Have you ever looked up in the sky and seen a big white fluffy cloud sailing along, and thought to yourself, “I wish I were a cloud and could float like that,” or “Oh look, I think that cloud is in the shape of some animal, or perhaps a flower”? Well, if you had wished this very hard one sunny day you might just have seen a little cloud with a smiling, merry face gazing quite wistfully down below.
All around her, far away, far, far away, lay nothing but soft, dazzling white clouds, all floating about as if playing hide and seek together. She could run away a little way from her friends, or they could all rush off to one side and allow the little white runaway to steal off to play all alone, but she could never get far away. Somewhere on the other side of the round earth where they never could see was a bright sun with twinkling blue sky about it—the sun was always there, the blue never went away.
Cuddles—that was the little cloud’s name, and a very pretty name it was, too—was very happy floating about in the sky, but, oh dear! She had never been anywhere but on the top of the round earth, with all round her only a sea of endless white clouds.
“I feel so happy this beautiful day,” she said to herself for the hundredth time, “and yet I feel, I feel—what do I feel? I hardly know myself. Someday I simply must go down, down. I wonder what it feels like.”
And as she paddled about and sulked, and sighed, and gave little kicks with her cloud feet, seeing nothing but the blue sky, the little pink, blue, and yellow earth peeped up under her belly.
“Ah! my clouds, which you have trodden on so much,” said the pretty earth, “don’t go away. Just come down a little.”
“Ah! I can’t,” said Cuddles. “The clouds would slip beneath me like snow and I should fall down—wherever were I?”
But even as she spoke something happened. A hard, round ball of air—such fun to jump upon, but not so easy as it seems—flew along beneath her, separating her from her fellow clouds, who all hurried after her crying out, “Cuddles! Cuddles! come back!”
But Cuddles heard and heeded them not. The air ball danced along beneath her, Cuddles on its top, and lo! Here was a fine game of hide and seek, sure enough!
“Faster! faster!” cried Cuddles. “The world beneath me is too, too interesting. I feel I must tum round and look at everything.”
But she found it much easier said than done. Frisking about, the earth whirled her round and round till she cried, “Don’t! please don’t!” And the earth stopped, and even as she sank down, all out of breath, a silvery spray of white fell from above into the hot, bright sunshine.
“The other Cuddleses,” thought Cuddles, as the pretty silvery-heady spray twinkled, “are coming to play with me.” But no! it was rain, not other clouds that fell to the earth. One little limp, silver droplet on the tip of her finger was brimming over with sweet water, like a balloon filled with water. Soon, like a baby who notices everything and laughs and coos, all the children’s voices wherever she was put, she began to distinguish what was what, and tell it by heart.
What a cheerful little world it was that Cuddles had come down to!
The little birds on the treetops sang merry notes. The cuckoo chiefly—“Cuckoo, cuckoo”. Then there was the redbreast’s soft “Whip! whip! whip!” and the thrush’s shrill, treble song, mingled with the rustling of the leaves in the gentle summer breeze.
“What a sweet, sweet world it is!” said Cuddles. “Why, surely those little white things on the tops of the trees such, such lots as there were, for surely they were at least a hundred—yes, they were real babies, little beings about the size of Cuddles herself. What fun to tickle them and see them laugh!” and she stretched out her legs sleepily, for it was too warm lying on the earth, and always growing too warm below, so when our toes like dinning on a hot granite pavement in the sunny summer’s day, Cuddles put out her pretty little pink limbs, and tingle, tingle, went the blood in her cheeks.
Ah! But that prickly, pricking, road beneath her was not a cold granite road at all; it was the most beautiful deep green moss she had ever seen, and the sharp chips and prickles were real roses and daisies and pansies and buttercups—so warm, so soft, so sweet! And how Cuddles loved the little Daisies and Buttercups waving their yellow heads with all their might; for, to the little beings of this world, the hot sunlight was sometimes quite overpowering.
As Cuddles was quite out of breath, she lay quite motionless—still as still could be—a little ripple of wind came by. It stopped, stayed a little, then crept softly away, and soon the whole world below was, oh, so still—so still that Cuddles could hear above her here and there a little squeaking cry, “feed me; feed me!” It was there were little birdies in the fresh green nests listening for their mothers to come with food.
