Part 1
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By Eva March Tappan
THE HOUSE WITH THE SILVER DOOR. WHEN KNIGHTS WERE BOLD. DIXIE KITTEN. AN OLD, OLD STORY-BOOK. THE CHAUCER STORY BOOK. LETTERS FROM COLONIAL CHILDREN. AMERICAN HERO STORIES. THE STORY OF THE ROMAN PEOPLE. THE STORY OF THE GREEK PEOPLE. THE GOLDEN GOOSE AND OTHER FAIRY TALES. THE CHRIST STORY. OLD BALLADS IN PROSE.
All of the above are illustrated.
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
BOSTON AND NEW YORK
THE HOUSE WITH THE SILVER DOOR
[Illustration: (p. 30) THE CHILDREN TOLD THE MOON LADY]
THE HOUSE WITH THE SILVER DOOR
BY EVA MARCH TAPPAN
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS
[Illustration]
BOSTON AND NEW YORK HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY The Riverside Press Cambridge 1913
COPYRIGHT, 1913, BY EVA MARCH TAPPAN
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
_Published September 1913_
CONTENTS
I. THE HOUSE WITH THE SILVER DOOR 1
II. KING HANSEL THE FIRST 67
III. THE STAR PRINCESS 129
ILLUSTRATIONS
THE CHILDREN TOLD THE MOON LADY _Frontispiece_
SILVERBOY CALLED, “WHO’S THERE?” 52
A GREAT COARSE HAND PULLED HIM IN 94
“SHE IS FAIRER THAN ANY OF MY MAIDENS” 158
_From drawings by Emily Hall Chamberlain._
THE HOUSE WITH THE SILVER DOOR
THE HOUSE WITH THE SILVER DOOR
Once upon a time a man and his wife lived in a cottage in the forest, so far away that no one could think how far it was even if he tried for a month. They had two children, a boy and a girl. There was only one thing more that they wanted, and that was a silver door to the cottage.
“How I should like to have a silver door,” said the goodman, “so I could see the sun shine upon it at sunset when I came in from my work!”
“How I should like to have a silver door,” said the goodwife. “I should draw in the latchstring at night, and go to sleep thinking, ‘My door is made of silver, and how it will shine when the sun strikes it in the morning.’”
The children had heard this every day since they could remember, and when they had grown older, they determined to go away and see if they could not find a silver door for their father and mother.
Very early one morning, long before their parents were awake, Silverboy and Silvergirl, for those were their names, took hold of each other’s hand and went softly out of the cottage and far away. They climbed over fallen trees, they waded through brooks and mossy pools, they were caught in the briers, and they scrambled down breakneck cliffs. After a long time they came to the edge of the forest, but nowhere had they seen what they were looking for.
“What shall we do?” cried Silvergirl, sobbing. “I’m afraid we shall never find a silver door.”
Silverboy might have cried, too, if he had been alone, but now he plucked up his courage and answered bravely:--
“Oh, we’ll find it yet.”
“But we don’t even know where to look for it.”
“Do you see that great oak tree, the one with so many knots? I saw a squirrel run into a hole in the trunk just now. Maybe he’s the Wizard Squirrel himself, and I mean to ask him if he will tell us where to go.”
“Oh, don’t,” pleaded Silvergirl. “I am afraid he might hurt you.”
“Some wizards are bad,” declared Silverboy as wisely as if he had gone fishing with wizards every day of his life, “but some are good, and I’m almost sure that this is a good one.” Then he went under the tree and called softly:--
“Squirrel, squirrel, are you the Wizard Squirrel?”
“Wizard yourself!” scolded the squirrel, making up a comical face at him. “I wish you’d keep quiet; I want to eat my supper.”
“But won’t you please tell us where to look for a silver door?” begged Silverboy.
“In the place where they keep them, of course,” retorted the Wizard Squirrel, for it was really he himself.
“Won’t you please tell us where that is?” Silverboy persisted.
“Perhaps it is in the moon,” declared the Wizard Squirrel meditatively. “It looks as if there was a good deal of silver up there. Why don’t you ask the Moon King?” he added, dropping a bit of nutshell directly upon Silverboy’s nose. “Now, run away; you ask too many questions. Squirrels never ask questions at suppertime.”
“But we can’t get to the moon,” said Silverboy sadly.
“No more can you get to me,” retorted the Wizard Squirrel, “but you won’t stop talking to me.” And with a whisk of his bushy tail he slipped out of sight into his hole.
“He means that we shall call to the moon,” said Silvergirl.
They went out from the forest to an open field to watch for the moon, and soon it shone down clear and bright, and they cried:--
“O moon, moon, won’t you please help us and tell us where to find a silver door?”
