Finally, by chance, Popopo thought of the earth people who dwell incities, and so he resolved to visit them and see how they lived.This would surely be fine amusement, and serve to pass away manywearisome hours.
Therefore one morning, after a breakfast so dainty that you couldscarcely imagine it, Popopo set out for the earth and at once was inthe midst of a big city.
His own dwelling was so quiet and peaceful that the roaring noise ofthe town startled him. His nerves were so shocked that before he hadlooked around three minutes he decided to give up the adventure, andinstantly returned home.
This satisfied for a time his desire to visit the earth cities, butsoon the monotony of his existence again made him restless and gavehim another thought. At night the people slept and the cities wouldbe quiet. He would visit them at night.
So at the proper time Popopo transported himself in a jiffy to agreat city, where he began wandering about the streets. Everyone wasin bed. No wagons rattled along the pavements; no throngs of busymen shouted and halloaed. Even the policemen slumbered slyly andthere happened to be no prowling thieves abroad.
His nerves being soothed by the stillness, Popopo began to enjoyhimself. He entered many of the houses and examined their rooms withmuch curiosity. Locks and bolts made no difference to a knook, andhe saw as well in darkness as in daylight.
After a time he strolled into the business portion of the city.Stores are unknown among the immortals, who have no need of money orof barter and exchange; so Popopo was greatly interested by thenovel sight of so many collections of goods and merchandise.
During his wanderings he entered a millinery shop, and was surprisedto see within a large glass case a great number of women's hats,each bearing in one position or another a stuffed bird. Indeed, someof the most elaborate hats had two or three birds upon them.
Now knooks are the especial guardians of birds, and love themdearly. To see so many of his little friends shut up in a glass caseannoyed and grieved Popopo, who had no idea they had purposely beenplaced upon the hats by the milliner. So he slid back one of thedoors of the case, gave the little chirruping whistle of the knooksthat all birds know well, and called:
"Come, friends; the door is open--fly out!"
Popopo did not know the birds were stuffed; but, stuffed or not,every bird is bound to obey a knook's whistle and a knook's call. Sothey left the hats, flew out of the case and began fluttering aboutthe room.
"Poor dears!" said the kind-hearted knook, "you long to be in thefields and forests again."
Then he opened the outer door for them and cried: "Off with you! Flyaway, my beauties, and be happy again."
The astonished birds at once obeyed, and when they had soared awayinto the night air the knook closed the door and continued hiswandering through the streets.
By dawn he saw many interesting sights, but day broke before he hadfinished the city, and he resolved to come the next evening a fewhours earlier.
As soon as it was dark the following day he came again to the cityand on passing the millinery shop noticed a light within. Enteringhe found two women, one of whom leaned her head upon the table andsobbed bitterly, while the other strove to comfort her.
Of course Popopo was invisible to mortal eyes, so he stood by andlistened to their conversation.
"Cheer up, sister," said one. "Even though your pretty birds haveall been stolen the hats themselves remain."
"Alas!" cried the other, who was the milliner, "no one will buy myhats partly trimmed, for the fashion is to wear birds upon them. Andif I cannot sell my goods I shall be utterly ruined."
Then she renewed her sobbing and the knook stole away, feeling alittle ashamed to realized that in his love for the birds he hadunconsciously wronged one of the earth people and made her unhappy.
This thought brought him back to the millinery shop later in thenight, when the two women had gone home. He wanted, in some way, toreplace the birds upon the hats, that the poor woman might be happyagain. So he searched until he came upon a nearby cellar full oflittle gray mice, who lived quite undisturbed and gained alivelihood by gnawing through the walls into neighboring houses andstealing food from the pantries.
"Here are just the creatures," thought Popopo, "to place upon thewoman's hats. Their fur is almost as soft as the plumage of thebirds, and it strikes me the mice are remarkably pretty and gracefulanimals. Moreover, they now pass their lives in stealing, and werethey obliged to remain always upon women's hats their morals wouldbe much improved."
So he exercised a charm that drew all the mice from the cellar andplaced them upon the hats in the glass case, where they occupied theplaces the birds had vacated and looked very becoming--at least, inthe eyes of the unworldly knook. To prevent their running about andleaving the hats Popopo rendered them motionless, and then he was sopleased with his work that he decided to remain in the shop andwitness the delight of the milliner when she saw how daintily herhats were now trimmed.
She came in the early morning, accompanied by her sister, and herface wore a sad and resigned expression. After sweeping and dustingthe shop and drawing the blinds she opened the glass case and tookout a hat.
But when she saw a tiny gray mouse nestling among the ribbons andlaces she gave a loud shriek, and, dropping the hat, sprang with onebound to the top of the table. The sister, knowing the shriek to beone of fear, leaped upon a chair and exclaimed:
"What is it? Oh! what is it?"
"A mouse!" gasped the milliner, trembling with terror.