But louder, far louder a little voice bumbled to Cuddles, “Tumble! tumble! tumble, pool, pool! I don’t care; I know nothing better. I say, let’s tumble!” He was a big, big droplet who was very badly behaved,—doing nothing, eating nothing, but tumbling about happily—Bumble, bumble, like a little fly.
Cuddles was much larger than he but not so heavy—so she overturned him, and on her right hand’s little finger was a perfect mountain—a whole great country.
Then she began to cry, “I think it is going to rain.”
But very, very little and seldom came down from now onwards. She sat on the nice warm moss, and stayed there the whole of the day, seeing everything and picking friends all the time.
The whole big world was so jolly, so merry, and stood still just as she wanted to look at it. She listened to high low music, and when footsteps approached her, the whole earth groaned and moved again. “I say,” said Cuddles to the earth, “they’re going to dance.” Oh dear no! The whole earth was quiet again. Men upon it would be too hot! Willingly would Cuddles have left the nice moss growing beneath the trunks of the very big trees, and sprang, like a boy about to play marbles, to a level plot close by.
But the evil course of the world turned all round from east to west, round and round.
Rain hung about the black-blue sky. The whole earth was a pond—big, old, silly spider; who had no waiting damp, green grass, fell into a sleep-light green swamp, and thought she was in Heaven. Then the dark night came. Had it not shone brightly, made blergh blergh sounds, the rain—a little dropped every now and then, but very seldom—had fallen not know how long.
Merry people were talking singing, laughing and playing. The light between the wet leaves and and said, “Cuddles Cuddles!”
In Cuddles, our little cloud, was the whole world. The moon beamed and twinkled sleepily, waiting that moment almost for the sun. Birds chirped. Hark! What was Cornelia saying out aloud? Night-music of merry-makers.
“The Child is there pointed mute to all in her big bright hair.”
All excepting the people and the pure blue that the sigh-deep blue carried in itself. A buggy was in existence, muddy, sodden, with two little bright, round wind-pumps, but no horse was even to be seen; there were no maids for dancing people; the whole earth was too flabby and rotten.
Even the merry music of the merry men would not be heard. Silly Cuddles sat still on the earth.
That evening was a dark and rainy one. Mighty music waved from a grand house up the hills. As soon as she and her friends, the blues, the grays, the browns, and the Japan blacks, arrived, and lightly puffed up on to the terrace where the other people stood, everything in the earth-world was gleaming and sparkling with golden sparks. The sunlight, fresh as newly plastered wall, shone in the black-blue sky over against them, so much so that happy Cuddles could bear no longer and was going to scream at the top of her cloud voice—but there was no use in screaming now.
“Twinkle, twinkle, little stars, how I wonder what you are; up above the world so high, like a diamond in the sky.” They were the shyest stars up there in the heights above her, deep down in the sky, higher than the real earth-clouds. Cuddles sang again, many happy notes grew as big round holes while her eyes sparkled, but she could see nothing of the world in the pitchy black darkness all round her. Where were, for instance, those little drops himself in the dancing world round her, whilst he was far, far up to the sky—he who did not even find it worth his while to keep his breath and speak one word to little her?
Never, not once, did this little speechless being have a small crackling word or, oh heaven! song which people, when tired either of laughing or singing, said one to the other, fall in together.
The golden one ran down from the parable above. “Cuddles! Cuddles!” went it round and round; but uppish Cuddles was higher than the gold man and a big, big, enormous person had robbed soothingly and patiently. So she was upside down, all the merest little hairs of her cloud body there hung down in coils, waiting—to see herself in that blackness above.
Suddenly down came her jumping air-ball, giving her very near a shock of life, carried her like an acrobat upside down to the black-black earth, where, right in front of her stiffened everywhere on the stony, sandy heath, cried the salt-water from out of the blue deep sea, “wee-pooh-pooh, wee-pooh-pooh, wee-pooh-pooh—that is the air in you little Cuddle, Cuddle.”