Would you believe it? I never would—outside of Boston.”
Wendell listened no further. He could hardly wait for his father to drop the editorial section. What a foolish old Kobold!—giving the whole thing away, just as the Pixie said he always did. Thank goodness!
Wendell remembered how his nature study teacher had told the class that even the smallest and humblest of creatures has undoubtedly some place in the scheme of things. Even Cousin Virginia had a use in the world, it would seem.
After a long while, Wendell’s father laid down the page, and Wendell picked it up inconspicuously. But not too inconspicuously for Cousin Virginia’s keen laughing eyes.
“Nice little Boston, Wendell,” she whispered to him. “The family picture is complete.”
Wendell read the page through carefully, every word,—the weather, the leaders, the paragraphs, the Nomad, Letters to the Editor, Facts and Fancies, the deaths, and the advertisements. Not one word that gave light on the definition of Boston. Wendell sat in a brown study. Presently, he went up to his room, hoping the Pixie would be there, and sure enough, he was.
“Sounds very probable,” was the Pixie’s comment, after Wendell had laid the facts before him. “Of course it doesn’t have to be to-night’s Transcript. In fact it couldn’t be. It must have been before he put the riddle to you, anyway. I shouldn’t be surprised if you’d hit the bull’s-eye this time. That’s just the kind of riddle he’d propose—something he read in the paper! That’s just the kind of mind he has. There are some people like that, you know, who think if they see it ‘in the paper,’ it must be true.”
“Then,” said Wendell, “you’d advise looking through the old Transcripts till I find it. I could do that, I guess, at the Transcript office.”
He had to wait till Monday, of course. Monday afternoon, he went down directly from school to the Transcript building, which, fitly enough, occupies the historic site of the birthplace of Benjamin Franklin, the great journalist. The Transcript people were most courteous and put their files at Wendell’s disposal. Through editorial page after page floundered Wendell, and if only he could have understood and remembered half that he read, he would have emerged from the newspaper office a complete specimen of the well-read Boston boy, such as his Cousin Virginia pretended to believe he already was. It was nearly dusk before his heart was lightened by a definition of Boston, this one from the pen of Oliver Herford, whom of course Wendell recognized as a delightful contributor to St. Nicholas. Mr. Herford, it seemed, was originally a Boston man, though now dwelling in the outlands, and, said Mr. Herford, “Boston is a center of gravity almost entirely surrounded by Newtons.”
It sounded like sense, though naturally Wendell didn’t quite understand it at first. After he had read it several times, he began to see the point. Encouraged by the views the Pixie had expressed, Wendell decided to stop right in at the Kobold’s on the way home. If he wasn’t on the slope of the hill, or if he remained invisible there, doubtless the spell that worked before would bring him to light again.
But Wendell found no need to use the spell, for the little old Kobold was out in plain sight, at least in plain sight of Wendell, though no one else appeared to notice him in the dusk of evening.
His eye lit up mockingly as Wendell approached.
“I’ve got it this time,” said Wendell. “I found it in the Transcript.”
“Oh, did you?” said the little old chap with less assurance than he had shown before. “What made you think of looking there?”
Wendell decided not to tell him. “Oh, I read the Transcript pretty regularly,” he said. “This is the answer:—‘Boston is a center of gravity almost entirely surrounded by Newtons.’”
“You are right!” groaned the Kobold. “You are right!” and gnashed his teeth. Wendell was much interested, as he had heard of gnashing one’s teeth, but had never seen it done before; besides it cleared up that doubtful point in his mind as to whether the white-bearded Kobold had any teeth.
When the Kobold had finished gnashing, he asked Wendell very respectfully,
“By the way, can you tell me what it means?”
“It’s perfectly clear,” said Wendell. “You know the Newtons around Boston, West Newton, and Newton Center, and so on. And Isaac Newton was the man who discovered the law of gravity—of falling, you know. And some people do think there’s a lot of gravity in Boston—grave conversation, I mean. I have a cousin from New York who thinks so. So it’s a fairly good joke, you see.”
“No, I do not see,” returned the Kobold, grasping his head in both hands, “but it does not matter, I assure you. I shall not use it again under any circumstances. It is too ultra-modern. You may not have guessed it but I am a conservative.”
“I guessed the riddle, anyway,” maintained Wendell, “so where’s the Maiden?”
“She is here,” said the Kobold, looking down at the rustling leaves, where Wendell now made out the ugly shape of the frog. “Maiden, you are free.”
And there she stood, slim and beautiful in the dusk, and looked at Wendell with the utmost gratitude.
