Baron Trump's Marvellous Underground Journey
haste to fit a pipe to this opening in the rock and set up a cluster of
lights. With food and water and warmth and light their hearts grew
lighter, especially as they soon discovered that in many of the vast
caverns gigantic mushrooms grew in the wildest profusion.
“The wisest of them,” continued the learned Barrel Brow, “at once made
up their minds that there must be reservoirs of this gas farther along
on this beautiful Marble Highway, so, day by day, they pushed farther
into this World within a World, halting every now and then to set up a
lighthouse as they called it.
“After advancing several leagues the exploring party, upon lighting a
cluster of gas jets, were stricken almost speechless with wonder at
finding themselves upon the very sill of a towering portal opening into
a succession of vast chambers, some with flat ceiling, some arched, some
domed, upon the floors and walls of which lay and hung inexhaustible
quantities of pure silver. Those magnificent caverns were in reality
nature’s vast storehouses of the glorious white metal, and our people
made haste to set up clusters of gas jets here and there, so that they
might view the wondrous treasure-house.
“Here they determined to remain, for here was food and water in
never-failing supplies, and here they would have light and warmth, and
here they could forget their miseries by working at their calling, using
the precious metal with lavish hand to build them living-chambers, and
to fashion the thousand and one things necessary for every-day life. So
great was their delight as metal-workers to come upon this exhaustless
supply of pure silver that they could hardly sleep until they had set up
clusters of gas jets throughout these vast caverns, for, no doubt,
little baron, thou hast already guessed that this is the spot I am
telling thee of; that right here it was where our people halted to build
the City of Silver.
“But one thought troubled them and that was where to find needful
clothing, for the old was fast falling into shreds and tatters, when, to
their delight, they came upon a bed of mineral wool and with this they
managed to weave some cloth. Although it was rather stiff and harsh, yet
it was better than none.
“While exploring a new cavern one day, one of my wise ancestors saw a
large night moth alight near him, and, gently loosening some of its
eggs, he carried them home, more as a curiosity than aught else.
“Imagine how rejoiced he was, however, to see one of the worms which
hatched out set to work spinning a cocoon of silk half as big as his
fist. There was great feasting and merry-making among our people upon
hearing of this glad news, and it was not very long before many a silver
shuttle was rattling in a silver loom, and the soft bodies of our people
were warmly and comfortably clad. Now, long periods of time went by,
which, cut up into your months, would have made many, many years. Our
people had everything but sunlight, and this, of course, those who were
born in the under world knew nothing about and therefore did not miss.
“But, as was to be expected, great changes gradually took place in our
people. To their inexpressible grief, they noticed that as they busied
themselves beautifying their new homes by erecting arches and bridges
and terraces, and lining them with glorious candelabra and statues, all
in cast and wrought or hammered silver, their sight was gradually
failing them, and that in not a very great length of time they should be
totally blind.
“This result, little baron,” continued the learned Barrel Brow, “was
very natural, for the sense of sight was in reality created for
sunlight; for as thou no doubt knowest, all the fish that swim in our
rivers have no eyes, having no need of them. It happened just as they
had expected—in a few generations more our people discovered that their
eyes could no longer see things as thou dost, but yet they could feel
them if they were not too far away, just as I can feel thy presence now
and tell where thou sittest, and how tall thou art, and how broad thou
art, and whether thou movest to right or left, forward or backward, but
I cannot tell exactly how thou art made until I reach out and touch
thee; then I know all; yes, far better than thou canst know, for our
sense of feeling is keener than thy so-called sight. One of my people
can feel a grain or roughness upon a silver mirror which to thy eyes
seems smoother than glass. Well, strange to relate, and yet not strange,
our ancestors with the going-out of their sense of sight also felt their
sense of hearing on the wane. Our ears, as thou callest them, having
nothing more to listen to, for eternal silence, as thou knowest, reigns
in this under world, became as useless to us as the tail of the pollywog
would be to the full-grown frog; and of course with the loss of our
sense of hearing our children were soon unable to learn to talk, and in
a certain lapse of time we came to merit full well our new name of
Formifolk, or Ant People, for we were now blind and deaf and dumb.
“It is long, very, very long, little baron,” continued the learned
Soodopsy, “since all recollection of sunlight, of color, of sound, died
out of our minds. To-day my people don’t even know the names of these
things, and thou wouldst have as much chance of success wert thou to
attempt to tell them what light or sound is as thou wouldst have if thou
shouldst try to explain to a savage that there is nothing under the
world to hold it up, and yet it doesn’t fall. But if thou shouldst lay
several pieces of metal in a row and ask one of my people to tell thee
what they were, he would try the weight of each and feel its grain
carefully, possibly smell them or touch his tongue to them, and then he
would make answer: ‘That is gold; that is silver; that is copper; that
is lead; that is tin; that is iron.’
“But thou wouldst say, ‘They all are differently colored; canst not
perceive that?’
