Wonderland
For a few minutes Mary Louise felt quite lonely. Presently she askedthe Polar Bear to be kind enough to land her on the nearest shore.
At once the big kind animal trimmed in his sail and before long theyentered a beautiful bay whose dark waters were dotted with the whitesails of the fisher boats, and directly in front, climbing up to thesky, a high mountain on which stood a castle, where from a tall towerall night long shone a light that could hardly be told from the starsaround it.
Mary Louise jumped from the boat to the beach, and then turned to wavegood-by to the Polar Bear as he sailed away to the North Pole.
Nearby sat an old fisherman on a bench mending his net.
"Hello, little girl," he said, as Mary Louise hesitated. "Moor yourlittle hulk 'longside o' me an' I'll spin you a yarn!"
Then he began to tell how, many hundred years ago, all the land aroundabout was covered with a thick forest instead of the deep blue water ofthe bay.
Then came the great giant Cormoran, who was 18 feet high and 3 yardswide, and his wife Cormelian, who was just as big, and they broughtfrom the hills great gray rocks which they piled up, one on the other,hundreds of feet high, until they had made a mountain. And on the topof this they built their castle, where they lived until the giant'swife died and was buried under the Chapel rock.
Then Jack the Giant Killer climbed up the mountain, and after a hardfight Cormoran was killed, and there were no more giants in the land.
Next came the Small People, who cut down most of the forest, and builtcottages for themselves, ploughed the fields and made gardens.
But one day a great enchanter came that way, and his strange dress andlong gray beard frightened the women and children, and they shut theirdoors in his face whenever he asked for a drink, for he had walked farand was tired and thirsty.
At last he found the principal man of the Small People, a little oldcrusty fellow and very miserly. And when the great enchanter asked himfor a drink of water, the Small Man told him he didn't keep a hotel forbeggars. And this made the great enchanter so angry that he struck theground with his staff, so that it made a deep hole, and then he wentupon his journey.
Soon a little spring of water bubbled up through the hole, and by andby a stream burst forth that swelled to a river, and after a time thewhole land was drowned, and only the high mountain remained above thewater.
But the Small People who were buried under the water didn't die. Theylived on just the same, waiting for the enchanter to return and liftthe spell, and the land to rise, again with all the people on it.
When the old fisherman had finished his story, he said, "I will takeyou in my boat to see the Small People deep down in the water.
"Yes, come with me in my boat and you shall see the Wonderland underthe Sea."
As soon as the old fisherman had hoisted the sail, away they went outto sea over a wide path of moonlight like a silver road leadingstraight out to the sky where it dipped down to the water.
All of a sudden Mary Louise noticed something come close up under theside of the boat, and remain there staring straight at her. She bentover until she nearly touched the water, when what she had taken for afish appeared to be a very odd-looking little man. He was even shorterthan she, very broad about the shoulders, with funny little arms andfeet that were brought together at the heels, with the toes turnedstraight out when he stood up, making them look like a fish's tail.His eyes were big and round, without any eyelids or eyebrows. But hismouth was the funniest part, and when he opened it, he looked like afish trying to talk. He was dressed in silvery white, shaded to blueand green.
With a sudden nod, he pointed to the road which opened behind him downthrough the depths of the water until lost in the distance.
Little Mary Louise could not take her eyes from him, and, forgettingall about the old fisherman and the boat, she bent over more and more,so as to look closer at the funny little old man, until, splash! downshe went into the water.
Then came a tremendous ringing in her ears and she felt her breath goand she knew nothing more until she found herself standing with thestrange little fish man by the side of a splendid carriage made of ascallop shell, burnished until it shone with pearl and silver, anddrawn by two beautiful gold-fish and two silver-fish harnessed with thesilken threads of the finest sea-mosses, and driven by an old coachmanthat looked like a mackerel.
"We are the sea-horses of the deep, And we race through the waters blue, Faster than wind and swifter than tide We gallop the ocean through."
"Jump in," said the little old fish man; and without a question MaryLouise stepped into the carriage and sat down on the beautifulpea-green cushions.
Then the little man got in, the mackerel-faced coachman cracked hiswhip, the gold and the silver fishes darted ahead, and away they went.
Great trees waved their long branches as the carriage swept past, andodd-looking shapes came out from behind them. Huge mouths opened andshut, long arms waved about trying to catch anything in their reach,and fierce looking monsters with fishes' heads came rushing in from allsides, to stare at little Mary Louise with their great savage eyes.
Presently the little old man stood up and bowing politely, told themthat Mary Louise had never caught a fish with a cruel hook.
Then these dreadful monsters snapped their horny jaws and swam away.
At once the mackerel-faced coachman whipped up his team of gold andsilver fishes and away they went spinning down the road again.
At last the carriage stopped in front of a fine mansion, and MaryLouise and the little old man jumped out on the smooth beach ofsparkling sand which sloped down to a glassy lake on which curious andbeautiful little boats were sailing in all directions.
Along the edge of the lake were many houses, some stately castles andsome little cottages. The little cottages were covered with creepingplants abloom with red flowers and the stately castles with moss likevines.
But the people. Oh dear me! They were the strangest folk! Some hadvery long noses and ugly looking teeth in their wide mouths, and otherswere so thin they looked like small sticks, and others so round thatthey could almost trundle themselves along like a coach-wheel. Somewere dressed in the shabbiest clothes, others in splendid suits, andsome covered with knobs and spikes and strange looking armor.
"Come," said the little fish man, and he led Mary Louise into his house.
Presently he brought out from a closet a quaintly shaped box. "It isthe legend of Wonderland that a little girl shall break the spell thathangs over us. For it is deemed well-nigh impossible that a mortalchild would venture beneath the water to visit us. Therefore, littleMary Louise, if I call all my people together, will you open this boxand deliver us from the spell of the Great Enchanter?"
"I will," she answered bravely, and at once the little old fish mancalled together all his subjects.
As little Mary Louise looked at the box she saw printed on the coverthese words:
"If a little girl mortal Shall uncover this prize, The sea will sink And the land will rise."
And, would you believe it, the first thing she knew after carefullyopening the box, she was back in the boat with the old sailor, who wasshading his eyes and looking towards a beautiful green island that hadsuddenly come out of the water.