“My deliverer!” she breathed softly.
“I suppose you will have to marry her now,” said the Kobold to Wendell. “It is always customary.” Wendell was sure there was malice in the old fellow’s eye this time.
“Why—why—” he stammered, “we didn’t plan that.” And the Beauteous Maiden added quickly,
“Not yet. There are my cruel stepmother and the giant to consider. Come, sit with me on yonder bench, and we will discuss the matter.” So they moved away and left the Kobold standing there, and that was the last that Wendell saw of him, though for all I know, the old fellow may still be living under Flag Staff Hill on Boston Common to this very moment.
“The first thing I must do,” said the Beauteous Maiden, “is to hunt up that moving picture man and sign the contract. Then I shall be independent in case you shouldn’t succeed with my family.”
“Succeed with your family—how do you mean?” asked Wendell.
“Why, in case my cruel stepmother should work a charm on you, or in case the giant should eat you up.”
“Oh, I see,” said Wendell, “I hadn’t thought of that.”
“Well, of course, we’ll hope for the best,” said the Beauteous Maiden. “Here is the address in Brookline. You take the car from Park Street. You know what you have to do,—rob my stepmother of the three magic gifts that give her her power as a witch,—the Cloak of Darkness, the Cap of Thought and the Book of Spells. The Book of Spells has every charm in the world.”
“Why not just take the book then?” asked Wendell.
Of course, the minute he had asked it, he knew it was a stupid question.
“Because things always go by threes, Silly,” said the Beauteous Maiden. “After the witch is powerless, your next task will be to kill the giant; and the Book of Spells will undoubtedly help you there. Now farewell, dear Deliverer. I must find that movie man.”
“Good-bye,” said Wendell. He was glad to be alone. He had a great deal to face and a great deal to plan. Besides that, he had been rubbed the wrong way by the Beauteous Maiden, who really
seemed to think it was a small thing for him to be eaten by a giant for her sake. He said as much to the Pixie, who came in that evening, tremendously interested in the answer to the Kobold’s riddle, and eager to encourage Wendell in his next adventure.
“OH, yes, it sounds easy,” grumbled Wendell. “Just walk into a witch’s house and steal her magic cloak. Easy as rolling off a log. Only how am I going to do it, I’d like to know.”
“I might help,” said the Pixie. “I rather like a lark of that kind.”
“Oh, if you’d help,” said Wendell. “That would be great. What could you do?”
“Well, I have some rather neat transformation charms, myself,” said the Pixie. “I suppose if I once got you into the house, you could do the rest.”
“I guess so,” said Wendell. “I could hide in the oven or something.”
“I’ll have to make you pretty small to get into one of these gas ranges they use now-a-days,” said the Pixie thoughtfully. “You have to think of everything, you know, in this business, or else you lose by a fluke. I have it. I’ll change myself into an organ grinder, and you into the monkey.”
“Yes!” jeered Wendell. “Nice chance a monkey would have to be let into anybody’s house.”
“Well, of course,” said the Pixie, somewhat crestfallen, “it was only a suggestion.”
“It’s got to be something that anybody would be glad to have in their house,” said Wendell. “Something helpful. A furnace man. Or a gas man—to read the meter.”
“Nobody’s glad to have him in their house,” grunted the Pixie. “But I get your idea. Why not a plumber to stop a leak? I have a fine plumber’s transformation among my charms. I’ll be the plumber and you can go as my assistant. Good idea, what?”
“The very thing,” said Wendell.
“Well, after school to-morrow, you get into your oldest clothes, and I’ll come around.”
Wendell hurried home the next afternoon and hunted out an old suit that he had withheld from the Morgan Memorial Goodwill bag, in case of a painting job or something. Hardly had he got into these clothes, when he heard an impatient honking in the street. Looking out, he saw in front of the curb a huge Cadillac with the driver’s seat occupied by a young chap in workingman’s clothes who grinned up at him and beckoned frantically.
Wendell went down.
“I wouldn’t have known you,” he said. “It’s a fine disguise.”
“I think it’s rather neat,” returned the Pixie with quiet pride. He had a young, pleasant, intelligent face, and no one could possibly have taken him for a Pixie. He was very suitably dressed in khaki trousers, blue coat, tan shoes, and visored cap, all somewhat creased and soiled, and a bundle of tools lay on the seat beside him.
“Where did you get the car?” asked Wendell.
“Part of the outfit,” responded the Pixie. “I couldn’t pass for a plumber, these days, could I, unless I went to my job in a high-powered touring car?”
