Where are the Virgin Islands? What makes a teapot bubble? What forces bring the rain and tempest?

In cooking I go no farther than an egg. Birds, to me, are either sparrows or robins. I know an elm and a maple, but hemlocks and pines and firs mix me up. I am not to be trusted to pull the weeds. Up would come the hollyhocks. j.a.panese prints and Chinese vases sit in a world above me.

I can thump myself in front without knowing whether I jar my stomach or my liver. I have no notion where my food goes when it disappears. When once I have tilted my pudding off its spoon my knowledge ceases. It is as a child of Israel on journey in the wilderness. Does it pa.s.s through my thorax? And where do my lungs branch off?

I know nothing of etchings, and I sit in gloomy silence when friends toss Whistler and Rembrandt across the table. I know who our mayor is, but I scratch my head to name our senator. And why does the world crumple up in hills and mountains?

I could look up Jeremy Bentham and hereafter I would know all about him.

And I could look up the moon. And Hobbes. And Leslie Stephen, who wrote a book about him. And a man named Maitland who wrote a life of Stephen.

Somebody must have written about Maitland. I could look him up, too. And I could read about the Balkans and tell my neighbors whether they are tertiary or tria.s.sic. I could pursue the thorax to its lair. Saws and chicken-coops, no doubt, are an engaging study. I might take a tree-book to the country, or seek an instructive job in a garage.

But what is the use? Right in front of Jeremy Bentham, in _Aus to Bis_, is George Bentham, an English botanist. To be thorough I would have to read about him also. Then following along is Bentivoglio, and Benzene--a long article on benzene. And Beowulf! No educated person should be quite ignorant of him. Albrecht Bitzius was a Swiss novelist. Somehow he has escaped me entirely. And Susanna Blamire, "the muse of c.u.mberland"! She sounds engaging. Who is there so incurious that he would not give an evening to Borneo? And the Bryophyta?--which I am glad to learn include "the mosses and the liverworts." Dear me! it is quite discouraging.

And then, when I am gaining information on Hobbes, the Hitt.i.tes, right in front, take my eye. Hilarius wrote "light verses of the goliardic type"--whatever that means. And the hippopotamus! "the largest representative of the non-ruminating artiodactyle ungulate mammals." I must sit with the hippopotamus and worm his secret.

And after I have learned to use the saw, I would have to take up the plane. And then the auger. And Whistler. And j.a.panese prints. And a bird book.

It is very discouraging.

I stand with Pope. Certainly, unless one is very thirsty and has a great deal of vacant time, it is best to avoid the Pierian spring.

Jeremy can go and hang himself. I am learning to play golf.

A Chapter for Children.

Once upon a time--for this is the way a story should begin--there lived in a remote part of the world a family of children whose father was busy all day making war against his enemies. And so, as their mother, also, was busy (clubs, my dear, and parties), they were taken care of and had their noses wiped--but in a most kindly way--by an old man who loved them very much.

Now this old man had been a jester in his youth. For these were the children of a king and so, of course, they had a jester, just as you and I, if we are rich, have a cook. He had been paid wages--I don't know how many kywatskies--merely to stand in the dining-room and say funny things, and n.o.body asked him to jump around for the salt or to hurry up the waffles. And he didn't even brush up the crumbs afterward.

I do not happen to know the children of any king--there is not a single king living on our street--yet, except for their clothes, they are much like other children. Of course they wear shinier clothes. It is not the shininess that comes from sliding down the stair rail, but a royal shininess, as though it were always eleven o'clock on Sunday morning and the second bell of the Methodist church were ringing, with several deacons on the steps. For if one's father is a king, amba.s.sadors and generals keep dropping in all the time, and queens, dressed up in brocade so stiff you can hear them breathe.

One day the children had been sliding down hill in the snow--on Flexible Flyers, painted red--and their mittens and stockings were wet. So the old man felt their feet--tickling their toes--and set them, bare-legged, in a row, in front of the nursery fire. And he told them a story.

"O children of the king!" he began, and with that he wiped their noses all round, for it had been a cold day, when even the best-mannered persons snuffle now and then. "O children of the king!" he began again, and then he stopped to light a taper at the fire. For he was a wise old man and he knew that when there is excitement in a tale, a light will keep the bogies off. This old man could tell a story so that your eyes opened wider and wider, as they do when Annie brings in ice-cream with raspberry sauce. And once in a while he said Odd Zooks, and G.o.d-a-Mercy when he forgot himself.

"Once upon a time," he began, "there lived a king in a far-off country.

