The Cuckoo that Lived in the Clock-House
It was rather a ramshackle, badly-built wooden house, in which the Cuckoo lived. Outside it looked smart enough, but inside, repairs were badly needed. It had been handed down from father to son, and over the front door, which was at the top of the house, stood a beautifully carved statue of their ancestor, Sir Cuckoo de Cuckoo.
The Clock-House was situated not far from the Dolls’ House, backed by a flowery wall in a small department of Nursery Land ruled over by Robert and Lucy. Lucy was ground landlady of the Clock-House, and it was her daily privilege to wind up its affairs.
No one ever knocked at the Cuckoo’s front door, because it had no number; there was a round dozen of numbers in the immediate neighbourhood. The pendulum, whose tongue never ceased to wag once it was wound up, remarked, that two firm hands were required to keep things in order. As to the chains, they regularly got weighed down under the strain of responsibility, and a heavy weight it was.
So, as one could not summon the Cuckoo at will, the only thing to do was to wait and see it when it chose to appear, and then—as likely as not, if nobody was about—Robert would seize the opportunity to take pot-shots at it with his pea-shooter. So far he had invariably missed. Sometimes it kept an appointment with him punctually at the hour, sometimes it didn’t. Occasionally, it came out at odd times, and then remained indoors altogether. When that happened for a more than usually long period, it was sure to be because the poor Cuckoo felt indisposed in its bellows; and when it became apparent that something had gone wrong with the inmate of the Clock-House, an entrance had to be effected by the back door and a dose of oil administered. Whereupon the front door would fly open and the Cuckoo appear again on the threshold—it never ventured further—bow to the multitude, or to empty space, and pipe “Cuc—koo!” just as many times as it felt inclined at the moment.
One fine afternoon in spring, when the Cuckoo came out punctually, and went through its performance of three bows with a Cuckoo call after each salutation, there happened to be a fresh inmate all alone in the nursery. This was Tabiatha, the new kitten, cosily reposing in her new basket under the table. “Aha! Poultry!” mewed Tabiatha, lying low, opening a lazy but watchful eye, and gazing upwards. “Bless my tail! You’re a tender morsel, I’ll be bound—small, but a tit-bit!” So thought the kitten, with an increasing feeling of longing in the chest. It had sounded to Tabiatha like an echo of the call she had heard so recently in the lane near the old farm at home.
“I don’t want to pop out any more!” said the Cuckoo after re-entering the Clock-House. “I’m bored to tears!” And it settled down in a corner and looked very melancholy. “What with that horrid boy, Robert, lurking about—and now a kitten of all things! Why, life’s not worth the living! If ever I do pop out again, I should like to pop out for good and all—stretch my wings and fly away, right away, and see something of the world!”
“Work! That’s the cure for all woes!” solemnly ticked the pendulum. “Look at me, I’m always at it, with a good swinging stride.” The hands didn’t explain their views—they were keeping far apart, and were not on speaking terms. “Every one is expected to do his duty,” urged the pendulum.
“That was only meant for one day—not morning, noon, and night,” argued the Cuckoo. “It’s all very well for a wagtail like you—but for a Cuckoo with a soul above it—especially with a fine, well-trained voice!”
“Every one must do his duty at all times. Yes, look at me—but I fear you can’t see me. Do you follow me?” asked the pendulum jokingly. Getting no reply, it ticked-tacked on, until the Cuckoo felt quite distracted.
“Listen to me, children,” said their mother, entering the nursery, when playtime had begun; “Nurse has gone to lie down. She isn’t very well this afternoon. So at four o’clock put everything away neatly; then make yourselves tidy, and come downstairs, where you may have tea with me.”
Robert and Lucy said they were sorry for Nurse, but they smiled, and hopped about with delight at the treat of tea downstairs. They promised to do as they were told, and with muffled footsteps hurried on the landing to open the gate and let their mother out of their domain, and quietly closed it to keep themselves in. Then they settled down in the nursery to “Loto;” but as Lucy always won, Robert tired of it. Card houses didn’t answer either, because it amused Robert not to build them, but to shake the table when Lucy’s structures were in course of erection.
Their mother, busily writing in the drawing-room, began to wonder why the children didn’t come downstairs; and tea was just being brought in, when suddenly screams and cries were heard issuing from the nursery, and she rushed upstairs in alarm.
There she found the nursery littered with things, chairs in unusual places, some overturned, and Lucy lying on the floor crying, with a cut on her lip, which was bleeding. Robert had both stockings torn, and was ruefully rubbing his knees. The little girl was more frightened than hurt.
