The Enchanted Wood Page 4

  "Where’s Jo now?" asked Bessie, quite pale with shock. Yes, indeed—where was Jo? Someone had lifted him right off the ladder, up into the Land of Ice and Snow! And there, strangely enough, the moon and the sun were in the sky at the same time, one at one side and the other opposite, both shining with a pale light.

  Jo shivered, for it was very cold. He looked to see what had lifted him off the ladder, and he saw in front of him a big strange creature—a snowman! He was just like the snowmen Jo had so often made in the wintertime—round and fat and white, with an old hat on his head and a pipe in his mouth.

  "This is luck!" said the Snowman, in a soft, snowy sort of voice. "I’ve been standing by that hole for days, waiting for a seal to come up—and you came!"

  "Oh," said Jo, remembering that seals came up to breathe through holes in the ice. "That wasn’t a water-hole—that was the hole that led down the Faraway Tree. I want to go back, please."

  "The hole has closed up," said the Snowman.

  Jo looked—and to his great dismay he saw that a thick layer of ice had formed over the hole—so thick that he knew perfectly well he could never break through it.

  "Whatever shall I do now?" he said.

  “Just what I tell you," said the Snowman, with a grin. "This is splendid! In this dull and silent land there is nothing but polar bears, seals, and penguins. I have often wanted someone to talk to."

  "How did you get here?" asked Jo, wrapping his coat firmly round him, for he was bitterly cold.

  "Ah," said the Snowman, "that’s a long story! I was made by some children long ago—and when they had finished me, they laughed at me and threw stones at me to break me up. So that night I crept away here—and made myself King. But what's the good of being King if you’ve only bears and things to talk to? What I want is a jolly good servant who can talk my language. And now you’ve come!"

  "But I don’t want to be your servant," said Jo indignantly.

  "Nonsense!" said the Snowman, and he gave Jo a push that nearly sent him over. Then, on big, flat snow-feet he moved forward to where there was a low wall of snow.

  "Make me a good house," he said.

  "I don’t know how to!" said Jo.

  "Oh, just cut blocks of this stiff, icy snow and build them up one on top of another," said the Snowman. "When you’ve finished I’ll give you a fur coat to wear. Then you won’t shiver so much."

  Jo didn’t see that he could do anything but obey. So he picked up a spade that was lying by the wall and began to cut big bricks of the frozen snow. When he had cut about twenty he stopped and placed them one on the top of another till one side of the round house was made. Then he began to cut snow-bricks again, wondering all the time how in the world he would ever be able to escape from this strange land.

  Jo had often built little snow-houses of soft snow in his garden at home during the winter. Now he made a big one, with proper snow-blocks, as hard as bricks. He quite enjoyed it, though he did wish the girls were there too. When he had finished it, and made a nice rounded roof, the Snowman came shuffling up.

  "Very nice,” he said, "very nice indeed. I can just get in, I think."

  He squeezed his big snow-body inside, and threw out a fur coat for Jo, made of white polar- bear skin. Jo put it on very thankfully. Then he tried to squeeze in after the Snowman, for he wanted to be out of the cold, icy wind.

  But he was so squashed between the Snowman and the walls of the snow-house that he couldn’t breathe.

  "Don’t push so," said the Snowman disagreeably. "Move up."

  "I can’t!" gasped poor Jo. He felt quite certain that he would be pushed right out of the snow-hut through a hole in the wall!

  Just then there came a curious grunt at the doorway. The Snowman called out at once.

  "Is that you, Furry? Take this boy to your home under the ice. He’s a nuisance here. He keeps squashing me!"

  Jo looked up to see who Furry was—and he saw a great white bear looking in. The bear had a stupid but kind look on his face.

  "Oooomph!" said the bear, and pulled Jo out into the open air. Jo knew it was no use to struggle. Nobody could get away from a bear as big as that! But the bear was certainly kindly.

  "Ooooomph?" he said to Jo, with a loud grunting noise.

  "I don’t know what you mean," said Jo.

  The bear said no more. He just took Jo along with him, half carrying the little boy, for Jo found the way very slippery indeed.