Popopo, seeing this commotion, now realized that mice are especiallydisagreeable to human beings, and that he had made a grave mistakein placing them upon the hats; so he gave a low whistle of commandthat was heard only by the mice.
Instantly they all jumpped from the hats, dashed out the open doorof the glass case and scampered away to their cellar. But thisaction so frightened the milliner and her sister that after givingseveral loud screams they fell upon their backs on the floor andfainted away.
Popopo was a kind-hearted knook, but on witnessing all this misery,caused by his own ignorance of the ways of humans, he straightwaywished himself at home, and so left the poor women to recover asbest they could.
Yet he could not escape a sad feeling of responsibility, and afterthinking upon the matter he decided that since he had caused themilliner's unhappiness by freeing the birds, he could set the matterright by restoring them to the glass case. He loved the birds, anddisliked to condemn them to slavery again; but that seemed the onlyway to end the trouble.
So he set off to find the birds. They had flown a long distance, butit was nothing to Popopo to reach them in a second, and hediscovered them sitting upon the branches of a big chestnut tree andsinging gayly.
When they saw the knook the birds cried:
"Thank you, Popopo. Thank you for setting us free."
"Do not thank me," returned the knook, "for I have come to send youback to the millinery shop."
"Why?" demanded a blue jay, angrily, while the others stopped theirsongs.
"Because I find the woman considers you her property, and your losshas caused her much unhappiness," answered Popopo.
"But remember how unhappy we were in her glass case," said a robinredbreast, gravely. "And as for being her property, you are a knook,and the natural guardian of all birds; so you know that Naturecreated us free. To be sure, wicked men shot and stuffed us, andsold us to the milliner; but the idea of our being her property isnonsense!"
Popopo was puzzled.
"If I leave you free," he said, "wicked men will shoot you again,and you will be no better off than before."
"Pooh!" exclaimed the blue jay, "we cannot be shot now, for we arestuffed. Indeed, two men fired several shots at us this morning, butthe bullets only ruffled our feathers and buried themselves in ourstuffing. We do not fear men now."
"Listen!" said Popopo, sternly, for he felt the birds were gettingthe best of the argument; "the poor milliner's business will beruined if I do not return you to her shop. It seems you arenecessary to trim the hats properly. It is the fashion for women towear birds upon their headgear. So the poor milliner's wares,although beautified by lace and ribbons, are worthless unless youare perched upon them."
"Fashions," said a black bird, solemnly, "are made by men. What lawis there, among birds or knooks, that requires us to be the slavesof fashion?"
"What have we to do with fashions, anyway?" screamed a linnet. "Ifit were the fashion to wear knooks perched upon women's hats wouldyou be contented to stay there? Answer me, Popopo!"
But Popopo was in despair. He could not wrong the birds by sendingthem back to the milliner, nor did he wish the milliner to suffer bytheir loss. So he went home to think what could be done.
After much meditation he decided to consult the king of the knooks,and going at once to his majesty he told him the whole story.
The king frowned.
"This should teach you the folly of interfering with earth people,"he said. "But since you have caused all this trouble, it is yourduty to remedy it. Our birds cannot be enslaved, that is certain;therefore you must have the fashions changed, so it will no longerbe stylish for women to wear birds upon their hats."
"How shall I do that?" asked Popopo.
"Easily enough. Fashions often change among the earth people, whotire quickly of any one thing. When they read in their newspapersand magazines that the style is so-and-so, they never question thematter, but at once obey the mandate of fashion. So you must visitthe newspapers and magazines and enchant the types."
"Enchant the types!" echoed Popopo, in wonder.
"Just so. Make them read that it is no longer the fashion to wearbirds upon hats. That will afford relief to your poor milliner andat the same time set free thousands of our darling birds who havebeen so cruelly used."
Popopo thanked the wise king and followed his advice.
The office of every newspaper and magazine in the city was visited bythe knook, and then he went to other cities, until there was not apublication in the land that had not a "new fashion note" in itspages. Sometimes Popopo enchanted the types, so that whoever readthe print would see only what the knook wished them to. Sometimes hecalled upon the busy editors and befuddled their brains until theywrote exactly what he wanted them to. Mortals seldom know howgreatly they are influenced by fairies, knooks and ryls, who oftenput thoughts into their heads that only the wise little immortalscould have conceived.
The following morning when the poor milliner looked over hernewspaper she was overjoyed to read that "no woman could now wear abird upon her hat and be in style, for the newest fashion requiredonly ribbons and laces."
Popopo after this found much enjoyment in visiting every millineryshop he could find and giving new life to the stuffed birds whichwere carelessly tossed aside as useless. And they flew to the fieldsand forests with songs of thanks to the good knook who had rescuedthem.
Sometimes a hunter fires his gun at a bird and then wonders why hedid not hit it. But, having read this story, you will understandthat the bird must have been a stuffed one from some millinery shop,which cannot, of course, be killed by a gun.
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