“‘I know not what thou meanest by color,’ he would reply. ‘But mark me:
now I hide them all beneath this silken kerchief, and still by touching
them with my finger tips I can tell what metal each one is. If thou
canst do it, then art thou as good a man as I.’
“What sayest now, little baron?” asked the learned Barrel Brow, while
his face was wreathed in a smile of triumph; “dost think thou wouldst be
as good a man as this Soodopsy?”
“Nay, indeed I do not, wise Master,” wrote I upon my silver tablet; “and
I thank thee for all thou has told me and taught me, and I ask leave, O
Barrel Brow, to come again and converse with thee.”
“That thou mayest, little baron,” traced the learned Soodopsy upon his
silver tablet; and then as I turned to leave his chamber he reached
quickly after me and touched me with a bent forefinger, which meant
return.
“Thy pardon, little baron,” he wrote, “but thou art leaving my study
without thy faithful Bulger; am I not right?”
I was astounded, for indeed he was right, and though without the sense
of sight he had seen more than I with two good eyes wide open. There lay
Bulger fast asleep on a silken-covered hassock.
Our silent conversation had so wearied him that he had sailed off into
the Land of Nod on the wings of a dream.
He hung his head and looked very shame-faced when my call aroused him
and he discovered that I had actually reached the doorway without his
knowing it.
CHAPTER XIX
BEGINS WITH SOMETHING ABOUT THE LITTLE SOODOPSIES, BUT BRANCHES OFF
ON ANOTHER SUBJECT; TO WIT;—THE SILENT SONG OF SINGING FINGERS,
THE FAIR MAID OF THE CITY OF SILVER.—BARREL BROW IS KIND ENOUGH TO
ENLIGHTEN ME ON A CERTAIN POINT, AND HE TAKES OCCASION TO PAY
BULGER A VERY HIGH COMPLIMENT, WHICH, OF COURSE, HE DESERVED.
The longer I stayed among the Soodopsies the more did I become convinced
that they were the happiest, the lightest hearted, the most contented
human beings that I had met in all my travels. If it were possible for
the links of a long chain suspended over a chasm to be living, thinking
beings for a short while, it seems to me they would hang together in the
most perfect accord, for each link would discover that he was no better
than his neighbor, and that the welfare of all the other links depended
upon him and his upon theirs. So it was with the Formifolk, having no
sense of sight they knew no such thing as envy, and all hands were alike
when reached out for a greeting.
I was amazed at times to see how they could feel my approach when I
would be ten or fifteen feet away from them, and I often amused myself
by trying to steal by one of them in the street. But no, it was
impossible; a hand would invariably be held out for a greeting. Little
by little, they got over their distrust of me, and made up their minds
that I had told them the truth when I said that no dancing spectre was
forever following at my heels. One of the most interesting sights was to
see a group of Soodopsy children at play, building houses with silver
blocks, or playing a game very much like our dominoes. I noticed that
they kept no tally, such wonderful memories had they that it was quite
unnecessary.
At first the children were so frightened upon feeling of me that they
fled with terror pictured upon their little faces. Their parents
explained to me that I made very much the same impression upon them as
if I should feel of a person whose skin was as rough as a sea urchin’s.
When at last I succeeded in coaxing several of them to my side, I was
astounded to see one little fellow who had by chance pressed his tiny
hand against my watch pocket spring away from me terror-stricken. He had
felt it tick and didn’t stop running until he had reached his mother’s
side.
His wonderful tale that the little baron carried some strange animal
around in his pocket soon caused a crowd to collect about me, and it was
some time before I could persuade even the parents that the watch was
not alive and that it was not the little animal’s heart which they felt
beating.
On one occasion, when a little Soodopsy was sitting on my lap with its
tiny arm twined affectionately around my neck, I happened to make some
remark to Bulger, when, to my amazement, the child sprang out of my arms
and darted away with a look of terror upon his little face.
What had I done to him?
Why, it seems that by the merest chance his tiny hand had been pressed
against my throat, and that he had been terrified by feeling the strange
vibration caused by my voice. Immediately the report was spread about
that the little baron carried another little baron around in his throat,
that any one could feel him, if I would only consent. It took me a long
while to convince them that what they felt was not another little baron,
but merely the vibration caused by my expelling my breath in a way
peculiar to the people of the upper world. But all the same, I was
obliged to say many hundreds of useless things to Bulger in order to
give their little hands a chance to feel something so wonderful.
From the little I have told you about the names of the Formifolk, dear
friends, you have no doubt understood that their names took their rise
from some physical quality, defect, or peculiarity. Besides the names I
have already mentioned, I remember Sharp Chin, Long Nose, Silk Ears,
Smooth Palms, Big Knuckle, Nail Off, Hammer Fist, Soft Touch,
Hole-in-Cheek, or Hole-in-chin (Dimple), Crooked Hair (Cowlick), and so
on, and so on.
But, to my amazement, one day, when asking the name of a young girl
whose long and delicate fingers had attracted my attention, I was
informed that her name was Singing Fingers, or, possibly, I might
translate it Music Fingers.