Baron Trump's Marvellous Underground Journey
I had noticed that the Soodopsies had some idea of music, for the
children often amused themselves dancing, and, while so engaged, beat
time with their finger tips on each other’s cheeks or foreheads.
But I was completely in the dark as to what they meant by Singing
Fingers, or why the young girl should have been so named; hence was I
greatly pleased to hear the maiden’s mother ask me whether I would like
to feel one of her daughter’s songs, as she termed it. Upon my
acquiescing, the mother approached me and proceeded to roll up the
sleeves of my coat until she had laid my arms bare to the elbow, then
she took my arms and clasped them across my breast one above the other.
Bulger watched the proceeding with somewhat of displeasure in his eyes;
he had half an idea that these silent people might play some hurtful
trick upon his little master. But my smile soon disarmed his suspicion.
Singing Fingers now drew near, and as her sweet face with its sightless
eyes turned full upon me I could hardly keep back the tears.
And yet, why grieve for any one who seemed to be so perfectly happy? A
smile played around her dainty little mouth, disclosing her tiny silvery
white teeth like so many real pearls, and her bosom rose and fell
quickly, sending forth a faint breathing sound. She looked so like a
radiant child of some other world that before I thought, I cried out,—
“Speak, Oh, speak, beautiful child!”
In an instant she drew back affrighted, for the sudden vibration of the
air had startled her; but I reached out and touched her hand to give her
to understand that she need fear nothing, and then she drew near to me
again. Suddenly her beautiful hands with their long, frail, delicate
fingers were lifted into the air, and she began to sway her body and to
wave her hands in gentle and graceful motions as if keeping time with
some music. Gradually she drew nearer to me, and ever and anon her
silken finger tips touched my hands or arms as if they were a keyboard
and she was about to begin to execute a soft and dainty bit of music;
and I noticed that her fingers had some delightful perfume upon them.
Now fast and faster the gentle taps rain upon me with rhythmic
regularity. They soothe me, they thrill me, they reach my heart as if
they were the sweet notes of a flute or the soft tones of a singer’s
voice. The maiden is really singing to me! It seems to me that I can
understand what she is saying, or, rather, thinking, as her dainty
finger tips fairly fly hither and thither, and I can hear her low
breathing grow louder and louder. Suddenly she leaves my hands and arms
and I feel her gentle tapping on my cheeks and brow. So gently, Oh, so
gently and soothingly her fingers touch me that at last they feel like
rose leaves dragged across my face. The sensation is so delightful, so
like the soft touch of sleep to weary eyes, that I drop off in good
earnest, and when, after a moment or so, I opened my eyes there sat the
smiling Formifolk waiting for me to awake, and there stood the
radiant-visaged Singing Fingers in front of me, child-like, waiting to
be commended.
And so you see, dear friends, that it is not so hard to be happy after
all if you only set about it in the right way. The Formifolk seemed to
have set about it in the right way, judging by results, and they are the
only things we have to judge by. Some men will fish all day and not have
a bite, and some people will try their whole lives to catch happiness
and not get any more than a nibble. They don’t use the right kind of
bait. Let ’em try a kind act, a live one.
There was something I wanted to ask of the learned Barrel Brow, so the
next call I made on him I put this question to him:—
“Is it possible, learned Master, that thy people have absolutely no
guide, no overseer, no rulers?”
The great scholar of the Formifolk ceased reading the four books which
lay opened before him—one under each hand and one under each foot—as I
handed him my silver tablet.
“Little baron,” was his reply, “if there were only a bramble bush big
enough for all you people of the upper world to jump into and if you
could only get rid of your ears too, you would soon be rid of your
rulers who oppress you, who prey upon you; for no one would have any
desire to be a ruler if there was no one left to look at him and if he
couldn’t hear what the flatterers said about him. Vanity is the soil
that rulers spring from, as the mushrooms spring from the rich loam of
our dark caverns. They pretend that it is the exercise of power that
they are so fond of. Believe them not. It is the gratification of their
vanity and nothing else.
“If it were only in thy power to say to every man who itched to be a
ruler,—
“‘Well and good, brother, a ruler thou shalt be; but bear in mind, weak
man, that when thou hast donned thy gaudy uniform and mounted thy gayly
caparisoned steed, when thou ridest at the head of troop and cavalcade
with ten thousand armed men following thee on foot, as slaves their
master, and the plaudits of the foolish multitude rend the air, no eye
shall witness the splendor of thy triumph, no ear catch a sound of the
deafening cheers,’ take my word for it, little baron, no one would want
to be a ruler any more.
“Where there are no rulers, little baron,” continued the learned Barrel
Brow, “there can be no followers; where there are no followers, there
will be no quarrelling. When it becomes necessary in our nation we form
the Great Circle for deliberation. Each man writes out what he thinks on
his tablet. Then the opinions are read and counted and the majority
rules. But we form the Great Circle only in times of urgent need.
Generally speaking, the smaller circles answer all the purposes; in
fact, the family circle is in most cases quite sufficient.”
I touched first Barrel Brow’s heart in token of my gratitude for the
many things which he had taught me, and then the back of his head to bid
him good-night. You may imagine his and my delight, dear friends, when
the wise Bulger raised himself upon his hind legs, and with his right
paw also thanked the learned Barrel Brow, and then bade him good-night
by a light tap on the back of his head.
