Alba Marina Rivera |
Saki
Hector Hugh Munro
THE STORY-TELLER
It was a hot afternoon, and the railway carriage was correspondingly
sultry, and the next stop was at Templecombe, nearly an hour ahead. The
occupants of the carriage were a small girl, and a smaller girl, and a small
boy. An aunt belonging to the children occupied one corner seat, and the
further corner seat on the opposite side was occupied by a bachelor who was a
stranger to their party, but the small girls and the small boy emphatically
occupied the compartment. Both the aunt and the children were conversational in
a limited, persistent way, reminding one of the attentions of a housefly that
refuses to be discouraged. Most of the aunt's remarks seemed to begin with
"Don't," and nearly all of the children's remarks began with
"Why?" The bachelor said nothing out loud. "Don't, Cyril,
don't," exclaimed the aunt, as the small boy began smacking the cushions
of the seat, producing a cloud of dust at each blow.
"Come
and look out of the window," she added.
The
child moved reluctantly to the window. "Why are those sheep being driven
out of that field?" he asked.
"I
expect they are being driven to another field where there is more grass,"
said the aunt weakly.
"But
there is lots of grass in that field," protested the boy; "there's
nothing else but grass there. Aunt, there's lots of grass in that field."
"Perhaps
the grass in the other field is better," suggested the aunt fatuously.
"Why
is it better?" came the swift, inevitable question.
"Oh,
look at those cows!" exclaimed the aunt. Nearly every field along the line
had contained cows or bullocks, but she spoke as though she were drawing
attention to a rarity.
"Why
is the grass in the other field better?" persisted Cyril.
The
frown on the bachelor's face was deepening to a scowl. He was a hard,
unsympathetic man, the aunt decided in her mind. She was utterly unable to come
to any satisfactory decision about the grass in the other field.
The
smaller girl created a diversion by beginning to recite "On the Road to Mandalay."
She only knew the first line, but she put her limited knowledge to the fullest
possible use. She repeated the line over and over again in a dreamy but
resolute and very audible voice; it seemed to the bachelor as though some one
had had a bet with her that she could not repeat the line aloud two thousand
times without stopping. Whoever it was who had made the wager was likely to
lose his bet.
"Come
over here and listen to a story," said the aunt, when the bachelor had
looked twice at her and once at the communication cord.
The
children moved listlessly towards the aunt's end of the carriage. Evidently her
reputation as a story- teller did not rank high in their estimation.
In a
low, confidential voice, interrupted at frequent intervals by loud, petulant
questionings from her listeners, she began an unenterprising and deplorably
uninteresting story about a little girl who was good, and made friends with
every one on account of her goodness, and was finally saved from a mad bull by
a number of rescuers who admired her moral character.
"Wouldn't
they have saved her if she hadn't been good?" demanded the bigger of the
small girls. It was exactly the question that the bachelor had wanted to ask.
"Well,
yes," admitted the aunt lamely, "but I don't think they would have
run quite so fast to her help if they had not liked her so much."
"It's
the stupidest story I've ever heard," said the bigger of the small girls,
with immense conviction.
"I
didn't listen after the first bit, it was so stupid," said Cyril.
The
smaller girl made no actual comment on the story, but she had long ago
recommenced a murmured repetition of her favourite line.
"You
don't seem to be a success as a story-teller," said the bachelor suddenly
from his corner.
The
aunt bristled in instant defence at this unexpected attack.
"It's
a very difficult thing to tell stories that children can both understand and
appreciate," she said stiffly.
"I
don't agree with you," said the bachelor.
"Perhaps
you would like to tell them a story," was the aunt's retort.
"Tell
us a story," demanded the bigger of the small girls.
"Once
upon a time," began the bachelor, "there was a little girl called
Bertha, who was extra-ordinarily good."
The
children's momentarily-aroused interest began at once to flicker; all stories
seemed dreadfully alike, no matter who told them.
"She
did all that she was told, she was always truthful, she kept her clothes clean,
ate milk puddings as though they were jam tarts, learned her lessons perfectly,
and was polite in her manners."
"Was
she pretty?" asked the bigger of the small girls.
"Not
as pretty as any of you," said the bachelor, "but she was horribly
good."
There
was a wave of reaction in favour of the story; the word horrible in connection
with goodness was a novelty that commended itself. It seemed to introduce a
ring of truth that was absent from the aunt's tales of infant life.
"She
was so good," continued the bachelor, "that she won several medals
for goodness, which she always wore, pinned on to her dress. There was a medal
for obedience, another medal for punctuality, and a third for good behaviour.
They were large metal medals and they clicked against one another as she
walked. No other child in the town where she lived had as many as three medals,
so everybody knew that she must be an extra good child."
"Horribly
good," quoted Cyril.