  They came. to a hole that led under the ice and snow. The bear pushed Jo down it—and to Jo’s enormous surprise he found there was a big room underneath, with five bears there, big and little! It was quite warm there too—Jo was astonished, for there was no fire, of course.

  "Ooooomph," said all the bears politely.

  "Ooooomph!" said Jo. That pleased the bears very much indeed. They came and shook paws with Jo very solemnly and ooomphed all over him.

  Jo liked the look of the bears much more than he liked the look of the Snowman. He thought perhaps they might help him to escape from this silly land of ice and snow.

  "Could you tell me the way back to the Faraway Tree?" he asked the bears politely and clearly.

  The bears looked at one another and then oooomphed at Jo. It was quite clear that they didn’t understand a word he said.

  "Never mind," said Jo, with a sigh, and made up his mind to put up with things till he could see a way to escape.

  The Snowman was a great nuisance. No sooner did Jo settle himself down for a nap, leaning his head against the big warm body of a bear, than there came a call from the snow-house.

  "Hie, boy! Come here and play dominoes with me!"

  So Jo had to go and play dominoes, and as the Snowman wouldn’t let him come into the hut because he said he was squashed, Jo had to sit at the doorway and play, and he nearly froze to bits.

  Then another time, just as he was eating a nice bit of fried fish that one of the bears had kindly cooked in oil for him, the Snowman shouted to him to come and make him a window in his house.

  And Jo had to hurry off and cut a sheet of clear ice to fit into one side of the snow-house for a window! Really, that Snowman was a perfect nuisance!

  "I wish to goodness I’d never peeped into this silly land," thought Jo a hundred times. "It’s a good thing the bears are so nice to me. I only wish they could say something else besides 'Oooomph.' "

  Jo wondered what Bessie and Fanny were doing. Were they very upset when he didn’t come back? Would they go home and tell their father and mother what had happened?

  Bessie and Fanny were upset! They were in a great fright too. It had been dreadful to see poor Jo disappear through the cloud like that.

  Moon-Face looked very solemn too. He could speak quite well now that he had swallowed all his toffee.

  "We must rescue him," he said, his face shining like the full moon.

  "How?" asked the girls.

  "I must think," said Moon-Face, and he shut his eyes. His head swelled up with his thinking. He opened his eyes and nodded his head.

  "We’ll go to Goldilocks and the Three Bears," he said. "Her bears know the bears in the Land of Ice and Snow. She might be able to help Jo that way.”

  "But where does Goldilocks live?" asked Bessie, in wonder. "I thought she was just a fairy-tale."

  "Good gracious, no!" said Moon-Face. "Come on—we’ll have to catch the train."

  “What train?" asked Fanny, in astonishment.

  "Oh, wait and see!" said Moon-Face. "Hurry now—go down the slippery-slip and wait for me at the bottom!"

  IX

  THE HOUSE OF THE THREE BEARS

  Bessie took a cushion, put it at the top of the slide, and pushed off. Down she went, whizzzzzzzzzz! She shot to the bottom, flew out of the trap-door and landed on the cushion of moss. She had hardly got up before Fanny flew out of the trap-door too.

  "You know, that slippery-slip is the greatest fun!" said Bessie. "I’d like to do that all day long!"

  "Yes, if only we didn’
t have to climb all the way up the tree first," said Fanny.

  The trap-door flew open and out shot Moon-Face on a yellow cushion. He put the three cushions together, whistled to the red squirrel who looked after them, and threw them to him. Then he turned to the waiting girls.

  "There’s a train at midnight," he said. "We shall have to hurry."

  The wood was still bright with moonlight. The three of them hurried between the trees. Suddenly Bessie heard the chuffing of a train, and she and Fanny stopped in surprise. They saw a small train winding in and out of the trees, looking for all the world like a clockwork train made big! The engine even had a key still in its side!

  There was a small station near. Moon-Face caught hold of the girls’ hands and ran to it. The train was standing quite still there.

  The carriages had tin doors and windows which didn’t open, just like those of a clockwork train. Bessie tried her hardest to open a door, but it was no use. The train whistled. It was anxious to be off.

  "Don’t you know how to get into this train?" asked Moon-Face, with a laugh. "You are sillies! You just slide the roof off!"