But the moon sailed on among the little clouds and answered never a word. Right behind the children, however, they heard a funny little chattering. It was the Wizard Squirrel, and he called:--
“You are real moon calves! I never told you to call out in that fashion. I’ve thought of something. What will you do for me if I tell you which way to go to find a silver door?”
“I’ll give you a great pile of nuts,” said Silverboy.
“Ho, nuts, indeed!” declared the Wizard Squirrel. “I can get nuts myself, and I can go to the very tops of trees that you wouldn’t think of climbing.”
“I’ll do anything you say,” promised Silverboy eagerly.
“There’s just one thing that you can do for me,” said the Wizard Squirrel. “I don’t want the All-Alone Axe to cut down the Ancient Oak, and if you will go to the mountain over there and get him to promise to let it alone, you will be started on the right way to find the silver door. If he won’t do it, you may as well go home, for you’ll never find your door if you hunt till the skies fall. I can’t stop to talk with moon calves any longer,” and in a flash he was gone.
“Shall we do it?” asked Silvergirl; and her brother replied stoutly, “Yes, come on, and let us climb the mountain.”
So on they went, across the meadow and over the swamp and through the thicket and up the side of the mountain. When they were halfway to the top, they heard the sound of chopping. Then they heard the fall of a tree.
“That must be the All-Alone Axe,” said Silverboy. “It sounds as if it was over there, just behind the cliff. Come, and we will find the woodchopper and ask him not to cut down the Ancient Oak.”
They hurried around the cliff, but no woodchopper was there. Nothing at all was to be seen but a great axe chopping away all by its lone self.
“Please, Mr. All-Alone Axe,” said Silverboy, rather timidly, for he had never before seen an axe chopping away alone. “Please, Mr. All-Alone Axe, will you tell us where the woodchopper is?”
“Can’t you see?” demanded the All-Alone Axe sharply. “I’m chopping, and I’m chopping wood. What more woodchopper do you want?” And he cut away faster than ever.
The trees began to fall on the right and on the left, and Silvergirl was badly frightened. “Oh, if we only could get away!” she thought; but she called up all her courage and asked very politely:--
“Is there anything we can do for you, Mr. All-Alone Axe?”
“There’s a girl who knows an axe from a hatchet!” cried the All-Alone Axe; and he was so pleased that he actually stopped cutting for at least two minutes. “Yes,” he added; “over on that mountain the Gentle Giant lives, and after I have cut down some trees, he often comes and drags them away. If you’ll make him promise to let my trees alone, I’ll do whatever you want.”
“Will you let the Ancient Oak stand?” asked Silvergirl.
“I will,” replied the All-Alone Axe; so the children said good-bye and started for the mountain where the Gentle Giant lived.
It was a long, long way. They had to make a little raft before they could cross the river. They had to climb steep cliffs, to scramble down into deep gullies, and to creep over slippery rocks. At last they were well up the side of the Gentle Giant’s mountain; and now they began to hear a loud rustling as if all the winds of the heavens were blowing all the branches of all the trees. They caught hold of each other’s hand and stood listening. Pretty soon they heard, “Ho-ho! Ho-ho!” It sounded like some one taking a deep breath, but it was almost if not quite as loud as thunder. Silverboy and Silvergirl were so frightened that they would surely have run off down the mountain had not the Gentle Giant just then caught sight of them and roared out:--
“Ho, there! Stop, I say. I’m lonesome, I want to see you. Come here and talk to me.”
It was not of the least use to try to run away, for he had stretched out two hands as big as pine trees, and in a moment he had Silverboy in his right hand and Silvergirl in his left hand and was holding them up before his eyes to get a better view of them.
“Who are you?” he roared as softly as he could, for he was not one of the hateful giants, but one of the good-natured sort. “Where are you going?”
“We’re going to find a silver door for the cottage,” shouted Silverboy as loud as ever he could.
“Eh?” roared the Gentle Giant. “What’s that? Talk a little louder, can’t you?” And he held the children up to his ear.
Then Silvergirl screamed with all her might:--
“We’re going to find a silver door for the cottage.”
“That’s all right,” said the Gentle Giant, with a laugh that shook the trees like a tempest. “I wonder if _she’d_ like a silver door,” he added, trying to look through the trees to another mountain even higher than his. “When you find your silver door, you might come up here and tell me about it,” he said with a chuckle. “If you are going up on _that_ mountain, I’ll carry you over the swamp and halfway up the hill. I don’t dare to go any farther.”
“Why, how could any one hurt _you_?” cried Silverboy, taking hold of the Gentle Giant’s ear with both hands and shouting into it.
The Gentle Giant seemed so good-natured that the children did not feel one bit afraid; but now something happened that did frighten them, for the giant began to cry, and he cried such floods of tears that they had to cling to his fingers with all their might to keep from being washed off and down the side of the mountain.
