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Unknown - "Thoughts on Man"

Frances E. W. Harper - "Poems, by Frances E. W. Harper"

S. H. BUTCHER, M.A. - "THE ODYSSEY OF HOMER"

Edgar Rice Burroughs - "The Outlaw of Torn"

The Phoenix and the Carpet

E >> E. Nesbit >> The Phoenix and the Carpet




'But how can it do it--unless one of us is on it to do the
wishing?' asked Robert. He spoke with a rising hope that it MIGHT
be necessary for one to go and why not Robert? But the Phoenix
quickly threw cold water on his new-born dream.

'Why, you just write your wish on a paper, and pin it on the
carpet.'

So a leaf was torn from Anthea's arithmetic book, and on it Cyril
wrote in large round-hand the following:


We wish you to go to your dear native home, and bring back the most
beautiful and delightful productions of it you can--and not to be
gone long, please.
(Signed) CYRIL.
ROBERT.
ANTHEA.
JANE.


Then the paper was laid on the carpet.

'Writing down, please,' said the Phoenix; 'the carpet can't read a
paper whose back is turned to it, any more than you can.'

It was pinned fast, and the table and chairs having been moved, the
carpet simply and suddenly vanished, rather like a patch of water
on a hearth under a fierce fire. The edges got smaller and
smaller, and then it disappeared from sight.

'It may take it some time to collect the beautiful and delightful
things,' said the Phoenix. 'I should wash up--I mean wash down.'

So they did. There was plenty of hot water left in the kettle, and
every one helped--even the Phoenix, who took up cups by their
handles with its clever claws and dipped them in the hot water, and
then stood them on the table ready for Anthea to dry them. But the
bird was rather slow, because, as it said, though it was not above
any sort of honest work, messing about with dish-water was not
exactly what it had been brought up to. Everything was nicely
washed up, and dried, and put in its proper place, and the
dish-cloth washed and hung on the edge of the copper to dry, and
the tea-cloth was hung on the line that goes across the scullery.
(If you are a duchess's child, or a king's, or a person of high
social position's child, you will perhaps not know the difference
between a dish-cloth and a tea-cloth; but in that case your nurse
has been better instructed than you, and she will tell you all
about it.) And just as eight hands and one pair of claws were being
dried on the roller-towel behind the scullery door there came a
strange sound from the other side of the kitchen wall--the side
where the nursery was. It was a very strange sound, indeed--most
odd, and unlike any other sounds the children had ever heard. At
least, they had heard sounds as much like it as a toy engine's
whistle is like a steam siren's.

'The carpet's come back,' said Robert; and the others felt that he
was right.

'But what has it brought with it?' asked Jane. 'It sounds like
Leviathan, that great beast.'

'It couldn't have been made in India, and have brought elephants?
Even baby ones would be rather awful in that room,' said Cyril. 'I
vote we take it in turns to squint through the keyhole.'

They did--in the order of their ages. The Phoenix, being the
eldest by some thousands of years, was entitled to the first peep.
But--

'Excuse me,' it said, ruffling its golden feathers and sneezing
softly; 'looking through keyholes always gives me a cold in my
golden eyes.'

So Cyril looked.

'I see something grey moving,' said he.

'It's a zoological garden of some sort, I bet,' said Robert, when
he had taken his turn. And the soft rustling, bustling, ruffling,
scuffling, shuffling, fluffling noise went on inside.

'_I_ can't see anything,' said Anthea, 'my eye tickles so.'

Then Jane's turn came, and she put her eye to the keyhole.

'It's a giant kitty-cat,' she said; 'and it's asleep all over the
floor.'

'Giant cats are tigers--father said so.'

'No, he didn't. He said tigers were giant cats. It's not at all
the same thing.'

'It's no use sending the carpet to fetch precious things for you if
you're afraid to look at them when they come,' said the Phoenix,
sensibly. And Cyril, being the eldest, said--

'Come on,' and turned the handle.

The gas had been left full on after tea, and everything in the room
could be plainly seen by the ten eyes at the door. At least, not
everything, for though the carpet was there it was invisible,
because it was completely covered by the hundred and ninety-nine
beautiful objects which it had brought from its birthplace.

'My hat!' Cyril remarked. 'I never thought about its being a
PERSIAN carpet.'

Yet it was now plain that it was so, for the beautiful objects
which it had brought back were cats--Persian cats, grey Persian
cats, and there were, as I have said, 199 of them, and they were
sitting on the carpet as close as they could get to each other.
But the moment the children entered the room the cats rose and
stretched, and spread and overflowed from the carpet to the floor,
and in an instant the floor was a sea of moving, mewing
pussishness, and the children with one accord climbed to the table,
and gathered up their legs, and the people next door knocked on the
wall--and, indeed, no wonder, for the mews were Persian and
piercing.