The Pixie guided the car deftly down the hill, and turned from the dimpling blue Charles River into Beacon Street. They spun out over the smooth pavement through Boston and into Brookline, consulted the address that the Beauteous Maiden had written down, conferred with a policeman or two, and at length turned into one of the pretty winding roads that net the Boston suburbs.
“That’s it,” said the Pixie. “There’s the number.”
It was an attractive modern house of the near-Colonial style of architecture, white-painted, with green blinds, a brick porch, a very well-kept lawn, the whole tasteful, but not pretentious.
The Pixie rang the bell.
After a few moments, the door was opened by a young lady, who, while not positively deformed, was so very, very plain, that Wendell knew at once that she was the Ugly Stepsister.
“Leak in the bathroom?” asked the Pixie, with a concise, business-like air.
“I didn’t know it. I’ll ask Mummer,” said the young lady. She left the door ajar, and they heard her calling, “Mummer!” as she retreated to the back of the house.
“I might slip in now, don’t you think?” asked Wendell.
“No, no!” whispered the Pixie sternly. “Wait and walk in like a gentleman. No sneaking when you’re with me, young man.”
Wendell felt somewhat abashed, and yet resentful.
“I’d like to know if it isn’t sneaking to—” he began, but just then a door opened from the kitchen and the Cruel Stepmother came forward. She had projecting teeth, and a hooked nose and chin, and her hair straggled uncombed about her face.
“What do you want?” she said.
“Leak in the bathroom,” said the Pixie briefly. “Your husband telephoned.”
“Oh,” said she. “Right up the stairs there.”
The Pixie went up with the bag of tools on his shoulder, followed closely by Wendell, and found a neat tiled bathroom. He unrolled his tools, selected a monkey-wrench and went to work on the bath-tub pipes. The two women had remained downstairs.
“Well, you’re here,” said the Pixie in a low tone.
“What would you do next?” whispered Wendell.
“Look about a bit,” rejoined the Pixie. “I’ll keep my ear cocked.”
Wendell tiptoed carefully into the hall and peeked into the front bedroom. He tried a closet door, found it unlocked, opened it and peered in at the usual collection of clothes hanging in closets. There was nothing that looked like a magic cloak. He tiptoed into the next bedroom and was investigating the contents of the closet there, when he heard a sudden exclamation from the Pixie in the bathroom. He went in hastily, asking, “Have you found anything?”
The Pixie had entirely disconnected the bath-tub and disjointed the pipes, which lay strewn over the white-tiled floor. He was hastily rolling up his bundle of tools.
“I’m off,” he said. “If the lady asks, tell her I’ve gone for my tools.”
“When are you coming back?” asked Wendell.
“Not at all,” said the Pixie, blithely but hurriedly.
“But aren’t you going to put the plumbing together again?” asked Wendell in dismay. “They can’t ever do it.”
“I guess they can do it as well as I can,” returned the Pixie. “I never took even a correspondence course in plumbing. So long.”
“But what about me?” protested Wendell.
“Well, here you are,” said the Pixie impatiently. “You said if I once got you in here, you’d be all right. I’ve got to be on the way.”
“Yes, but don’t you think the Giant may come?”
“I do, indeed,” said the Pixie, who was now at the top of the stairs. “In fact, I saw him only a moment ago coming down the street.”
With these words, he hurried down, opened and closed the front door, swiftly but cautiously, and before Wendell had recovered from the shock, there rose the purr of the motor, and the car was off.
Its sound had hardly died away, when there came a heavy tread on the piazza that shook the house, the door was violently thrown open, and a huge voice roared,
The roar stopped short. Wendell heard the Stepmother’s voice.
“I wish you’d learn to control that fee, fi, fo, fum business!” she scolded. “You scared the cook so badly with it this morning that she gave notice, and here I’ve had to cook the dinner. It may have been all right back in Cornwall several hundred years ago, but it doesn’t go here.”
“Well, I’m sure,” said the Giant, “I didn’t mean anything. I do smell the blood of some one.”
“It’s that plumber upstairs,” she said. “Come in and eat your dinner.”
“Plumber?” said the Giant, and followed her into the dining-room.
They shut the door, but the Giant’s roar was so loud that Wendell could still hear his part of the conversation, like one end of a telephone talk.
“Where is the leak?”
. . . . . . . . . .
“How did you know there was one, then?”
. . . . . . . . . .
“No, I didn’t. No such thing.”
. . . . . . . . . .
“Well, if he said I called him up, he’s probably a gang of thieves. I’ll get the police. What did he look like?”
