Half-Past Bedtime Part 9

THE MAGIC SONG

[Ill.u.s.tration: The Magic Song]

VI

THE MAGIC SONG

About a month after Cuthbert had been lucky enough to save Beardy Ned's little girl, the weather grew so hot that all the people in the town became rather discontented. It is always easier for people in towns to become discontented than it is for other people, because instead of fields to walk on they have only pavements; and instead of hills to look at they have only chimneys; and instead of bean-flowers to smell they have only dust-bins and the stale air that trickles down the streets. So the men in the ironworks were discontented because they thought that the men who owned the ironworks didn't give them enough money; and the men in the cotton-mills were discontented because they thought that the men who owned the cotton-mills made them work too hard; and the girls in Mr Joseph's refreshment shops thought him a cruel old beast; and the policemen thought that n.o.body loved them.

Also, the men who owned the ironworks thought that their men were greedy; and the men who owned the cotton-mills were afraid of becoming poor; and Mr Joseph was feeling depressed; and the policemen still thought that n.o.body loved them. Even dear Miss Plum, the head of the school, had a frown on her forehead, and the French mistress slapped Doris so hard that she left a red mark on Doris's cheek. Of course Doris was very angry about it, and her little brothers wanted to know exactly where the mark was. But it had faded away by the time she arrived home, and her mother only said that it had probably served her right. Doris was rather fond, you see, of cheeking the French mistress, and asking her silly questions to make the other girls laugh; and since she had had her hair bobbed the week before, she was even cheekier than usual.

Doris, as you may remember, lived in John Street, which was the next street to Peter Street, where Marian and Cuthbert lived. But the houses in it were smaller than the houses in Peter Street, and most of the people in them were rather poor. Doris's mother was poor, because Doris's daddy was dead, and Doris had five little brothers--Teddy and George, who were the twins, and Jimmy and Jocko and Christopher Mark.

They were much too poor to be able to have a maid, and so Doris's mother had to do most of the work. She had to be cook and housemaid and nurse and governess and Mummy darling all in one. Now that Doris was ten she was able to help her mother sometimes, and she used to take Christopher Mark out in his push-cart; and since she had been to the Arctic Circle with Cuthbert and Captain Jeremy her mother had begun to lean upon her a little more.

But oh, it was hot! The people in the streets lagged along with pale faces. They talked about the trouble in the ironworks, and the trouble in the cotton-mills, and what would Mr Joseph do if his girls went on strike, and didn't the policemen look ill-tempered? And Miss Plum couldn't make her accounts come right; and the French mistress went home to her boarding-house; and there she told everybody that she was going to be ill, and that the ham was tepid and the milk-pudding sour.

Even in John Street it was almost as bad, though it was a quiet street with a field at the other end of it. For the sun poured right into it, so that there wasn't any shade, and the stones of the pavement shone like martyrs, and the drains at Number Fifteen were out of order, and there was half a haddock lying in the middle of the road. So Doris went into the garden when they had all finished tea, but it was as hot in the garden as it was anywhere else; and the lady next door was grumbling to the lady beyond about one of her husband's collars that had been spoilt in the wash. Doris played about a bit and made Jocko cry, because he was silly and wanted to read a book; and then she went round to Peter Street to see Cuthbert and Marian, and found that they had gone into the country to see their Uncle Joe.

So she came back and teased the twins, and at last it was time to go to bed; and it was almost as hot after the sun had gone down as it had been in the middle of the day. She slept in the same room with Jimmy and Jocko, and they all turned and twisted and kicked off their bedclothes; and as the daylight faded the moonlight grew, so that it was past ten before they fell asleep. That was when their mother came and kissed them, and she was so tired that she could hardly stand; and then she went to bed and fell asleep too, and the church clock struck eleven times. Happy was Beardy Ned then, sleeping by the stream, with little Liz and his beautiful secret; and happy was Gwendolen in her farmhouse bedroom smelling of lavender and last year's apples. But sorrowful and sticky were the people of the town, and troubled were their slumbers.

Then Doris sat up suddenly, for out in the street was the biggest din that she had ever heard. She jumped from her bed and ran to the window, and there she saw nine of the strangest-looking people. There was a big sailor with a concertina, and a stout lady with a tambourine, and a soldier with a pair of cymbals, and an elderly greengrocer, who was very thin. They were standing in a row, and sitting on the ground behind them were five men, each with a drum. Doris leaned out, and when they saw her they all sang louder than ever; but the funny thing was that n.o.body else in the whole street seemed to hear them. The blinds were all down, the moonlight lay on the road, and there wasn't a head at anybody's window.