'This is pretty poor sport,' said Cyril. 'What's the matter with
the bounders?'

'I imagine that they are hungry,' said the Phoenix. 'If you were
to feed them--'

'We haven't anything to feed them with,' said Anthea in despair,
and she stroked the nearest Persian back. 'Oh, pussies, do be
quiet--we can't hear ourselves think.'

She had to shout this entreaty, for the mews were growing
deafening, 'and it would take pounds' and pounds' worth of
cat's-meat.'

'Let's ask the carpet to take them away,' said Robert. But the
girls said 'No.'

'They are so soft and pussy,' said Jane.

'And valuable,' said Anthea, hastily. 'We can sell them for lots
and lots of money.'

'Why not send the carpet to get food for them?' suggested the
Phoenix, and its golden voice came harsh and cracked with the
effort it had to be make to be heard above the increasing
fierceness of the Persian mews.

So it was written that the carpet should bring food for 199 Persian
cats, and the paper was pinned to the carpet as before.

The carpet seemed to gather itself together, and the cats dropped
off it, as raindrops do from your mackintosh when you shake it.
And the carpet disappeared.

Unless you have had one-hundred and ninety-nine well-grown Persian
cats in one small room, all hungry, and all saying so in
unmistakable mews, you can form but a poor idea of the noise that now
deafened the children and the Phoenix. The cats did not seem to have
been at all properly brought up. They seemed to have no idea of its
being a mistake in manners to ask for meals in a strange house--let
alone to howl for them--and they mewed, and they mewed, and they
mewed, and they mewed, till the children poked their fingers into their
ears and waited in silent agony, wondering why the whole of Camden
Town did not come knocking at the door to ask what was the matter, and
only hoping that the food for the cats would come before the neighbours
did--and before all the secret of the carpet and the Phoenix had to
be given away beyond recall to an indignant neighbourhood.

The cats mewed and mewed and twisted their Persian forms in and out
and unfolded their Persian tails, and the children and the Phoenix
huddled together on the table.

The Phoenix, Robert noticed suddenly, was trembling.

'So many cats,' it said, 'and they might not know I was the
Phoenix. These accidents happen so quickly. It quite un-mans me.'

This was a danger of which the children had not thought.

'Creep in,' cried Robert, opening his jacket.

And the Phoenix crept in--only just in time, for green eyes had
glared, pink noses had sniffed, white whiskers had twitched, and as
Robert buttoned his coat he disappeared to the waist in a wave of
eager grey Persian fur. And on the instant the good carpet slapped
itself down on the floor. And it was covered with rats--three hundred
and ninety-eight of them, I believe, two for each cat.

'How horrible!' cried Anthea. 'Oh, take them away!'

'Take yourself away,' said the Phoenix, 'and me.'

'I wish we'd never had a carpet,' said Anthea, in tears.

They hustled and crowded out of the door, and shut it, and locked
it. Cyril, with great presence of mind, lit a candle and turned
off the gas at the main.

'The rats'll have a better chance in the dark,' he said.

The mewing had ceased. Every one listened in breathless silence.
We all know that cats eat rats--it is one of the first things we
read in our little brown reading books; but all those cats eating
all those rats--it wouldn't bear thinking of.

Suddenly Robert sniffed, in the silence of the dark kitchen, where
the only candle was burning all on one side, because of the
draught.

'What a funny scent!' he said.

And as he spoke, a lantern flashed its light through the window of
the kitchen, a face peered in, and a voice said--

'What's all this row about? You let me in.'

It was the voice of the police!

Robert tip-toed to the window, and spoke through the pane that had
been a little cracked since Cyril accidentally knocked it with a
walking-stick when he was playing at balancing it on his nose. (It
was after they had been to a circus.)

'What do you mean?' he said. 'There's no row. You listen;
everything's as quiet as quiet.' And indeed it was.

The strange sweet scent grew stronger, and the Phoenix put out its
beak.

The policeman hesitated.

'They're MUSK-rats,' said the Phoenix. 'I suppose some cats eat
them--but never Persian ones. What a mistake for a well-informed
carpet to make! Oh, what a night we're having!'

'Do go away,' said Robert, nervously. 'We're
just going to bed--that's our bedroom candle; there isn't any row.
Everything's as quiet as a mouse.'

A wild chorus of mews drowned his words, and with the mews were
mingled the shrieks of the musk-rats. What had happened? Had the
cats tasted them before deciding that they disliked the flavour?

