故事HE THAT TOOK THE CITY

故事HE THAT TOOK THE CITY
Marmaduke trudged up the road. And the road went up, up, up the hill. First he thought that road was like a great worm, always squirming ahead of him, but then he decided that, although it twisted, it didn’t squirm , it was too still for that. After all, it was more like a ribbon, a wide brown ribbon, tied around the green shoulder of the hill.

 
He wondered where that ribbon road went—over the hill and far away—perhaps clear round the World! But, no, it couldn’t do that, for there was the Sea between, and it must stop at the Sea. Anyway, he would have liked to have travelled over it, to the very end, to see all the people and animals that walked over it, and the cities and churches that stood by its side.

But first he must find the Toyman. That is what he had come for. And the Toyman had just gone over that very road. Marmaduke had seen him from the valley below, his long legs climbing up that hill and the little boy had hurried after him, calling and calling.
“’Llo, Toyman, ‘llo, Toyman!” he shouted.

He heard an answer and put his hand to his ear to hear more clearly.
“’Llo, Toyman, ‘llo, Toyman!” came the mocking answer, faint and far-away.
But it wasn’t the Toyman. It was Echo, calling back from the hills.

Marmaduke had always wanted to meet Echo, but so far he never had. He thought she must be something like the Star-Lady, whom he had met, only not quite so bright. Her voice sounded a little sadder, too, like the Bluebird’s in the Fall when he says “Goodbye” to the fields and flies to the South. Often he had run after Echo, but he never could catch up with her, nor even see a glimpse of her silver and green dress. She always played Hide-and-Seek with him, and he was always “it.”
However, he didn’t worry long about friend Echo this morning. He was thinking of the Toyman. For the Toyman’s face had looked worried—far away and sad. It had looked somehow as Echo’s voice always sounded . What was it Mother had said? “Poor Frank!”—that’s what she called him; “he’s in trouble,” she had whispered to Father.

Marmaduke didn’t know what he could do, but he wanted to catch up with him, and put his hand in his, and tell him not to worry at all, and say, if he needed money he could have all there was in Marmaduke’s bank—every last penny, even the bright ones.

Across the road a big jack-rabbit jumped—jumped sping—sping—sping —like a toy animal made of steel springs. Wienerwurst ran after the rabbit, but his master didn’t stop to chase Jack. He was afraid if he wasted any time he would never catch up with the Toyman.

At last the ribbon road reached the top of the hill and wound along it a little way before it started twisting down the other side. For a moment Marmaduke’s eyes followed it down hill, and he wanted to follow it with his legs too, there were so many wonderful and mysterious places where it went, but just then he caught sight of the Toyman.

He was sitting right on the top of the hill, sitting with his chin in his hands, and his eyes on the West far away. And he said never a word.

So Marmaduke just stole up softly, and put his face against the Toyman’s, and sat down beside him.
And then the Toyman’s eyes came back from far away and looked down on the little boy and smiled again.

“Don’t you worry, Toyman,” the little boy said to him, “don’t you worry about anything . It’ll all come out in the wash.”

The Toyman didn’t ask what he meant by that, for he knew it was a proverb, a boy’s proverb that was as good as any King Soloman ever made.

“Sure, sonny,” he repeated, “it’ll all come out in the wash.” And he patted the hand beside him.
You see, Marmaduke never asked the Toyman what his trouble really was, or anything at all. And that is always the very best way—when a friend’s in trouble, don’t bother him with a lot of questions—and pester the life out of him—but just take his mind off his troubles by suggesting some nice game to play—like marbles or “Duck-on-the-Rock,” or going fishing, or something; and if you can’t do that, just sit beside him, “quiet-like,” and be his friend.

For a while they sat so, drinking in the cool air, and looking down at the valley, and the white houses, and red barns, and the yellow haystacks, and the horses and people like ants crawling here and there. There were two ribbons in the valley now, one brown and one silver, the Road and the River. And from the Church with the Long White Finger Pointing at the Sky, came the sound of bells—pealing —pealing—up the hill to the Sky.

All else was still. But after they had listened for a while they discovered that it wasn’t so still as it had seemed. Every bird and insect, each leaf and blossom, was busy, preparing its dinner, or else just growing. A twig rustled as a little garter snake squirmed into the thicket. A little gray nuthatch looked for its lunch on a locust tree, crawling over the trunk head-downwards, while, on a branch overhead, a crested flycatcher perched watching, watching, then all-of-a-sudden swooped down and pounced on a fly, swallowed him, flew back to its perch, and watched again.

In the tall grasses which rose like a miniature forest around his head, green katydids jumped, as spry as monkeys. And, as he lay on his back, he could see, way up in the middle of the sky, and right on a line with his eye, Ole Robber Hawk himself, or else one of his relatives or friends. He was brown, of course, but against the blue of the sky he looked like a little black speck with a couple of thin wavy lines for wings.

There was music, too, for a woodthrush sang, oh ever so sweet, and the oriole whistled as clear as a flute, while a locust rattled away like the man who plays the drum and all the noisy things in the theatre-orchestra. But, busiest of all, at his feet an army of black ants hurried around a little hole in the ground, seeming quite as big as the people and horses in the valley below.

“It’s just like a little city here, isn’t it, Toyman?” Marmaduke said, “all the katydids, and bugs, and snakes, and things, workin’ an’ workin’ away.”

“Yes,” said the Toyman, as they watched Robber Hawk swing round and round in the sky, “how any one can feel lonely in the country I can’t see. I can understand it in the city, where you can’t speak to a soul without his putting his hand on his watch, but here there’s always a lot of folks with beaks and claws and tails, and all kinds o’ tongues an’ dialecks, that you don’t need any introduction to, to say ‘howdy!’”

But Marmaduke remembered that morning and how the Toyman had seemed in trouble. He had certainly looked lonely when Marmaduke and Wienerwurst had found him sitting up there on the hill, and the little boy couldn’t help asking,—“Don’t you ever feel lonely? You haven’t any wife, and Mother says she pities a man without chicken or child—’tleast she said something like that—and how it wasn’t good for a man to live alone—an’ you do—out in your bunkhouse.”

For the first time that afternoon the Toyman, who had been so worried, laughed his old hearty laugh, and Echo sent it back from her cave in the hill.

“No!” said he, “I don’t want any ole wife. Like as not she’d talk me to death. Besides I don’t feel lonely when you’re along, little fellow.”

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