XXITHE VALLEY OF UP-IN-THE-AIR
THE chief of the dancing crew had scarcely finished his bitter story when Peterkin swore to have revenge on the toothless enemy—and to rescue these poor, tired folk in the bargain. Then he broke from their midst, took a long draught from his magic bottle, and bounced clear over into the next valley.
And the odd part of it was that he never touched ground there at all. Instead, he was caught in a swirl of strong and steady breezes which kept him aloft, floating, swimming through the air, high above the ground.
“Well,” thought Peterkin, amazed, “I wonder if this is the fate of everyone in this valley?”
Yes, sure enough, a few moments later, there came floating toward him in midair a family of children and parents and grandparents. Behind them, in a string, floated feather beds and kitchen tables, dishes, parlor chairs and stoves—and a hundred and one other things of a household. It was a home complete—but all up in the air!
Then other families floated past, with little tots in flying cradles and gray-haired patriarchs in cushioned easy chairs with blankets tucked about them. Wheelbarrows, topsy-turvy sheets and pillows, clothes and jugs and mugs and a thousand other things in helter-skelter spun along behind them in a far-away trail. Everyone, everything was up in the air. Aye, even Peterkin!
“Who are you? And what are you doing up here?” he cried to the father of one of the families which floated past.
“I’m Pater Familias,” came the answer, borne upon the wind. “And I and my dear ones are up here because we can’t be down below, on the ground.”
“Well, why can’t you?”
The Pater Familias steered his whole crew, table, bed and pots and pans and all, toward Peterkin. “We owe all our misery to——”
“What? To the toothless villain?” interrupted Peterkin.
The whole family groaned and the pots and pans leaped at the mention of this evil person. “Yes, yes, the toothless villain—the enemy of the Four Kingdoms!” wept the Pater Familias. “If it were not for him, we should now be down on the ground where we belong, living most sensible lives in our homes ... and not flying from horizon to horizon above the tree-tops. We were happiest of the Kingdoms.
“But one day, when we were folk of the earth, there cameflying over our heads this wicked, toothless farmer—anyhow, he told us he was a farmer. He came down into our midst upon a grassy hill.
“‘Well, what do you love more than all else in this valley?’ he asked us.
“‘Ho, that’s an easy question!’ we told him. ‘We love to keep our feet upon the ground, as all good, sensible people should.’
“He thought for a sly moment. ‘But wouldn’t you love to fly?’ he asked us. ‘Come, hop up into the air with me—up, up, as lightly as the birds on wing. Come, just try it—it’s such a delightful sport, this flying!’
“Then, as if in obedience to his summons, a great breeze sprang up from out of nowhere and swept us all off our feet and up, up—up to where he was floating. And truly, for a few moments, itwasdelightful sport. But when we wanted to return to earth again—why, the farmer was gone—and there was no returning! We had been tricked into the air and there we must remain, floating, drifting, useless, helpless—we and our families and all our neighbors, together with our household, tables, beds and rags and tags, until this toothless fellow comes again to free us from his cruel magic.”