'I'm a-coming in,' said the policeman. 'You've got a cat shut up
there.'

'A cat,' said Cyril. 'Oh, my only aunt! A cat!'

'Come in, then,' said Robert. 'It's your own look out. I advise
you not. Wait a shake, and I'll undo the side gate.'

He undid the side gate, and the policeman, very cautiously, came
in. And there in the kitchen, by the light of one candle, with the
mewing and the screaming going like a dozen steam sirens, twenty
waiting on motor-cars, and half a hundred squeaking pumps, four
agitated voices shouted to the policeman four mixed and wholly
different explanations of the very mixed events of the evening.

Did you ever try to explain the simplest thing to a policeman?



CHAPTER 8
THE CATS, THE COW, AND THE BURGLAR

The nursery was full of Persian cats and musk-rats that had been
brought there by the wishing carpet. The cats were mewing and the
musk-rats were squeaking so that you could hardly hear yourself
speak. In the kitchen were the four children, one candle, a
concealed Phoenix, and a very visible policeman.

'Now then, look here,' said the Policeman, very loudly, and he
pointed his lantern at each child in turn, 'what's the meaning of
this here yelling and caterwauling. I tell you you've got a cat
here, and some one's a ill-treating of it. What do you mean by it,
eh?'

It was five to one, counting the Phoenix; but the policeman, who
was one, was of unusually fine size, and the five, including the
Phoenix, were small. The mews and the squeaks grew softer, and in
the comparative silence, Cyril said--

'It's true. There are a few cats here. But we've not hurt them.
It's quite the opposite. We've just fed them.'

'It don't sound like it,' said the policeman grimly.

'I daresay they're not REAL cats,' said Jane madly, perhaps they're
only dream-cats.'

'I'll dream-cat you, my lady,' was the brief response of the force.

'If you understood anything except people who do murders and
stealings and naughty things like that, I'd tell you all about it,'
said Robert; 'but I'm certain you don't. You're not meant to shove
your oar into people's private cat-keepings. You're only supposed
to interfere when people shout "murder" and "stop thief" in the
street. So there!'

The policeman assured them that he should see about that; and at
this point the Phoenix, who had been making itself small on the
pot-shelf under the dresser, among the saucepan lids and the fish-
kettle, walked on tip-toed claws in a noiseless and modest manner,
and left the room unnoticed by any one.

'Oh, don't be so horrid,' Anthea was saying, gently and earnestly.
'We LOVE cats--dear pussy-soft things. We wouldn't hurt them for
worlds. Would we, Pussy?'

And Jane answered that of course they wouldn't. And still the
policeman seemed unmoved by their eloquence.

'Now, look here,' he said, 'I'm a-going to see what's in that room
beyond there, and--'

His voice was drowned in a wild burst of mewing and squeaking. And
as soon as it died down all four children began to explain at once;
and though the squeaking and mewing were not at their very loudest,
yet there was quite enough of both to make it very hard for the
policeman to understand a single word of any of the four wholly
different explanations now poured out to him.

'Stow it,' he said at last. 'I'm a-goin' into the next room in the
execution of my duty. I'm a-goin' to use my eyes--my ears have
gone off their chumps, what with you and them cats.'

And he pushed Robert aside, and strode through the door.

'Don't say I didn't warn you,' said Robert.

'It's tigers REALLY,' said Jane. 'Father said so. I wouldn't go
in, if I were you.'

But the policeman was quite stony; nothing any one said seemed to
make any difference to him. Some policemen are like this, I
believe. He strode down the passage, and in another moment he
would have been in the room with all the cats and all the rats
(musk), but at that very instant a thin, sharp voice screamed from
the street outside--

'Murder--murder! Stop thief!'

The policeman stopped, with one regulation boot heavily poised in
the air.

'Eh?' he said.

And again the shrieks sounded shrilly and piercingly from the dark
street outside.

'Come on,' said Robert. 'Come and look after cats while somebody's
being killed outside.' For Robert had an inside feeling that told
him quite plainly WHO it was that was screaming.

'You young rip,' said the policeman, 'I'll settle up with you
bimeby.'

And he rushed out, and the children heard his boots going weightily
along the pavement, and the screams also going along, rather ahead
of the policeman; and both the murder-screams and the policeman's
boots faded away in the remote distance.

Then Robert smacked his knickerbocker loudly with his palm, and
said--

'Good old Phoenix! I should know its golden voice anywhere.'

And then every one understood how cleverly the Phoenix had caught
at what Robert had said about the real work of a policeman being to
look after murderers and thieves, and not after cats, and all
hearts were filled with admiring affection.

