THE EQUATOR IS LOOSE
“BOTHER that Equine Ox,” said Nimbus. “I might have known he’d do something like that, and just before procession week, too.”
“Procession week?” said Billy wonderingly.
“Yes, the week of the procession of the Equine Oxes. The Sun and the Moon and their oldest daughter, the Evening Star, were coming down to see it, and Jack Frost and Aurora Borealis ought to be there now. And that miserable Equine Ox has gone and spoiled it all. He isn’t fit for anything but a barbecue.”
“What are you going to do?” asked Billy, while the conductor and the motorman gaped in a dazed silence.
“Do? Why, fix it, of course. I only hope we can get there before he breaks away altogether. It would be a beautiful state of affairs to have an Equator charging up and down the world, wouldn’t it?”
“I think it would be fun,” ventured Billy.
“Oh, certainly!” said Nimbus. “When you played under the trees in your front yard, do you think it would be fun to have cocoanuts drop on you instead of acorns? Insteadof rabbits and chipmunks in the woods, do you think it would be fun to see lions and tigers and boa-constrictors and laughing hyenas, to say nothing of hippopotamuses with teeth like banisters? Yes, it would be real jolly now, wouldn’t it?”
Billy saw that Nimbus was seriously disturbed and he kept silent.
The Meteor, who had entered the car unasked and taken a seat on the floor, now got up and began to shoot violently from one door to another, sometimes zigzagging so that he bumped the windows. His blazing tail trailed after him, and once or twice Billy had to draw back quickly to keep his face from a severe switching.
The conductor and the motorman were very much annoyed by these antics, and at last the conductor said:
“What’s the matter with him, anyway? Why don’t he sit still?”
“He can’t sit still,” said Nimbus. “A meteor is a shooting star and ever so often he has to shoot.”
“Shootin’ is against the rules,” growled the motorman. “No shootin’ allowed in any cars of this company.”
“He isn’t shooting aloud. He’s shooting to himself,” said Nimbus. “I’ll send him back to the Equator as soon as I compose a message that is strong enough to tell the Equine Ox what I think of him.”
Billy had been looking out of the window. A long way off he noticed a row of enormous signs, each with curiouscharacters on it, all outlined in bright green and blue stars.
“Signs of the Zodiac,” said the Meteor, coming to a sudden stop and looking over Billy’s shoulder. “‘Keep off the sky,’ and ‘No loose dogs allowed,’ and such like. The Aerolites have just turned ’em on. They come right after the twilight.”
“I—I don’t think I understand,” said Billy.
“Neither do I,” said the Meteor, “but I’ll explain it in a minute. I’ve got a few shots in me now that have got to go off.”
He leaped to his feet and began to dart backward and forward in the car till Nimbus, who was writing on a pad of paper, became irritated and slammed the car-door on the Meteor’s tail.
“Isn’t he peevish!” said the Meteor, sinking down at Billy’s side. “But as I was saying about the Aerolites, every night the Sun goes down, as you know, and it would be pitch dark until the Moon and the Stars came up if it wasn’t for them.
“One of them keeps watch until he sees the Sun starting to slide behind a mountain or into the sea, and then he tells the others, and they all hurry around and light the twilights. When they have them all lit there is enough light to see by till the Moon and the Stars get out of bed for the night. After that they can light the Signs of the Zodiac. They get paid for that. Lighting the twilightsthey have to do for their board and lodging and motive power.”
Nimbus left off writing. “I think that will do,” he said, handing the pad to Billy.
Billy read:
“V. E. Ox, Equator.“Of all the good-for-nothing, idle, dull-witted, stupid, feather-brained idiots I have met in twelve million years you are easily the worst. Send that Spring Tide to bed for a week. Get the other Equine Ox and a regiment of elephants and sit on the Equator till I get there. If he tries to get away duck him in the ocean. My only regret is that you have but four stomachs instead of ninety-four to get indigestion in.“Yours disgustedly,Nimbus.”
“V. E. Ox, Equator.
“Of all the good-for-nothing, idle, dull-witted, stupid, feather-brained idiots I have met in twelve million years you are easily the worst. Send that Spring Tide to bed for a week. Get the other Equine Ox and a regiment of elephants and sit on the Equator till I get there. If he tries to get away duck him in the ocean. My only regret is that you have but four stomachs instead of ninety-four to get indigestion in.
“Yours disgustedly,Nimbus.”
The Meteor took the paper from Billy’s hand, Nimbus released the tail from the door and he shot forth into the night.
