Adventures in the Land of Canaan | Page 8

rob me of my life and my
money. Make your defence."
"There was no written agreement," answered the Mouse shamelessly.
"Each was at liberty to understand it in his own way."
"Most wicked of animals, you are not fit to live," cried the Rabbit with
disgust. "Your moments are numbered."
Then before the Mouse could offer any protest, the Rabbit bit his head
right off and swallowed it.
"You will observe," said the Rabbit to the Owl with dignity, "that I still
maintain my proper position in the eyes of the world as a Welsh
rare-bit, but the Mouse, owing to his misdeeds, is now in the

contemptible state of the biter bit. Such is the end of the wicked.
"As for you," he continued to the Sentry, who, with his boastful spirit
crushed, stood trembling in the Sentry-box; "as for you, you have seen
too much of the world and its ways. It would be better for you to see a
little less of it for a time."
Then, according to his intention, the Rabbit beat the Sentry about the
head until he could not see out of his eyes.
"It now only remains to deal with the Horse. I go to give him the due
reward of his deeds," the Rabbit remarked, taking up his drum and
preparing to leave. But pausing a moment he added to the Owl: "With
regard to you, my good friend, if ever an opportunity arises by which I
can show you my gratitude for your kind services, rest assured that I
shall eagerly avail myself of it."
Now, the next morning the woman who keeps this shop spoke severely
to her own little girl.
"You have been touching the toys and damaging them," she said with
anger. "See what mischief you have done! You have knocked off the
head of this mouse--and, what is more, I can't find it anywhere,--you
have rubbed all the paint off this sentry's face, and you have broken the
glass eyes of this brown horse. You shall be punished."
The little girl began to whimper.
"I have not hurt the toys," she said. "I have never touched them since
you put me to bed for breaking the baby doll."
The woman looked puzzled: "If you say you haven't, you haven't, I
suppose," she said, "for I know you are a truthful child. Then how has it
happened? I shouldn't think any customer would do it without my
noticing. I can't understand it."
Nor can she to this day. But we can: you, the Rabbit, the Owl, the
Sentry, the Horse, and myself. But not the Mouse, for he has lost his

head.
CHAPTER III
Here the little Marionette paused.
"That is all," she said.
"What a good thing that the Mouse had his head bitten off," said the
little girl thoughtfully.
"It was just as well," the Marionette answered, "since he could use it to
no better purpose."
"Some of the toys were very wicked in that story, I think; dreadfully
wicked."
"I think the same. They were bad, wicked toys, with bad, wicked
ways."
"Are many of the toys you know as wicked as that?" asked Molly.
"Oh, dear no!" said the little Marionette, quite shocked. "Most of my
friends and acquaintances are really wonderfully well-behaved."
"Do you know, I should like you next time to tell me about one of
them."
"About some one simple, perhaps?"
"Yes, I think so."
The little Marionette thought a moment.
Then she said: "I know of no one more simple than Belinda."
"Tell me about her, if you please."
"Very good. You shall hear of Belinda and her simplicity."

So the next day she told her friend the story of "Belinda."

BELINDA
Belinda was a little wax doll who had a most charming way of opening
and shutting her eyes. When Mortals were about, she could not do it
unless they helped by pulling a wire. But when once the shop was
closed, and the toys, left to themselves, could move at pleasure, then
Belinda pulled her own wires and opened and shut her eyes as she
pleased. She did this in so simple and unaffected a fashion that it
delighted everyone to see her.
"What simplicity! what delightful simplicity!" said the other toys. "'Tis
really charming!"
"Singularly simple," repeated the Butcher, who always stood at the
door of his shop, watching for the customers that so seldom came. "She
is like an innocent lamb," he added, his thoughts turning to his trade; "a
simple, harmless lamb."
"Elle est très gentille, la petite Belinde," remarked Mademoiselle Cerise,
the French doll just arrived from Paris. "Elle est une jeune fille fort bien
élevée; elle ferme les yeux d'une façon vraiment ravissante."
"Here we are again, Simplicity and Self!" said the Clown, turning