. . . . . . . . . .
“With a small boy, eh? I knew I smelled small boy. I’ll bet he’s one of these Giant-killer smarties. I’ll soon fix him.” He rose, shaking the house with his heavy tread.
Wendell was a brave boy, but who wouldn’t quail before an angry giant? Wendell quailed. He looked around for a place to hide.
The bathroom occupied a little ell with eaves, and under the eaves ran a wainscoting, broken by a little door that was evidently the entrance to a low closet. Wendell opened it and crawled in, not quite closing the door, as it had no handle on the inside. He crouched behind a trunk, pulled down some old clothes from a nail to cover him, and kept very still, all but his heart, which thumped loudly.
“They’re not here,” he heard the Stepmother say. “It looks as if they were coming back, though.”
“They are here,” roared the Giant. “The small boy’s here. I can smell him. He’s in that closet.”
He flung open the door.
“Bring a light,” he commanded.
THE Stepmother went out and came back with a flashlight.
“Here,” she said.
The Giant flashed it into the closet, yanked out the trunk, flashed the light in again, straight into Wendell’s face, as he crouched there half-covered by old clothes.
“He isn’t here,” said the Giant.
“No,” said his wife.
“He’s been in here, though,” declared the Giant, sniffing. “Strong smell of him.”
“Probably the man had him crawl in there to see if there was any leak in the connection,” suggested the Stepmother. “I hope he’ll come back and finish up soon. This place is a mess.”
What did it mean? They were looking straight at him. The light was shining full on him. Yet they didn’t see him, not any more than if he were invisible.
Invisible! Why, of course! The invisible cloak—the Cloak of Darkness that he had come to find! It must be this musty old garment that he had pulled down to conceal him in his fright. Sure enough! And now came the terrifying thought,—in another moment the door might be closed upon him, and he shut fast in a prison from which there would be no easier escape than if it were a veritable Giant’s dungeon in a fairy book. He must get out at once. He drew the musty folds securely about him, crawled forward, dodged under the Giant’s very arm, squeezed close to the wall to pass the Stepmother, made himself small, not to crowd the Ugly Stepsister, all agog in the doorway, slid down the banisters, sneaked through the kitchen, out the back door, and away. He was free!
He scudded down the street as fast as his legs could twinkle, and turned the corner. Which way to go, was the question. A nice-looking lady was approaching. Wendell politely took off his cap and confronted her as she reached him. To his surprise, the lady sailed by without twitching a feature.
“Oh, of course. She can’t see me,” said Wendell. So he slipped off the cloak and hung it over his arm, and in a moment a grocer’s delivery boy with a basket came around the curve.
“Say, can you tell me where to get the car for Park Street?” asked Wendell.
“Sure, kid,” said the boy obligingly. “Keep on to a big house with a stone wall around it. Then take the first street to the right and you’ll come out on the car line.”
Wendell thanked him and went on, found the house and the wall and the street, and there ahead of him were the electric wires. He got to the corner almost simultaneously with the car, hailed it and jumped on with a sigh of relief. It was a pay-as-you-enter car. He stood by the box and slid his hand into his pocket for the necessary dime, to realize with a shock that he hadn’t a cent with him. These were his cast-off clothes. He knew it was useless to search the pockets. He remembered he had gone through them a week ago, when the ice cream-sandwich man was going by. He grinned at the conductor, feeling very foolish, and dropped off the car.
Well, of course, he could walk it all right, since he had to. It would be simple to follow the car tracks. He stuck his hands in his pockets and started off whistling.
“Hey, kid, you’re dragging your mother’s cape,” said a young fellow who passed him. Wendell folded the Cloak of Darkness into a better shape for carrying, then decided to wear it. After he had it on, the inspiration came to him to board an electric at the next white post, and ride home free.
Perfectly simple! He got on behind an unsuspecting gentleman and took a seat near the door. Across the aisle sat a cross-eyed man. Wendell had always longed for a chance to see how a cross-eyed man worked his eyes, but he had never been allowed to stare at any one. Now he sat and stared to his heart’s content, unforbidden and unseen. He stared with such concentration that he was unaware that another passenger had entered the car, a very stout old colored woman, until, ouch! she sat right down on him!
“Laws-ee!” she said, and rose up quickly, and Wendell jumped for another seat as fast as his crushed condition would permit. The old woman turned to apologize—to an empty seat! Her jaw dropped in surprise, she glared all around the car, and then lowered herself cautiously into the seat, still muttering.
