Фрэнсис Элиза Ходжсон Бёрнетт
The Good Wolf
"Oh, I said it wasn't a dream!" shouted Barty. "And it isn't —
it isn't – it isn't! Hooray! Hooray! Hooray! And he jumped up and down and laughed for joy, and stamped and stamped and stamped. Then they all crowded round him as if they felt just as happy as he did.
"Didn't you want us before?" they said. "What a long time you were in calling us."
"I lost my whip," answered Barty, and when they all cried out "Oh-h-h!" he suddenly felt as if he must turn round and look behind, and when he did it he saw that the nicest thing in the world had happened. There sat the Good Wolf near the bushes, smiling at him. He could not help running to him and hugging him.
"Oh, I am glad! I am glad!" he said. "This is the nicest thing of all!"
"It is nice," answered the Good Wolf. "I was hunting in Russia and I wasn't sure I could come. But I must attend to this whip business."
He shook his blue ear and a narrow, rather long ivory box fell out.
"That is a whip box," he said, and he began to scratch in the earth until he made a rather deep hole under a bush. "Now," he said, "whenever you have done with your whip you must lock it in that box and put it in this hole, and you will always know where to find it."
"I will never forget," said Barty.
The circus they had that morning was ten times as nice as the one they had had before.
"Oh, what fun it would be," said Barty, "if we had a little clown." He wasn't hinting in the least, he only said it because it just came into his head, and he had no sooner said it than the Good Wolf walked forward.
"Now I should like to know," he said, "why I never thought once of that. It was perfectly ridiculous of me."
He gave his pink ear a flip and out flew a tiny clown in baggy white trousers with his hands stuck in the pockets, and a frill round his neck and a red and white painted face. And he turned sixteen somersaults one after the other and bounced onto his feet and stuck out his tongue, and said in a cracked little shrill voice just like a big clown: "Here we are again, sir. How are you to-morrow?"
And this was such a tremendous joke that it was not only Barty who laughed till he rolled over, but every single little animal laughed till it rolled over, and the grass was just covered with little elephants and lions and tigers and bears and the rest, rolling about and holding their sides. There is no knowing when they would have stopped, but in the midst of it the Good Wolf shook his blue ear and out flew the prettiest little circus lady in the world. She had pink tights on and wore so many short gauzy spangled skirts that she looked like a fairy, and she whirled round and round on the very tips of her toes, and sprang onto the backs of two of the prettiest horses – one foot on each back – and went galloping round the ring like lightning, smiling and kissing her hand to everybody.
That was why the circus was ten times nicer than it had been before. Everything was there. And Barty went on being ring-master and the circus grew more and more delightful and more and more exciting, until at last the whole entertainment was tired and had to sit down and rest and fan itself because it was actually hot.
They all sat in a circle, and because none of the animals were as big as kittens, Barty looked like a very pretty giant with rosy cheeks and curly hair. The animals had grown so fond of him that they all sat and looked at him affectionately, and the nearest elephant and lion perfectly cuddled up against him. The beautiful little lady circus rider perched on his hand and the clown sat down on his shoe.
"I am very glad to have made your acquaintance," the little lady said. "I admire you very much. You make a most delightful ring- master."
"We all like him," said the biggest little lion. "And we all mean to stand by him. I came to him from the Nubian desert this morning, and it is a long way off."
"I love every one of you," said Barty. "I don't believe there is any other boy in the world who has such delightful friends."
He stroked the lion's side, and he was just going to put his cheek against his mane, when he stopped suddenly and stared with wide open eyes at the long narrow opening in the big rock at the other side of the green circus. A thin, wicked face with evil shining black eyes was peering out and watching him and his animals.
He started so that he almost dropped the little lion. And that minute he saw another thin wicked face, and another above that and another above that, all glaring at him. And the owner of the first wicked face began to wriggle his long body through the narrow slit, and in about two minutes he had wriggled his way out and stood grinning, with swords and pistols and knives hung at his belt.
"He is a thin robber!" gasped Barty. "I knew a fat one could never get in and out. It is a Robber's Cave."
