The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Singing Mouse Stories, by Emerson Hough, Illustrated by Mayo Bunker This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org Title: The Singing Mouse Stories Author: Emerson Hough Release Date: April 7, 2007 [eBook #21004] Language: English Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 ***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SINGING MOUSE STORIES*** E-text prepared by Louise Hope, David Edwards, and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net) from digital material generously made available by Internet Archive/Children's Library (http://www.archive.org/details/iacl) Note: Images of the original pages are available through Internet Archive/Children's Library. See http://www.archive.org/details/singingmouse00hougrich Transcriber's note: Some title pages had to be modified slightly to fit this e-text, and the more complicated designs may not display as intended in all browsers. All illustrated title pages are shown as thumbnails at the end of the text. The Singing Mouse Stories / Emerson Hough THE SINGING MOUSE STORIES thistle and heart The Singing Mouse Stories By EMERSON HOUGH Author of The Purchase Price, 54-40 or Fight, Etc. With Decorations by Mayo Bunker crescent moon NEW YORK HURST & COMPANY PUBLISHERS Copyright 1910 By Emerson Hough sword CONTENTS The Land of the Singing Mouse Page 11 The Burden of a Song 19 The Little River 31 What the Waters Said 41 Lake Belle-Marie 55 The Skull and the Rose 67 The Man of the Mountain 77 At the Place of the Oaks 83 The Birth of the Hours 99 The Stone That Had No Thought 107 The Tear and the Smile 113 How the Mountains Ate Up the Plains 123 The Savage and Its Heart 131 The Beast Terrible 137 The Passing of Men 155 The House of Truth 167 Where the City Went 181 The Bell and the Shadows 193 Of the Greatest Sorrow 205 The Shoes of the Princess 215 vii T Of White Moths 225 The House of Dreams 231 THE SINGING MOUSE STORIES The Land of the Singing Mouse The Land of the Singing Mouse HIS is my room. I live here; and my friends come here sometimes, such as I have left. There is little to offer them, but they are welcome to what there is. There is the table. There is the fire. There are not any keys. ix 11 13 Thumbnail decorative border That is my coat upon the wall. It is worn, a little. The barrels of the old gun are worn; and the stock of the rifle, broken in the mountains long ago, is mended but rudely; and the tip of the old rod is broken, and the silk is fraying in the lashings, and upon the hand-grasp the cord is loose. The silver cord will loosen and break in the best of men in time; wherefore, I beseech you, mock not at these belongings, though your own may far surpass them. You are welcome to anything there is here.... But the Singing Mouse will not come out, not while you are here. True, after you have gone, after the fire has burned down and the room is all still—usually near midnight, as I sit and muse alone over the dead or dying fire—true, then the Singing Mouse comes out and asks for its bit of bread; and then it folds its tiny paws and sits up, and turning its bright red eye upon me, half in power and half in beseeching, as of some fading memory of the past—why, it sings, I say to you; it sings! And I listen.... During such singing the fire blazes up. The walls are rich in art. My rod is new and trig. There is work, but there is no worry.... I am rich, rich! I have the Singing Mouse. And so strange, so wondrous, so real are the things it sings; so bewitching is the song, so sweeter than that of any siren’s; so broad and fine are the countries; so strong and true are the friendships; so brave and kind are the men I meet—so beautiful the whole world of the Singing Mouse, that when it is over, and in a chill I start up, I scarce can bear the shrinking in of the walls, and the grayness of the once red fire, and my gold turned to earthenware, and my pictures turned to splotches. In my hand everything I touch feels awkward. A pen—a pen—to talk of that? If one could use it while in the land of the Singing Mouse—then it might do. I think the pens there are not of wood and iron, stiff things of torture to reader and writer. I have a notion—though I have not examined the pens there—that they are made from plumes of an angel’s wing; and that if they chose they could talk, and say things which would make you and me ashamed and afraid. Pens such as these we do not have. angel 14 15 16 19 The Burden of A Song The Burden of a Song 21 Thumbnail T decorative border HE Singing Mouse came out. Quaintly and sweetly and with wondrous clearness it began an old, old song I first heard