'But he'll come back,' said Anthea, mournfully, 'as soon as it
finds the murderer is only a bright vision of a dream, and there
isn't one at all really.'

'No he won't,' said the soft voice of the clever Phoenix, as it
flew in. 'HE DOES NOT KNOW WHERE YOUR HOUSE IS. I heard him own
as much to a fellow mercenary. Oh! what a night we are having!
Lock the door, and let us rid ourselves of this intolerable smell
of the perfume peculiar to the musk-rat and to the house of the
trimmers of beards. If you'll excuse me, I will go to bed. I am
worn out.'

It was Cyril who wrote the paper that told the carpet to take away
the rats and bring milk, because there seemed to be no doubt in any
breast that, however Persian cats may be, they must like milk.

'Let's hope it won't be musk-milk,' said Anthea, in gloom, as she
pinned the paper face-downwards on the carpet. 'Is there such a
thing as a musk-cow?' she added anxiously, as the carpet shrivelled
and vanished. 'I do hope not. Perhaps really it WOULD have been
wiser to let the carpet take the cats away. It's getting quite
late, and we can't keep them all night.'

'Oh, can't we?' was the bitter rejoinder of Robert, who had been
fastening the side door. 'You might have consulted me,' he went
on. 'I'm not such an idiot as some people.'

'Why, whatever--'

'Don't you see? We've jolly well GOT to keep the cats all
night--oh, get down, you furry beasts!--because we've had three
wishes out of the old carpet now, and we can't get any more till
to-morrow.'

The liveliness of Persian mews alone prevented the occurrence of a
dismal silence.

Anthea spoke first.

'Never mind,' she said. 'Do you know, I really do think they're
quieting down a bit. Perhaps they heard us say milk.'

'They can't understand English,' said Jane. 'You forget they're
Persian cats, Panther.'

'Well,' said Anthea, rather sharply, for she was tired and anxious,
'who told you "milk" wasn't Persian for milk. Lots of English
words are just the same in French--at least I know "miaw" is, and
"croquet", and "fiance". Oh, pussies, do be quiet! Let's stroke
them as hard as we can with both hands, and perhaps they'll stop.'

So every one stroked grey fur till their hands were tired, and as
soon as a cat had been stroked enough to make it stop mewing it was
pushed gently away, and another mewing mouser was approached by the
hands of the strokers. And the noise was really more than half
purr when the carpet suddenly appeared in its proper place, and on
it, instead of rows of milk-cans, or even of milk-jugs, there was
a COW. Not a Persian cow, either, nor, most fortunately, a
musk-cow, if there is such a thing, but a smooth, sleek,
dun-coloured Jersey cow, who blinked large soft eyes at the
gas-light and mooed in an amiable if rather inquiring manner.

Anthea had always been afraid of cows; but now she tried to be
brave.

'Anyway, it can't run after me,' she said to herself 'There isn't
room for it even to begin to run.'

The cow was perfectly placid. She behaved like a strayed duchess
till some one brought a saucer for the milk, and some one else
tried to milk the cow into it. Milking is very difficult. You may
think it is easy, but it is not. All the children were by this
time strung up to a pitch of heroism that would have been
impossible to them in their ordinary condition. Robert and Cyril
held the cow by the horns; and Jane, when she was quite sure that
their end of the cow was quite secure, consented to stand by, ready
to hold the cow by the tail should occasion arise. Anthea, holding
the saucer, now advanced towards the cow. She remembered to have
heard that cows, when milked by strangers, are susceptible to the
soothing influence of the human voice. So, clutching her saucer
very tight, she sought for words to whose soothing influence the
cow might be susceptible. And her memory, troubled by the events
of the night, which seemed to go on and on for ever and ever,
refused to help her with any form of words suitable to address a
Jersey cow in.

'Poor pussy, then. Lie down, then, good dog, lie down!' was all
that she could think of to say, and she said it.

And nobody laughed. The situation, full of grey mewing cats, was
too serious for that. Then Anthea, with a beating heart, tried to
milk the cow. Next moment the cow had knocked the saucer out of
her hand and trampled on it with one foot, while with the other
three she had walked on a foot each of Robert, Cyril, and Jane.

Jane burst into tears. 'Oh, how much too horrid everything is!'
she cried. 'Come away. Let's go to bed and leave the horrid cats
with the hateful cow. Perhaps somebody will eat somebody else.
And serve them right.'