CHAPTER FIVE
TO find that your secret play ground has a robber's cave in it is very startling. Barty stood up quickly and so did all the little animals. At first Barty thought they might suddenly grow big, as the Good Wolf had said they would if they saw a grown-up person. But they did not. And if they had looked as small as kittens when they were compared with a boy, they looked almost as small as mice when they were compared with a long, thin robber. In fact, they looked so tiny that Barty was afraid they would be hurt.
"You had better run off into the forest as fast as you can before he wriggles all the way out," he said quickly to the biggest little lion.
"No, we won't," the lion answered. "Not much. We are going to stop and see the fun."
Barty was afraid there might not be much fun, but when he saw the lion slowly wink one eye at him and then saw another lion wink, and a tiger and elephant wink too, until each animal in the circus had winked, he began to see that something queer was going to happen. But he could not imagine what it was going to be, because they all huddled round his feet as if they were frightened, and even shook and shivered.
When the first robber had wriggled through the slit in the rock, another one began to wriggle through, and then another and another until there were no less than four robbers standing scowling at him.
"Hello!" said the biggest one, who was the captain, and had a feather sticking in his hat and at least four pistols and six swords hanging at his belt. "Here's a rich kid! He's just what we were looking for. He's got the finest lot of mechanical toys I ever saw in my life. Just look at those lions lashing their tails."
That made Barty very angry. He felt as if his friends were being insulted, and he strode forward and stood before them.
"They are not toys!" he shouted out. "They are as real as you are! They are my intimate friends. Go away!"
The robbers burst out laughing.
"They are not toys!" they said. "Real lions and tigers and elephants half as big as kittens!"
"If they are real, make the lion roar," said the robber captain, grinning.
"Oh do roar! Please roar!" said Barty to the lions. "Perhaps it will frighten them."
The biggest little lion winked at him again quite as if he were having a joke, and he turned round and roared. But it was such a little roar that Barty could not help knowing that it sounded like a toy roar. And the robbers laughed louder than ever.
"Good Wolf! Good Wolf!" he called out, and turned to look for him. But there was no wolf there only a big, white furry dog, who looked so innocent that he would frighten nobody.
The captain slapped his knee.
"Never since I was a robber have I seen such toys!" he cried. "We can sell them to a king for their weight in gold. These two are mine – and I will take the dog." And he picked up a little lion in one hand and a little tiger in another.
"You shall not touch them!" cried out Barty. "You shall not touch – " But he stopped in the middle of saying it because the something very queer was beginning to happen. It began that very minute.
The robber captain standing in the middle of the ring suddenly turned pale. He looked so frightened that the other robbers did not pick up anything, and stood and stared at him with their mouths open.
"What's the matter?" he shouted out. "They are growing heavier. I can't hold them. They are swelling! They are swelling!" and he dropped both the lion and the tiger on the grass.
And Barty saw that they were swelling. First they swelled until they were as big as cats, then they swelled until they were as big as dogs, then they were as big as pigs, then they were as big as calves, and the next second they were as big as the hugest lion and tiger in a menagerie, and the other lions, and tigers, and leopards were as big as they were. The elephants and rhinoceroses and hippopotamuses had to go outside the hedge to swell because there wasn't room inside. But they put their big heads through the bushes so that there was no mistake about their being there.
You can just imagine how frightening it was to the robbers to find themselves suddenly surrounded by roaring lions, and tigers, and leopards, and huge trampling elephants and hippopotamuses instead of tiny toy creatures they thought they could pick up and carry away. If Barty had not known that all of them were his particular friends he would have been frightened too. The robbers stood in the midst of them all and howled with fright.
"Call them off! Call them off!" they shouted to Barty because they saw he was really the ring-master, "we will never do it again! Never�never�never – never-r-r!"
The captain tried to dart to the crack in the rock and wriggle through, but the biggest lion put out a huge paw and dragged him back by the seat of his trousers. He laid him flat on the grass and put the huge paw on him and roared and roared.
"I wouldn't kill him," cried Barty. "Perhaps he is sorry."
"We are all sorry," the robbers sobbed.
"We are sorrier than we ever were before in our lives!
"I'll see that they are sorry enough," said the biggest lion, but of course it was only Barty who understood what he said. The robbers thought he was roaring and their knees knocked together.