“Fortunate the traveller,” wrote the learned Soodopsy, “attended by so
wise and watchful a companion! True, like a child, he goes on all fours,
but by so doing he brings his heart and his brains on the same level—the
only way for a man to wear them if he would do his fellow-creatures any
good. The trouble with thy people in the upper world, little baron, is
that they think too much. They clasp minds instead of clasping hands;
they send messengers with gifts instead of giving themselves. They hire
people to dance for them, to sing for them, to be merry for them. They
will not be satisfied until they have hired people to help them be
sorry, to whom they may say, ‘My friend is dead; I loved him. Weep three
whole days for him.’”
CHAPTER XX
THIS IS A LONG AND A SAD CHAPTER.—IT TELLS HOW DEAR, GENTLE,
POUTING-LIP WAS LOST, AND HOW THE SOODOPSIES GRIEVED FOR HIM AND
WHOM THEY SUSPECTED.—BULGER GIVES A STRIKING PROOF OF HIS
WONDERFUL INTELLIGENCE WHICH ENABLES ME TO CONVINCE THE SOODOPSIES
THAT MY “DANCING SPECTRE” DID NOT CAUSE POUTING-LIP’S DEATH.—THE
TRUE TALE OF HIS TERRIBLE FATE.—WHAT FOLLOWS MY DISCOVERY.—HOW A
BEAUTIFUL BOAT IS BUILT FOR ME BY THE GRATEFUL SOODOPSIES, AND HOW
BULGER AND I BID ADIEU TO THE LAND OF THE MAKE-BELIEVE EYES.
’Twas the custom in the City of Silver to “touch all around,” as it was
called, before going to rest. The “touch all around” began in a certain
quarter of the city and passed with wonderful rapidity from man to man.
Exactly how it was done I never could understand, but the purpose of the
mysterious signalling was to make an actual count of all the Formifolk.
If a single one were missing, it would be most surely discovered by the
time the “touch all around” had been completed. It proceeded with
lightning-like rapidity throughout the city, and then, if no return
signal was made, the people knew that everyone was in his proper place;
that no Soodopsy had lost his way or fallen ill in some unfrequented
passage.
I don’t think that I had more than dropped off to sleep when I was
aroused by Bulger’s gentle tugging at my sleeve. Rubbing my eyes, I sat
up in bed and listened. Instantly my ear caught that faint, shuffling
sound which was always perceptible when any number of the Formifolk were
hurrying hither and thither over the polished silver pavement.
I sprang out of bed and rushed to the door, Bulger close at my heels.
What a strange sight confronted me! I could compare it to nothing save
to the appearance of a large ant hill when some mischievous boy suddenly
drops a stone among the crowd of petty, patient, plodding people
peacefully pursuing their work.
In an instant all is changed: lines are broken, workmen jostle workmen,
order becomes disorder, regularity is changed to confusion. Hither and
thither the affrighted creatures rush with waving feelers, seeking for
the cause of the mad outburst of terror.
So it was with the Formifolk as I looked out upon them. With
outstretched hands and tremulously moving fingers they rushed from side
to side, jostling and bumping one another, while a nameless dread was
depicted upon their upturned faces. Anon a group would halt, join hands,
and begin to exchange thoughts by lightning-like pressures, tappings,
and strokes, when others would dash against them, break them apart, and
confusion would reign greater than ever.
But gradually I noted that some sort of order seemed to be coming out of
the movements of this mad throng. Here and there groups of three and
four would form and clasp hands, then these smaller circles would break
and form into larger ones, and I noted too that this ever-increasing
circle was formed on the outside of the panic-stricken crowd, and as it
grew it shut them in so that when a fleeing Soodopsy hurtled up against
this steady line, his terror left him at once and he took his place in
it. In a few moments the madly pushing, jostling throng had disappeared
entirely and the whole city was girt round about by these long, steady
lines.
The Great Circle had been formed.
After half an hour the deliberation was completed, and, to my surprise,
the Great Circle broke up into squads and companies of fours and sixes
and tens, and then each disappeared slowly and steadily with lock step,
passing out of the City into the dark or only partially lighted chambers
and passages that surrounded it. The search for the missing Soodopsy had
been begun.
It was hours before the last squad had returned to the square and the
Great Circle had been formed again. Alas! the news was sad indeed. There
came no tidings of the missing man. He was lost forever; and with
clasped hands and slow and heavy step the grieving Formifolk made their
way back to their homes, where the sighing women and children were
awaiting their coming. As Bulger and I went back to bed again, it almost
seemed to me as if I could hear at times the deep and long-drawn sighs
that escaped from the gentle breasts of the sorrowing Soodopsies. I
noticed a very touching thing on the following day. It was that every
man, woman, and child in the City of Silver grieved for the lost
Soodopsy as if he were actually brother to each of them. Love was not as
with us, in the upper world, a thing bestowed upon those in whom we see
our own faces repeated and in whose voices we heard our own ring out
again, sweet and clear as in our childhood; in other words, a love
almost of our very selves. Oh, no! while it was true that a mother’s