Chapter XVI
IN THE WILLOW TREE
It’s really time, now, that we heard something about Tubby herself.
Luckily Tubby was very soft, so when Murrum dropped her down the hole in the willow tree she only bounced a little, and didn’t hurt herself at all.
When her first fright was over, and she was able to look about her, she found that she was in a large round room with very high walls. There was a pale greenish light in the place, which came from the decayed wood with which the inside of the willow tree was lined, and which shone in the dark; everything looked very clean and nice, and there was a soft thick carpet of earth and wood-dust underfoot. High up, through the hole in the top, she could see a big bright star.
In fact, if Tubby had found this place for herself, instead of being thrown into it so rudely by Murrum, she would have asked for nothing better. All her life she had wanted a house of her own, and had she been free to choose, this was just such a house as she would have chosen. Certainly there was the fear that Murrum might come back, but there seemed no danger of that for the present. For the rest, it was as roomy as the toy-cupboard and far more tidy. If Bulka were only here to play with her, Tubby thought, they could have a wonderful time; and thinking of Bulka she remembered the unfinished letter and the pencil which she had thrust hastily into her pocket when Murrum seized her.
Taking it out, she sat down with her back against the wall, licked the point of her pencil well, and began to write:
Dear Bulka:
I am in a funny place it is a house in a tree. Murrum brought me it is lited with green lites so no more at present. Hoping you are well your loving
P.S. I will make you a cake with ammons and Icing and Silver balls.
When she had finished writing Tubby walked round and round the room looking for a place to post her letter, but she could see no crack or cranny large enough, and the walls looked exactly the same all round. So at last she gave it up, and feeling somewhat dizzy from walking in a circle so long she cuddled down in a hollow in the floor and shut her eyes.
When she awoke it was daylight, and the sun was shining in through the hole in the top of the tree. Tubby could see blue sky, with silver-green willow leaves waving before it, high above her. Little ants were running up and down the willow tree walls. She sat up and began to feel very hungry.
Suddenly there was a whirr of wings, and a spotted woodpecker with a scarlet head flew down inside the tree. He looked very astonished.
“Hallo!” he exclaimed. “Where did you come from?”
“I come from Tubbyland,” said Tubby instantly, “and I would like some breakfast.”
“Tubbyland—” said the woodpecker, clinging upside-down to the wall in a way that made Tubby dizzy to look at. “Hm. I don’t know where that is! And as for breakfast, I’ve enough to do getting that for my own family, but if there’s any left over you shall have it.”
He flew off, as good as his word, and in a few minutes he was back again but the breakfast he brought was not at all what Tubby had hoped for. It was a great fat worm, squirmy and unpleasant, and he dropped it so nearly into Tubby’s mouth, as she sat looking up, that she gave a little scream. He was off again instantly, and to hide her disappointment, and not to hurt the woodpecker’s feelings, she buried the worm as quickly as she could under the loose earth on the floor, where she would not be obliged to see it.
She had only just finished, and was scraping the earth together again, when—bang—something hit her right on the nose. This time it was a nut, neatly cracked, so that Tubby had no trouble at all in getting the kernel out and eating it. It belonged to a squirrel, who was watching Tubby so intently that he let his nut fall without meaning to.
Whirr! The woodpecker was back again, and with another worm, even fatter and squirmier than the first, dangling from his bill.
“Open your mouth!” he called cheerfully.
“I’ve had plenty!” Tubby cried. “Indeed I have! Please don’t trouble any more!”
“Nonsense!” said the woodpecker. “Young people must eat. I don’t know where you come from, but we’ll see to it that you don’t starve. The children send this with their love!”
And he dropped the worm plop into her lap.
Luckily he didn’t wait to see what became of it.
“I hate breakfast!” thought Tubby. For one worm after another, every few minutes, came tumbling down on her head. It kept her busy burying them all, and even then their tails would come wriggling up again, in a way that was most unpleasant. But presently, to her relief, the supply of worms gave out, or else the woodpecker thought she had had enough, for he ceased to appear, and Tubby was just shovelling the earth over the last and biggest worm of all when a voice overhead said:
“What are you doing down there?”
