Laura Richards - The Joyous Story of Toto

TOTO was a little boy, and his grandmother was an old woman (I have noticed that grandmothers are very apt to be old women); and this story is about both of them. Now, whether the story be true or not you must decide for yourselves; and the child who finds this out will be wiser than I.

Toto’s grandmother lived in a little cottage far from any town, and just by the edge of a thick 2 wood; and Toto lived with her, for his father and mother were dead, and the old woman was the only relation he had in the world.

The cottage was painted red, with white window-casings, and little diamond-shaped panes of glass in the windows. Up the four walls grew a red rose, a yellow rose, a woodbine, and a clematis; and they all met together at the top, and fought and scratched for the possession of the top of the chimney, from which there was the finest view; so foolish are these vegetables.

Inside the cottage there was a big kitchen, with a great open fireplace, in which a bright fire was always crackling; a floor scrubbed white and clean; a dresser with shining copper and tin dishes on it; a table, a rocking-chair for the grandmother, and a stool for Toto. There were two bedrooms and a storeroom, and perhaps another room; and there was a kitchen closet, where the cookies lived. So now you know all about the inside of the cottage. Outside there was a garden behind and a bit of green in front, 3 and three big trees; and that is all there is to tell.

As for Toto, he was a curly-haired fellow, with bright eyes and rosy cheeks, and a mouth that was always laughing.

His grandmother was the best grandmother in the world, I have been given to understand, though that is saying a great deal, to be sure. She was certainly a very good, kind old body; and she had pretty silver curls and pink cheeks, as every grandmother should have. There was only one trouble about her; but that was a very serious one, – she was blind.

Her blindness did not affect Toto much; for he had never known her when she was not blind, and he supposed it was a peculiarity of grandmothers in general. But to the poor old lady herself it was a great affliction, though she bore it, for the most part, very cheerfully. She was wonderfully clever and industrious; and her fingers seemed, in many ways, to see better than some people’s eyes. She kept the cottage always 4 as neat as a new pin. She was an excellent cook, too, and made the best gingerbread and cookies in the world. And she knit – oh! how she did knit! – stockings, mittens, and comforters; comforters, mittens, and stockings: all for Toto. Toto wore them out very fast; but he could not keep up with his grandmother’s knitting. Clickety click, clickety clack, went the shining needles all through the long afternoons, when Toto was away in the wood; and nothing answered the needles, except the tea-kettle, which always did its best to make things cheerful. But even in her knitting there were often trials for the grandmother. Sometimes her ball rolled off her lap and away over the floor; and then the poor old lady had a hard time of it groping about in all the corners (there never was a kitchen that had so many corners as hers), and knocking her head against the table and the dresser.

The kettle was always much troubled when anything of this sort happened. He puffed angrily, and looked at the tongs. “If I had legs,” 5 he said, “I would make some use of them, even if they were awkward and ungainly. But when a person is absolutely all head and legs, it is easy to understand that he should have no heart.”

The tongs never made any reply to these remarks, but stood stiff and straight, and pretended not to hear.

But the grandmother had other troubles beside dropping her ball. Toto was a very good boy, – better, in fact, than most boys, – and he loved his grandmother very much indeed; but he was forgetful, as every child is. Sometimes he forgot this, and sometimes that, and sometimes the other; for you see his heart was generally in the forest, and his head went to look after it; and that often made trouble. He always meant to get before he went to the forest everything that his grandmother could possibly want while he was away. Wood and water he never forgot, for he always brought those in before breakfast. But sometimes the brown potatoes sat waiting in the cellar closet, with their jackets all buttoned up, 6 wondering why they were not taken out, as their brothers had been the day before, and put in a wonderful wicker cage, and carried off to see the great world. And the yellow apples blushed with anger and a sense of neglect; while the red apples turned yellow with vexation. And sometimes, – well, sometimes this sort of thing would happen: one day the old lady was going to make some gingerbread; for there was not a bit in the house, and Toto could not live without gingerbread. So she said, “Toto, go to the cupboard and get me the ginger-box and the soda, that’s a good boy!”

Now, Toto was standing in the doorway when his grandmother spoke, and just at that moment he caught sight of a green lizard on a stone at a little distance. He wanted very much to catch that lizard; but he was an obedient boy, and always did what “Granny” asked him to do. So he ran to the cupboard, still keeping one eye on the lizard outside, seized a box full of something yellow and a bag full of something white, 7 and handed them to his grandmother. “There, Granny,” he cried, “that’s ginger, and that’s soda. Now may I go? There’s a lizard – ” and he was off like a flash.

Well, Granny made the gingerbread, and at tea-time in came Master Toto, quite out of breath, having chased the lizard about twenty-five miles (so he said, and he ought to know), and hungry as 8 a hunter. He sat down, and ate his bread-and-milk first, like a good boy; and then he pounced upon the gingerbread, and took a huge bite out of it. Oh, oh! what a dreadful face he made! He gave a wild howl, and jumping up from the table, danced up and down the room, crying, “Oh! what nasty stuff! Oh, Granny, how could you make such horrid gingerbread? Br-r-rr! oh, dear! I never, never, never tasted anything so horrid.”

The poor old lady was quite aghast. “My dear boy,” she said, “I made it just as usual. You must be mistaken. Let me – ” and then she tasted the gingerbread.

Well, she did not get up and dance, but she came very near it. “What does this mean?” she cried. “I made it just as usual. What can it be? Ah!” she added, a new thought striking her. “Toto, bring me the ginger and the soda; bring just what you brought me this afternoon. Quick! don’t stop to examine the boxes; bring the same ones.”

Toto, wondering, brought the box full of something yellow, and the bag full of something white.

His grandmother tasted the contents of both, and then she leaned back in her chair and laughed heartily. “My dear little boy,” she said, “you think I am a very good cook, and I myself think I am not a very bad one; but I certainly can not make good gingerbread with mustard and salt instead of ginger and soda!”

Toto thought there were some disadvantages about being blind, after all; and after that his grandmother always tasted the ingredients before she began to cook.

Now, it happened one day that the grandmother was sitting in the sun before the cottage door, knitting; and as she knitted, from time to time she heaved a deep sigh. And one of those sighs is the reason why this story is written; for if the grandmother had not sighed, and Toto had not heard her, none of the funny things that I am going to tell you would have happened. Moral: always sigh when you want a story written.