“Whatever has happened, Robert?” exclaimed their mother as she helped Lucy to her feet, and comforted her.
“I was hunting,” he began to explain, “and she was the gazelle, and I was chasing her from rock to rock——”
“Jumping from the table on to the chairs and back again,” added Lucy in further explanation, “and we both tumbled down!”
“Serve you both right for being so disobedient as to jump on the furniture,” replied their mother, with placid satisfaction that matters were no worse. “You ought to have been all tidied up, and downstairs by now.”
“It isn’t time yet, surely, Mother!” The three turned instinctively towards the Cuckoo clock. It had stopped at three minutes to four.
“There now, Lucy, you silly!” cried her brother; “if you hadn’t forgotten to wind it up, we shouldn’t have had that beastly tumble, and shouldn’t have been late for tea.”
“Come, dears, quickly, and I’ll help make you ready,” said their mother; and they left the nursery together.
During the excitement Tabiatha had remained unnoticed in her basket under the table, glad in all the turmoil to be peaceful and forgotten. She came out, stretched herself lazily, and soon began to gambol about the room. The clock chain, lying loosely on the ground, attracted her attention. She crouched, then leapt at one bound upon it, backed a little, touched it with her paw, lay on her side, and played with the bright links with all four paws and much enjoyment. With a sudden movement she righted herself—made a spring upwards, missed the chain and fell without hurt. Liking this novel game, she leapt higher next time, and alighted on a cushioned chair, scratched her way up, jumped on to a bookcase, and then on to an empty shelf. There was the chain within easy reach. Putting out her paw, it caught instead in a ring she hadn’t noticed. To disentangle it she reached over, lost her foothold, and, still caught in the ring, found that the rattling chain was moving downwards with her weight until it deposited her gently on the ground, greatly to her surprise. Again she scrambled up the furniture in the same way. Her paw was now on both chains. Suddenly something swung backwards and forwards—
Tic—tac!
Tabiatha was for the moment dismayed, and, arching her back, she stood rooted to the spot.
Tic—tac!
It came unpleasantly close to her, nearly touching her nose each time, but she never budged an inch. Whr-r-r-r-r!
Cuc—koo! Cuc—koo! Cuc—koo! Cuc——
Tabiatha, rising to the occasion, and quick to seize an opportunity or anything else, took her last and only chance. She seized the poultry with both paws—Crack! Snap! She lost her balance and fell down, down, on to the cushioned chair. The Cuckoo flew into the air, alighted on Tabiatha’s back, and bounded on to the ground. Tabiatha forgot at once her escape from breaking her neck, sprang after the Cuckoo lying there, turned it over, paused, sniffed, found to her surprise that it was not good to eat, that it hadn’t even feathers, and was only made of wood, turned it over again, and began tapping it and pouncing on it until, suddenly forgetting all about it, she cantered away sideways with her tail curling in the air. She jumped into her basket, rolled herself up, soon purred herself fast asleep, and looked the very picture of helpless innocence.
The Cuckoo, out in the world at last, having recovered from its first alarm at the useless stiffness of its wings, waited for something to happen. As nothing did happen, it thought the world a very dull and stupid place, and concluded that, after all, work was better than lying there helpless, idle, motionless, and ridiculous. What was the use of its trained voice now? It couldn’t articulate a sound even to summon help. It had no idea of the time, but the sun was shining brightly when at last it found itself carefully lifted and placed on a higher level.
When Lucy entered the nursery that morning, soon after Robert, he exclaimed—
“I say, Lucy! There’s something fresh for breakfast. Look on your plate!”
“Oh, my poor Cuckoo!” she cried in distress. “You’ve shot it at last. You bad boy—I shan’t love you ever any more!”
But she did love him at once again, for it was a fact that no one knew how ever the Cuckoo came to be lying on the floor in the remote corner where Nurse had picked it up. The cushioned chair was in its place again—a long way off the clock. Every one was mystified, and could not imagine how it had happened. But Tabiatha knew all about it, though you would never have guessed it from her round, innocent eyes as she sat licking first one velvety paw, and then the other velvety paw, as though she were washing them of any share in the mischief.
When the Clock-House was spring-cleaned, and the Cuckoo duly set there on its legs again, it formed the firm determination to remain at its post in the future, and, with its Clock-House in order, it worked ever after with regularity and good humour just like one o’clock.
“Cuc—koo!” Bow, click.