To get to that country, O children of a king, you would have to turn and turn, and spell out every signpost. And then you climb up the sides of seventeen mountains, and swim twenty-three streams precisely. Here you wait till dusk. But just before the lamps are lighted, you get down on all-fours--if you are a boy (girls, I believe, don't have all-fours)--and crawl under the sofa. Keep straight on for an hour or so with the coal-scuttle three points starboard, but be careful not to let your knees touch the carpet, for that wears holes in them and spoils the magic. Then get nurse to pull you out by the hind legs--and--_there you are_.

"Once upon a time, then, there lived a king with a ferocious moustache and a great sword which rattled when he walked around the house. He made scratches all over the piano legs, but no one felt like giving him a paddy-whack. This king had a pretty daughter.

"Now it is a sad fact that there was a war going on. It was between this king who had the pretty daughter and another king who lived near by, on an adjoining farm, so to speak. And the first king had sworn by his halidome--and at this his court turned pale--that he would take his enemy by his blasted nose.

"Both of these kings lived in castles whose walls were thick and whose towers were high. And around their tops were curious indentings that looked as your teeth would look if every other one were pulled. These castles had moats with lily pads and green water in them, which was not at all healthful, except that persons in those days did not know about it and were consequently just as well off. And there were jousting fields and soup caldrons (with a barrel of animal crackers) and a tun of lemonade (six gla.s.ses to a lemon)--everything to make life comfortable.

"Here's a secret. The other king who lived near by was in love with the first king's daughter. Here are two kings fighting each other, and one of them in love with the other's daughter, but not saying a word about it.

"Now the second king--the one in love--was not very fierce, and his name was King m.u.f.fin--which suggests pleasant thoughts--whereas the first king with the beautiful daughter was called King Odd Zooks, Zooks the Sixth, for he was the sixth of his powerful line. And my story is to show how King m.u.f.fin got the better of King Zooks and married his daughter. It was a clever piece of business, for the walls of the castle were high, and the window of the Princess was way above the trees. King m.u.f.fin didn't even know which her window was, for it did not have any lace curtains and it looked no better than the cook's, except that the cook sometimes on Monday tied her stockings to the curtain cord to dry.

And of course if King m.u.f.fin had come openly to the castle, the guards would have cut him all to bits.

"One day in June King m.u.f.fin was out on horseback. He had left his crown at home and was wearing his third-best clothes, so you would have thought that he was just an ordinary man. But he was a good horseman; that is, he wasn't thinking every minute about falling off, but sat loosely, as one might sit in a rocking-chair.

"The country was beautiful and green, and in the sky there were puffy clouds that looked the way a pop-over looks before it turns brown--a big pop-over that would stuff even a hungry giant up to his ears. And there was a wind that wiggled everything, and the noise of a brook among the trees. Also, there were birds, but you must not ask me their names, for I am not good at birds.

"King m.u.f.fin, although he was a brave man, loved a pleasant day. So he turned back his collar at the throat in order that the wind might tickle his neck and he dropped his reins on his horse's back in a careless way that wouldn't be possible on a street where there were trolley-cars. In this fashion he rode on for several miles and sang to himself a great many songs. Sometimes he knew the words and sometimes he said _tum tum te tum tum_, but he kept to the tune.

"King m.u.f.fin enjoyed his ride so much that before he knew it he was out of his own kingdom and at least six parasangs in the kingdom of King Zooks. _My dear, use your handkerchief!_

"And even then King m.u.f.fin would not have realized it, except that on turning a corner he saw a young man lying under a tree in a suit that was half green and half yellow. King m.u.f.fin knew him at once to be a jester--but whose? King Zooks's jester, of course, his mortal enemy. For jesters have to go off by themselves once in a while to think up new jokes, and no other king lived within riding distance. Really, the jester was thinking of rhymes to _zithern_, which is the name of the curious musical instrument he carried, and is a little like a mandolin, only harder to play. It cannot be learned in twelve easy lessons. And the jester was making a sorry business of it, for it is a difficult word to find rhymes to, as you would know if you tried. He was terribly woeful.

"King m.u.f.fin said 'Whoa' and stopped his horse. Then he said 'Good morning, fellow,' in the kind of superior tone that kings use.

"The jester got off the ground and, as he did not know that m.u.f.fin was a king, he sneezed; for the ground was damp. It was a slow sneeze in coming, for the ground was not very wet, and he stood waiting for it with his mouth open and his eyes squinting. So King m.u.f.fin waited too, and had a moment to think. And as kings think very fast, very many thoughts came to him. So, by the time the sneeze had gone off like a shower bath, and before the pipes filled up for another, some interesting things had occurred to him. Well! things about the Princess and how he might get a chance to speak with her. But he said:

"'Ho, ho! Methinks King Zooks's jester has the snuffles.'

"At this, Jeppo--for that was the jester's name--looked up with a wry face, for he still kept a sneeze inside him which he couldn't dislodge.

"'By my boots and spurs!' the King cried again, 'you are a woeful jester.'

