The Joyous Story of Toto

After they were gone, the King, who was very impatient, summoned his Wise Men, and bade them look in all the books, and find out how many kinds of singing-birds there were in the world. The Wise Men all put their spectacles on their noses, and their noses into their books, and after studying a long time, and adding up on their slates the number of birds described in each book, they found that there were in all nine thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine varieties of singing-birds.

They made their report to the King, and he was rather troubled by it; for he remembered that the Second Musician had said he must eat every morsel of the pie himself, or the charm would have no effect. It would be a very large pie, he thought, with nine thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine birds in it. “The only way,” he 35 said to himself, “will be for me to eat as little as possible until the huntsmen come back; then I shall be very hungry. I have never been very hungry in my life, so there is no knowing how much I could eat if I were.” So the King ate nothing from one week’s end to another, except bread and dripping; and by the time the huntsmen returned he was so thin that it was really shocking.

At last, after a long time, the sixty huntsmen returned, laden down with huge bags, the contents of which they piled up in a great heap in the middle of the courtyard. A mountain of birds! Such a thing had never been seen before. The mountain was so high that everybody thought the full number of birds must be there; and the Chief Cook began to make his preparations, and sent to borrow the garden roller from John the gardener, as his own was not big enough to roll out such a quantity of paste.

The King and the Wise Men next proceeded to count the birds. But alas! what was their sorrow 36 to find that the number fell short by one! They counted again and again; but it was of no use: there were only nine thousand nine hundred and ninety-eight birds in the pile.

The next thing was to find out what bird was missing. So the Wise Men sorted all the birds, and compared them with the pictures in the books, and studied so hard that they wore out three pairs of spectacles apiece; and at last they discovered that the missing bird was the “Golden breasted Kootoo.” The chief Wise Man read aloud from the biggest book: —

“The Golden-breasted Kootoo, the most beautiful and the most melodious of singing birds, is found only in secluded parts of the Vale of Coringo. Its plumage is of a brilliant golden yellow, except on the back, where it is streaked with green. Its beak is – ”

“There! there!” interrupted the King impatiently; “never mind about its beak. Tell the Lord Chamberlain to pack my best wig and a clean shirt, and send them after me by a courier; and, 37 Chief Huntsman, follow me. We start this moment for the Vale of Coringo!”

And actually, if you will believe it, the King did start off in less than an hour from the counting of the birds. He rode on horseback, and was accompanied only by the Chief Huntsman and the jews-harp band, the courier being obliged to wait for the King’s best wig to be curled.

The poor Band had a hard time of it; for he had a very frisky horse, and found it extremely difficult to manage the beast with one hand and hold the jews-harp with the other; but the King, with much ingenuity, fastened the head of the horse to the tail of his own steady cob, thereby enabling the musician to give all his attention to his instrument. The music was a trifle jerky at times; but what of that? It was music, and the King was satisfied.

They rode night and day, and at length arrived at the Vale of Coringo, and took lodgings at the principal hotel. The King was very weary, as he had been riding for a week without stopping. So he went to bed at once, and slept for two whole days.

On the morning of the third day he was roused from a wonderful dream (in which he was singing a duet with the Golden-breasted Kootoo, to a jews-harp accompaniment) by the sound of music. The King sat up in bed, and listened. It was a bird’s song that he heard, and it seemed to come from the vines outside his window. But what a song it was! And what a bird it must be that could utter such wondrous sounds! He listened, too enchanted to move, while the magical song swelled louder and clearer, filling the air with melody. At last he rose, and crept softly to the window. There, on a swinging vine, sat a beautiful bird, all golden yellow, with streaks of green on its back. It was 40 the Golden-breasted Kootoo! There could be no doubt about it, even if its marvellous song had not announced it as the sweetest singer of the whole world. Very quietly, but trembling with excitement, the King put on his slippers and his flowered dressing-gown, and seizing his gun, he hastily descended the stairs.