  As he spoke he pushed at the roof—and it slid off like the roof of a clockwork-train’s carriage.

  "I believe this is just a clockwork train made big," said Fanny, climbing over the side of the carriage and getting in at the roof. "I never saw such a funny train in my life!"

  They all got in. Moon-Face couldn’t seem to slide the roof on again properly, so he stood up inside the carriage, and when the train went off, Bessie and Fanny, who couldn’t possibly see out of the tin windows, stood up and looked out of the roof instead. They did look funny!

  At the next station, which was called. "Golliwog Station," three golliwogs got into their carriage and stared at them very hard. One was so like Bessie’s own golly at home that she couldn’t help staring back.

  The second station was called "Crosspatch Station," and standing on the platform were three of the crossest-looking old women that the girls had ever seen. One of them got into their carriage, and the three golliwogs at once got out, and climbed into the next one.

  "Move up!" said the Crosspatch angrily to Moon-Face. He moved up.

  The Crosspatch was an uncomfortable person to travel with. She grumbled all the time, and her basket, which was full of prickly rose-sprays, kept bumping into poor Fanny.

  "Here we are, here we are!" sang out Moon-Face, when they got to the next station, and the three of them got out gladly, leaving the Crosspatch grumbling away all to herself.

  The station was called "Bears Station," and there were a great many teddy-bears about, some brown, some pink, some blue, and some white. When they wanted to talk to one another they kept pressing themselves in the middle, where their growl was, and then they could talk quite well. Fanny wanted to giggle when she saw them doing this. It did look so funny.

  "Please, could you tell me the way to the Three Bears’ House?" Moon-Face asked a blue teddy-bear politely.

  The bear pressed himself in the middle and answered in a nice growly voice, "Up the lane and down the lane and around the lane."

  "Thank you," said Moon-Face.

  "It sounds a bit funny to me," said Bessie doubtfully.

  "Not at all," said Moon-Face, leading them up a little honeysuckle lane. "Here we are, going up a lane-and now you see it goes downhill—so we’re going down—and presently we’ll turn a corner and go around the lane!"

  He was right. They went up and then down and then around—and there in front of them, tucked into a woody corner, was the dearest, prettiest little house the girls had ever seen! It was covered with pink roses from top to bottom, and its tiny windows winked in the moonlight as if they had eyes.

  Moon-Face knocked at the door. A sleepy voice cried "Come in!" Moon-Face opened the door and they all went in. There was a table in front of them, and on it were three steaming bowls of porridge, and round it were three chairs, one big, one middle-size, and one tiny.

  "It’s the House of the Three Bears all right!" whispered Bessie excitedly. It was just like seeing a fairy story come true!

  "We’re here!" said the voice from another room. Moon-Face went in with Bessie and Fanny. The other room was a small bedroom, with a big bed in it, a middle-sized bed, and a tiny cot. In the big bed lay a large brown bear, in the middle-sized one was a fat mother bear, and in the cot was a most adorable baby bear with the bluest eyes the girls had ever seen.

  "Where’s Goldilocks?" asked Moon-Face.

  "Gone shopping," said the father bear.

  "Where does she sleep when she’s here?" asked Bessie, looking round. "And does she always live with you now?"

  "Always," said the father bear, putting his big nightcap straight. "She looks after us very well. There’s a market on tonight in the Enchanted Wood and she’s gone to see if she can buy some porridge cheap. As for where she sleeps, well, she just chooses any of our beds, you know, and we cuddle up together then. But she likes the baby bear's bed best, because it’s so soft and warm."

  "She did in the story," said Fanny.

  "What story?" asked the mother bear.

  "Well—the story of the three bears," said Fanny.

  "Never heard of it," said the three bears, all together, which really seemed rather extraordinary to Bessie and Fanny. They didn’t like to ask any more questions after that.

  "Here’s Goldilocks now!" said the mother bear. The sound of a little high voice could be heard coming nearer and nearer. The baby bear sprang out of his cot and ran to the door in delight.

  A pretty little girl with long, curling golden hair picked him up and hugged him. "Hullo, darling!" she said. "Have you been a good bear?"

  Then she saw Bessie, Fanny, and Moon-Face, and stared at them in surprise. "Who are you?" she said.

