Chapter V: Toodles and the Gray Lady

If Toodles had not been cross that morning at breakfast, because she could not have nine buckwheats, she might have gone to the pantomime with mamma and Uncle Charles, and all that I am going to tell you would not have happened. But Toodles--her real name was Mary, but Uncle Charles called her Toodles, because that was the first word she had ever spoken--got out of her bed “wrong side” (that’s what nurse said). She fretted because it was raining, cried when her hair was combed, and was so naughty at the breakfast table that she was sent up to the nursery in disgrace, and went to her dolls’ house with her lips stuck out and a very deep frown on her pretty little face.

Dear me, how the poor dolls suffered that morning! Geraldine, the big bisque dolly, was put to bed, after a severe spanking, just because she would shut her eyes when Toodles wanted her to lie on the couch and pretend to read from the little Testament, with which Toodles was not allowed to play. Then Cadet, the woolly doll with bead eyes, fell into the cistern when his mother took him out in the back entry for water. There was plenty in the nursery, but it was fun to turn the cistern crank and see the water run into the pitcher. But after Cadet was drowned, Toodles felt so sad that she shut up the doll house and went to look for the cat.

It was Saturday. Mamma and nurse were busy, so the little girl was left alone in the dining-room, where the cat lay asleep, her gray paws stretched out before her, and her gray head upon them. Monnie-cat was dreaming of mice, for she groaned, snorted, and twitched her claws. But Toodles did not care anything about that; she picked up the kitty and sat herself in the deep window-seat. Monnie yawned reproachfully, and struggled to free herself. Then, I regret to say, Toodles slapped her and called her a hateful old thing, bursting into tears, all out of pure bad temper. Just then cook began to set the table for luncheon, and asked Toodles to run up-stairs for the key to the linen closet. Toodles was usually very obliging, but to-day she said she wouldn’t, and was so cross that cook called her a “sassy little missy,” which made the tears fall faster than ever.

By the time luncheon was served, mamma came in with Uncle Charles, who tried to get his niece into a better humor. But she sulked until he took out three pink tickets and said to mamma, “By the way, Emily, here are tickets to ‘Humpty-Dumpty.’” Oh, then how Toodles clapped her hands! But mamma looked grave and shook her head. “No, we cannot go, Charles, Mary has been too naughty to-day to go anywhere; you can take grandma and Josie.”

Toodles cried and cried, “quarts,” she afterward told me; but mamma was firm. So Uncle Charles went after grandma and Josie, and mamma talked to the child for a long time, telling her how she wished to see “Humpty-Dumpty” herself, but would not, because she could not let her naughty little daughter go. Then Toodles was sorry, and promised to be good, and mamma, after giving her two chocolate wafers, and Hans Andersen’s tales to read, went back to the sewing, leaving her alone with Monnie, who had eaten her luncheon, too, and now purred forgivingly as she rubbed against Toodles’ feet.

Toodles gave her half of a wafer because she had slapped her--and that was real repentance, for the wafers were delicious--then took her up in the window-seat, where she sat blinking her green eyes at the rain, while Toodles read “The Elfin Hill” aloud.

When it was finished, she said to Monnie, “Now, dear, don’t you wish it was all really true, and we could see the elf girls dance in the moonlight?” But Monnie only switched her tail, sitting up so demurely that Toodles cried, “Why, kitty, you look just like a little gray lady!”

Then a funny thing happened: Monnie’s fur grew long, her paws changed into hands and feet, and she stood up, a little lady with long gray hair nearly covering her gray dress.

Toodles’ eyes grew round with astonishment as the gray lady spoke in such a soft little voice: “O dear me, O dear me! So much to be done before they come,” and then turned to hurry away down a passage which seemed to open right in the wall. Toodles started up, for the gray lady was hollow, like a mask, and she remembered that the lizards running up and down the elfin hill had said that the elf girls were hollow, so had always to keep front face. “My! Then this must be the old elf girl herself!” and Toodles ran after her as fast as she could. The passage was long and dimly lighted, with doors on either side, which had names printed on them in large gilt letters.

Toodles paused long enough to read some of them, and skipped delightedly when on one she saw “Little Claus,” on another “The Robber Girl;” and on one whence came a cold draught was the name, “The Ice Queen.” From this door she ran away at once, I can tell you! and if you have ever read Hans Andersen, you will know why.

By this time, the gray lady had turned the corner and gone out of the passage. As the door closed behind them, Toodles found herself on a great heath. It was night, and the wind swept across the dark waste, above which the stars glowed like golden lamps in the far-off sky. On they went, until suddenly they came upon a hillock, which seemed to spring up right at their feet. On this Toodles stumbled and fell, frightening a large lizard who sat there. By the time the little girl had seated herself on the top of the hillock, the gray lady had vanished. So Toodles sat there saying to herself, “And so it is true, after all, and soon the old Norwegian and his sons will come, and the elf king’s daughters will dance.”

“Of course, child,” said a petulant voice close to her ear, as the old gray lizard rose on her tail to catch a better glimpse of her in the dim starlight. “Of course, as soon as the moon rises, the elf hill will open, and then I fancy we shall see what good society is. I myself am unable to go about much, on account of my large family; but I assure you I am well connected, being closely related to the dragon and the rockshaft.”

For some moments the lizard droned on, using such large words that Toodles could not understand half she was saying and began to get tired and cross, when the moon rose suddenly, big and round, over the elfin hill, looking so near that the little girl was half afraid, though he smiled on her very kindly.

Then there were sounds of music. The elfin hill opened and seven lovely little maidens came out, with scarfs of woven moonshine and gowns of pearly mist. The gray lady (or the old elf girl, as we must now call her) followed, her long hair fastened up under a glittering crown. And she leaned upon the arm of a great rosy old man, whom Toodles recognized, by his bearskin cap and sealskin coat, as the old Norwegian himself. The three sons lay asleep back of the elfin hill, for the elf king had turned them out when they had drunk too much wine and shouted and trod upon the ladies’ toes in dancing.

Now the elf king joined the group, his high crown shining in the moonlight like a hundred glowworms. The music inside became louder and louder as the musicians marched out on the greensward. Twelve very large black crickets were the fiddlers, twelve very green grasshoppers played the bass viol, and six very fat brown locusts beat the drums they carried under their wings.

So gay was the music and so bright the moonshine that Toodles and the lizard joined hands and danced around the glittering, whirling circle of the elfin folk, where the old Norwegian whirled the elf girl until her long gray hair fell down. Round and round they circled, faster and faster, until they were but a whirl of color and light. Louder and louder shrilled the music. The big moon sailed up into the deeper blue of the sky, as if he, too, marched to the music, and as if the stars must hop out of his way or be run over. Faster and faster, until Toodles grew so excited that she sat right down, and fell over the elfin hill into their very midst. A shrill chorus of tiny cries went up, the dark heath seemed to melt from under the child; the whirling figures vanished; the moon and stars faded out into the cheerful firelight of the dining-room; and Toodles found herself on the window-seat, rubbing her eyes, with Uncle Charles holding out to her a picture of a funny clown, and mamma smilingly saying, “Why, you and Monnie have both been asleep in the window-seat!”

But this is just what Toodles ever afterward denied.