Wendell felt so secure in his invisibility, that he made no attempt to restrain his laughter. He roared with mirth, and rocked, and slapped his knee, till he noticed that the passengers were all looking to see which one of them was responsible for this unseemly noise. This struck Wendell as funnier than ever. He laughed uncontrollably, but he didn’t forget again to keep an eye on the door; and whenever anyone got on after that, Wendell rose to his feet with a promptitude that would have earned him a medal as the most courteous boy in Greater Boston, if the Courtesy Contest Editor of the Post could have seen him.
As the car proceeded northward, the seats were filled more and more, till there was no room for Wendell to sit. Towards the end of his ride, it really was too crowded for comfort, for other standing passengers stood on his feet, and wedged him in to small spaces, and lurched against him with the motion of the car, and then apologized to somebody else, till he was very glad when they arrived at Park Street, and he could run for home. He went in with the cloak under his arm and hid it in his bureau drawer.
THE Pixie dropped in as usual after supper, and tried to act as if nothing had happened; “but he can’t get away with that,” said Wendell to himself.
“Hello, old sport,” said the Pixie in an offhand way. “How are the fractions?”
“Oh, they’re all there,” returned Wendell, “but, I say, what do you mean by sneaking off and leaving me this afternoon? I’d like to know that.”
“I didn’t sneak,” said the Pixie indignantly. “I mentioned that I was going. I never sneak.”
“I’d like to know what you call it then. You didn’t wait for me, did you?”
“Oh!” said the Pixie. “Why, I’m awfully sorry, old chap. I thought you weren’t ready to come home when I left.”
“Why didn’t you wait till I was, then?”
“Why, that would have seemed so like hurrying you,” explained the Pixie, gently. “No one can do a really artistic job with that being-waited-for feeling. By the way, did you make any headway? Get any line on the cloak?”
“Yes, I got it all right,” said Wendell. “But you might have waited to see.”
“I hope I didn’t seem rude,” said the Pixie, penitently. “Really, to be frank, I never did take much interest in the second-hand clothing trade; and perhaps I made it too evident that I was a bit bored. I’ll wait for you next time.”
“You can take it from me there won’t be any next time,” returned Wendell in a rude voice that was a sad contrast to the Pixie’s gentlemanly manner. “I’m going alone to-morrow. I guess the Cloak of Darkness will be worth several dozens of your old transformations. So there!”
“I am sure you will regret this hasty expression of feeling when you take time to think it over, my dear young friend,” said the Pixie, gravely yet kindly. “I think I would better leave you until you come to your better self.”
He instantly vanished from sight.
A few minutes later he put his head in at the door and said in a forgiving tone, “There are your fractions,” and shut the door again.
Wendell felt much aggrieved. He knew that the Pixie had treated him badly, and was now trying to make it appear that he was at fault, and he resolved that he would really go all alone for the Cap of Thought and rely entirely upon the Cloak of Darkness for his success. So after school the next day, he rolled the Cloak of Darkness under his arm, made sure that he had enough money for carfare in his pockets this time, and took the car at Park Street for Brookline.
After he got off the car, Wendell adjusted the Cloak of Darkness, and walked on with entire assurance and a high spirit of adventure to the Giant’s house.
He went up the neat brick steps and tried the front door with great caution. But it did not yield. Then he went around to the back door, and that was much better, for the door was open, and he walked straight in and found the Cruel Stepmother and the Ugly Stepsister getting dinner in the kitchen.
“These grapes aren’t very good, Mummer,” remarked the young lady, “not nearly so good as the ones last week.”
“Naturally,” returned the witch, somewhat grimly. “I had to pay for these.”
“Oh, of course,” said her daughter. “You didn’t have your Cloak of Darkness when you went marketing to-day.”
“And the High Cost of Living is something awful when the market-man can see you every minute, and you can’t take a thing without paying for it,” complained her mother. “If I don’t find that Cloak soon, I just hope the government will get after those dishonest profiteers.”
“Mummer,” said her daughter, thoughtfully, after a moment.
“Well?”
“Wasn’t your Cloak in the bathroom closet?”
“Yes, but I’ve hunted all through and I’m sure it isn’t there.”
“But, Mummer,—I hate to think of it—but those plumbers yesterday—”
The witch gasped and sat down heavily. “My word! You’re right! That’s just where it’s gone!”
“And the Cap of Thought—was that with it?”
“No, I’m glad to say. That’s in my bottom bureau drawer.”
