The City Curious

Excerpt

CHAPTER I

Smaly and his wife Redy set forth in search of three little girls: They are bewitched so that their noses turn into beaks: Smaly eats the latch of a door and Redy eats the hinge: Redy's fingers weep tears: They meet with a Confectioner who resembles a Kangaroo.

Smaly and Redy were husband and wife, and they lived together in a little white house. This house had three rooms upstairs and three rooms downstairs; and each room was so pretty that it gave one joy to see it. Smaly and Redy were very proud of their house, and were never so happy as when they were putting it to rights. Every day they did something to one or other of the rooms, changing the position of the furniture or the pictures.

One day, while Smaly was walking in the town he saw three mirrors in a shop window, and he thought they would be just the thing to hang up in the three bedrooms; so he bought the mirrors and went home with them in high glee.

In the meantime, Redy, his little wife, also had an idea to beautify the bedrooms, so she went out into the garden to pick some flowers.

Smaly hung a looking-glass in each of the three little bedrooms, then he carefully closed all three doors and, going downstairs, sat himself by the hearth. A fire was burning there, for the spring was still young in the land.

While he sat there, smoking, lost in the most delicious daydreams, his pleasant little wife Redy came in with her arms full of flowers. She took three vases from the dresser, and began to arrange the flowers in them, holding her head on one side like a bird.

Redy

When she had put each flower exactly as she wished, she gently shook Smaly's elbow. He jumped up, took two vases without a word, while she picked up the third. They disposed a vase in each of the three little bedrooms, and stood back to admire the effect; which, indeed, was quite charming.

Suddenly Redy gave a sigh.

"It's all very well," said she, "but there's no one to live in our pretty rooms."

Smaly sighed, too. "That's just what I was thinking," said he. "Oh, Redy, how nice it would be if we had three little girls to live in our three bedrooms, so that they could admire your flowers and look at themselves in my pretty mirrors."

"Let us wish for them," said Redy, and she folded her hands together on her apron and chanted:

"We wish to have three girls,
Fine, sweet, pink, and good
They shall have more pudding than they like,
And a green, green, and rosy garden."

Smaly repeated the poem in his turn, but Redy had to prompt him, for he had a very bad memory.

They waited for some time, but nothing happened, so they said the verse over again, and this time Smaly repeated it without any mistake; but still nothing happened.

"Wishing does not seem to be much good," said Smaly despondently.

"Wishing never is any good," answered Redy, "unless one does something more than wish. If we want to find our three little girls we must set out and look for them."

Smaly

"Yes, but where?" asked Smaly.

"As for that," answered his little wife, "I do not know any more than you, but that verse we chanted just now is a magic verse, and we shall find the way....