Dreamland | Page 8

to know when you can."
"Allow me to inform you, my dear child, that it isn't August at all; and if you had half an eye you 'd see it, let alone feel it. Do these leaves look as if it were August?" and he pointed to a clump of trees whose foliage shone red and yellow in the sunlight.
Betty started. "Good gracious!" she exclaimed. "How came they to change so early?"
"It _is n't_ early," explained Mr. Bombus. "It's the last of October,--even later,--and keeps getting more so every minute."
"But," insisted Betty, "it was August when I first saw you, a few hours ago, and--"
"Yes, then it was August," assented Mr. Bombus; "but we 've got beyond that. We 're in By-and-by. Did n't you hear your mother say it would be October by and by, and it is October. Time is jogging on, back there in the world; but we beat him, you see, and are safe and sound--far ahead of him--in By-and-by. Things are being done here that are always going to be done behind there. It's great fun."
But at these words Betty's face grew very grave, and a sudden thought struck her that was anything but "great fun." Would she be set to doing all the things she had promised to do "by and by"?
"I 'm afraid so," said Mr. Bombus, replying to her question though she had only thought it. "I told you it depended on one's self if one were going to like By-and-by or not. Evidently you 're not. Oh! going so soon? You must have been a lazy little girl to be set about settling your account as quick as this. See you later! Good--"
But again he was not permitted to say "by," for before he could fairly get the word out, Betty was whisked away, and Mr. Bombus stood solitary and alone under a bare maple-tree, chuckling to himself in an amused fashion and, it must be confessed, in a spiteful.
"It 'll be a good lesson for her. She deserves it," he said to himself; and Betty seemed to hear him, though she was by this time far away.
Poor child! she did not know where she was going nor what would take place next, and was pretty well frightened at feeling herself powerless to do anything against the unknown force that was driving her on.
But even while she was wondering she ceased to wonder; and what was going to happen had happened, and she found herself standing in an enormous hall that was filled with countless children, of all ages and nationalities,--and some who were not children at all,--every one of whom was hurrying to and fro and in and out, while all the time a voice from somewhere was calling out names and dates in such rapid succession that Betty was fairly deafened with the sound. There was a continual stir in the assembly, and people were appearing and reappearing constantly in the most perplexing manner, so that it made one quite dizzy to look on. But Betty was not permitted to look long, for in the midst of the haranguing of the dreadful voice she seemed to distinguish something that sounded strangely familiar.
"Betty Bleecker," it called, "began her account here when she was five years old by the World calculation. Therefore she has the undone duties of seven years--World count--to perform. Let her set about paying off her debt at once, and stop only when the account is squared;" whereupon Betty was again whisked off, and had not even time to guess where, before she found herself in a place that reminded her strangely of home and yet was not home at all. Then a wearisome round of tasks began.
She picked up pins, she opened doors, she shut windows, she raised shades, she closed shutters, she ran errands, she delivered messages, she practised scales, she studied lessons, she set her doll-house in order and replaced her toys, she washed her face and brushed her hair, she picked currants and stoned raisins, she hung up her skipping-rope and fastened her sash; and so she went on from one thing to another until she was almost ready to cry with weariness and fatigue. Half the things she did she had forgotten she had ever promised to do. But she had sent them into By-and-by, and here they were to be done, and do them she must. On and on she went, until after a while the tasks she had to perform began to gain a more familiar look, and she recognized them as being unkept promises of quite a recent date. She dusted her room, she darned her stockings, she mended her apron, she fed her bird, she wrote a letter, she read her Bible; and at last, after an endless space and