Wendell waited for no more. He tiptoed out and ran lightly upstairs. Now, which room was it? This front one, of course. He opened the lowest drawer of the bureau. Yes, there it lay, a little filmy cap of indescribable color.
The front door banged suddenly. Wendell picked up the cap and tiptoed into the hall and looked over the banisters. Ah! but he was thankful then for the Cloak of Darkness. For there stood the Giant. And while Wendell watched him, fascinated and secure, the Giant’s huge nose began to twitch like a rabbit’s, he sniffed, and then roared out,
“Fee, fi, fo, fum! I smell the blood—no, I won’t be quiet!—of an Englishman. Be he alive—well, your cook’s gone, isn’t she? she can’t be any goner!—or be he dead, I’ll grind his bones—hold on! it smells just like that boy that was here yesterday. Where is he?” He bellowed out the question.
This roused tremendous excitement in the family. Both women talked at once:—“the little wretch!”—“positive he stole my Cloak”—“got away invisible”—“shan’t get away this time”—“Lock the doors, mummer!”—“but we can’t see him”—“I’ll soon sniff him out”—this last from the Giant.
Wendell stood transfixed at the head of the stairs, clutching the Cap. Did he dare descend? No, for the Giant growled out, “He’s upstairs, all right,” and started up the flight. Wendell fled before him and turned back into the front bedroom, the Giant sniffing close at his heels.
There was an open window in the room, but Wendell dared not risk a jump from the second story. There ran rapidly through his mind all the expedients that he could remember, from his reading of wild animal books, for throwing the hunter off the trail of the quarry. If he could double on his track,—but the track was too short. If he could climb to a height and break the scent by leaping off,—but the chiffonier was the highest thing in sight. If he could follow a stream of running water. He wondered whether there was anything to gain by making a dash for the bathroom. The Giant had adopted a horribly sure method. Crouching at the height of a boy, with hands outstretched to touch the wall on either side, he advanced slowly across the room. Wendell stood at bay in a corner, helpless, desperate, but still game.
Just then the telephone rang. The Giant paused to say, “If that’s for me, I can’t be bothered now. Take the number and say I’ll call ’em later,” and that one moment of interruption gave Wendell a chance to duck under the mighty monster’s arm and seek refuge in the other corner behind his back. But he knew that his respite was but momentary. Although the Ugly Stepsister had gone to answer the telephone, the Witch still blocked the door, and as the Giant reached the other wall fruitlessly, he sniffed intently and once more started across the room. Wendell felt sure that he stood face to face with his last moment of life. He jammed the Cap on his head to leave both hands free, drew out and opened his jackknife and prepared to sell his life dearly.
ALMOST drowned by the continuous bellow of the Giant, and yet coming distinctly to his consciousness, he seemed to hear, or rather feel, a low monotonous voice that bore a resemblance to the Giant’s speaking tone, and yet had no quality of roar about it:—“I must shut that window. If he should jump out of that to the porch roof, he could easily climb down the trellis.”
It was the Giant, thinking!
Wendell took a chance and jumped for the window. Just in time! As he landed on the porch roof, the window was slammed behind him. He went backwards down the trellis, and just before his eyes dropped below the level, he saw the Giant pass the window again, pursuing the scent, which doubtless still lingered. Spent and breathless though he was, fright urged the boy on, and he ran two blocks, then dropped under a tree in a garden and lay at full length on his back with the Cloak around him. He lay there a long while, slowly recovering from his terrible exhaustion and gradually getting his nerve back. At length he rose, took off and folded his Cloak, put on his cloth cap, which he had stuffed into his pocket on entering the Giant’s house, and walked on to the electric car. He had quite forgotten the Cap of Thought, which he was still wearing under his own cap,—and that single fact shows how dazed the encounter with the Giant had left him. But as soon as he got on the car, he was reminded of the Cap by the babel of thoughts that greeted him. The undercurrent was a low expressionless hum blending indistinctly from minds intent upon the newspapers; but other thoughts reached him clearly and stridently:—“If the stores aren’t closed, I’ll try to get some of that blue denim for Jackie’s overalls.” “If he does ask me to the next dance, I really think I ought to have a new pink georgette.” “I can’t account for that dollar—let me see, fifteen cents for the cigar, seventeen cents for the soda, that leaves sixty-eight and five”—. Above them all, one insistent thought reiterated, savagely, “If he calls me that again, I’ll show him where he gets off!”
