Chapter 14. Under The Sea

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_ CHAPTER XIV. UNDER THE SEA

THE four mice had been settled at Glenwood for more than two weeks before I was able to pay them one of my evening visits. Little Puff had been very ill indeed, and all my spare time had been devoted to her. Besides this, there was a revolution in Meteoria (the place where the meteors come from, my dears), and numbers of the inhabitants had emigrated, and had been whizzing past my palace constantly, requiring my utmost care to prevent it from catching fire.

But the revolution was over in a week, and about the same time Puff began to be a little better. Then she went on improving so fast that I thought I really must go and tell her brothers and sisters about it. So off to Glenwood I went one fine night, where I was greeted, as usual, with a chorus of delight.

"Oh! Mr. Moonman!" cried Fluff, clapping her hands. "And we thought he didn't know the way here! How _did_ you know where to find us, Mr. Moonman, dear?"

"Why, if you come to that," I replied, "there are very few places in the world that I cannot find, and Glenwood is not a very hard one to discover, my mouse. Now I have good news for you. I have just come from Puff's nursery; she sends her love to you all, and says she is nearly well, and wants to know what you have been doing all this time."

Then rose a clamor of questions from all sides, which I answered as best I could. Yes, she sat up every day, and she had broiled chicken for dinner, and dip-toast for supper, and Uncle Jack had given her a lovely new doll, with flaxen hair curling all over her head, whose name was Scarlatina Clematis Alfarata; but Puff called her Tina, "for short."

"Did I know that Downy had been ill?" Brighteyes asked.

"No I did not know it! What had been the matter?"

"Oh! it wasn't much!" broke in Nibble: "I don't see why they made such a fuss about it. I made a feast for him, because Aunt Grace wanted me to amuse him while she gave Brighteyes her French lesson; and I cooked the feast in Roger's little stove, and some of the black paint got into the food and made it disagree with him. Things are always disagreeing with people; I don't see why. People eat oil, and I don't see why they shouldn't eat paint; there's a great deal of oil in paint, Uncle Jack told me so."

"Well," I said, "you might spread paint instead of butter on your bread, and see how you like it. Personally, I am inclined to take Downy's view of the matter. But now, we must not stop too long, for we have a long way to go to-night. I am going to fulfil my promise at last, and take you to see Patty! What do you say to that, all four of you?"

The mice did not say much that was intelligible, but their shrieks of delight, their jumping and clapping of hands, were quite satisfactory. The big cloud was waiting outside, and the seven Winds were there, too, impatient for a frolic; so I tumbled my mice and their cousin mouse out of their beds and into their soft white carriage, and away we all went post-haste, or rather comet-haste, for it is a long way to the Indian Ocean. Merrily puffed the winds, and merrily chattered the five little ones; we told stories, and sang songs, and altogether the trip was made so quickly that we were almost sorry to hear the Winds talking Hindostanee to the waves of the great silent water over which we were sweeping. Down floated the cloud, down and down, until it rested lightly on a bit of smooth sandy beach.

"Out with you, mice of mine!" I said. So the mice tumbled out of the cloud again, and looked about them in much amazement and some terror.

"I fink I'm afraid!" said Downy to me, confidentially.

"Oh, no!" I replied. "You are not afraid. You are delighted, my dear, but you are delighted in Hindostanee, and that may be a different sensation from being delighted in English."

This explanation seemed to comfort the little fellow, so I turned to the elder mice and said, "Patty is expecting you to-night, so everything will be in readiness. All you have to do is to go out on that flat rock yonder, and wait till a fish comes and speaks to you. Then you must say--

"'Bobbily Bungaloo, Indian fish.
To visit your mistress is what I wish.'

"After that he will manage everything for you, and will take you at once to Patty. I shall wait here till you return, for going under the water is very apt to give me the asthma. Run, now, and be good, all of you!"

It required some courage for the little ones to leave their old friend and start off on such a strange and out-of-the-way expedition; but Nibble and Brighteyes led the way boldly, and the three others followed, clinging closely to each other. They soon reached the rock, and found Bobbily Bungaloo swimming about, waiting for them. He greeted them kindly, and bade them follow him, and one by one they all disappeared under the water.