It was early dawn, and nobody was awake in the hotel except the Boots, who was blacking his namesakes in the back hall. He saw the King come down, and thought he had come to get his boots; but the monarch paid no attention to him, quietly unbolted the front door, and slipped out into the garden. Was he too late? Had the bird flown? No, the magic song still rose from the vines outside his chamber-window. But even now, as the King approached, a fluttering was heard, and the Golden-breasted Kootoo, spreading its wings, flew slowly away over the garden wall, and away towards the mountain which rose just behind the hotel. The King followed, clambering painfully over the high wall, and leaving fragments 41 of his brocade dressing-gown on the sharp spikes which garnished it. Once over, he made all speed, and found that he could well keep the bird in sight, for it was flying very slowly. A provoking bird it was, to be sure! It would fly a little way, and then, alighting on a bush or hanging spray, would pour forth a flood of melody, as if inviting its pursuer to come nearer; but before the unhappy King could get within gunshot, it would flutter slowly onward, keeping just out of reach, and uttering a series of mocking notes, which seemed to laugh at his efforts. On and on flew the bird, up the steep mountain; on and on went the King in pursuit. It is all very well to fly up a mountain; but to crawl and climb up, with a heavy gun in one’s hand, and one’s dressing-gown catching on every sharp point of rock, and the tassel of one’s nightcap bobbing into one’s eyes, is a very different matter, I can tell you. But the King never thought of stopping for an instant; not he! He lost first one slipper, and then the other; the cord and tassels of his dressing-gown 42 tripped him up, so that he fell and almost broke his nose; and finally his gun slipped from his hold and went crashing down over a precipice; but still the King climbed on and on, breathless but undaunted.

At length, at the very top of the mountain, as it seemed, the bird made a longer pause than usual. It lighted on a point of rock, and folding its wings, seemed really to wait for the King, singing, meanwhile, a song of the most inviting and encouraging description. Nearer and nearer crept the King, and still the bird did not move. He was within arm’s-length, and was just stretching out his arm to seize the prize, when it fluttered off the rock. Frantic with excitement, the King made a desperate clutch after it, and —

PART II

At eight o’clock the landlady knocked at the King’s door. “Hot water, Your Majesty,” she said. “Shall I bring the can in? And the Band desires his respects, and would you wish him to 43 play while you are a-dressing, being as you didn’t bring a music-box with you?”

Receiving no answer, after knocking several times, the good woman opened the door very cautiously, and peeped in, fully expecting to see the royal nightcap reposing calmly on the pillow. What was her amazement at finding the room empty; no sign of the King was to be seen, although his pink-silk knee-breeches lay on a chair, and his ermine mantle and his crown were hanging on a peg against the wall.

The landlady gave the alarm at once. The King had disappeared! He had been robbed, murdered; the assassins had chopped him up into little pieces and carried him away in a bundle-handkerchief! “Murder! police! fire!!!!”

In the midst of the wild confusion the voice of the Boots was heard. “Please, ’m, I see His Majesty go out at about five o’clock this morning.”

Again the chorus rose: he had run away; he had gone to surprise and slay the King of Coringo 44 while he was taking his morning chocolate; he had gone to take a bath in the river, and was drowned! “Murder! police!”

The voice of the Boots was heard again. “And please, ’m, he’s a sittin’ out in the courtyard now; and please, ’m, I think he’s crazy!”

Out rushed everybody, pell-mell, into the courtyard. There, on the ground, sat the King, with his tattered dressing-gown wrapped majestically about him. An ecstatic smile illuminated his face, while he clasped in his arms a large bird with shining plumage.

“Bless me!” cried the poultry-woman. “If he hasn’t got my Shanghai rooster that I couldn’t catch last night!”

The King, hearing voices, looked round, and smiled graciously on the astonished crowd. “Good people,” he said, “success has crowned my efforts. I have found the Golden-breasted Kootoo! You shall all have ten pounds apiece, in honor of this joyful event, and the landlady shall be made a baroness in her own right!”

“But,” said the poultry-woman, “it is my Shang – ”

“Be still, you idiot!” whispered the landlady, putting her hand over the woman’s mouth. “Do you want to lose your ten pounds and your head too? If the King has caught the Golden-breasted Kootoo, why, then it is the Golden-breasted Kootoo, as sure as I am a baroness!” and she added in a still lower tone, “There hasn’t been a Kootoo seen in the Vale for ten years; the birds have died out.”

Great were the rejoicings at the palace when the King returned in triumph, bringing with him the much-coveted prize, the Golden-breasted Kootoo. The bands played until they almost killed themselves; the cooks waved their ladles and set to work at once on the pie; the huntsmen sang hunting-songs. All was joy and rapture, except in the breast of one man; that man was the Second Musician, or, as we should now call him, the Chief Musician. He felt no thrill of joy at sight of the wondrous bird; on the contrary, he made his 46 will, and prepared to leave the country at once; but when the pie was finished, and he saw its huge dimensions, he was comforted. “No man,” he said to himself, “can eat the whole of that pie and live!”

