t Emerson’s birthday, is it?’ and she said, ‘Why, my dear, you must know it is Independence Day.’ ‘Oh, yes, Auntie,’ I said, ‘but why celebrate it in Boston? That little event was pulled off in Philadelphia. Hasn’t Boston enough?’”
“Ha, ha!” laughed the young man. “That was a good one on Boston.”
“But the greatest pleasure I’ve had is the baked beans,” she went on.
“Pleasure!” echoed the young man. “No pleasure, surely.”
“Oh, I mean mental pleasure, to find they really are, you know, and not merely a myth. Of course, I believed before I came here that they existed here, but as an occasional article of diet. Why, they are a religious rite, an article of faith! Every Saturday night!”
“Yes, and every Sunday morning breakfast at my boarding house,” groaned the young man.
“Impossible! Inhuman!” said Virginia brightly.
“Inhuman, but true,” moaned the young man.
Wendell thought he had never heard such idiocy in his life. Delicious baked beans!
“But they not only eat them—they take them seriously,” Virginia’s silly little voice ran on. “I made a light and unworthy remark to one of Auntie’s friends about the sacred bean. She looked at me compassionately and then said gravely, ‘We always bake them with a small onion in the bottom of the pot.’ Yes, I don’t know who said it first, but it is absolutely true that Boston is a state of mind.”
Wendell, listening with the utmost scorn to these trivialities, was suddenly brought up short.
Boston is a state of mind.
Three rousing cheers for Cousin Virginia!
He went to bed happy that night. Even the presence of the loathsome frog was endurable. To-morrow he would return the creature to the Kobold, and at the same time fling the answer to his riddle in his teeth—if he had any teeth. It would seem probable that a Kobold with so much white beard would be too old to have teeth.
The Kobold was waiting for him on the slope of Flag Staff Hill next morning. So cleverly did his velvet suit take on the soft tone of the elm trunks, that no one of the busy passersby, hurrying on to business through the Common, discerned him there under the trees, though Wendell saw him clearly. Or was it that he made himself invisible to other eyes?
“I’ve brought your frog,” said Wendell, drawing a long breath. He handed the stocking over to the Kobold, and the frog leaped out and vanished among the fallen leaves.
“What is Boston?” asked the Kobold mockingly.
“Boston,” said Wendell with assurance, “is a state of mind.”
“Wrong! Wrong!” jeered the Kobold—and was no longer there. But a little breeze rustled in the elm trees and brought a faint hissing message to Wendell’s ears, just as the rushes whispered the fatal secret of the barber of King Midas:—
“One more chance! One more chance!”
Wendell went on dejectedly to school.
SEVERAL days passed by. No inspiration came to Wendell. The Pixie had no suggestion to offer, only unsympathetic criticism:—“You might have known that was too subtle for him. He’s no deep thinker. I could have told you.” His mother grew anxious. “You mustn’t study so hard, dear,” she said. “You should have been out playing with the boys instead of poring over that Memorial History of Boston this afternoon. Yes, I know it is fascinating reading, especially the earlier chapters, but you must think of your health, dear.” Cousin Virginia looked at Wendell solicitously, and Wendell knew she meant to be funny again.
This was Saturday evening, and the family had just settled down in the library with the Transcript, each with a section. Alden had the news; Otis, the sporting page; his father was perusing the editorials, his mother was reading the religious items. Cousin Virginia dabbled a few moments in the theatrical columns, like a canary unwilling to get wet all over in his china tub, and then laid down her section, suppressed a yawn, and said,
“Why does all Boston find its greatest dissipation Saturday night in reading the Saturday evening Transcript?”
“Habit, pure habit,” growled Alden, without raising his eyes.
“Not altogether habit,” said his mother, gently and seriously. “The Transcript, Virginia, is quite different from any other paper. It is reliable and conservative and sound.”
“You know, Virginia”—her uncle looked up for a moment with a twinkle in his eye—“good Bostonians always make a point of dying on Friday, so that their obituaries can go into the Saturday evening Transcript.”
“No? That is consistent,” laughed Virginia. “But even the Boston children quote it. I saw the funniest little chap as I was crossing the Common to-day—a short fat little fellow, having a lot of fun with a false beard and whiskers. He was twirling around on one leg, to get dizzy, I suppose, and chanting loudly something like this, that didn’t make any sense:—