“I’m sorry as I can be,” said Silvergirl. “Don’t cry, Mr. Gentle Giant.” And Silverboy called, “We’ll help you, and there shan’t anybody hurt you.”
The Gentle Giant laughed till he was almost crying again, and he shook so that the children had to hold on harder than ever. Then he said:--
“Come up on the mountain and see my house and eat dinner with me, will you? I’m lonesome up there, and it isn’t often that I get any children to come and play with me.”
Of course they said yes, and he carried them carefully up the mountain to the biggest house that they ever saw. It was built of logs, bigger than any trees that grew in their own forest. The door was so high that the clouds could have floated in as easy as anything. In one corner was the bed. To make it, the giant had driven into the floor a stake, or rather the trunk of a great pine tree. He had laid long rails from this stake to the two walls, shutting in the corner. On top of the rails were stout boughs, and on top of the boughs were whole barnfuls of soft spruce and fir and hemlock branches, until there was as comfortable a bed as was ever seen. For a table he had driven another tree trunk into the middle of the floor. Then he had split in two the biggest tree on the mountain and had fastened it to the top of the trunk, the flat side up. At one end of the room was the chimney, and that was large enough to roast at least ten oxen, eleven deer, and fifteen bears, with plenty of room between them for pigs and partridges.
“I don’t feel hungry to-day,” said the Gentle Giant, “so I put on only five oxen, four deer, and three bears to roast, with perhaps half a dozen little pigs; but now I have company, I’ll hang up a few partridges, too, just for a relish.”
He hung a score or two of partridges in front of the fire, and when they were done, he called the children to sit down and eat with him, though at first it was rather hard to see how they could do it. He put them on two of his wooden stools, but, stretch their necks as they might, they could not see over the edge of the table.
“We’ll soon fix that,” declared the Gentle Giant.
He went to the end of the room, not more than a quarter of a mile away, and brought back his tallest churn. He set it on the stool bottomside up, and put Silvergirl on top of it.
“I haven’t any other churn that is tall enough for you,” said the giant, “but I’ll just bring in a pebble and put a cushion on it.”
So out of the door he went and soon came back with a stone in his hand big enough for a doorstep. He set that up on the stool and laid a cushion on top of it, and then they were ready for dinner.
“Which will you have first,” he asked, “an ox or a bear?”
“Could I have a partridge?” asked Silvergirl.
“Just as many of them as you want,” replied the giant. “In my country we always ate the oxen and bears first; but you shall do as you like.”
So he gave each of the children some partridges, and then he himself began on the oxen. One by one they disappeared, and the pile of bones beside his plate grew higher and higher, till at last the children could not see his face at all. Through the bones, however, his great voice came rumbling as he called: “Aren’t you ready for your oxen yet, or will you have a deer or two and a few little pigs?”
He did not wait for an answer, but piled up oxen and bears and deer and pigs on the table before them.
“Truly, Mr. Gentle Giant,” declared Silverboy, “we can’t eat any more. Couldn’t you eat these?”
“Perhaps,” replied the giant, “though I don’t seem to have so much appetite as usual. I’ll take just a bite or two more and then we’ll all sit down under the trees and you can tell me where you are going and what you know about silver doors. I know a lady who--I mean I might want to find one myself some day.”
The Gentle Giant had already eaten the five oxen and the four deer, and now he ate the three bears and the little pigs. “Just one mouthful more to leave a good taste,” he said, and in two minutes the rest of the partridges were gone.
“Now come out of doors,” he called, and led the way to the great door, but the children did not follow him. “What’s the matter?” he asked.
“We can’t get down,” they replied.
The Gentle Giant laughed until the stars would have rattled in the sky if it had been night. “I don’t have company of your size very often,” he said, “and I forget my manners.” Then he took Silvergirl in one great hand and Silverboy in the other and carried them out under the trees. “I’ll lie down on the moss,” he said, “and you can talk right into my ear. Tell me who you are and where you are going.”
So the Gentle Giant stretched himself out on the ground and Silverboy called into his ear:--
“We live in a cottage in our own forest, far as far away from here. Our father and our mother want a silver door, and we are going to find one for them.”
“How do you know where to look?” asked the Gentle Giant, rather drowsily, for he was getting sleepy.
“We asked the Wizard Squirrel, and he told us to go to the All-Alone Axe. The All-Alone Axe told us to come here. We thought at first that the Wizard Squirrel meant us to call out to the Moon King, but he didn’t.”
“Eh!” shouted the Gentle Giant, starting up. “What’s that?”
“We thought he meant that we should call out to the Moon King, but he didn’t,” repeated Silverboy.