long ago. And as it sang, back with red electric thrill came the fine blood of youth, and beat in pulse with the song: “When all the world is young, lad, And all the trees are green, And every goose a swan, lad, And every lass a queen. “Then hey! for boot and saddle, lad, And round the world away! Young blood must have its course, lad, And every dog his day!” And young blood began its course anew. Booted and spurred, into the saddle again! Face toward the West! And off for round the world away! “There are green fields in Thrace,” sighs the gladiator as he dies. And here were green fields in the land before us. Only, these were the inimitable and illimitable fields of Nature. Sheets and waves and billows and tumbles of green; oceans unswum, continents untracked, of thousandfold green. Then, on beyond, the gray, the gray-brown, the purple-gray of the higher plains; nearer than that, a broad slash of great golden yellow, a band of the sturdy prairie sunflowers; and nearer than that, swimming on the surface of the mysterious wave which constantly passes but is never past on the prairies, bright red roses, and strong larkspur, and at the bottom of this ever- shifting sea, jewels in God’s best blue enamel. You can not find this enamel in the windows. One must send for it to the land of the unswum sea. A little higher and stronger piped the compelling melody. Why, here are the mountains! God bless them! Nay, brother, God has blessed them; blessed them with unbounded calm, with boundless strength, with unspeakable peace. You can take your troubles to the mountains. If you are Pueblo, Aztec, you can select some big mountain and pray to it, as its top shows the red sentience of the on-coming day. You can take your troubles to the sea; but the sea has troubles of its own, and frets. There is commerce on the sea, and the people who live near it are fretful, greedy, grasping. The mountains have no troubles; they have no commerce. The dwellers of the mountains are calm and unfretted. And on the broad shoulders of the mountains once more was cast the burden of the young man’s troubles, and once more he walked deep into the peace of the big hills. And the mountains smiled not, neither wept, but gravely and kindly folded over, about, behind, the gray mantle of the cañon walls, and locked fast doors of adamant against all following, and swept a pitying hand of shadow, and breathed that wondrous unsyllabled voice of comfort which any mountain-goer knows. Ay! the goodness of such strength! Up by the clean snow; over the big rocks; by the lace-work stream where the trout are—why, it’s all come again! That was the clink made by a passing deer. That was the touch of the green balsam—smell it, now! And there comes the mist, folding down the top; and there is the crash of the thunder; and this is the rush of the rain; and this is the warm yellow sun over it all—O, Singing Mouse, Singing Mouse!... flowers Back again, now, by some impulse of the dog which hasn’t had any day. It is winter now, I remember, Singing Mouse, and I am walking by the shore of the great Inland Seas. There is snow on the ground. The trees look black in contrast as you gaze up from the beach against the high bank. It is cold. It is dark. There is a shiver in the air. There are icicles in the sky. Something is flying through the trees, but silent as if it came out of a grave. 22 23 24 25 I have been walking, I know. I have walked a million miles, and I’m tired. My legs are stiff, and my legging has frozen fast to my overshoe; I remember that. And so I sit down—right here, you know—and look out over the lake—just over there, you see. The ice reaches out from the shore into the lake a long way; and it is covered with snow, and looks white. I can follow that white glimmer in a long, long curve to the right— twenty miles or more, maybe. Yes, it is cold. But ah! what is that out there, and what is it doing? It is setting all the long white curves of ice afire. It is throwing down hammered silver in a broad path, out there on the water. Those are not ripples. That is silver! There will be angels walking on that pathway before long! That is not the moon coming up over the lake! It is the swinging open, by some careless angel’s mischance, of the door of the White City of Rest!... How old, how sore a man climbed up the steep bank! There were white fields. In the distance a dog barked. Away across the fields a bright and cheery light shone out from a window, and as the moon rose higher, it showed the house which held the light. It was not a large house, but it seemed to be a home. Home!