Tubby looked up. She was getting a crick in her neck from having to tilt her head back so often. This time it was the squirrel again.
“None of your business!” cried Tubby, for she was afraid he would tell the woodpecker. “I’m tidying my house,” she added with dignity.
“Are you the new Janitor?”
“Indeed I’m not,” Tubby replied.
“Then I don’t know why you are here,” said the squirrel. “You look like some kind of an orphan. Why did you eat my nut?”
“I was hungry,” said Tubby. “I thought it was meant for me.”
“Never mind,” the squirrel said. “Plenty more where that came from.” And he slapped his pocket. “I’ll come down and talk to you, if you like.”
He came skipping down the side of the wall and dropped neatly to the floor, where he sat watching her with his bright beady eyes.
“This basement isn’t so bad,” he remarked presently, “if you were to fix it up a little. Myself, I always prefer living in the upper story. But perhaps you had no choice.”
“Indeed I hadn’t,” thought Tubby, but she didn’t tell the squirrel so. Instead she kept silence, and merely occupied herself with walking round and round the room, staring hard at the grey walls and humming as she did so, till at last the squirrel exclaimed: “Don’t do that! It makes me giddy! What are you looking for?”
“I’m looking for a place to post my letter,” Tubby explained.
“Oh, I thought you might be looking for a job,” said the squirrel, “and you certainly won’t find one there. Can you read and write?”
“Of course!” said Tubby proudly.
“Then stop poking your fingers into those cracks and listen to me. I’ve got three children at home. They’re smaller than you, but about the same colour. That’s why I thought you might be an orphan. Do you want to come and teach them?”
“Teach them what?” Tubby asked.
“Anything you like,” said the squirrel, waving his tail vaguely.
Tubby thought a little while.
“I’d like to see the house first,” she said.
“It’s just up there,” said the squirrel. Looking up, Tubby saw for the first time a big hole halfway up the wall of the tree, which she had not noticed the night before.
“How do you get up?” she asked.
“This way,” said the squirrel, and he ran up and down the wall two or three times, clinging with his claws and making a funny scratchy sound as he went.
“I can’t do that!” Tubby said.
“I’ll help you,” said the squirrel. And he did, pushing her from behind and showing her where to put her paws.
It was easier than she expected. “If he can help me so far,” Tubby thought, “he might be able to help me right up to the top.” But first she wanted to see the squirrels’ home.
It was in a hollow limb of the tree, that reached a long way back like a passage. It was stuffy in there and very warm, and it smelled of fur and hay and nutshells; either the squirrels ate all their meals in the bedroom or else they slept in the pantry, Tubby could not quite make up her mind which. But the sight of the baby squirrels, sitting up in bed with their little paws clasped and their round eyes gazing up at her, pleased her so much that she sat down then and there among the hay and nutshells and took them all three on her lap.
“We want a story!” cried the baby squirrels. “Tell us a story!”
Tubby began immediately:
“Once there was a little mouse and he lived in Tubbyland and he wore blue trousers, and one day he said to his mother, ‘Mother, I would like a party!’ ‘Very well,’ said his mother, ‘you have been a good child,’ and she took him down a long passage and opened the door, and there was a Christmas tree with candles on it and shiny lights—”
“I want to go down the passage!” cried the three baby squirrels all at once, and they began to jump up and down.
“Wait a minute,” said Tubby. “I haven’t told you what they had to eat at the party, yet.”
“What had to eat?” asked the baby squirrels, clasping their paws.
Tubby went on hurriedly: “They had all kinds of cake and biscuits, and carrots and nuts and peppermint, and a great be-yootiful cake with orange icing and silver balls on it, and three candles—”
“Want some nuts!” the baby squirrels began again. “Want some nuts!”
