Laura Richards - The Joyous Story of Toto

“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.

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.”

A general burst of merriment greeted this statement, from all except the grandmother, who shuddered in sympathy with the unfortunate hermit.

“Well?” asked Toto, “and what did he do then?”

“Why,” said Bruin, “he crouched down in a little heap on the ground, and squeezed himself against the wall of the cave, evidently expecting 53 me to rush upon him and tear him to pieces; I sat down in front of him and looked at him for a few minutes; then, when I thought he had had about enough, I walked past him into the cave, and then he ran away. He has never made me another visit.”

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