Wendell was very anxious to examine the Cap of Thought more closely. The brief time that he had held it in his hands in the Giant’s house had been so crowded with other impressions that he had but an indistinct conception of his new treasure. He went straight to his room and took it off and was delighted with its beauty. At first sight it seemed to be made of gray cobwebs closely woven together into an almost colorless fabric, but in certain lights it looked as if woven of strands of glass in rainbow colors. As there was no one upstairs to try its magic properties on, Wendell decided to wear it in the library after dinner, and find out what his family was thinking about. He noticed in the glass, with great satisfaction, that the Cap took on the color of his own brown hair, so that it was barely visible.
There was a pleasant group in the library when he joined them after dinner. They were all very quiet. His mother was darning stockings, his father reading the Transcript and occasionally reading some item aloud, and his Latin School brother playing checkers with Cousin Virginia. Yet the room was filled, to Wendell’s sensitive consciousness, with a fine hum, as of conversation. He sat down quietly behind his mother, who had not heard him come in.
“And then,” she went on thinking, “he will step down from the stage, with everyone applauding wildly and saying, ‘Yes, that’s the one. That’s Wendell Cabot Bradford, the prize orator, the greatest public speaker Harvard has ever produced.’” Turning, she saw Wendell, gave him a loving smile, and wondered why he looked so red and uncomfortable.
He tried his father next, and was greatly interested to hear two trains of thought going on in his mind at once, one on the widening of State Street (the subject discussed in the editorial that he was reading), and the other apparently a memory of a telephone conversation he had held that afternoon with the head-master of Wendell’s school. He seemed to be turning over in his mind, while he read the editorial, the best method of introducing the subject under discussion into a conversation with Wendell; and as the subject under discussion had been the very painful one of Wendell’s low standing, Wendell decided to go to bed at once. He paused long enough to learn that his brother Otis’ thought had nothing to do with checkers, but was idly resting on a dimple in the cheek of a Dedham girl named Dorothy, whom Wendell had never heard of (but he treasured the name in memory for future diplomatic use); and that Cousin Virginia was thinking:—“Oh, to be in New York now the toddle’s there! Boston! Checkers!! Baked Beans!!! Antimacassars!!!! Silhouettes!!!!! Pantalettes!!!!!!! I shall die!”
The telephone rang. Wendell offered to go, as he was “just starting for bed anyway.” It proved to be someone asking for him.
“Do you know who this is?” asked an eager girlish voice. “Can’t you guess? It’s the Beauteous Maiden. I knew you would want to hear from me, but I had such a time finding you! I didn’t know how you were listed. Yes, I’m getting on beautifully. Oh, yes, the contract is signed. We did it that day. The president of the producing company is delighted with me. He says I shall film beautifully. He says my youth, innocence, and beauty will make me the most popular girl in America.—How are you progressing with the invisible cloak?—You have? How perfectly splendid! And the Cap of—? You have? How perfectly wonderful! And the Book? No, I don’t know where she keeps it. I never saw it. But she always keeps the attic locked and never let me up there, so that might be—Oh, let me give you my phone number. You must let me know, of course, how it comes out.”
Wendell wrote it down, but there was a queer sinking in the place where he kept his heart—or his stomach: he didn’t know which. He was remembering the Kobold’s remark about marrying the Beauteous Maiden. Whenever he thought of it, he was attacked by that same curious sinking. What a brainless fellow that Kobold was, to be sure, just as the Pixie had said! He rather wished he hadn’t been so short with the Pixie last night. He was a well-meaning chap, after all, and a fiend at fractions.
When he got upstairs to his room, there was the Pixie waiting for him, and Wendell was really very glad to see him, and decided not to reopen the subject of the Pixie’s precipitate flight from the Giant’s house.
The Pixie was tremendously interested in the Cap of Thought. He tried it on, and also the Cloak of Darkness, and had Wendell try them both on to show how they worked. And the Pixie gave some very kind advice as to getting possession of the magic book, and offered to work some of his best transformation spells; but Wendell had his plan all made and laid it before the Pixie. It was, to go out very early Saturday morning, when he would have a holiday from school, watch the house till the Giant had left, and thus have the whole day ahead of him, to search the premises. He relied on the magic Cloak and Cap to help him out of any difficulties that might arise.
“Well, perhaps that’s the best plan,” assented the Pixie. “And of course, if you find it necessary, you can count on me to change you into anything we think most useful. For instance, you might like to be changed to a moving truck, if this magic book is like any other magic books I’ve ever seen.”
“How do you mean?” said Wendell.
“Well, the subject matter is pretty heavy, you know. It makes the book rather weighty.”
“Oh, does it?” said Wendell. “I didn’t know.”
