Section 8

So the little folks blessed the snow-storm, and were _ glad to see it come thicker and thicker, and watched _ hopefully the long drift that was piling itself up in - the avenue, and was already higher than any of their
beads.
80 TANGLEWOOD PLAY-ROOM.
“Why, we shall be blocked up till spring!” cried they, with the hugest delight. ‘“ What a pity that the house is too high to be quite covered up! The little red house, down yonder, will be buried up to its eaves.”
“You silly children, what do you want of more snow?” asked Eustace, who, tired of some novel that he was skimming through, had strolled into the play- room. “It has done mischief enough already, by spoiling the only skating that I could hope for through the winter. We shall see nothing more of the lake till April; and this was to have been my first day upon it! Don’t you pity me, Primrose?”
“Oh, to be sure!” answered Primrose, laughing. “ But, for your comfort, we will listen to another of your old stories, such as you told us under the porch, and down in the hollow, by Shadow Brook. Perhaps I shall ike them better now, when there is nothing to do, than while there were nuts to be gathered, and beautiful weather to enjoy.”
Hereupon, Periwinkle, Clover, Sweet Fern, and as many others of the little fraternity and cousinhood ‘as were still at Tanglewood, gathered about Eustace, and earnestly besought him for a story. The student yawned, stretched himself, and then, to the vast ad- miration of the small people, skipped three times back and forth over the top of a chair, in order, as he ex- plained to them, to set his wits in motion.
“Well, well, children,” said he, after these prelimi. naries, “since you insist, and Primrose has set her heart upon it, I will see what can be done for you. And, that you may know what happy days there were before snow-storms came into fashion, I will tell you a story of the oldest of all old times, when the world
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was as new as Sweet Fern’s bran-new hummimeg-top. There was then but one season in the year, and that was the delightful summer; and but one age for mor- tals, and that was childhood.”
* T never heard of that before,” said Primrose.
“Of course, you never did,” answered Eustace. “It shall be a story of what nobody but myself ever dreamed of, — a Paradise of children, — and how, by the naughtiness of just such a little imp as Primrose here, it all came to nothing.”
So Eustace Bright sat down in the chair which he had just been skipping over, took Cowslip upon his knee, ordered silence throughout the auditory, and be- gan a story about a sad naughty child, whose name was Pandora, and about her playfellow Epimetheus. You may read it, word for word, in the pages that come next,
THE PARADISE OF CHILDREN.
Lone, long ago, when this old world was in its tender infancy, there was a child, named Epimetheus, who never had either father or mother; and, that he might not be lonely, another child, fatherless and motherless like himself, was sent from a far country, to live with him, and be his playfellow and helpmate. Her name was Pandora.
The first thing that Pandora saw, when she entered the cottage where Epimetheus dwelt, was a great box. And almost the first question which she put to him, after crossing the threshold, was this, —
“« Kpimetheus, what have you in that box?”
“My dear little Pandora,” answered Epimetheus, “that is a secret, and you must be kind enough not to ask any questions about it. The box was left here to be kept safely, and I do not myself know what it con- tains.”
“ But who gave it to you?” asked Pandora. “ And where did it come from?”
“ That is a secret, too,” replied Epimetheus.
“How provoking!” exclaimed Pandora, pouting her lip. “I wish the great ugly box were out of the way!”
‘Oh come, don’t think of it any more,” cried Epime- theus. “ Let us run out of doors, and have some nice play with the other children,’”?
It is thousands of years since Epimetheus and Pan- dora were alive; and the world, nowadays, is a very .
”
roils Ce
THE PARADISE OF CHILDREN. 83
different sort of thing from what it was in their time. Then, everybody was a child. There needed no fathers and mothers to take care of the children ; be- cause there was no danger, nor trouble of any kind, and no clothes to be mended, and there was always plenty to eat and drink. Whenever a child wanted his dinner, he found it growing on a tree; and, if he looked at the tree in the morning, he could see the ex- panding blossom of that night’s supper; or, at even- tide, he saw the tender bud of to-morrow’s breakfast. It was a very pleasant life indeed. No labor to be done, no tasks to be studied; nothing but sports and dances, and sweet voices of children talking, or carol- ling like birds, or gushing out in merry laughter, throughout the livelong day.
What was most wonderful of all, the children never quarrelled among themselves; neither had they any crying fits; nor, since time first began, had a single one of these little mortals ever gone apart into a cor- ner, and sulked. Oh, what a good time was that to be alive in? The truth is, those ugly little winged mon- sters, called Troubles, which are now almost as nu- merous as mosquitoes, had never yet been seen on the earth. It is probable that the very greatest dis- quietude which a child had ever experienced was Pan- dora’s vexation at not being able to discover the secret of the mysterious box.