“Are you sure as sure that he didn’t say ‘the Moon Lady’?” demanded the Gentle Giant eagerly.
“No, he didn’t,” Silverboy answered, “but he said we must get the All-Alone Axe to promise not to cut down the Ancient Oak.”
“Did he promise?” the Gentle Giant asked.
“He said he would not touch the Ancient Oak if we could get you to promise not to drag away his trees after he has cut them down.”
“But I have to,” declared the Gentle Giant earnestly. “You see, I must build a big house to bring her to if she should ever marry me.”
“It seems to me that your house is pretty big now,” said Silvergirl.
But the Gentle Giant shook his great head.
“No,” he said. “I wanted it as big as all outdoors, but it isn’t more than half as big.”
“When is she coming?” asked Silverboy.
“I don’t know,” replied the Gentle Giant sadly. “When I asked her to marry me, she only laughed; but maybe she’ll change her mind some day, and I should be so ashamed if I hadn’t a house big enough for her.”
And the Gentle Giant dropped a tear as big as a waterpail. It fell upon Silvergirl and wet her from head to foot, but the Gentle Giant was so busy thinking that he did not notice the mischief he had done.
“I hope she’ll come,” declared Silverboy warmly.
“So do I,” said Silvergirl.
The Gentle Giant sat for a long while gazing on a mountain that could just be seen through the trees. He seemed to be hard at work thinking. At last he turned to Silvergirl and asked:--
“So you really think this house is big enough, do you?”
“Indeed I do,” declared Silvergirl.
“I suppose you ought to know what a lady would like better than a great clumsy fellow like me,” the Gentle Giant mused. Then he said suddenly, “I’ll tell you what I’ll do. If you will get the Moon Lady to say she’ll marry me, I’ll not drag away any more trees from the All-Alone Axe, and I’ll carry you both halfway up her mountain besides.”
“We’ll try our very best,” said the children.
Then the Gentle Giant set Silverboy on his right shoulder and Silvergirl on his left, and away they went to the Moon Lady’s mountain. When you ride on the shoulder of a giant who can take a quarter of a mile at a stride, even a long journey is soon done, and before they had any idea that they were halfway up the mountain, the Gentle Giant whispered as softly as he could:--
“Here you are, little folk. Just go up the mountain, and you’ll be at her house in no time.”
“Come with us,” the children pleaded, for it seemed very lonesome to be left in the forest without the good-natured giant.
But he shook his head and whispered so gently that it was not much louder than a waterfall:--
“I don’t dare. She might look right at me and laugh and ask what I had come for, and then I should feel so ashamed. You go on, and if she only says she will marry me, tie a burning torch to the pine tree at the top of the mountain, and I’ll come and get you all and carry you wherever you wish.” And before the children could say another word, they heard his steps crashing down through the trees.
They went on and on toward the top of the mountain, and just as the sun was setting, they began to see something shining through the trees. It looked like glass and cream candy and rainbows, like brooks in the sunshine and quiet pools in the moonlight. It flashed and glowed and gleamed and sparkled. When they came nearer, they saw that it was a splendid palace, and looking out of one of the windows was the most beautiful lady that they had ever seen. She was laughing more musically than they had ever heard any one laugh before. The sound was like that made by little brooks rippling over stones, or little waves running up on the shore. When she caught sight of the children, she called:--
“Come in, you little dears. I’ll meet you at the door.”
She disappeared from the window, but they could hear her laughing happily as she tripped though the halls. In a minute she stood in the doorway, holding out her hands to them. She wore a silken gown almost as yellow as the sunshine. Her hair, too, was yellow and hung down to the ground in long ripples that gleamed and shimmered as the sunbeams touched them. On her head was a golden crescent, and above it was just one golden star. The children stood gazing at her, for in all their lives they had never seen any one half so lovely.
“Well, what is it?” she called lightly. “Am I so ugly? You stand there gazing at me as if I were a monster.”
“I did not know anybody could be so beautiful,” cried Silverboy honestly. Silvergirl slipped up beside her, and the Moon Lady took her little brown hand in her own and began to laugh from pure pleasure and merriment.
“Come in,” she cried, “come in. I’ve been waiting for you. I knew you were coming. It’s hard to keep secrets from the Moon Lady. Secrets are such nice things to laugh at, don’t you think so?” she called to Silverboy; and in a minute she had his hand, too, and was leading both the children into the palace and up the broad marble stairs. “Now,” she said, “I have one room full of candy, and another full of toys, and another full of brooks to sail boats in, and another full of ponies for children to ride, and another full of pretty gardens to play in, and--”
“But how can there be gardens and brooks in a room in a house?” asked Silvergirl, gazing at her with great wondering eyes.