“And another thing I want to warn you of,” said the Pixie seriously. “Don’t read any charm aloud, till you know what it’s for. They ought to make those magic books fool-proof, but they don’t.”
“I’ll remember,” said Wendell.
WENDELL had counted on having a good deal of sport with the Cloak of Darkness and the Cap of Thought, wearing them around the house and outdoors, and even in school, but he was a bit afraid to risk any accident to them before the eventful Saturday. So he locked them securely in his chiffonier until that morning.
It was usually very hard to get him to wake up Saturday mornings, but this Saturday was an exception. He was up with the lark,—if there had been any,—ate his breakfast before the rest of the family came down, and was soon on his way over the now familiar route, to the Brookline house. He had timed it nicely. The Giant was just leaving as he got there; and Wendell, only too well aware that his scent was now well-known to the Giant, scuttled down a side street until the monster was out of sight.
Into the familiar kitchen once more, and all through the house, went Wendell. The mother and daughter were doing the upstairs work and Wendell sat around with them for some time, following a confusion of most uninteresting household details that ran through their minds.
At length he was repaid.
“I guess I’ll get my warm quilt out for the winter,” thought the girl. “It’s getting cold these nights. Now, where did Mummer put that attic key? If I ask her, she probably won’t tell me, just to be mean. I’ll hunt around, instead.”
Presently, the Witch went downstairs, and her daughter took that opportunity to look through her mother’s bureau drawers; and after some search, she found it.
“I’d better wait,” she thought, “till Mummer goes marketing. Then I’ll put the key back again and say nothing about it.”
But she had no sooner gone downstairs, herself, than Wendell took the key and unlocked the attic door. He took the precaution of locking it again on the inside, so that there could be no intrusion while he was searching for the Book. He chuckled to think how chagrined the Ugly Stepsister would be when she went to look for the key and thought her mother had changed its hiding-place.
The attic was a large unfinished room with peaked roof. It was only in the middle that one could stand upright. There was some old furniture and there were several trunks. Wendell tried the trunks first. One was locked, with the key still in the lock, and opened easily. And there, inside, among a store of pillow cases and towels, lay what was undoubtedly the Magic Book. It was as easy as that!
The Book was about as large as Webster’s Unabridged. It was bound in very dark, smooth leather, all worn and frayed at the corners, and fastened with a heavy iron clasp. It did look heavy, just as the Pixie had said, but Wendell seized it firmly, and attempted to lift it with an energy that almost pulled his arms from their sockets. For the Book didn’t lift a fraction of an inch. It might have been soldered to the trunk.
“My! It is weighty! He was right!” gasped the boy.
He tried again, and again; but the book must have weighed tons. There was no lifting it.
Wendell considered the matter. There must be something he could do,—but what? Of course, he could go home and tell the Pixie and get changed into something strong,—a yoke of oxen, or an elephant. But this was Saturday. The Pixie had done Monday’s fractions Friday night, and probably wouldn’t be around again till Monday night. Well, well, what a disappointment!
He sat down on the edge of the trunk and examined the volume. There was no title on the cover. He undid the clasp and opened the Book at random. Yes, this was undoubtedly it. The quaint old lettering showed it, the long strange words. He spelled out what seemed a perfectly meaningless sentence.
Whish-sh-sht! A prolonged rushing noise like a sky-rocket, and there stood before him a strange and uncouth figure. It was a man somewhat above average height, wearing a costume that Wendell thought was oriental, though he had never seen anything like it before.
“Who are you?” faltered Wendell.
“I am the Slave of the Charm,” replied the stranger. “I have answered your summons. What are your commands?”
“I don’t quite understand,” gasped Wendell. “Please explain.”
“You said the magic words that summon me,” repeated the apparition. “I am here to do your bidding.”
“Oh, I see,” said Wendell. “Good work! Please take this Book home for me.”
“I obey,” returned the stranger. He lifted the Book on his shoulder, turned down the stairs and vanished straight through the locked door.
Wendell scrambled after him, first drawing around him the Cloak of Darkness, which he had thrown off. Not being a magic apparition, himself, he was forced to unlock the door to get through, and this delayed him a moment. So he caught just a glimpse of the genie, vanishing through the front door without opening it. But the witch and her daughter had seen him go and seen the Book on his shoulder; and the daughter’s mind was whirling like a merry-go-round, as Wendell easily perceived.
However, it was quite otherwise with her mother. The former witch sat on the lowest step of the stairs, with such a happy and peaceful look that Wendell hardly knew her. “Free at last!” she was exulting