MILKING THE COW.
"What let's do now?" said the child.
They had had dinner; a most exciting dinner, all coming out of tin boxes and delightful china pots. It was almost as good as Little Two-Eyes' feasts in "Little Kid Milk, Table Appear," as the child preferred to call the story. The child shut her eyes and said what she wanted, and when she opened them, there it mostly was, standing on the table before her. At least, that was the way it happened when she said chicken, and jam, and Albert biscuits; but when she said sponge cake, there was none, and the dwarf was mortified, and said he would tell the people they ought to be ashamed of themselves.
"Where all do you get them?" asked the child. "Do you stamp your foot on the floor, and say, 'JAM!' like that, hard, just as loud as you can?
do you? does it come up pop through holes? will you do it now, this minute?"
No, the dwarf could not do it now, he had not the right kind of shoes on. Besides, there were other reasons.
"Well, then, what let's do?" asked the child again.
"Let us go and milk the cow," said the dwarf.
Oh, that was exciting! Was it a truly cow? did it turn into things all day, and be a cow at night, or the other way? what did it turn into? Sometimes they were fawns and sometimes they were ducks, and sometimes what would he like to be if he didn't have to be a dwarf?
could he be things if he wanted to? was he only just playing dwarf, and by and by he would turn into a Beautiful Prince all gold and silver, wiz diamond clothes and a palace all made of candy? would he?
"And then you could marry me, you know!" said the child. "I shall be grown up by that time "
"Yes, I think you will!" said the dwarf.
"And we will be married, and I will wear a dress like the sun, and we will go in a gold coach, wiz six black horses or do you say white, Mark?"
"I say white."
"So do I say! and fezzers on their heads; and and so well, anyhow, you will show me all your treasures, you know, dwarf. You haven't showed me any yet, not any at all. Where are they?"
"I haven't but one," said the dwarf. "And that I stole."
"Really stole it? but stealing is wicked, don't you know that? can dwarfs do it? Mans can't, unless they are bad. Are dwarfs like mans at all much, Mark?"
"Not much, Snow-white. But, after all, I did not steal my treasure, I only found it."
The child was greatly relieved. That made it all right, she assured him. Always everybody could keep the things they found, though of course the wicked fairies and dragons tried to get the treasure away.
She cited many cases from the Fairy Books, and the dwarf said he felt a great deal better.
"Tell me all about it," she urged. "Tell me that story what you said you knew. You haven't told me any story at all yet, Mark!"
She looked at him with marked disapproval. "It isn't the way they do!"
she explained. "Why, when the Bear came to Snow-white and Rosy Red's house, he told them stories all the time till he turned into a prince."
"Yes, but I am not a bear," said the dwarf, "and I am not going to turn into a prince, you see. However, I will tell you a story, Snow-white, I truly will; only, you see, that poor cow has to be milked."
"All I forgot her!" cried the child. "Now we will hurry, Mark, and run.
We will run all the way. You can't run much faster than me, 'cause your legs is short, too. Are you glad? I am! 'Most I wish I was a dwarf, to stay little like you."
"Come!" said the man. His voice sounded rough and harsh; but when the child looked up, startled, he took her in his arms, and kissed her very tenderly, and set her on his back. He would be her horse now, he said, and give her a good ride. And wasn't the hump comfortable to sit on?
now she must hold on tight, and he would trot.
He trotted gently through the green wood, and the child shouted with joy, and jumped up and down on the hump. It was a round, smooth hump, and made a good seat.
They did not get on very fast, in spite of the trotting, there was so much to see by the way. Little paths wound here and there through the forest, as if some one walked in it a great deal. The trees in this part were mostly pine and hemlock, and the ground was covered with a thick carpet of brown needles. The hermit thrush called them from deeper depths of woodland; close by, squirrels frisked and chattered among the branches, and dropped bits of pine-cone on the child's head.
Were they tame? she asked; the dwarf said she should judge for herself.
They sat down, and he bade her keep still, and then gave a queer whistle. Presently a squirrel came, then another, and another, till there were half a dozen of them, gray and red, with one little striped beauty. They sat up on the brown needles, and looked at the dwarf with bright, asking eyes. He took some nuts from his pocket, and then there was a scramble for his knee and his shoulder, and he fed them, talking to them the while, they whisking their tails and cocking their heads, and taking the nuts in their paws as politely as possible. One big gray fellow made a little bow, and that was charming to see.
"Good boy!" said the dwarf. "Good old Simeon! I taught him to do that, Snow-white. You need not be afraid, Sim. This is only Snow-white. She has come to do my cooking and all my work, and she will not touch you.
His name is Simeon Stylites, and he lives on a pillar I mean a dead tree, with all the branches gone. Simeon, if you are greedy, you'll get no more. Consider the example you have to set!"
"Why is he named that?" asked the child.
"Because when he sits up straight on top of his tree, and folds his paws, he looks like an old gentleman of that name, who used to live on top of a pillar, a long time ago."
"Why did he? but why couldn't he get down? but how did he get up? what did he have to eat? why don't you tell me?"
"I never thought much about his getting up," said the dwarf. "I suppose he must have shinned, don't you? and as for getting down, he just didn't. He stayed there. He used to let down a basket every day, or whenever he was hungry, and people put food in it, and then he pulled it up. What did they put? Oh, figs, I suppose, and black bread, and honey. Rather fun, don't you think, to see what would come up?"