When Doris first listened they had been singing about the lady, but now they began to sing about the sailor, and the sailor stepped forward, playing his concertina, and singing the loudest of them all. He had a tenor voice with a great smack in it, like the smack of a wave against a jetty, and when he sang softly without taking a breath it was like water running through seaweed. The soldier sang ba.s.s, like a motor-lorry in a hurry to get home over a rough road, and the stout lady sang soprano, and the elderly greengrocer only squeaked. This is what they sang:

Here's a sailor come home from the Guineas, His face is as black as a leaf, His eyes are like forests of darkness, His heart is a hotbed of grief, His arms are like roots of the jungle, He has ladies tattooed on his skin, And his clothes smell of cinnamon--cardamom--tar.

Oh, mother, must I let him in?

Bang! Bang! [went the drums], Oh, mother, must I let him in?

Then there was a chorus and the queerest sort of dance, and it all seemed somehow to be just wrong; and when they stopped and looked up at her window Doris really didn't know what to make of them. Then the sailor coughed, and scratched the back of his head, and said, "Beg pardon, miss, but are you ten years old?"

Doris said that she was.

"And have you five brothers younger than yourself?"

Doris said that she had.

"And have you five fingers on each hand and five toes on each foot?"

Doris laughed and said that they could come and count them if they didn't believe her word.

They looked at one another with a peculiar expression, while the five drummers stared at the ground; and then the stout lady asked her if she would come downstairs and let them count her eyelashes.

"Why do you want to count my eyelashes?" asked Doris.

"It's most important," said the greengrocer.

"If you'll come downstairs," said the soldier, "we shall be most happy to tell you why."

Doris pulled her head in and glanced round the bedroom. Jimmy and Jocko were still fast asleep. She put on her dressing-gown, but not her slippers, in case they should want to count her toes. Then she opened the door and ran softly downstairs, and drew back the bolts, and went into the street.

"Wouldn't it be better," said the stout lady, "if we went to a quieter place?"

"Well, there's a field," said Doris, "at the end of the street. Of course, we might go along there."

"You're sure you're not frightened?" asked the sailor.

The five drummers still stared at the ground.

"Not very much," said Doris. "You aren't going to hurt me, are you?"

"G.o.d forbid!" said the elderly greengrocer.

So they went up the street to the field at the end, and there they all crouched under the hedge; and the sailor, whose name was Lancelot, did most of the talking, because he was the biggest.

"You see, we've all lost something," he said, "so we went to see an old man as lives in the middle of Brazil. He's the wisest old geezer as ever lived, and we all of us told him what we had lost. This here lady has lost her husband and has been trying to find him for years and years; and this here soldier has lost his character and can't find a general to give him a job; and this here greengrocer has lost his appet.i.te and is getting thinner and thinner; and as for me, I've lost my temper and can't find a s.h.i.+p to sail in."

"That's very sad," said Doris. "And what have these drummers lost?"

"Their senses," said Lancelot. "Each of these here drummers has been and lost one of his senses. The first can't see, and the second can't hear, and the third can't smell, and the fourth can't taste, and the fifth can't feel."

"I see," said Doris. "And what did the old man tell you?"

"Well," said Lancelot, "that's just what I'm coming to. He told us he'd thought of a magic song. There was four verses to it, and the words didn't matter, he said, so long as they was each sung by somebody as had lost something. After each verse there was a chorus, and in between the verses there was a dance. When we'd told him our troubles, he made up some words for us, and then he lent us these here drummers. But what you've got to find, he said, is a little girl as can play this here flute, for until you've found her you can sing as loud as you like, but you won't sing right, and n.o.body won't hear you. But when you've found her--that's what the old man said--she'll be able to blow this here flute, for this here flute can play by itself if you find the right little girl to blow it. Well, of course we was interested, so we asked him to go on, and he said that it would play for just about an hour, and by the end of that time, he said, it would have settled all our troubles and all the troubles of the people as heard it. Only, first of all, he said, you must find the right little girl, and the time must be midnight, and the moon must be full."

"Dear me!" said Doris, "that sounds rather odd."

"That's what _we_ thought," said the stout lady.

"Well," said Lancelot, "naturally we asked him where this here girl was to be found. But he shook his head, and he said as he didn't know, and that all we could do was to go and look for her. You must travel about, he said, and sing this here music, but the only people as'll be able to hear you will be little girls twice five years old, with five brothers younger than theirselves, and with five fingers on each hand, and five toes on each foot. And of them, he says, the only little girl as'll be able to play this here flute must have a hundred and five eyelashes on her right upper eyelid."

He felt in his pocket and pulled out a magnifying gla.s.s.

"So that's why we want to count your eyelashes."

They looked at her anxiously, all except the drummers, and they were still looking at the ground.

"All right," said Doris, "count away. I'm sure I don't know how many I've got."