This was at first only the faint shadow of a Trouble ; but, every day, it grew more and more substantial, until, before a great while, the cottage of Kpimetheus and Pandora was less sunshiny than those of the other children.
“ Whence can the box have come?” Pandora con - tinually kept saying to herself and to Epimetheus * And what in the world can be inside of it?”
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“ Always talking about this box!” said Epimetheus, at last ; for he had grown extremely tired of the sub- ject. “I wish, dear Pandora, you would try to talk of something else. Come, let us go and gather some ripe figs, and eat them under the trees, for our supper. And I know a vine that has the sweetest and juiciest grapes you ever tasted.”
“ Always talking about grapes and figs!” cried Pandora, pettishly.
“ Well, then,” said Epimetheus, who was a very good-tempered child, like a multitude of children in those days, “let us run out and have a merry time with our playmates.”
“JT am tired of merry times, and don’t care if I never have any more!” answered our pettish little Pandora. ‘“ And, besides, I never do have any. This © ugly box! I am so taken up with thinking about it all the time. I insist upon your telling me what is inside of it.”
“ As I have already said, fifty times over, I do not know!” replied Epimetheus, getting a little vexed. “ How, then, can I tell you what is inside? ”
“You might open it,” said Pandora, looking side~ ways at Epimetheus, “and then we could see for our- selves.”
‘“‘ Pandora, what are you thinking of ?” exclaimed Epimetheus.
And his face expressed so much horror at the idea of looking into a box, which had been confided io him on the condition of his never opening it, that Pandora thought it best not to suggest it any more. Still, how- ever, she could not help thinking and talking about the box.
* At least,” said she, “ you can tell me how it came - here.”
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“Tt was left at the door,” replied Epimetheus, “just before you came, by a person who looked very smiling and intelligent, and who could hardly forbear laughing as he put it down. He was dressed in an odd kind of a cloak, and had on a cap that seemed to be made partly of feathers, so that it looked almost as if it had wings.”
“¢ What sort of a staff had he?” asked Pandora.
“Oh, the most curious staff you ever saw!” cried Epimetheus. “It was like two serpents twisting around a stick, and was carved so naturally that I, at first, thought the serpents were alive.”
“T know him,” said Pandora, thoughtfully.‘ No- body else has such a staff. It was Quicksilver ; and he brought me hither, as well as the box. No doubt he intended it for me; and, most probably, it contains pretty dresses for ine to wear, or toys for you and me to play with, or something very nice for us both to eat !”
*‘ Perhaps so,” answered Epimetheus, turning away, “ But until Quicksilver comes back and tells us so, we have neither of us any right to lift the lid of the box.”
“ What a dull boy he is!” muttered Pandora, as Epimetheus left the cottage. “I do wish he had a little more enterprise ! ”
For the first time since her arrival, Epimetheus had gone out without asking Pandora to accompany him. He went to gather figs and grapes by himself, or to seek whatever amusement he could find, in other soci- ety than his little playfellow’s. He was tired to death
-of hearing about the box, and heartily wished that Quicksilver, or whatever was the messenger’s name, _ had left it at some other child’s door, where Pandora would never have set eyes on it. So perseveringly as
86 THE PARADISE OF CHILDREN.
she did babble about this one thing! The box, the box, and nothing but the box! It seemed as if the box were bewitched, and as if the cottage were not big enough to hold it, without Pandora’s continually stumbling over it, and making Epimetheus stumble over it likewise, and bruising all four of their shins.
Well, it was really hard that poor Epimetheus should have a box in his ears from morning till night; especially as the little people of the earth were so un- accustomed to vexations, in those happy days, that they knew not how to deal with them. Thus, a small vexation made as much disturbance then, as a far big- ger one would in our own times.
After Epimetheus was gone, Pandora stood gazing at the box. She had called it ugly, above a hundred times ; but, in spite of all that she had said against it, it was positively a very handsome article of furniture, and would have been quite an ornament to any room in which it should be placed. It was made of a bean- tiful kind of wood, with dark and rich veins spreading over its surface, which was so highly polished that lit- tle Pandora could see her face in it. As the child had no other looking-glass, it is odd that she did not value the box, merely on this account.