"Jeppo _was_ woeful. For on this very night King Zooks was to give a grand dinner--not a simple dinner such as you have at home with Annie pa.s.sing dishes and rattling the pie around the pantry--but a dinner for a hundred persons, generals and amba.s.sadors, all dressed in lace and eating from gold plates. And of course everyone would look to Jeppo for something funny--maybe a new song with twenty verses and a _rol-de-rol-rol chorus_, which everyone could sing even if he didn't know the words. And Jeppo didn't know a single new thing. He had tried to write something, but had stuck while trying to think of a rhyme for _zithern_. So of course he was woeful. And King m.u.f.fin knew it.

"All this while King m.u.f.fin was thinking hard, although he didn't scowl once, for some persons can think without scowling. He wished so much to see the Princess, and yet he knew that if he climbed the tallest tree he couldn't reach her window. And even if he found a ladder long enough, as likely as not he would lean it up against the cook's window, not noticing the stockings on the curtain cord. King m.u.f.fin should have looked glum. But presently he smiled.

"'Jeppo,' he said, 'what would you say if I offered to change places with you? Here you are fretting about that song of yours and the dinner only a few hours off. You will be flogged tomorrow, sure, for being so dull tonight. Just change clothes with me and go off and enjoy yourself.

Sit in a tavern! Spend these kywatskies!' Here King m.u.f.fin rattled his pocket. 'I'll take your place. I know a dozen songs, and they will tickle your king until, goodness me! he will cry into his soup.' King m.u.f.fin really didn't give King Zooks credit for ordinary manners, but then he was his mortal enemy, and prej'iced.

"Well, Jeppo _was_ terribly woeful and that word _zithern_ was bothering him. There was _pithern_ and _dithern_ and _mithern_. He had tried them all, but none of them seemed to mean anything. So he looked at King m.u.f.fin, who sat very straight on his horse, for he wasn't at all afraid of him, although he was a tall horse and had nostrils that got bigger and littler all the time; and back legs that twitched. Meanwhile King m.u.f.fin twirled a gold chain in his fingers. Then Jeppo looked at King m.u.f.fin's clothes and saw that they were fashionable. Then he looked at his hat and there was a yellow feather in it. And those kywatskies.

King m.u.f.fin, just to tease him, twirled his moustache, as kings will.

"So the bargain was made. There was a thicket near, so dense that it would have done for taking off your clothes when you go swimming. In this thicket King m.u.f.fin and Jeppo exchanged clothes. Of course Jeppo had trouble with the b.u.t.tons for he had never dressed in such fine clothes before, and many of a king's b.u.t.tons are behind.

"And now, when the exchange was made, Jeppo inquired where he would find an expensive tavern with bra.s.s pull-handles on the lemonade vat, and he rode off, licking his lips and jingling his kywatskies. But King m.u.f.fin, dressed as a jester, vaulted on his horse and trotted in the direction of King Zooks's castle, which had indentings around the top like a row of teeth if every other one were pulled.

"And after a little while it became night. It is my private opinion, my dear, which I shall whisper in the middle of your ear--the outer flap being merely ornamental and for 'spection purposes--that the sun is afraid of the dark, because you never see him around after nightfall.

Bless you, he goes off to bed before twilight and tucks himself to the chin before you or I would even think of lighting a candle. And, on my word, he prefers to sleep in the bas.e.m.e.nt. He goes down the back stairs and cuddles behind the furnace. And he has the bad habit, mercy! of reading in bed. A good half hour after he should be sound asleep, you can see the reflection of his candle on the evening clouds."

At this point the old man paused a bit, to see if the children were still awake. Then he wiped their noses all around, not forgetting the youngest with the fat legs, and began again.

"During all this time King Zooks had been getting ready for the party, trying on shiny coats, and getting his silk stockings so that the seams at the back went straight up and didn't wind around, which is the way they naturally do unless you are particular. And he put a clean handkerchief into every pocket, in case he sneezed in a hurry--for King Zooks was a lavish dresser.

"His wife was dressing in another room, keeping three maids busy with safety pins and powder-puffs, and getting all of the snarls out of her hair. And, in still another room of the castle, his daughter was dressing. Now his wife was a nice-looking woman, like nurse, except that she wore stiff brocade and didn't jounce. But his daughter was beautiful and didn't need a powder-puff.

"When they were all dressed they met outside, just to ask questions of one another about handkerchiefs and noses and behind the ears. The Queen, also, wished to be very sure that there wasn't a hole in the heel of her stocking, for she wore black stockings, which makes it worse.

King Zooks was fond of his wife and fond of his daughter, and when he was with them he did not look so fierce. He kissed both of them, but when he kissed his daughter--which was the better fun--he took hold of her nose--but in a most kindly way--so that her face wouldn't slip.