“Don’t be little pigs!” said Tubby severely, for she didn’t like being interrupted. “How can I tell you stories if you jump up and down all the time? So they lived happily ever after,” she finished in a loud firm voice. “And now one of you find me the comb and I’ll comb your hair.”
After much hunting the baby squirrels found the comb under the bedclothes, and Tubby set about making them tidy. This was a task she thoroughly enjoyed; their hair was so soft and silky and parted so perfectly down the back, and it was such fun to comb out those long feathery tails till they shone like spun glass. The only trouble was that as soon as she finished one squirrel and set him aside, he at once began bouncing about in the hay and made himself all untidy again, until Tubby was almost in despair.
“Were there ever such wriggly children!” she exclaimed. “Be quiet, do!” And she sat the last squirrel down very hard, hoping that he would stay this time, for she wanted to explore the rest of the house.
Beyond the squirrels’ living-room the passage grew very narrow, so Tubby had hard work to squeeze herself along. It began to smell musty and wormy, too; evidently no one had used it for a long while. But Tubby wriggled on, for she was bound to see what lay at the end.
Soon it grew lighter. There was a small knothole in the wall, near the end of the passage, and as soon as Tubby caught sight of this she thought: “Now I can post my letter at last!” And pulling the letter from her pocket she poked it through the knothole and let it fall.
As she turned round she bumped against something sharp. It was the corner of a box that had been pushed into a hollow right at the end of the passage. It was wedged there so tightly, covered over with dust and cobwebs, that Tubby had difficulty in pulling it out. But she managed it at last, and saw scratched on the lid the initials T. L.
“That’s for Tubbyland,” thought Tubby. “Perhaps there are chocolates in!” And lifting up the lid she looked inside.
There were no chocolates in, but there was something far more interesting. There was, first of all, a gold thimble, and then a silver dime with a hole in it, and a bit of tinsel and some red worsted, and a ring with a bright green stone, and a bit of broken looking-glass and three safety-pins and a gilt watch and chain, just the right size for Poor Cecco. And when she had pulled all these things out, there, folded away at the bottom, under some scraps of coloured paper and silk, was a brand-new red velvet coat with gold buttons, and a little pair of sky-blue trousers trimmed with silver braid!
They might have been made to the very measure of Bulka!
Tubby’s paws shook with excitement as she folded the clothes up again and tumbled everything back into the box. She could hear footsteps along the passage. It was the squirrel, come back to see how she was getting along.
“Look what I found!” cried Tubby. “Look what I found! There’s T.L. on it. It came from Tubbyland!”
“That’s a queer thing!” said the squirrel, peering into the box with his head on one side. “That must have belonged to old Miss Magpie. She rented this house before we had it, and from what I hear she was a terrible old miser. All sorts of things she had, stored away, and they do say she didn’t come by the half of them honestly, either. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if she stole these! Anyway you’re welcome to them if they’re any use to you, for I’m sure I don’t want the house cluttered up.”
And while Tubby held her pinafore out he very obligingly stowed everything into it, the box being too big to carry.
That evening, after she had tucked the baby squirrels into bed, tidied up the nutshells, and bidden Mr. Squirrel good-night, Tubby sat on the floor at the bottom of the tree, with her treasures spread about her. She unfolded the little coat and trousers, folded them again, laid them in every possible position to see how beautiful they looked. How pleased Bulka would be! How fine he would look with these elegant blue trousers on, and the red coat buttoned down the front!
Oh, why wasn’t Bulka here!
A great tear rolled down and splashed on the blue velvet. Anxiously Tubby wiped it off with the hem of her pinafore, but it was no use; another fell, and another—She pushed the clothes aside and sat very still, blinking hard.
Dusk fell; the walls about her shone once more with their soft greenish light. Poor Tubby felt very lonely and very homesick. Never had she missed Bulka so much. She groped in her pocket for the pencil. There was just one tiny scrap of paper left, all crumpled, and smoothing it out she tried to write. But the words wouldn’t come, and the pencil danced up and down before her eyes.
Suddenly, on the outside wall of the tree she heard, very faint and far off, a tiny tapping!