The child sprang up and clapped her hands. "Mark," she cried, "I will be him!"
"On a pillar?" said the dwarf. "See, you have frightened Simeon away, and he hadn't had half enough; and you couldn't possibly climb his tree, Snow-white."
"In your tree! in the hole! it will be just as good as Little Kid Milk. Not in any of the stories a little girl did that; all mineself I will do it. I love you, Mark!"
She flung her arms around his neck and hugged him till he choked. When the soft arms loosened their hold, his eyes were dark.
"You love me because I have a tree?" he said, "and because you like the things in the china pots?"
"Yes!" said the child, "and because you are a dwarf, and because you are nice. Most because you are nice, Mark, when those other dwarfs is yellow and horrid and all kinds of things."
"All right!" said the dwarf. "I love you, too. Now soon we are coming to the cow. We must hurry, Snow-white."
But it was not easy to hurry. He had to look and see how the ferns were unrolling, and to say what they looked like. The child thought they were like the little brown cakes, only green, what you bought them at the cake-shop. Didn't he know the cake-shop? but could he buy things?
did they let dwarfs buy things just as if they were mans? could he have money, or did he have to dig up pearls and diamonds and rubies, out of the ground? was there a place here where he dug them up? when would he show it to her?
Then there were the anemones just out; and at sight of them the child jumped up and down, and had to be told what they were. The name was very funny, she thought.
"I can make a song wiz that!" she said, and then she sang:
    "Any money, ain't it funny?
    Ain't it funny, any money?
"It hasn't any money, this frower hasn't. All it's white, just like milk. Do you like money, Mark?"
"No, I hate it!"
"Me, too!" cried the child, bubbling into a laugh. "In my bank, I had lots and lots of money; and the man with the black shirt said about the poor children, and so I took it out and gave it to him, and then they said I couldn't have it back!"
"Who said so?" asked the dwarf.
"Miss Tyler! Well, but so I said I would, and so she punished me, and so I beat her, and she said to stay in my room, and I runned away. Are you glad I runned away, Mark?"
"Very glad, to-day, Snow-white; I don't know how it will be to-morrow.
But tell me what you wanted to do with your money!"
It appeared that the child wanted to buy candy, and a pony, and a watch, and a doll with wink-eyes and hair down to her feet, and a real stove, and a popgun, and what was this place?
The wood broke open suddenly, and there was a bit of pasture-land, with rocks scattered about, and a little round blue pond, and by the pond a brown cow grazing. At the sound of voices the cow raised her head, and seeing the dwarf, lowed gently and began to move leisurely toward him.
The child clapped her hands and danced. "Is she saying 'hurrah'?" she cried. "Does she love you? do you love her? is she" her voice dropped suddenly "is she real, Mark?"
"Real, Snow-white? Why, see her walk! Did you think I wound her up?
She's too big; and besides, I haven't been near her."
The child brushed these remarks aside with a wave. "Does she stay all the time a cow?" she whispered, putting her mouth close to the dwarf's ear. "Or does she turn at night into a princess?" She drew back and pointed a stern finger at him. "Tell me the troof, Mark!"
The dwarf was very humble. So far as he knew, he said, she was a real cow. She mooed like one, and she acted like one; moreover, he had bought her for one. "But you see," he added, "I don't stay here at night, so how can I tell?"
They both looked at the cow, who returned the stare with unaffected interest, but with no appearance of any hidden meaning in her calm brown gaze.
"I think," said the child, after a long, searching inspection, "I think she's only just a cow!"
"I think so, too," said the dwarf, in a tone of relief. "I'm glad, aren't you, Snow-white? I think it would be awkward to have a princess.
Now I'll milk her, and you can frisk about and pick flowers."
The child frisked merrily for a time. She found a place where there were some brownish common-looking leaves; and stepping on them just to hear them crackle, there was a pink flush along the ground, and lo! a wonder of mayflowers. They lay with their rosy cheeks close against the moss, and seemed to laugh out at the child; and she laughed, too, and danced for joy, and put some of them in her hair. Then she picked more, and made a posy, and ran to stick it in the dwarf's coat. He looked lovely, she told him, with the pink flowers in his gray coat; she said she didn't care much if he never turned into anything; he was nice enough the way he was; and the dwarf said it was just as well, and he was glad to hear it.
"And you look so nice when you smile in your eyes like that, Mark! I think I'll kiss you now."
"I never kiss ladies when I am milking," said the dwarf. And then the child said he was a horrid old thing, and she wouldn't now, anyhow, and perhaps she wouldn't at all ever in her life, and anyhow not till she went to bed.
By and by she found a place where the ground was wet, near the edge of the pond, and she could go pat, pat with her feet, and make smooth, deep prints. This grew more and more pleasant the farther she went, till presently the water came lapping cool and clear over her feet.
Yes, but just then a butterfly came, a bright yellow one, and she tried to catch it, and in trying tripped and fell her length in the pond.
That was sad, indeed; and it was fortunate the milking was ended just at that time, for at first she meant to cry hard, and the only thing that stopped her was riding home on the dwarf's hump, dripping water all over his gray velvet clothes. He didn't care, he said, so long as she did not drip into the milk.