—what is that? I wondered; and I remember that I pulled at the frozen legging, and moved, with pain, the limbs grown tired and sore. And, as one looked at that twinkling, comfortable light, how plainly the rest of the old song came back: “When all the world is old, lad, And all the trees are brown, And all the sports are stale, lad, And all the wheels run down, “Creep home and take your place there, The sick and maimed among. God grant you find one face there, You loved when you were young.” The light in the little house went out. I think it was a happy home. May yours be so, always. bearded face 26 27 28 31 T The Little River The Little River HE Singing Mouse came out and sat upon my knee. It fixed its small red eye upon me, and lifted its tiny paws, so thin the fire shone through them. And it sang.... Like the voice of some night-wandering bird of melody, hid high in the upper realms of darkness, came faint sweet notes falling softly down. It was as if from the deep air above, and from the wide air around, there were dropping and drifting small links of silken steel, gentle but strong, so that one were helpless even had one wished to move. To listen was also to see. There were low rolling hills, covered and crowned with a thick growth of hazel thickets and short oaks. Between these hills ran long strips of green, strung on tiny bands of silver. And as these bands moved and thickened and braided themselves together, I seemed to see a procession of the trees. The cottonwoods halted in their march. The box-elders, and maples, and water-elms, and walnuts and such big trees swept grandly in with waving banners, and wound on and on in long procession, even down to two blue distant hills set at the edge of the world, unpassed guardians of a land of dreams. Ah, well-a-day! I look back at those two hills now, and the land of dreams lies still beyond them, it is true; but it is now upon the side whence I first gazed. It is back there, where one can not go again; back there, along that crystal, murmuring mystery of the little stream one knew when one was young! 33 Thumbnail 34 35 flying geese Ah, little river, little river, but I am coming back again. Once more I push away the long grass and the swinging boughs, and look into your face. Again I dabble my bare feet, and scoop up my straw hat full, and watch the tiny streams run down. Again I stand, bare and small and trembling, wondering if I can swim across. And—listen, little river—again at the same old place I shall cut me the willow wand, and down the long slope to the certain place I knew I am going to hurry, running the last quarter of a mile in sheer expectation, but forgetting not the binding on of the tough linen line. And now I cast my gaudy float on that same swinging, wimpling, dimpling eddy, and let it swim in beneath the bank. And—No! Can it be? Have I here, now, again, plainly in my hands, the strange and wonderful creature, the gift of the little stream? Is this its form, utterly lovable? Is this its coat, wrought of cloth of gold and silver? Are these diamonds its eyes?... Oh, little river, little river, give me back this gift to keep for ever! Why take such things from us?... All I have I will give to you, if you will but give back to me, to have by me all the time, this little fish from the pool beneath the boughs. I have hunted well for him, believe me, hard and faithfully in many a place, but he is no longer there. I find him no longer, even in the remotest spots I search.... But this is he! This, in my hands, here in actual sight, is my first, my glorious, iridescent, radiant prize! Pray you, behold the glittering! But along this little river there were other things when the leaves grew brown. In those low, easy hills strange creatures dwelt. Birds of brown plumage and wondrous, soul-startling burst of wing. Large gray creatures, a foot long or longer, with light tread on the leaves, and long ears that went a-peak when you whistled to them. Were ever such beings before in any land? For the pursuit of these, it seems, one must have boots with copper toes, made waterproof by abundant tallow. There must be a vast game- bag—a world too large for a boyish form—and strange things to eat therein, such as one sees no longer; for on a chase calling for such daring- do it may be needful that one walk far, across the hills, along the little river, almost to the Delectable Mountains themselves. Again I see it all. Again I follow through the hills that same tall, tireless figure with the grave and kindly face. Again I wonder at the uncomprehended skill which brought whirling down ten out of the dozen of those brown lightning balls. Again I rejoice, beyond all count or measure, over the first leporine murder committed by myself, the same