Фрэнсис Элиза Ходжсон Бёрнетт
The Good Wolf
"Yes, there is," the Good Wolf answered. "I'll look after the time. Come along. I see four little elephants and three lions looking over here this minute, as if they wanted to talk to you."
All the games Barty played and all the things he did that day, it would take chapters and chapters to tell about. When the Good Wolf told him it was time to go, he was being ring-master, and he was laughing and shouting with glee. And all the little animals were crowding round watching the elephants stand on their heads, and the horses read things written on black boards. The Noah's Ark Rabbits themselves were perfectly delighted, and said they had never enjoyed a Snow Feast as much before.
"You must come next year," they said, "and the next, and the next, and the next, and the next – " They were even going on murmuring "the next and the next," when Barty went away.
"Now," said the Good Wolf, "trot along – trot along – trot along."
And they did trot along, down corridors and round corners, and through galleries, and in and out, and faster and faster, until at last they came to the hole they had crept in through; and they crept out through it, and found themselves once more standing in the sparkling snow with the circle of tall trees round them.
Barty clapped his hands.
"I never had such a splendid time in my life," he said. "I never had such beautiful things to eat. I never even dreamed of anything as nice as the Snow Feast."
"Neither did I," answered the Good Wolf. "I have nothing like it even in the pink ear or the blue one. Now we must shake ourselves."
So they shook themselves – once they shook themselves – twice they shook themselves – three times and there they stood just the right size again. And the Good Wolf slipped into his harness, and Barty jumped on the red sled, and the bells jingled and jingled; and off they went, gliding over the sparkling snow, home through the deep forest where things built nests, and things burrowed under the earth, and made long passages and little warm caves to hide in; and where there were wonderful Snow Feasts, which only one little boy in all the world had seen or heard of, and his name was Barty.
CHAPTER FOUR
WHEN the Good Wolf had drawn the red sled with Barty on it nearly to the edge of the deep forest, he stopped. "Now," he said, "you must get off and unharness me."
Then Barty suddenly thought of something. "What shall I say when my mother asks me where I got my new sled?"
"Well," answered the Good Wolf, "I think I shall have to be a kind of secret. Mothers are very easily frightened and I wouldn't frighten a mother for anything. You might tell her it is a present from an intimate friend, and if she asks what his name is you can say it is Mr. Wolf. Have you got your whip safe?"
Barty took it out of his pocket. Now that he was his real size again it looked very tiny.
"I would advise you to go into a quiet place in the forest when you crack that whip," said the Good Wolf. "If any one came when you were playing circus your little animals would suddenly grow big again and that would be very inconvenient."
"There is a very quiet place I know of," answered Barty. "It is my secret playing place. You have to creep through bushes to get to it. It is round and has grass on it. It will make a beautiful circus. But when will you come back and see me?"
"I don't know yet, but I will come some time," answered the Good Wolf. "I am glad I happened to be at the edge of the forest this morning. There is some pleasure in taking a boy like you, who is a blessing and a privilege, to a Snow Feast. Now I must go."
Once he shook himself, twice he shook himself, three times he shook himself, and he was a wolf again.
"Good-bye," he said, "until we meet again." And off he trotted.
Barty went back to his house dragging his red sled after him and thinking about things, until his cheeks were as red as his coat.
His mother was very busy making bread, but when she saw him she was so surprised that she stopped kneading her dough.
"Where did you get that splendid sled?" she asked.
"Some one in the forest gave it to me," answered Barty. "He said he was my intimate friend and his name was Mr. Wolf. I think," and Barty hesitated a little as he remembered, "I do think he was a kind of a fairy."
His mother laughed. "I should think he was too, if he gave me such a nice present as that," she said, and she went on with her kneading.
Barty played with his sled all the rest of the day, and at night he put it in a very safe corner in the woodshed. Before he went to sleep he hid the tiny whip under his pillow.
"But I do feel, now that I can't see either of them," he whispered to himself as he lay in the dark, "I do feel as if it must have been a dream. Was it?" And he had to put his hand under his pillow and touch the whip before he could go to sleep.
It was curious, but the first thing when he wakened in the morning he found himself sitting up in bed and rubbing his eyes and saying aloud to himself:
"Was it? Was it? Was it?"
