Five Children and It
"I was always generous from a child," said the Sand-fairy. "I've spent
the whole of my waking hours in giving. But one thing I won't
give--that's advice."
"You see," Anthea went on, "it's such a wonderful thing--such a
splendid, glorious chance. It's so good and kind and dear of you to give
us our wishes, and it seems such a pity it should all be wasted just
because we are too silly to know what to wish for."
Anthea had meant to say that--and she had not wanted to say it before
the others. It's one thing to say you're silly, and quite another to
say that other people are.
"Child," said the Sand-fairy sleepily, "I can only advise you to think
before you speak"--
"But I thought you never gave advice."
"That piece doesn't count," it said. "You'll never take it! Besides,
it's not original. It's in all the copy-books."
"But won't you just say if you think wings would be a silly wish?"
"Wings?" it said. "I should think you might do worse. Only, take care
you aren't flying high at sunset. There was a little Ninevite boy I
heard of once. He was one of King Sennacherib's sons, and a traveller
brought him a Psammead. He used to keep it in a box of sand on the
palace terrace. It was a dreadful degradation for one of us, of course;
still the boy _was_ the Assyrian King's son. And one day he wished for
wings and got them. But he forgot that they would turn into stone at
sunset, and when they did he fell on to one of the winged lions at the
top of his father's great staircase; and what with _his_ stone wings
and the lion's stone wings--well it's not a very pretty story! But I
believe the boy enjoyed himself very much till then."
"Tell me," said Anthea, "why don't our wishes turn into stone now? Why
do they just vanish?"
"_Autre temps autres moeurs_," said the creature.
"Is that the Ninevite language?" asked Anthea, who had learned no
foreign language at school except French.
"What I mean is," the Psammead went on, "that in the old days people
wished for good solid everyday gifts,--Mammoths and Pterodactyls and
things,--and those could be turned into stone as easy as not. But people
wish such high-flying fanciful things nowadays. How are you going to
turn being beautiful as the day, or being wanted by everybody, into
stone? You see it can't be done. And it would never do to have two
rules, so they simply vanish. If being beautiful as the day _could_ be
turned into stone it would last an awfully long time, you know--much
longer than you would. Just look at the Greek statues. It's just as
well as it is. Good-bye. I _am_ so sleepy."
It jumped off her lap--dug frantically, and vanished.
Anthea was late for breakfast. It was Robert who quietly poured a
spoonful of molasses down the Lamb's frock, so that he had to be taken
away and washed thoroughly directly after breakfast. And it was of
course a very naughty thing to do; yet it served two purposes--it
delighted the Lamb, who loved above all things to be completely sticky,
and it engaged Martha's attention so that the others could slip away to
the sand-pit without the Lamb.
They did it, and in the lane Anthea, breathless from the hurry of that
slipping, panted out--
"I want to propose we take turns to wish. Only, nobody's to have a wish
if the others don't think it's a nice wish. Do you agree?"
"Who's to have first wish?" asked Robert cautiously.
"Me, if you don't mind," said Anthea apologetically. "And I've thought
about it--and it's _wings_."
There was a silence. The others rather wanted to find fault, but it was
hard, because the word "wings" raised a flutter of joyous excitement in
every breast.
"Not so dusty," said Cyril generously; and Robert added, "Really,
Panther, you're not quite such a fool as you look."
Jane said, "I think it would be perfectly lovely. It's like a bright
dream of delirium."
They found the Sand-fairy easily. Anthea said--
"I wish we all had beautiful wings to fly with."
The Sand-fairy blew himself out, and next moment each child felt a funny
feeling, half heaviness and half lightness, on its shoulders. The
Psammead put its head on one side and turned its snail eyes from one
side to the other.
"Not so bad," it said dreamily. "But really, Robert, you're not quite
such an angel as you look." Robert almost blushed.
The wings were very big, and more beautiful than you can possibly
imagine--for they were soft and smooth, and every feather lay neatly in
its place. And the feathers were of the most lovely mixed changing
colors, like the rainbow, or iridescent glass, or the beautiful scum
that sometimes floats on water that is not at all nice to drink.
"Oh--but how can we fly?" Jane said, standing anxiously first on one
foot and then on the other.
"Look out!" said Cyril; "you're treading on my wing."
"Does it hurt?" asked Anthea with interest; but no one answered, for
Robert had spread his wings and jumped up, and now he was slowly rising
in the air. He looked very awkward in his knickerbocker suit--his boots
in particular hung helplessly, and seemed much larger than when he was
standing in them. But the others cared but little how he looked,--or how
they looked, for that matter. For now they all spread out their wings
and rose in the air. Of course you all know what flying feels like,
because everyone has dreamed about flying, and is seems so beautifully
easy--only, you can never remember how you did it; and as a rule you
have to do it without wings, in your dreams, which is more clever and
uncommon, but not so easy to remember the rule for. Now the four
children rose flapping from the ground, and you can't think how good the
air felt as it ran against their faces. Their wings were tremendously
wide when they were spread out, and they had to fly quite a long way
apart so as not to get in each other's way. But little things like this
are easily learned.