  Moon-Face explained about Jo, and how he had gone to the Land of Ice and Snow, where the big white bears lived.

  "I’m afraid the Magic Snowman will make him a prisoner there," said Moon-Face. "And he’ll have to live with the white bears. Could you get your three bears to come with us and ask the white bears to let Jo go free, Goldilocks?"

  "But I don’t know the way," said Goldilocks.

  "We do!" said the father bear suddenly. "The white bears are cousins of ours. Moon-Face, if you can help us with a bit of magic, we can visit the Land of Ice and Snow in a few minutes!"

  "Good gracious!" said Bessie, most astonished. “But it’ s ever so far away, right at the top of the Faraway Tree!"

  "That doesn’t matter," said the father bear. He took down a large jar from the mantelpiece and filled it with water. He put into it a yellow powder and stirred it with a magpie’s black-and-white feather.

  Moon-Face put his hands into the water and began to sing a string of such strange words that Bessie and Fanny felt quite trembly. The water bubbled. It rose to the top of the jar. It over-flowed and ran on to the floor. It turned to ice beneath their feet! A cold wind filled the little house and Everyone shivered.

  Then Bessie looked out of the window—and what she saw there filled her with such amazement that she couldn’t say a word, but just pointed.

  Fanny looked too—and whatever do you think? Outside lay nothing but ice and snow—they were in the same land as Jo! Though how this had happened neither Bessie nor Fanny could make out.

  "We’re there," said Moon-Face, taking his hands out of the jar and drying them on his red handkerchief. "Can you lend us any coats, bears? We shall be cold here."

  The mother bear handed them thick coats out of a cupboard. They put them on. The bears already had thick fur and did not need anything extra.

  "Now to go and find Jo!" said Moon-Face. "Come on, bears—you’ve got to help!"

  X

  THE BATTLE OF THE BEARS

  Goldilocks, the Three Bears, the girls, and Moon-Face all went out of the little cottage. How strange it seemed to see roses blossoming over the walls, when ice and snow lay all around!

  "The thing is—wher
e do we go to find the polar bears?" said Goldilocks.

  "Over there, towards the sun," said the father bear. Bessie and Fanny were surprised to see both the moon and the sun shining in the sky. They followed the father bear, slipping and sliding, and holding on to one another. It was very cold, and their noses and toes felt as if they were freezing.

  Suddenly they saw the little snow-house that Jo had built for the Magic Snowman.

  "Look!" said the father bear. "We’d better make for that."

  But before they got there a big white figure squeezed itself out of the snow-house and saw them. It was the Magic Snowman! As soon as he saw the Three Bears and the others, he began to shout loudly in a windy, snowy voice:

  "Enemies! Enemies! Hie, bears, come and send off the enemies!"

  "We’re not enemies!" yelled Moon-Face, and Goldilocks ran forward to show the Snowman that she was a little girl. But Moon-Face pulled her back. He didn’t trust that old Snowman!

  The Snowman bent his big fat body down and picked up great handfuls of snow. He threw one at Goldilocks. She ducked down, and it passed over her and hit the baby bear.

  "Ooooch!" he said, and sat down in a hurry. Then everything happened at once. A crowd of white polar bears hurried out of their underground home to the help of the Snowman, and soon the air was full of flying snowballs. The snow was hard, and the balls hurt when they hit anyone. It wasn’t a bit of good the girls shouting that they were friends, not enemies. Nobody heard them, and soon there was a fierce battle going on!

  "Oh dear!" gasped Bessie, trying her best to throw straight. "This is dreadful! We shall never rescue Jo by behaving like this!"

  But there really didn’t seem anything else to be done! After all, if people are fighting you, you can’t do much but defend yourself, and the Three Bears, and the girls, and Moon-Face felt very angry at having hard snowballs thrown at them.

  Smack! Thud! Biff! Squish! The snowballs burst as they hit, and soon there was a great noise of angry "Ooomphs" from the white bears, and "Ooooches" from the teddy-bears, and yells from the children, and screeches from Moon-Face, who acted as if he were mad, hopping about and yelling and kicking up the snow as well as throwing it! His big fat face was a fine target for snowballs, and he was hit more than anybody else. Poor Moon-Face!