"Everybody
talked about her goodness, and the Prince of the country got to hear about it,
and he said that as she was so very good she might be allowed once a week to
walk in his park, which was just outside the town. It was a beautiful park, and
no children were ever allowed in it, so it was a great honour for Bertha to be
allowed to go there."
"Were
there any sheep in the park?" demanded Cyril.
"No;"
said the bachelor, "there were no sheep."
"Why
weren't there any sheep?" came the inevitable question arising out of that
answer.
The
aunt permitted herself a smile, which might almost have been described as a
grin.
"There
were no sheep in the park," said the bachelor, "because the Prince's
mother had once had a dream that her son would either be killed by a sheep or
else by a clock falling on him. For that reason the Prince never kept a sheep
in his park or a clock in his palace."
The
aunt suppressed a gasp of admiration.
"Was
the Prince killed by a sheep or by a clock?" asked Cyril.
"He
is still alive, so we can't tell whether the dream will come true," said
the bachelor unconcernedly; "anyway, there were no sheep in the park, but
there were lots of little pigs running all over the place."
"What
colour were they?"
"Black
with white faces, white with black spots, black all over, grey with white
patches, and some were white all over."
The
storyteller paused to let a full idea of the park's treasures sink into the
children's imaginations; then he resumed:
"Bertha
was rather sorry to find that there were no flowers in the park. She had
promised her aunts, with tears in her eyes, that she would not pick any of the
kind Prince's flowers, and she had meant to keep her promise, so of course it
made her feel silly to find that there were no flowers to pick."
"Why
weren't there any flowers?"
"Because
the pigs had eaten them all," said the bachelor promptly. "The
gardeners had told the Prince that you couldn't have pigs and flowers, so he
decided to have pigs and no flowers."
There
was a murmur of approval at the excellence of the Prince's decision; so many
people would have decided the other way.
"There
were lots of other delightful things in the park. There were ponds with gold
and blue and green fish in them, and trees with beautiful parrots that said
clever things at a moment's notice, and humming birds that hummed all the
popular tunes of the day. Bertha walked up and down and enjoyed herself
immensely, and thought to herself: 'If I were not so extraordinarily good I
should not have been allowed to come into this beautiful park and enjoy all
that there is to be seen in it,' and her three medals clinked against one
another as she walked and helped to remind her how very good she really was.
Just then an enormous wolf came prowling into the park to see if it could catch
a fat little pig for its supper."
"What
colour was it?" asked the children, amid an immediate quickening of
interest.
"Mud-colour
all over, with a black tongue and pale grey eyes that gleamed with unspeakable
ferocity. The first thing that it saw in the park was Bertha; her pinafore was
so spotlessly white and clean that it could be seen from a great distance.
Bertha saw the wolf and saw that it was stealing towards her, and she began to
wish that she had never been allowed to come into the park. She ran as hard as
she could, and the wolf came after her with huge leaps and bounds. She managed
to reach a shrubbery of myrtle bushes and she hid herself in one of the
thickest of the bushes. The wolf came sniffing among the branches, its black
tongue lolling out of its mouth and its pale grey eyes glaring with rage.
Bertha was terribly frightened, and thought to herself: 'If I had not been so
extraordinarily good I should have been safe in the town at this moment.'
However, the scent of the myrtle was so strong that the wolf could not sniff
out where Bertha was hiding, and the bushes were so thick that he might have
hunted about in them for a long time without catching sight of her, so he
thought he might as well go off and catch a little pig instead. Bertha was
trembling very much at having the wolf prowling and sniffing so near her, and
as she trembled the medal for obedience clinked against the medals for good
conduct and punctuality. The wolf was just moving away when he heard the sound
of the medals clinking and stopped to listen; they clinked again in a bush
quite near him. He dashed into the bush, his pale grey eyes gleaming with
ferocity and triumph, and dragged Bertha out and devoured her to the last
morsel. All that was left of her were her shoes, bits of clothing, and the
three medals for goodness."
"Were
any of the little pigs killed?"
"No,
they all escaped."
"The
story began badly," said the smaller of the small girls, "but it had
a beautiful ending."
"It
is the most beautiful story that I ever heard," said the bigger of the
small girls, with immense decision.
"It
is the only beautiful story I have ever
heard," said Cyril.
A
dissentient opinion came from the aunt.
"A
most improper story to tell to young children! You have undermined the effect
of years of careful teaching."
"At
any rate," said the bachelor, collecting his belongings preparatory to
leaving the carriage, "I kept them quiet for ten minutes, which was more
than you were able to do."
"Unhappy
woman!" he observed to himself as he walked down the platform of Templecombe
station; "for the next six months or so those children will assail her in
public with demands for an improper story!"
Alba Marina Rivera |
No comments:
Post a Comment