The Quest. Frederik van Eeden
things, but this made him open his eyes wide. In the middle of the day, and in school! It was past all belief.
"You need not be afraid of me," said he, softly – for fear of startling the mouse. "Have you come from Windekind?"
"I came just to say to you that the teacher is quite right, and that you roundly deserved your punishment."
"But Windekind said that the sun was our father."
"Yes, but it was not necessary to let anybody else know it. What have human beings to do with it? You must never speak of such delicate matters to them – they are too coarse. A human being is an astonishingly cruel and clumsy creature, who would prefer to seize and trample to death whatever came within his reach. We mice have had experience of that."
"But, Mousie, why do you stay in this neighborhood? Why do you not go far away – to the woods?"
"Alas! we cannot do that now. We are too much accustomed to town food. Provided one is prudent and always takes care to avoid their traps and their heavy feet, it becomes possible to endure human beings. Fortunately, we still retain our nimbleness. The worst of it is that human beings help out their own clumsiness by covenanting with the cat. That is a great calamity, but in the woods there are owls and hawks, and we should all certainly perish there. Now, Johannes, remember my advice. There comes the teacher!"
"Mousie, Mousie! Do not go away! Ask Windekind what I must do with my key. I have hung it around my neck, on my bare breast. But Saturday I have to take a bath, and I am so afraid somebody will see it. Tell me, Mousie dear, where I can safely hide it."
"In the ground – always in the ground. Everything is safest there. Shall I take, and keep it?"
"No, not here, at school!"
"Bury it then, out in the dunes. I will tell my cousin, the field-mouse, that he must keep watch of it."
"Thank you, Mousie."
Tramp! tramp! The master was coming. In the time it took Johannes to dip his pen, the mouse had disappeared. The master himself, who was impatient to go home, excused Johannes from the forty-eight remaining lines.
For two long days Johannes lived in constant fear. He was closely watched, and no opportunity was allowed him for escaping to the dunes. Friday came, and he was still carrying around that precious key. The following evening he must take his weekly bath; the key would be discovered and taken away from him. He grew stiff with fear at the thought of it. He dared not hide it in the house – nor in the garden – no place seemed to him safe enough.
It was Friday afternoon and the twilight began to fall. Johannes sat before his bedroom window, looking wistfully out over the green shrubs of the garden to the distant dunes.
"Windekind, Windekind, help me!" he whispered, anxiously.
There was a gentle rustling of wings near him, then came the fragrance of lilies-of-the-valley, and suddenly he heard the sweet, familiar voice.
Windekind sat near him on the window-seat, making the little lily-bells swing on their slender stalk.
"At last! Have you come? I have longed for you so!" said Johannes.
"Come with me, Johannes; we will go and bury your key."
"I cannot," said Johannes, with a sigh.
But Windekind took him by the hand, and, light as the feathery seed of a dandelion, he was drifting away through the still evening air.
"Windekind," said Johannes as they went, "I think so much of you! I believe I would willingly give up every human being for you. Presto, even."
"And Simon?" said Windekind.
"Oh, it cannot make much difference to Simon whether I like him or not. He thinks such things childish, I believe. Simon cares only for the fishwoman; and not even for her, save when he is hungry. Do you believe, Windekind, that Simon is an ordinary cat?"
"No! He has been a human being."
Buz-z-z-z! Just then a big May-bug flew against Johannes.
"Cannot you look out for yourself better than that?" grumbled the May-bug. "H'm! You elfin baggage! You fly as if you owned all the air there was. You have learned that from the do-nothings who only just fly round and round for their own pleasure. One who always does his duty, like me – who always seeks food, and eats as hard as he can, is put out by such actions." And away he flew, buzzing loudly.
"Is he vexed because we are not eating anything?" asked Johannes.
"Yes, that is May-bug fashion. Among the May-bugs it is considered the highest duty to eat a great deal. Shall I tell you the story of a young May-bug?"
"Yes, do, Windekind."
"He was a fine, young May-bug who had only just crept out of the sod. What a surprise it was! For four long years he had been under the dark ground, waiting for the first warm evening. When he got his head up out of the clods and saw all that foliage, and the waving grass, and the singing birds, he was greatly perplexed. He did not know what to do. He touched the near-by grass blades all over with his feelers, thrusting them out in fan shape. From this he perceived, Johannes, that he was a male. He was very handsome in his way – with shining black legs, a plump, powdered after-part, and a breastplate that gleamed like a mirror. Happily, he soon discovered, not far away, another May-bug – not quite so handsome, but who had flown out a full day earlier and thus was of age. Quite modestly, because he was still so young, he hailed this other one.
"'What do you want, little friend?' said the second one condescendingly, observing that it was a novice: 'Do you want to inquire the way?'
"'No, but you see,' said the younger, politely, 'I do not know what I ought to be doing here. What does one do when he is a May-bug?'
"'Indeed,' said the other, 'do you not know that? Well, that is excusable. Once I did not know. Listen, and I will tell you. The chief concern of a May-bug's life is to eat. Not far from this is a delicious linden hedge that was put there for us to eat from as busily as possible.'
"'Who planted the linden hedge there?' asked the young beetle.
"'Well, a great creature who means well by us. Every morning he comes along the hedge, picks out those that have eaten the most, and takes them with him to a splendid house where a bright light shines, and where all the May-bugs are very happy together. But those who keep flying about the whole night instead of eating are caught by the bat.'
"'Who is that?' asked the novice.
"'A fearful monster with sharp teeth, that all of a sudden comes flying after us, and crunches us up with a horrible crack.' As the beetle said this, they heard above them a shrill squeaking which pierced through to the marrow. 'Hey! There he is!' exclaimed the older one. 'Look out for him, my young friend. Be thankful that I have warned you in good time. You have a long night before you – make the best of it. The less you eat the greater the chance of your being devoured by the bat. Only those who choose a serious calling in life can enter the great house with the bright light. Bear that in mind! A serious calling!'
"Then the beetle, who was a whole day the older, scrabbled away among the blades of grass, leaving the other behind, greatly impressed. Do you understand what a calling is, Johannes? No? Well, neither did the young beetle know. It had something to do with eating, he knew, but how was he to get to the linden hedge?
"Close beside him stood a slim, strong grass-stem swaying gently in the evening wind. He grasped it, and hugged it tightly with his six little crooked feet. It seemed as tall as a giant viewed from below, and fearfully steep. But the May-bug was determined to reach the very tip of it.
"'This is a calling,' he thought, and he began to climb, pluckily. It was slow work – he often slipped back; but still he made progress, and at last, when he had climbed to the tip-top and was swinging and swaying there, he felt content and happy. What a view! It seemed to him as if he overlooked the world. How blissful it was to be surrounded, on all sides, by the air! He breathed it in eagerly. How marvelously it cheered him up! He would go still higher!
"In ecstasy he lifted up his shields, and made his filmy wings quiver. Higher he would go! Higher! Again he fluttered his wings – his feet let