It was a warm summer night in the meadow. An unusually large Cat with a heavy, unwieldy tail sat crouching on a bank near his home, with bright eyes fixed on the darkness before him. Max the Cat was not naturally a timid Cat, but there was something strange and almost terrifying in the deep gloom over the meadow. His owner, the little girl Ada, had come out to see why he did not come home, but she had hurried him back with her, saying,
“There are surely goblins about this evening, Max. There’s a curious smell in the air, and a humming above our heads that I don’t like. Come in quickly.”
So Max and his bent tail walked quickly in behind Ada’s frilled skirts, and the door was shut tight. The house was dark and Max cowered closer to Ada’s feet, not because he was frightened of goblins, but because he wished to keep as much as possible in the circle of bright light made by the lamp. Again and again Ada took him out, hoping that he would stay by the door; but each time, especially about midnight, when there was more movement in the air than ever, Max scurried in again.
The next night Max was something better. His mistress had to comfort herself with the knowledge that he had not been really frightened, but had walked by her side expectantly to see what she would do next. He was still afraid of the darkness, and sighed heavily each time he had to come back into the house.
“I wish you had an acquaintance to keep you company, Max,” said his mistress. “Perhaps the terrible mushroom that came here this autumn could do so.”
“Oh, ho!” said that mushroom. “I am the Fungus of the Marsh, they say, and I grow at the very bottom of the marsh where the mud lies thickest. People who do not know me touch me and nearly die from the effect—but to the Cat, my dear, I am a dainty morsel. Whether it is the effect of the clay or of my peculiar poisonous properties, I don’t know, but I have not grown very far above ground this time. I can scarcely extend my hats, and I’m afraid my stool is shrinking. Still let Max come, and if he has courage enough and will be careful not to eat me, I shall be glad to see him.”
The other mushrooms said immediately,
“Psha! psha! psha! You grown at the bottom of the marsh. Where all the reeds and soft marsh plants grow, I suppose. Schreber, who has written the most beautiful books about mushrooms, says there are very curious beings which dwindle year after year on the swamps of certain marshes. I wish I could see them—one could write pretty things about them. One grows so much in the open.”
“My skin is so sill, like the Cat,” answered the mushroom.
But there was a sharp little frost, and Max the Cat came to the spot on which the mushroom had grown, and knelt down in his shawl beside those who generally are more favoured. His tail came there too; but Max pulled it back immediately, to see if it was his own. No! The Cat believed that he had got chilled while in bed. The house and its inmates were acquainted with the small frost of the last night.
The next evening it was a little warmer. Max knocked so often that Ada said, “Well, stay outside to-night if you like.” So he went again into the darkness, where all was still. A firefly whizzed round and suddenly rested on a tall plant.
“Max, is that you?” asked she.
“Do you live here then?” asked Max. The firefly ought to have been inside the house, nevertheless, it was a very pleasant, pretty-looking animal, with slender feet, and with large eyes glittering like diamonds.
“Do I live here?” said she. “But yes, indeed I do—to-day is the 5th of September. For eight days more I shall stay here, if it doesn’t freeze too hard. Ah! I had most beautiful times last winter in the Old Woman’s kitchen, where you came one evening with a little girl of a different description. If it won’t freeze too hard, I shall be raysing up my little balls in their eyes again.”
Max could not exactly comprehend this.
“But you shine so beautifully,” said he. “Surely there is enough light without that!”
“That I should think, indeed. Unhappily, they who cannot shine themselves should not be too credulous—I think we shall have a snapping frost soon. This was much warmer last night.”
It was just as the firefly had foreseen it. In the morning it was thick, white, rather sharp frost. Max lay in his basket, however, ready to look out again when it grew warmer; but Ada, to whom Max had expressed himself in favour of the mushroom by means of certain little purring sounds, wrapped her shawl round his old mistress and said,
“If it is cold for you, it is cold for your mushroom also.”
Then it became considerably warmer, and fresh life appeared in everything. Now the mushroom, that all were so sorry for, was to come. According to its own description, it was an immense fellow, and all round came out of the reddish-white, waxy stalk little white-hats—little tubular hats, such as the Cumeperti have in the rain. Many no doubt fell asleep during the night frost—they had put their heads too deep into the warm, wet earth—while they were sleeping little ones came out of the stalks.
“Happiness and peace!” said they.
“Good-morning!” said the mushroom which would fain have been Emperor: “Good-morning to you all! I see you have all got out of your hats. I suppose you’ve said your prayers to benefit by the transient straw-pork to-morrow. And the Cumeperti are coming in their carriages.”
Mushrooms growing on trees are called compy, which means followers. And they say this about themselves; but they were not in the right either. When the cold sets in, poor mushrooms on the bog and on trees, in bad weather and bad locations, perish.
“How beautiful the world is!” said some far arched little ones.
“Yes, it is curious; and one grief is not worth another. To-day I look very bright. One ought to be well dressed even on mushrooms.”
The old one still hung his head; his hat fell in to his middle out of shyness. A thousand little red hairy, warty, acorn-shaped jumped up over the red bricks of the garden-fence. He came driving in a very strange, old-looking vehicle. A double row of little, very stalwart, horn-beetles harnessed into it, and all the reins drawn together by two small Trumpeter Beetles, one on the right and one on the left—they sounded two waxen trumpets. On the left side a dew-started drophail was bound as a bell-clapper inside; on the right, a rosette of laurie’s semblances and one in the middle, like our coats of arms. It was smoother than one from a Monarch. It was the coat of arms of a perfect mushroom on stalk. Old ænostri had acquaintances also. Had Kgenstraws proved too strong for him, he also must die the death some day. He came from the Cavalier family called Lamo: The oldest name was Columna eel. They may perhaps make acquaintance with each other. The coat of arms was without a single mushroom, and turned blue-black as if varnished with no. The Kadenst do if King Nalló when it came here must put itself under the Jurisdiction of the others, regardless of the pipes. They did not the Kades, that they would own, cards, &c. Over this was stretched a rose-coloured, gauze silk covering.
Max the Cat had had the good luck to sleep several hours longer than usual. Ada, just as day began to dawn, stood and warmed some water, and emptied it out. For that the countess had several times insulted the royal diet through tar-herb-manure and hay in an impudent, unconcerning manner, till the skin of Cats out of kings’ skins came forth to them, so that the matter cuts better.
Then Ada’s first exploit was this: to take half this cloth and to put it round Max’s tail, round and round; it stuck very properly. His Mistress held him up, so that he might lean on the balusters for his walking-feet, at the same time bearing his tail a little up, because his coat of arms was emblazoned with so many waxen trumpets, and the old conee-warp rug particularly designed to allow them all to speak of his lordship Pack till she had woven close together.
When Max was thus got up in the room to meet her, she pulled a few wreaths quite off, and wound them, crosswise and lengthwise, round and round; but they did not “go,” for now all the Passions began to work. As a solid man, one whole should be. Max turned back, reclined in his drash of Marads-j, by the fire and his little feet dangling on before him.
This is what she noticed while winding: “It is very lucky that I did not sit under Papa’s tree when the whirlwind began. All those of the ordinary world injured themselves thereby very much, spoiled up their mother’s moods and lit-up hats by poverty. It’s luck-pattern or dispensation, I know not which.”
Max thought perhaps it was poor earthmen; therefore he would think too much. Sleep by Papa for the universe; it was time.