All the words in the English Dictionary, and in the Greek Lexicon as
well, are, I find, of no use at all to tell you exactly what it feels
like to be flying, so I will not try. But I will say that to look _down_
on the fields and woods instead of _along_ at them, is something like
looking at a beautiful live map, where, instead of silly colors on
paper, you have real moving sunny woods and green fields laid out one
after the other. As Cyril said, and I can't think where he got hold of
such a strange expression, "It does you a fair treat!" It was most
wonderful and more like real magic than any wish the children had had
yet. They flapped and flew and sailed on their great rainbow wings,
between green earth and blue sky; and they flew over Rochester and then
swerved round towards Maidstone, and presently they all began to feel
extremely hungry. Curiously enough, this happened when they were flying
rather low, and just as they were crossing an orchard where some early
plums shone red and ripe.
They paused on their wings. I cannot explain to you how this is done,
but it is something like treading water when you are swimming, and hawks
do it extremely well.
"Yes, I daresay," said Cyril, though no one had spoken. "But stealing is
stealing even if you've got wings."
"Do you really think so?" said Jane briskly. "If you've got wings you're
a bird, and no one minds birds breaking the commandments. At least,
they may _mind_, but the birds always do it, and no one scolds them or
sends them to prison."
It was not so easy to perch on a plum-tree as you might think, because
the rainbow wings were so _very_ large; but somehow they all managed to
do it, and the plums were certainly very sweet and juicy.
Fortunately, it was not till they had all had quite as many plums as
were good for them that they saw a stout man, who looked exactly as
though he owned the plum-trees, come hurrying through the orchard gate
with a thick stick, and with one accord they disentangled their wings
from the plum-laden branches and began to fly.
The man stopped short, with his mouth open. For he had seen the boughs
of his trees moving and twitching, and he had said to himself, "Them
young varmint--at it again!" And he had come out at once, for the lads
of the village had taught him in past seasons that plums want looking
after. But when he saw the rainbow wings flutter up out of the
plum-tree he felt that he must have gone quite mad, and he did not like
the feeling at all. And when Anthea looked down and saw his mouth go
slowly open, and stay so, and his face become green and mauve in
patches, she called out--
"Don't be frightened," and felt hastily in her pocket for a
threepenny-bit with a hole in it, which she had meant to hang on a
ribbon round her neck, for luck. She hovered round the unfortunate
plum-owner, and said, "We have had some of your plums; we thought it
wasn't stealing, but now I am not so sure. So here's some money to pay
for them."
She swooped down toward the terror-stricken grower of plums, and slipped
the coin into the pocket of his jacket, and in a few flaps she had
rejoined the others.
The farmer sat down on the grass, suddenly and heavily.
"Well--I'm blessed!" he said. "This here is what they call delusions, I
suppose. But this here threepenny"--he had pulled it out and bitten
it,--"_that's_ real enough. Well, from this day forth I'll be a better
man. It's the kind of thing to sober a chap for life, this is. I'm glad
it was only wings, though. I'd rather see the birds as aren't there, and
couldn't be, even if they pretend to talk, than some things as I could
name."
He got up slowly and heavily, and went indoors, and he was so nice to
his wife that day that she felt quite happy, and said to herself, "Law,
whatever have a-come to the man!" and smartened herself up and put a
blue ribbon bow at the place where her collar fastened on, and looked so
pretty that he was kinder than ever. So perhaps the winged children
really did do one good thing that day. If so, it was the only one; for
really there is nothing like wings for getting you into trouble. But, on
the other hand, if you are in trouble, there is nothing like wings for
getting you out of it.
This was the case in the matter of the fierce dog who sprang out at them
when they had folded up their wings as small as possible and were going
up to a farm door to ask for a crust of bread and cheese, for in
spite of the plums they were soon just as hungry as ever again.
Now there is no doubt whatever that, if the four had been ordinary
wingless children, that black and fierce dog would have had a good bite
out of the brown-stockinged leg of Robert, who was the nearest. But at
its first growl there was a flutter of wings, and the dog was left to
strain at his chain and stand on his hind-legs as if he were trying to
fly too.
They tried several other farms, but at those where there were no dogs
the people were far too frightened to do anything but scream; and at
last, when it was nearly four o'clock, and their wings were getting
miserably stiff and tired, they alighted on a church-tower and held a
council of war.
"We can't possibly fly all the way home without dinner _or_ tea," said
Robert with desperate decision.
"And nobody will give us any dinner, or even lunch, let alone tea," said
Cyril.
"Perhaps the clergyman here might," suggested Anthea. "He must know all
about angels"--
"Anybody could see we're not that," said Jane. "Look at Robert's boots
and Squirrel's plaid necktie."
"Well," said Cyril firmly, "if the country you're in won't _sell_
provisions, you _take_ them. In wars I mean. I'm quite certain you do.
And even in other stories no good brother would allow his little sisters