furthered by means of a rest on a forked tree. It seems to me I groan secretly again at the weight of that great gun before the night has come. I almost wince again at the pulling off of those copper-toed boots at night, there by the kitchen stove, after the chase is done. But, ah! how happy I am again, holding up for the gaze of a kind pair of eyes this great, gray creature with the lopping ears. Now, as we walk by the banks of this magic river, I would that it might be always as it was in the earliest days. I like best to think myself mistaken when I suspect a greater stoop in this once familiar form which knew these hills and woods so well. It can not be that the quick eye has grown less bright. Yet why was the last mallard missed? And tell me, is not the old dog ranging as widely as once he did? Can it be that he keeps closer at heel? Does he look up once in a while, mournfully, with a dimmer eye, at an eye becoming also dimmer—does he walk more slowly, by a step now not so fast? Does he look up—My God!—is there melancholy in a dog’s eye, too? 36 37 38 39 What the Waters Said What the Waters Said 41 43 Thumbnail T HE fire was flickering fitfully and painting ghostly shadows on the wall. It was winter, and late in winter; indeed, the season was now at length drawing near to the end of winter, and approaching that dear time of spring which, beyond doubt, will be the eventful front and closing of the circle in the land where winter will not come. I had drawn the little pine table close to the heap of failing embers, and aided by what light the sulky candle gave, was bending over and trying to arrange a patch on my old hunting-coat. It was an old, old hunting-coat, far gone in the sere and yellow leaf. It was old-fashioned now, though once of proper cut and comeliness. It was disfigured, stained and worn. The pockets were torn down. The bindings were worn out. It was quite willing to be left alone now, hung by upon a forgotten nail, and subject to no further requisition. Nevertheless, if its owner wished, it could still do a day or two. I knew that; and something in the sturdy texture of its oft- tried nature excited more than half my admiration, and all my love. lonely rock and distant boat Walpurgis on the ceiling, gray coming on in the embers, symptoms of death in the candle, a blotch of tallow on the Shakespeare, and the coat not half done. It must have been about then, I think, that the thin-edged sweetness of the Singing Mouse’s voice pierced keenly through the air. I was right glad when the little creature came and sat on my knee, and in its affectionate way began to nibble at my finger-tips. It sat erect, its thin paws waving with a tiny, measured swing, and in its mystic voice, so infinitely small, so sweet and yet so majestically strong, began a song which no pen can transcribe. Knowing that the awakening must come, but unwilling to lose a moment of the dream, I, who with one finger could have crushed the little thing, sat prizing it more and more, as more and more its voice swept, and swelled, and rang; rang, till the fire burst high in noble pyramids of flame; rang, till the candle flashed in a thousand crystals; swelled, till the walls fell silently apart, and showed that all this time I had been sitting ignorant of, but yet within a grand and stately hall, whose polished sides bore speaking canvas and noble marbles; swept up and around, till every stately niche, and every tapestried corner, and every lofty dome rang gently back in mellow music—all for the Singing Mouse and me.... Small wizard, it was fell cunning of ye so to paint upon the wall this picture of the old mill-dam. How naturally the wooded hill slopes back beyond the mill! And how, with the same old sleepy curves, the river winds on back. How green the trees—how very green! Ah, Singing Mouse, they do not mix that color now. And nowhere do wide bottom-lands wave and sing in such seemly grace, so decked with yellow flowers, with odd sweet william and the small wild rose. And nowhere now on earth, I know, is there any stream to murmur so sweetly and so comfortably, to say such words to any dreaming boy, to babble of a work well done, of conscience clear and of a success and happiness to come. All that was in the river. If I listen very hard, and imagine very high and very deep, I can almost pretend to hear them now, those old words, heard when I was young. The voices are there, I doubt not, and there are other boys. God keep them boys always, and may they dream not backward, but ahead! This lazy pool beneath the far wing of the dam, how smooth it looks! Yet well we know the sunken log upon its farther side. We have festooned it full oft with a big hook and hempen line. And from that pool how many fatuous fishes have we not hauled forth. Here we came often, when we were boys; and once did not certain bold souls sleep here all night, curled up along the bank, waking the next morning, each with a sore throat, ’tis true, but with heart full proud at such high deed of valor! 