Then he remembered the tiny whip and he darted his hand under his pillow, but he felt nothing. He lifted the pillow and looked under it, but he saw nothing. He jumped out of bed and shook the sheet and shook it, but he felt nothing. The tiny whip was gone.
He just stood and stared, and then he said rather slowly:
"Well, if it was a dream it was the nicest one I ever had and I'm glad I had it. Perhaps some night I shall have it again." And he dressed himself quickly and ran downstairs.
And this was the first thing his mother said to him as she came in from the wood shed:
"I've just been looking at your new sled, Barty, and it is the nicest one I ever saw."
"Oh!" Barty almost shouted, "is it in the woodshed? Is it?" And he flew out to look, and there it was! And it was just as red and just as jingling and just as beautiful as ever.
"The Good Wolf wasn't a dream," he cried joyfully. "And so the other wasn't."
But as the days went by and he wished more and more that he could find the little whip and make sure that the tiny lions and tigers and elephants had been real, he used to go and sit down very hard on the red sled and say out loud ever so many times:
"It wasn't a dream – it wasn't – it wasn't – it wasn't one! and that would make him feel quite cheerful.
One quite beautiful morning, after the snow had gone away, he was in his bedroom and he suddenly caught sight of something bright, shining under a wardrobe.
"I wonder what that is," he said, feeling his heart begin to beat. He crept to the wardrobe as if he thought the bright thing would get away if it heard him, and suddenly he dropped on his knees, thrust his arm far under the wardrobe, quite against the wall, and pulled out the bright thing – and it was the whip. The bright part was the gold handle. It had rolled out from under the pillow and had rested on the edge of the bed until it had been shaken off and rolled under the wardrobe and stayed there. Barty gave a shout.
"There," he cried, "I said it wasn't a dream – and it wasn't one!
He was so excited that he almost did a dangerous thing. He almost cracked the whip right in his bedroom, but he remembered just in time that if he did, and the little animals came and his mother came too, they would grow big all at once at sight of her, and it would be enough to frighten any mother to death – besides the room being so small that it wouldn't hold even a single elephant.
"I'd better be careful," he said to himself, "I'm glad I thought of that in time."
When he got outside he really couldn't wait until he got into the deep forest, and was under the trees, flying along the path which led to the bushes which hid his secret place. It was a very secret place. You had to crawl through a sort of tunnel until you crawled through a hole into a clear green place with a close hedge of bushes round it, except where there was a high rock at the back – a great big rock with a cave in it. Barty had never been into the cave because it rather frightened him. He thought it looked like a Robber's Cave, though he had never seen any robbers about, and anyway there was only a long narrow slit in the rock for any one to squeeze in and out of. A fat robber could never have got in. Barty crawled through the hole in the bushes and stood up on his feet, quite out of breath. His eyes were sparkling with joy.
"Now then," he said when he had his breath again. "Now then!" And he stood in the middle of the green circle and cracked his whip.
It was such a little whip that it made only a little crack. And at first nothing came.
"Shake yourself once – shake yourself twice – shake yourself three times," he said. "Perhaps I had better crack it three times." And three times he cracked it as loud as ever he could. After he had done it he stood quite still and listened.
He listened and listened, and the deep forest seemed so still that he could hear himself breathe. He listened and listened again, and it seemed so still that he felt as if he could hear himself think. Then he listened again, and he heard a faint, faint rustle. It sounded far away and he did not know where it came from. But presently he knew it was coming nearer. Yes, it was coming nearer and nearer and it seemed to be coming from the right side and from the left and from before and behind him, and it grew louder and louder until it sounded like scampering and like shuffling and like jumping and like little trotting hoofs. And in about three minutes two little lions jumped over the bushes and two little tigers followed them and two little leopards after them, and two little bears came shuffling through the hole at the end of the tunnel, and two tiny hippopotamuses and two rhinoceroses, and two lovely elephants who marched into the middle of the ring and threw up their trunks and trumpeted; and last of all four splendid little horses, one snow white and one jet black and two with beautiful brown spots on them, leaped over the hedge and made a bow to Barty, bending their heads and scraping with their feet, and wheeled about and began to gallop round and round the ring as fast as ever they could, just as if they were at a real circus.
