The Cuckoo Clock, Mrs. Molesworth [polar express read aloud .txt] 📗

across the bowling-green with her eyes shut, from the arbour at one side to the arbour exactly like it at the other, grew stupid, though no doubt it would have been capital fun with a companion to applaud or criticize.

So the wood-path became Griselda's favourite haunt. As the summer grew on, she began to long more than ever for a companion—not so much for play, as for some one to play with. She had lessons, of course, just as many as in the winter; but with the long days, there seemed to come a quite unaccountable increase of play-time, and Griselda sometimes found it hang heavy on her hands. She had not seen or heard anything of the cuckoo either, save, of course, in his "official capacity" of time-teller, for a very long time.

"I suppose," she thought, "he thinks I don't need amusing, now that the fine days are come and I can play in the garden; and certainly, if I had any one to play with, the garden would be perfectly lovely."

But, failing companions, she did the best she could for herself, and this was why she loved the path down into the wood so much. There was a sort of mystery about it; it might have been the path leading to the cottage of Red-Ridinghood's grandmother, or a path leading to fairyland itself. There were all kinds of queer, nice, funny noises to be heard there—in one part of it especially, where Griselda made herself a seat of some moss-grown stones, and where she came so often that she got to know all the little flowers growing close round about, and even the particular birds whose nests were hard by.

She used to sit there and fancy—fancy that she heard the wood-elves chattering under their breath, or the little underground gnomes and kobolds hammering at their fairy forges. And the tinkling of the brook in the distance sounded like the enchanted bells round the necks of the fairy kine, who are sent out to pasture sometimes on the upper world hillsides. For Griselda's head was crammed full, perfectly full, of fairy lore; and the mandarins' country, and butterfly-land, were quite as real to her as the every-day world about her.

But all this time she was not forgotten by the cuckoo, as you will see.

One day she was sitting in her favourite nest, feeling, notwithstanding the sunshine, and the flowers, and the soft sweet air, and the pleasant sounds all about, rather dull and lonely. For though it was only May, it was really quite a hot day, and Griselda had been all the morning at her lessons, and had tried very hard, and done them very well, and now she felt as if she deserved some reward. Suddenly in the distance, she heard a well-known sound, "Cuckoo, cuckoo."

"Can that be the cuckoo?" she said to herself; and in a moment she felt sure that it must be. For, for some reason that I do not know enough about the habits of real "flesh and blood" cuckoos to explain, that bird was not known in the neighbourhood where Griselda's aunts lived. Some twenty miles or so further south it was heard regularly, but all this spring Griselda had never caught the sound of its familiar note, and she now remembered hearing it never came to these parts.

So, "it must be my cuckoo," she said to herself. "He must be coming out to speak to me. How funny! I have never seen him by daylight."

She listened. Yes, again there it was, "Cuckoo, cuckoo," as plain as possible, and nearer than before.

"Cuckoo," cried Griselda, "do come and talk to me. It's such a long time since I have seen you, and I have nobody to play with."

But there was no answer. Griselda held her breath to listen, but there was nothing to be heard.

"Unkind cuckoo!" she exclaimed. "He is tricking me, I do believe; and to-day too, just when I was so dull and lonely."

The tears came into her eyes, and she was beginning to think herself very badly used, when suddenly a rustling in the bushes beside her made her turn round, more than half expecting to see the cuckoo himself. But it was not he. The rustling went on for a minute or two without anything making its appearance, for the bushes were pretty thick just there, and any one scrambling up from the pine-wood below would have had rather hard work to get through, and indeed for a very big person such a feat would have been altogether impossible.

It was not a very big person, however, who was causing all the rustling, and crunching of branches, and general commotion, which now absorbed Griselda's attention. She sat watching for another minute in perfect stillness, afraid of startling by the slightest movement the squirrel or rabbit or creature of some kind which she expected to see. At last—was that a squirrel or rabbit—that rosy, round face, with shaggy, fair hair falling over the eager blue eyes, and a general look of breathlessness and over-heatedness and determination?

A squirrel or a rabbit! No, indeed, but a very sturdy, very merry, very ragged little boy.

"Where are that cuckoo? Does you know?" were the first words he uttered, as soon as he had fairly shaken himself, though not by any means all his clothes, free of the bushes (for ever so many pieces of jacket and knickerbockers, not to speak of one boot and half his hat, had been left behind on the way), and found breath to say something.

Griselda stared at him for a moment without speaking, she was so astonished. It was months since she had spoken to a child, almost since she had seen one, and about children younger than herself she knew very little at any time, being the baby of the family at home, you see, and having only big brothers older than herself for play-fellows.

"Who are you?" she said at last. "What's your name, and what do you want?"

"My name's Master Phil, and I want that cuckoo," answered the little boy. "He camed up this way. I'm sure he did, for he called me all the way."

"He's not here," said Griselda, shaking her head; "and this is my aunts' garden. No one is allowed to come here but friends of theirs. You had better go home; and you have torn your clothes so."

"This aren't a garden," replied the little fellow undauntedly, looking round him; "this are a wood. There are blue-bells and primroses here, and that shows it aren't a garden—not anybody's garden, I mean, with walls round, for nobody to come in."

"But it is," said Griselda, getting rather vexed. "If it isn't a garden it's grounds, private grounds, and nobody should come without leave. This path leads down to the wood, and there's a door in the wall at the bottom to get into the lane. You may go down that way, little boy. No one comes scrambling up the way you did."

"But I want to find the cuckoo," said the little boy. "I do so want to find the cuckoo."

His voice sounded almost as if he were going to cry, and his pretty, hot, flushed face puckered up. Griselda's heart smote her; she looked at him more carefully. He was such a very little boy, after all; she did not like to be cross to him.

"How old are you?" she asked.

"Five and a bit. I had a birthday after the summer, and if I'm good, nurse says perhaps I'll have one after next summer too. Do you ever have birthdays?" he went on, peering up at Griselda. "Nurse says she used to when she was young, but she never has any now."

"Have you a nurse?" asked Griselda, rather surprised; for, to tell the truth, from "Master Phil's" appearance, she had not felt at all sure what sort of little boy he was, or rather what sort of people he belonged to.

"Of course I have a nurse, and a mother too," said the little boy, opening wide his eyes in surprise at the question. "Haven't you? Perhaps you're too big, though. People leave off having nurses and mothers when they're big, don't they? Just like birthdays. But I won't. I won't never leave off having a mother, any way. I don't care so much about nurse and birthdays, not kite so much. Did you care when you had to leave off, when you got too big?"

"I hadn't to leave off because I got big," said Griselda sadly. "I left off when I was much littler than you," she went on, unconsciously speaking as Phil would best understand her. "My mother died."

"I'm werry sorry," said Phil; and the way in which he said it quite overcame Griselda's unfriendliness. "But perhaps you've a nice nurse. My nurse is rather nice; but she will 'cold me to-day, won't she?" he added, laughing, pointing to the terrible rents in his garments. "These are my very oldestest things; that's a good thing, isn't it? Nurse says I don't look like Master Phil in these, but when I have on my blue welpet, then I look like Master Phil. I shall have my blue welpet when mother comes."

"Is your mother away?" said Griselda.

"Oh yes, she's been away a long time; so nurse came here to take care of me at the farm-house, you know. Mother was ill, but she's better now, and some day she'll come too."

"Do you like being at the farm-house? Have you anybody to play with?" said Griselda.

Phil shook his curly head. "I never have anybody to play with," he said. "I'd like to play with you if you're not too big. And do you think you could help me to find the cuckoo?" he added insinuatingly.

"What do you know about the cuckoo?" said Griselda.