The edges and corners of the box were carved with most wonderful skill. Around the margin there were figures of graceful men and women, and the prettiest children ever seen, reclining or sporting amid a pro- fusion of flowers and foliage; and these various ob- jects were so exquisitely represented, and were wrought together in such harmony, that flowers, foliage, and human beings seemed to combine into a wreath of mingled beauty. But here and there, peeping forth from behind the carved foliage, Pandora once or twice
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fancied that she saw a face not so lovely, or something or other that was disagreeable, and which stole the beauty out of all the rest. Nevertheless, on looking more closely, and touching the spot with her finger, she could discover nothing of the kind. Some face, that was really beautiful, had been made to look ugly by her catching a sideway glimpse at it.
The most beautiful face of all was done in what is called high relief, in the centre of the lid. There was nothing else, save the dark, smooth richness of the polished wood, and this one face in the centre, with a garland of flowers about its brow. Pandora had looked at this face a great many times, and imagined that the mouth could smile if it liked, or be grave when it chose, the same as any living mouth. The features, indeed, all wore a very lively and rather mischievous expression, which looked almost as if it needs must burst out of the carved lips, and utter it- self in words.
Had the mouth spoken, it would probably have been something like this :
“Do not be afraid, Pandora! What harm can there be in opening the box? Never mind that poor, simple Epimetheus! You are wiser than he, and have ten times as much spirit. Open the box, and see if you do not find something very pretty!”
The box, I had almost forgotten to say, was fas- tened ; not by a lock, nor by any other such contri- vance, but by a very intricate knot of gold cord. There appeared to be no end to this knot, and no be- ginning. Never was a knot so cunningly twisted, nor with so many ins and outs, which roguishly defied the skilfullest fingers to disentangle them. And yet, by the very difficulty that there was in it, Pandora was
88 THE PARADISE OF CHILDREN.
the more tempted to examine the knot, and just see how it was made. Two or three times, already, she had stooped over the box, and taken the knot between her thumb and forefinger, but without positively try- ing to undo it.
“TI really believe,” said she to herself, “that I begin to see how it was done. Nay, perhaps I could tie it up again, after undoing it. There would be no harm in that, surely. Even Epimetheus would not blame me for that. I need not open the box, and should not, of course, without the foolish boy’s consent, even if the knot were untied.”
It might have been better for Pandora if she had had a little work to do, or anything to employ her mind upon, so as not to be so constantly thinking of this one subject. But children led so easy a life, be- fore any Troubles came into the world, that they had really a great deal too much leisure. They could not be forever playing at hide-and-seek among the flower- shrubs, or at blind-man’s-buff with garlands over their eyes, or at whatever other games had been found out, while Mother Earth was in her babyhood. When life is all sport, toil is the real play. There was absolutely nothing to do. A little sweeping and dusting about the cottage, I suppose, and the gathering of fresh flowers (which were only too abundant everywhere), and arranging them in vases, — and poor little Pan- dora’s day’s work was over. And then, for the rest of the day, there was the box!
After all, I am not quite sure that the box was not a blessing to her in its way. It supplied her with such a variety of ideas to think of, and to talk about, when- ever she had anybody to listen! When she was in good-humor, she could admire the bright polish of its
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sides, and the rich border of beautiful faces and foli- age that ran all around it. Or, if she chanced to be ill-tempered, she could give it a push, or kick it with her naughty little foot. And many a kick did the box — (but it was a mischievous box, as we shall see, and deserved all it got) — many a kick did it receive. But, certain it is, if it had not been for the box, our active-minded little Pandora would not have known half so well how to spend her time as she now did.
For it was really an endless employment to guess what was inside. What could it be, indeed? Just imagine, my little hearers, how busy your wits would be, if there were a great box in the house, which, as you might have reason to suppose, contained some- thing new and pretty for your Christmas or New- Year’s gifts. Do you think that you should be less curious than Pandora? If you were left alone with the box, might you not feel a little tempted to lift the lid? But you would not do it. Oh, fie! No, no! Only, if you thought there were toys in it, it would be so very hard to let slip an opportunity of taking just one peep! I know not whether Pandora expected any toys; for none had yet begun to be made, probably, in those days, when the world itself was one great play- thing for the children that dwelt upon it. But Pan- dora was convinced that there was something very beautiful and valuable in the box; and therefore she felt just as anxious to take a peep as any of these little girls, here around me, would have felt. And, possibly, a little more so; but of that I am not quite so certain.
On this particular day, however, which we have so long been talking about, her curiosity grew so much greater than it usually was, that, at last, she ap-