Billy began to be very much distressed about the darkness, remembering his promise to his mother to be home for dinner. Nimbus, noticing his troubled face and feeling better now that he had unburdened himself of his opinion of the Equine Ox, sat beside him and said cheerfully:
“Never mind, Billy, it’s always half dark up here. We’re out of the air, you know, and we have to have air to see the light through, just as your mother has to have opera-glasses to see the play through. We’ll be home in time for dinner. Never fear.”
At this assurance Billy felt much better, and became very eager to see the great fight that he knew would take place when they got down to the Equator and took part in the effort to keep him from escaping.
But the motorman and the conductor were in no such cheerful mood. They sat apart in a corner and talked in whispers; and Billy, listening although he did not mean to, soon learned that they were talking about the Snow Fairies.
“It’s them,” said the conductor, “that spills snow all over the tracks and ties up the lines in winter.”
“Sure it is!” said the motorman. “Let’s get off and fix ’em.”
Billy glanced out of the window. There, right before his eyes, he saw a great number of little people, clad in white uniforms, raking huge masses of what seemed to be white flowers on the upper side of a cloud. Through the dim half-light he watched them working away, with rakes and pitchforks, some of them piling the white flakes into great stacks, while others pulled long rows of them to the edge of the cloud and pushed them over the side.
Billy remembered that it was summer when he left home and he wondered how it happened that snow-making was going on; but following with his eyes the flakes that whirled downward he saw a long chain of mountains far below. He knew, of course, that snow fell on mountains, even in summer time, so he understood.
“I tell you what I’ll do,” the motorman was saying; “I’ll go out and back her sideways and we’ll run through ’em. That’ll knock ’em all off the cloud, and we won’t have no more snow.”
“Great idea,” said the conductor. “We’ll get ’em all at one lick.”
Billy looked anxiously at Nimbus, who overheard, but only chuckled. “Let ’em try it,” he said, “and see what happens.”
Nimbus joined Billy at the window, and the motorman and the conductor, seeing that the Fairy’s back was turned, got up very quietly and went out on the front platform.
The motorman put his lever on the controller and, looking around carefully to make sure that he was not observed, reversed the power.
The car trembled, stopped, then began to go backward with a sidelong motion that took it right into the snow cloud.
Instantly the air grew cold, and the wind howled around the trolley pole and rattled the windows.
Straight into a great pile of snow went the car, and the Snow Fairies, looking up, saw it coming and skipped away in every direction.
There was a shock, snow flew in showers, then the car buried itself in a great white pile up to the window tops and stopped stock still.
Stamping and pawing the snow out of their eyes andmouths, the motorman and conductor came back into the car.
“Pleasant weather, gentlemen,” said Nimbus. “Looks a little like snow, however. Suppose you go out now and clear the track. You’re used to it.”
Angry, but too much ashamed of themselves to show their feelings, the motorman and the conductor got shovels from under the seats and went out to clear away a path for the car.
“It always pays best to let Nature take care of herself, as the boy said who sat on the volcano,” Nimbus observed.
“It will be a dreadful delay, though, and we are in such a hurry to get to the Equator,” said Billy.
“Oh, no, there will be no delay at all! The Cloud is going right in our direction just as fast as we were. We’ll warm up, however, for it’s a trifle cold,” said Nimbus. And taking out the sunbeam he had brought with him from the lilac bush, he hit a piece out of it and handed it to Billy.
“Eat it,” he said. “Nothing so stimulating in cold weather as a sunbeam. We’ll just sit here and wait for an answer to my telegram. And you can act acquainted with the sky people.”
Billy looked out of the window into the sky. Was it true, he wondered, that the Sun and Moon were really sky people?
“What’s the matter?” asked Nimbus.
“I was just wondering if the Stars are all really people,” said Billy.
“Really people!” said Nimbus. “Well I should say they are. And all the Clouds are, too. You see that bunch over there? Well, that is Mrs. Pink-Cloud and Mrs. White-Cloud and Mrs. Pearl-Cloud and Mrs. Mackerel-Cloud and Mrs. Yellow-Cloud sitting together and sewing on party dresses for their children to go to the Star children’s birthday party. It’s warm over there where they are.”
“Oh!” said Billy. “Are they all named?”
“Named! Of course they are! And every Star, too. But nobody can remember them but their own mother, Mrs. Moon. Even their father, Mr. Sun, gets confused sometimes and mixes the boys’ names with the girls’.”
“Are the Clouds people, too?” asked Billy wonderingly.