44 45 46 47 48 And there is the long wooden bridge. What a feat of engineering that bridge once seemed to our untraveled souls! Behold it now, as it was then, lying in the level rays of the rising moon, a brilliant causeway leading over into a land of mystery, to glory, perhaps; perhaps to failure, forgetfulness, oblivion and rest. And there, I declare, at the other end of this great roadway—swimming up, I declare, in the same old way—is the great round moon whose light served us when we stayed late at the dam in the summer evenings. And the shadows of the bridge timbers are just as long and black; and the ripples over the rocks at the middle span are just as beautiful and white. And here, right at our feet again, the moon is playing its old tricks of painting faces in the water.... There are too many faces in the water, Singing Mouse; and I beg you, cease repeating the words about the Corpus Delicti! You would make one shudder. Let us look no more at the faces in the water. But still you bide by the waters tonight, wizard; for here is a picture of the sea. It is the sea, and it is talking, as it always does. There are some who think the sea speaks only of sorrow, but this is not wholly true. If you will listen thoughtfully enough, you will find that it is not all of troubles that the sea is whispering. Nor does it speak always of restlessness and change. Some find a stimulus beside the sea, and say it brings forgetfulness. Rather let us call it exaltation. Much more than of a petty excitement, fit to blot a man’s momentary woes, it speaks in a sterner and a stronger note. It throbs with the pulse of a further shore. It speaks of a quiet tide making out to the Fortunate Islands, and tells of a way of following gales, and of a new Atlantis, somewhere on beyond. How dear this dream of a different land, this story of Atlantis, pathetically sought! Certainly, Atlantis is there, out beyond, somewhere in the sea; and truly there are those who have discovered it, and those who still may do so. I know it, Singing Mouse, for I can read it written in the hollow of this tiny shell of pink you have found here by the shore— borne across to us, we may not doubt, by an understanding tide from a place happily attained by those who wrote the message and sought to let us know. “Long time upon the mast our brown sail flapped; Our keel plowed bitter salt, and everywhere The ominous sky in sullen mystery wrapped, What side we looked on, either here or there, The welcome sight of land long sadly sought; And that Atlantis, hid within the sea, The land with all our hope and promise fraught, We saw not yet, nor wist where it might be. “But as we sailed as manful as we might, And counted not the sail more fit than oar, Lo! o’er the wave there burst a vision bright Of wood, and winding stream, and easy shore. Then by the lofty light which shone above, We knew at last our voyage sad was o’er, And we hard by the haven for which we strove, And soon all past the need to wander more. “Then as our craft made safely on the strand, And we all well our weary brown sail furled, We gazed as strangers might at that fair land, And hardly knew if it might be our world; Till One took gently every weary hand, And led us on to where still waters be, And whispered softly, ‘Lo! it hath been planned That thou at last this pleasant place shouldst see.’ “And as those dreaming so awakened we, And looked with eyes unhurt on that fair sky, And whispered, hand in hand and eye to eye, ‘’Tis our Atlantis, risen from the sea— ’Tis our Atlantis, from the bitten sea! ’Tis our Atlantis, come again, oh, friend, to thee and me!’” 49 50 51 52 55 L Lake Belle-Marie Lake Belle-Marie AKE Belle-Marie lies far away. Beyond the forest the mountains are white. Beyond the mountains the sky rises blue, high up into the infinite Unknown. I do not know where the Singing Mouse lives. No man can tell what journeys it may make such times as it is absent from the room that holds the pine table, and the book, and the candle, and the open fire. But last night when the faint, shrill sweetness of its little voice grew apart from the lonely silence of the room, and I turned and saw the Singing Mouse sitting on the corner of the book, the light of the candle shining pink through its tiny paws, almost the first word it said was of the far-off Lake