They did not go to bed, but they had a shivering council in the
drawing-room, which smelt of soot--and, indeed, a heap of this lay
in the fender. There had been no fire in the room since mother
went away, and all the chairs and tables were in the wrong places,
and the chrysanthemums were dead, and the water in the pot nearly
dried up. Anthea wrapped the embroidered woolly sofa blanket round
Jane and herself, while Robert and Cyril had a struggle, silent and
brief, but fierce, for the larger share of the fur hearthrug.

'It is most truly awful,' said Anthea, 'and I am so tired. Let's
let the cats loose.'

'And the cow, perhaps?' said Cyril. 'The police would find us at
once. That cow would stand at the gate and mew--I mean moo--to
come in. And so would the cats. No; I see quite well what we've
got to do. We must put them in baskets and leave them on people's
doorsteps, like orphan foundlings.'

'We've got three baskets, counting mother's work one,' said Jane
brightening.

'And there are nearly two hundred cats,' said Anthea, 'besides the
cow--and it would have to be a different-sized basket for her; and
then I don't know how you'd carry it, and you'd never find a
doorstep big enough to put it on. Except the church one--and--'

'Oh, well,' said Cyril, 'if you simply MAKE difficulties--'

'I'm with you,' said Robert. 'Don't fuss about the cow, Panther.
It's simply GOT to stay the night, and I'm sure I've read that the
cow is a remunerating creature, and that means it will sit still
and think for hours. The carpet can take it away in the morning.
And as for the baskets, we'll do them up in dusters, or
pillow-cases, or bath-towels. Come on, Squirrel. You girls can be
out of it if you like.'

His tone was full of contempt, but Jane and Anthea were too tired
and desperate to care; even being 'out of it', which at other times
they could not have borne, now seemed quite a comfort. They
snuggled down in the sofa blanket, and Cyril threw the fur
hearthrug over them.

'Ah, he said, 'that's all women are fit for--to keep safe and warm,
while the men do the work and run dangers and risks and things.'

'I'm not,' said Anthea, 'you know I'm not.' But Cyril was gone.

It was warm under the blanket and the hearthrug, and Jane snuggled
up close to her sister; and Anthea cuddled Jane closely and kindly,
and in a sort of dream they heard the rise of a wave of mewing as
Robert opened the door of the nursery. They heard the booted
search for baskets in the back kitchen. They heard the side door
open and close, and they knew that each brother had gone out with
at least one cat. Anthea's last thought was that it would take at
least all night to get rid of one hundred and ninety-nine cats by
twos. There would be ninety-nine journeys of two cats each, and one
cat over.

'I almost think we might keep the one cat over,' said Anthea. 'I
don't seem to care for cats just now, but I daresay I shall again
some day.' And she fell asleep. Jane also was sleeping.

It was Jane who awoke with a start, to find Anthea still asleep.
As, in the act of awakening, she kicked her sister, she wondered
idly why they should have gone to bed in their boots; but the next
moment she remembered where they were.

There was a sound of muffled, shuffled feet on the stairs. Like
the heroine of the classic poem, Jane 'thought it was the boys',
and as she felt quite wide awake, and not nearly so tired as
before, she crept gently from Anthea's side and followed the
footsteps. They went down into the basement; the cats, who seemed
to have fallen into the sleep of exhaustion, awoke at the sound of
the approaching footsteps and mewed piteously. Jane was at the
foot of the stairs before she saw it was not her brothers whose
coming had roused her and the cats, but a burglar. She knew he was
a burglar at once, because he wore a fur cap and a red and black
charity-check comforter, and he had no business where he was.

If you had been stood in jane's shoes you would no doubt have run
away in them, appealing to the police and neighbours with horrid
screams. But Jane knew better. She had read a great many nice
stories about burglars, as well as some affecting pieces of poetry,
and she knew that no burglar will ever hurt a little girl if he
meets her when burgling. Indeed, in all the cases Jane had read
of, his burglarishness was almost at once forgotten in the interest
he felt in the little girl's artless prattle. So if Jane hesitated
for a moment before addressing the burglar, it was only because she
could not at once think of any remark sufficiently prattling and
artless to make a beginning with. In the stories and the affecting
poetry the child could never speak plainly, though it always looked
old enough to in the pictures. And Jane could not make up her mind
to lisp and 'talk baby', even to a burglar. And while she
hesitated he softly opened the nursery door and went in.

Jane followed--just in time to see him sit down flat on the floor,
scattering cats as a stone thrown into a pool splashes water.

She closed the door softly and stood there, still wondering whether
she COULD bring herself to say, 'What's 'oo doing here, Mithter
Wobber?' and whether any other kind of talk would do.

Then she heard the burglar draw a long breath, and he spoke.

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