“Just as much people as you are,” answered Nimbus seriously. “Old General Gray-Cloud and old General Thunder-Cloud are great fighters and have awful battles. You can hear them down on the Earth sometimes. It sounds like thunder and looks like lightning from where you live, but from where we live—Oh, my!”
“Dear me,” said Billy, “how very interesting! And do the mothers teach their children to behave the way our mothers do on the Earth, or are they allowed to do as they please in the sky?”
“Well, you do show your ignorance!” said Nimbus, with such severity that Billy quite blushed for himself. “Whylet me tell you what I saw only yesterday when I was under the lilac bush waiting for you.”
“Did you know about me before I saw you?” asked Billy, much flattered.
“Why, certainly I did. I saw you having such a stupid time with a geography lesson which I knew I could make so easy for you that I said to myself: ‘I’ll just wait until I have him all to myself and then I’ll show him!’”
“That was very kind of you,” said Billy, “and I am sure that I shall never forget anything I have seen.”
“That’s just the way with me,” said Nimbus; “so what I saw of the Cloud children I will tell to you, and then it will be just the same as if you had seen it.”
“So it will,” said Billy, who by this time had got to have great faith in the Geography Fairy.
“What do you suppose makes it rain?” asked Nimbus suddenly.
Billy thought intently for a moment. He knew he had heard something about clouds and mist and heat and cold, but for the life of him he couldn’t remember when anybody asked him. That is what makes examinations so hard. You know, but you can’t remember.
“Ah, ha!” said Nimbus. “You can’t think, can you? Well, I’ll tell you, and you’ll never forget this reason. The other day, when their mothers were all sitting and sewing, the Cloud children——”
“What are their names?” asked Billy.
“Well, there happened to be Pinkie Pink-Cloud and Goldie Gold-Cloud and Pearlie Pearl-Cloud. They asked their mothers if they could float over Central Park and watch the Earth children at play. Their mothers said yes, so away they went. At first it was great fun to watch, for it was Mayday and all the children were marching about in their pretty white dresses while nursemaids and fräuleins and mademoiselles by the dozen, and a few mothers, were looking on.
“Then Pinkie and Goldie and Pearlie began to play tag among themselves, nor was it very long before Pinkie said that Goldie did not tag her when she said she did, and Pearlie took sides; so in one moment those little sunny faces grew black with anger and presently they began to cry as hard as ever they could.”
“Well?” said Billy, as Nimbus paused.
“Well,” repeated the Fairy, “don’t you see? Their tears were rain!”
“Oh!” said Billy.
“The next thing that happened was that their mothers looked up from their sewing and saw the dark spot over the park, where, a few minutes ago, it had all been bright and sunny. They knew what had happened, for in April and May the Cloud children are easily upset and cry if you poke your finger at them. So they floated over to the park and, instead of asking the children what the matter was,as most mothers would have done, Mrs. Gold-Cloud told the children to look down at the park.”
“And what did they see?” asked Billy, who never before had thought of looking at the Earth children through the eyes of the clouds.
“Why, the rain spoiling all the pretty white dresses and the children all stopping their play and rushing about for shelter.”
“I know,” said Billy. “I was there myself.”
“Were you?” said Nimbus. “Then you know what happened.”
“I only know it stopped raining,” said Billy.
“But don’t you know why?” asked Nimbus.
Billy shook his head.
“Because Mrs. Gold-Cloud told the children how tears and black looks on their faces always spoiled the pleasure of somebody else, and how smiles and sweet looks and lots of love in the heart brings happiness. When she said this, the Cloud children dried their tears on their mothers’ cloud handkerchiefs and began to smile, and when Pinkie and Goldie kissed each other, the whole sky brightened up. So everything got sunshiny again, and of course the rain stopped as soon as the tears were dried, so in five minutes the little Earth children were running about again as happy as lambs. And the sight of their happiness made the Cloud children glad they had not been so selfish as to quarrel long.”
“They must be nice children,” said Billy thoughtfully. “That story sounds the way my mother tells things.”
“When you go back, you can tell the story to her,” said Nimbus.
“Thank you for telling me,” said Billy politely. “It is a very nice story and I sha’n’t forget it. I’ll have lots of things to tell when I get back. What are you going to do about the Equator?”
“Hello!” The last exclamation was directed at the Meteor, who suddenly appeared through the snow bank and, panting for breath, handed Nimbus a message which Billy read over his shoulder.
The message read:
“Glad to know you are coming, and thanks for your kind words. Equator is loose.“Respectfully,Equine Ox.”
“Glad to know you are coming, and thanks for your kind words. Equator is loose.
“Respectfully,Equine Ox.”