Of course, however, I can see perfectly well what goes on under the water. Dear me, yes! it would be a pity if I could not do that. I saw the mice go down, down, down, through the clear water. All around them swam myriads of fishes, all eager to greet the little strangers who had come so far. There were large fishes and small fishes, some all head and some all tail, some ugly enough to frighten one, and others so beautiful that the children were sorely tempted to catch them and carry them home. All were kind and friendly, and said many pleasant things, which Bobbily Bungaloo, who is a very learned fish, translated into English for the mice's benefit. At length they arrived at the bottom of the sea, and saw at a little distance before them, the palace of my cousin Patty. As I may have told you before, this palace is simply a huge round pearl, hollowed out into many chambers. A more superb dwelling-place can hardly be imagined. It is really like a small moon under the water, so bright and beautiful is it. The children were speechless with admiration and wonder, as they well might be.

"H'm!" said a fat oyster, opening her shell to peep at them, "I should think they had never seen a pearl before. My necklace also is worth looking at, if they only knew enough to look down."

But the mice had no eyes for anything except the pearl palace, especially as Patty herself now appeared in the doorway, waiting to welcome her little guests.

She kissed them all, and led them into a great hall, the walls and ceiling of which were of mother-of-pearl, while the floor was of pink coral, laid in a hundred beautiful patterns. At one end of the hall was a throne of pearl, and on this Patty seated herself, bidding the children sit down on some pretty pink coral stools beside her.

"Now, my dears," she said, "what shall Patty do to amuse her little friends? I think we will have some lunch first, for you must be hungry after your long journey. Then I will take you through the palace, and then you shall sail in one of my pretty boats. How does that programme please you?"

She rang a bell, and a tall merman in a splendid livery, glistening with pearl buttons, made his appearance, carrying a huge silver tray heaped with sea-delicacies. The children were really hungry, and they soon found that the dishes were as good as they were strange.

"What _is_ this, Patty?" asked Brighteyes; "it is delicious, but I cannot imagine what it is."

"That," said Patty, "is a fricassee of sea-anemones. They are very nice, I think, and we cook them in a great many different ways. Nibble, there, is eating fried gold-fish, and Fluff and Roger are busy over a dish of scallops in jelly."

"Oh! how nice everything is!" sighed Fluff; "I wish I knew whether it were all real or not. Mr. Moonman always laughs at me when I ask him if I am dreaming him and all the good times we have with him. Are you real, Patty? do tell me!"

But Patty only laughed and said, "I am as real as a great many things in this world, dear child! Take some anemones, and don't trouble yourself about their being real, as long as they are good."

When the children had finished their lunch, she took Downy by the hand, and bade the rest follow her: and then she led them through the different rooms of the wonderful palace. Dear! dear! such a palace as it was! I really thought those mice would never get their mouths shut again, so wide did they open them in their amazement. The first room they went through was hung with green sea-weed, beautifully fringed, and the carpet was of softest moss. Here were sitting numbers of pretty mermaids, sewing and embroidering on great pieces of kelp, with needles made of the spines of some fish. They all nodded and smiled at the children, but did not speak, for they knew nothing but Hindostanee.

"To think," murmured Brighteyes, softly, "that we should really be in the same room with a dozen mermaids! and their neat little tails _are_ covered with scales, just as the song says, and they are sitting in pink coral chairs. Oh! if I could only find out where the sea-flower grows, so that I might remember all this!"

Then they passed through halls of deep-red coral, and lovely little rooms which seemed entirely made of small bright shells set closely together, until they came to the Sun and Moon rooms, which my good Patty has named in honor of my brother and me. The Sun room is all gold from floor to ceiling, burnished gold, which shines so that one really has to shade one's eyes on going into it. From the glittering ceiling hang numbers of diamond lamps, which swing perpetually to and fro with a slow, steady motion, flashing and sparkling like real sunbeams. My room, which is next to this gorgeous apartment, is no less beautiful, being all of fretted silver, with lamps of pearl, which shed a lovely soft light nearly equal to that of my own beams, though not so bright. Of course the mice were enchanted beyond measure with all this splendor; but when they begged to be allowed to stay in the lovely silver room and play, Patty smiled and said, "we have yet many things to see, dear children, and the night is short. Besides, puss-in-the-corner is no better fun in a silver room than in a plastered nursery. Come then, and see the play-room of my little mermaids!"