of Belle- Marie. “Do you see it?” asked the Singing Mouse. “You mean—” “The moon there through the window? Do you see the moon and the stars? Do you know where they are shining to-night? Do you see them, there, deep in the water? Do you know where that is? Do you know the water? I know. It is Lake Belle-Marie.” And all I could do was to sit speechless. For the fire was gone, and the wall was open, and the room was not a room. The voice of the Singing Mouse, shrill and sweet, droned on a thousand miles away in smallness, but every word a crystal of regret and joy. 57 Thumbnail 58 “A thousand feet deep, or more, or bottomless, lies Lake Belle-Marie, for no man has ever fathomed it. But no matter how deep, the moon lies to- night at the bottom, and you can see it shining there, deep down in the blue. The stars are smaller, so they stay up and sparkle on the surface. The forest is very black to-night, is it not? and the shadow of the pines on the point looks like a mass of actual substance. Wait! Did you see that silver creature leap from the quiet water? You may know the shadow is but a shadow, for you can see the chasing ripples pass through it and break it up into a crinkled fabric of the night. “Do you see the pines waving, away up there in their tops, and do you hear them talking? They are always talking. To-night they are saying: ‘Hush, Belle-Marie; slumber, Belle-Marie; we will watch, we will watch, hush, hush, hush!’ Didn’t you ever know what the pines said? They wish no one ever to come near Lake Belle-Marie. Well for you that you only sat and looked at the face of Belle-Marie, and cast no line nor fired untimely shot around such shores! The pines would have been angry and would have crushed you. You do not know how they live, seeking only to keep Belle-Marie from the world, standing close and sturdy together and threatening any who approach. It would break their hearts to have her hiding-place found out. You do not know how they love her. The pines are old, old, old, many of them, but they told me that no footprint of man was ever seen upon those shores, that no boat ever rested on that little sea, neither did ever a treacherous line wrinkle even the smallest portion of its smoothest coves. Believe me, to have Belle-Marie known would break the hearts of the pines. They told me they lived all the time only that they might every night sing Belle-Marie to sleep, and every morning look upon her face, innocent, pure, unknown and unknowing, therefore good, sincere and utterly trustworthy. That is why the pines live. That is what they are talking about. In many places I know the hearts of the pines are broken, and they grieve continually. That is because there are too many people. In this valley the pines do not grieve. They only talk among themselves. In the morning they will wave their hands quite gaily and will say: ‘Waken, waken, Belle- Marie! Sweet is the day, sweet is the day, God hath given, given, given!’ That is what the pines say in the morning. “The white mountains yonder are very old. How strong and quiet they are, and how sure of themselves! To be quiet and strong one needs to be old, for small things do not matter then. Do you know what the mountains think, as they stand there shoulder to shoulder—for they live only to shield and protect the forest, here in the valley. They told me they were thinking of the smallness and the quickness of the days. ‘Age unto age!’ is what the mountains whisper. ’Æon unto æon! Strong, strong, strong is Time!’ “And yet I knew these mighty pillars stood only to shield the forest which shielded Belle-Marie. So I stood upon the last mountain and looked upon the great blue of the sky, and there again I saw the face of Lake Belle- Marie; and the circle was complete, and I sought no more, for I knew that from the abode of perfect, unhurt nature it is but a step up to the perfect peace and rest of the land where lives that Time whose name the mountains voice in awe. “And now, do you see what is happening on Lake Belle-Marie? Through the cleft in the forest the pink of the early day is showing, and light shines through the spaces of the pines. And down the pebbles of the beach, knee-deep into the shining flood, steps a noble creature, antlered, beautiful, admirable. Do you see him drink, and do you see him raise his head and look about with gentle and fearless eye? This creature is of the place, and no hand must harm him. “Let the thin, blue smoke die down. Attempt no foot farther on. Disturb not this spot. Return. But before you go, take one more look upon the Lake of Belle-Marie!” So again I gazed upon the face of the lake, which seemed innocent, and 59 60 61 62 63 64