Alas! he was right. The unhappy King fell a victim to his musical ambition before he had half finished his pie, and died in a fit. His subjects ate the remainder of the mighty pasty, with mingled tears and smiles, as a memorial feast; and if the Golden-breasted Kootoo was a Shanghai rooster, nobody in the kingdom was ever the wiser for it.

CHAPTER III

THE raccoon’s story was received with general approbation; and the grandmother, in particular, declared she had not passed so pleasant an hour for a very long time. The good woman was gradually becoming accustomed to her strange visitors, and ventured to address them with a little more freedom, though she still trembled and clutched her knitting-needles tighter when she heard the bear’s deep tones.

“It is really very good of you all,” she said, “to take compassion upon my loneliness. Before I came to this cottage I lived in a large town, where I had many friends, and I find the change very great, and the life here very solitary. Indeed, if it were not for my dear little Toto, I should lead quite the life of a hermit.”

“What is a hermit?” asked the bear, who had 48 an inquiring mind, and liked to know the meaning of words.

“It is a crab,” said the parrot. “I have often seen them in the West Indies. They get into the shells of other crabs, and drive the owners out. A wretched set!”

“Oh, dear!” cried the grandmother. “That is not at all the kind of hermit I mean. A hermit in this country is a man who lives quite alone, without any companions, in some uninhabited region, such as a wood or a lonely hillside.”

“Is it?” exclaimed the bear and the squirrel at the same moment. “Why, then, we know one.”

“Certainly,” the squirrel went on; “Old Baldhead must be a hermit, of course. He lives alone, and in an uninhabited region; that is, what you would call uninhabited, I suppose.”

“How very interesting! Where does he live?” asked Toto. “Who is he? How is it that I have never seen him?”

“Oh, he lives quite at the other end of the wood!” replied the squirrel; “some ten miles or 49 more from here. You have never been so far, my dear boy, and Old Baldhead isn’t likely to come into our part of the wood. He paid us one visit several years ago, and that was enough for him, eh, Bruin?”

“Humph! I think so!” said Bruin, smiling grimly. “He seemed quite satisfied, I thought.”

“Tell us about his visit!” cried Toto eagerly. “I have never heard anything about him, and I know it must be funny, or you would not chuckle so, Bruin.”

“Well,” said the bear, “there isn’t much to tell, but you shall hear all I know. I call that hermit, if that is his name, a very impudent fellow. Just fancy this, will you? One evening, late in the autumn, about three years ago, I was coming home from a long ramble, very tired and hungry. I had left a particularly nice comb of honey and some other little things in my cave, all ready for supper, for I knew when I started that I should be late, and I was looking forward to a very comfortable evening.

“Well, when I came to the door of my cave, what should I see but an old man with a long gray beard, sitting on the ground eating my honey!” Here the bear looked around with a deeply injured air, and there was a general murmur of sympathy.

“Your course was obvious!” said the raccoon. “Why didn’t you eat him, stupid?”

“Hush!” whispered the wood-pigeon softly. “You must not say things like that, Coon! you will frighten the old lady.” And indeed, the grandmother seemed much discomposed by the raccoon’s suggestion.

“Wouldn’t have been polite!” replied Bruin. “My own house, you know, and all that. Besides,” he added in an undertone, with an apprehensive glance at the grandmother, “he was old, and probably very – ”

“Ahem!” said Toto in a warning voice.

“Oh, certainly not!” said the bear hastily, “not upon any account. I was about to make the same remark myself. A – where was I?”

“The old man was eating your honey,” said the woodchuck.

“Of course!” replied Bruin. “So, though I would not have hurt him for the world” (with another glance towards the grandmother), “I thought there would be no harm in frightening him a little. Accordingly, I first made a great noise among the bushes, snapping the twigs and 52 rustling the leaves at a great rate. He stopped eating, and looked and listened, listened and looked; didn’t seem to like it much, I thought. Then, when he was pretty thoroughly roused, I came slowly forward, and planted myself directly in front of the cave.”

“Dear me!” cried the grandmother. “How very dreadful! poor old man!”

“Well now, ma’am!” said Bruin appealingly, “he had no right to steal my honey; now had he? And I didn’t hurt a hair of his head,” he continued. “I only stood up on my hind-legs and waved my fore-paws round and round like a windmill, and roared.”