She threw open a door, and there was a sight which made the mice fairly squeak with amazement and delight. It was a vast room, all of white coral, with lovely pictures painted on the walls and ceiling, and as full as it could be of little tiny sea-children, frolicking about, and playing just as many pranks as land-babies play. They surrounded the children with exclamations of wonder and delight. Children must have a language of their own, certainly, for though the Indian sea-babies knew no more of English than the American babies did of Hindostanee, it was not ten minutes before they were all perfectly good friends, and were playing together in the most delightful way. Nibble and Roger were almost breaking their necks in the vain endeavor to turn somersaults as fast as their little friends with the tails. Brighteyes was hugging and petting "the loveliest baby in the world, if it _hasn't_ any toes," which she had taken from its nurse's arms, while Fluff and a little mermaiden of her own age were deeply confidential in a corner, on the subject of their respective dolls. Fancy, will you, children all, a white coral doll with a long pearly tail, and hair of pale yellow sea moss, very fine and soft! Truly, it was a lovely creature, and Fluff would gladly have exchanged the most cherished of her waxen babies for it. The little mermaid sang pretty songs to her dolly, and rocked it in a cradle of amber with sea-weed curtains. Presently Patty said, "Little Fluff, will you not sing an English song for my sea-babies? sing something about flowers and fairies, for those are things that we have not here, and the little ones like to hear about them."

So my Fluff sang this little song, which she called "The Fairy Wedding:"

Blue bell, bonny bell, ring for the wedding!
Gallant young Hyacinth's married the rose;
Here we all wait for the marriage procession,
Standing up high on our tippy-toe-toes.

Blue bell, bonny bell, ring for the wedding!
First the three ushers on grasshoppers ride;
Coxcomb, Larkspur, and gallant Sweet William,
Handsome young dandies as ever I spied.

Here in a coach come the bride's rich relations,
Old Madame Damask and old Mr. Moss;
Greatly I fear she has not won their blessing,
Else they'd not look so uncommonly cross.

Here comes his Excellence Baron de Goldburg,
Leading the Dowager Duchess of Snail;
Feathers and fringe on the top of her bonnet,
Roses and rings on the end of her tail.

Blue bell, bonny bell, ring for the wedding!
Here come the bridesmaids by two and by two.
Gay little Primrose, fair little Snowdrop,
Peachblossom, Jasmine and Eglantine too.

Last come the lovers, wrapped up in each other,
Thinking of love, and of little beside;
Blue bell, bonnie bell, ring for the wedding!
Health and long life to the beautiful bride!

Loud were the cries of delight over Fluffy's song; but they soon changed into exclamations of sorrow, when Patty told the mice that they must bid good-bye to their little sea friends, as it was nearly time for them to go home. All the little sea-maidens and boys pressed round them, kissing them, and begging them to come again, which they gladly promised to do. Fluffy hugged her new friend and said "good-bye, you dear! I think you _must_ be real, you are so lovely!" and so they left the beautiful play-room, and the coral doors shut behind them.

At the gate of the palace they found a lovely boat waiting for them. It was a great purple mussel-shell, lined with pearl, and cushioned with softest moss. In this Patty told the mice to seat themselves, and then, kissing them all, she bade them good-bye, and touched the shell with her silver wand. Up floated the strange boat, up and up, while the children leaned over the side as far as they dared, and threw kisses to their "dear delightful lovely Patty!" Multitudes of fishes surrounded them as before, and Bobbily Bungaloo, as a guard of honor, swam before the boat. At last I, waiting patiently by the rock, saw the five little heads rise above the water. Lightly my pets jumped from their purple boat; they bade farewell to Bobbily Bungaloo and his train, and then came running to me, all talking at once, and so fast that their remarks sounded quite as much like Hindostanee as like English.

"Now," I said, "you shall tell me all about everything as we go along; but we must start at once, for there is no time to be lost, I assure you!"

So they wrapped themselves up in their cloud again, and the Winds blew, and the children chattered, and the cloud flew through the air at a tremendous rate. Indeed, our seven little airy friends were so bent upon showing their utmost speed that they forgot where they were going, and would have blown my mice to California if I had not stopped them. As it was, it was nearly daybreak when we reached Glenwood. The seven Winds were so weary that they did not trouble themselves about the cloud after the children had got out of it, but bidding the little ones farewell, they fell fast asleep in the bed of lilies under the window; and I also departed, while my pets called after me, thanking me for "the most delightful of all the delightful nights!" _

Read next: Chapter 17. Good-Bye

Read previous: Chapter 15. Following A Sunbeam

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