“I shall take Mamma’s red sun-umbrella; it is so warm,—and none of the children at school will have one like it,” said Lilly, one day, as she went through the hall.
“The wind is very high; I’m afraid you’ll be blown away if you carry that big thing,” called nurse from the window.
“I wish I could be blown away; I always wanted to go up in a balloon,” answered Lilly, as she struggled out of the gate.
She managed quite well until she came to the bridge, where she stopped to look over the railing at the fast-running water below, and the turtles sunning themselves on the rocks. Lilly was fond of throwing stones at the turtles; she thought it funny to watch them tumble with a headlong splash into the water. Now, when she saw three big fellows close by, she stooped for a stone, but just at that very minute a gale of wind nearly took the umbrella out of her hand. She clutched it tightly; and away she went like a thistle-down, right up in the air, over river and hill, houses and trees, faster and faster and faster, till her head spun around, her breath was all gone, and she had to let go. The dear red umbrella flew away like a leaf; and Lilly fell down, down, till she came crash into a tree which grew in so curious a place that she forgot her fright as she sat looking about her.
The tree looked as if it were made of glass or colored sugar; for she could look through the red cherries, the green leaves, and the brown branches. An agreeable aroma came to her nose. “Oh,” she cried at once, as would any child have said, “I smell candy!” She picked a cherry and ate it. Oh, how good it was!—all sugar and no stone. The next discovery was so delightful that she nearly fell off her perch; for by touching her tongue here and there, she found the whole tree was made of candy. What a pleasure to sit and break off twigs of barley sugar, candied cherries, and leaves that tasted like peppermint and sassafras!
Lilly rocked in the branches and ate away until she had finished the top of the little tree; then she climbed down and strolled along, making more surprising and agreeable discoveries as she went.
What looked like snow under her feet was white sugar; the rocks were lumps of chocolate; the flowers were of all colors and tastes; and every sort of fruit grew on those delightful trees. Little white houses soon appeared; and in them lived the dainty candy people, all made from the best sugar, and painted to look like real people. Dear little men and women, looking as if they had stepped off of cakes and bonbons, went about in their gay sugar clothes, laughing and talking in sweet-toned voices. Bits of babies rocked in open-work cradles and sugar boys and girls played with sugar toys in a very natural way. Carriages rolled along the jujube streets, drawn by red and yellow barley horses; cows fed in the green fields, and sugar birds sang in the candy trees.
Lilly listened, and in a moment she understood, in some way, just what the song said,—
“Sweet! Sweet!
Come, come and eat
Dear little girls
With yellow curls;
For here you’ll find
Sweets to your mind.
On every tree
Sugar-plums you’ll see;
In every dell
Grows the caramel;
Gum-drops fall;
Molasses flows
Where our river goes;
Under your feet
Lies sugar sweet;
Over your head
Grow almonds red.
Our lilly and rose
Are not for the nose;
Our flowers we pluck
To eat or suck;
And, oh! what bliss
When two friends kiss,
For they honey sip
From lip to lip!
And all you meet,
In house or street,
At work or at play,
Sweethearts are they.
So, little dear,
Pray feel no fear;
Go where you will;
Eat, eat your fill;
Here is a feast
From west to east;
And you can say,
Ere you go away:
‘At last I stand
In dear Candy-land.’
Sweet! Sweet!
Tweet! Tweet!
Tweedle-dee!
Tweedle-dee!”
“That is the most interesting song I ever heard,” said Lilly, clapping her hands and dancing along toward a fine palace of white cream candy, with pillars of striped peppermint-stick, and a roof of frosting that made it look like Milan Cathedral.
“I’ll live here, and eat candy all day long, with no tiresome school or patchwork to spoil my fun,” said Lilly.
So she ran up the chocolate steps into the pretty rooms, where all the chairs and tables were of every colored candy, and the beds of spun sugar. A fountain of lemonade supplied drink; and floors of ice-cream that never melted kept people and things from sticking together, as they would have done, had it been warm.
For some time Lilly was quite happy, in going about, tasting the many different kinds of sweets, talking to the little people, who were very amiable, and finding out curious things about them and their country.
The babies were plain sugar, but the grown people had different flavors. The young ladies were mostly violet, rose, or orange; the gentlemen were apt to have cordials of some sort inside of them, as she found when she slyly ate one now and then, and as a punishment had her tongue bitten by the hot, strong taste. The old people were peppermint, clove, and such comfortable flavors, good for pain; but the old maids were lemon, flag-root, and all sorts of sour, bitter things, and were not eaten much. Lilly soon learned to know the characters of her new friends by a single taste, and some she never touched but once. The dear babies melted in her mouth, and the delicately flavored young ladies she was very fond of. Dr. Ginger was called to her more than once when so much candy made her teeth ache, and she found him a very hot-tempered little man; but he stopped the pain, so she was glad to see him.
A lime-drop boy and a little pink checkerberry girl were her favorite playmates; and they had fine times making mud-pies by scraping the chocolate rocks and mixing this dust with honey from the wells near by. These pies they could eat; and Lilly thought this much better than throwing them away, as she had to do at home. They had candy-pulls very often, and made swings of long loops of molasses candy, and birds’-nests with almond eggs, out of which came birds that sang sweetly. They played foot-ball with big bull’s-eyes, sailed in sugar boats on lakes of syrup, fished in rivers of molasses, and rode the barley horses all over the country.
Lilly discovered that it never rained, but that it white-sugared. There was no sun, as it would have been too hot; but a large yellow lozenge made a nice moon, and there were red and white comfits for the stars.
All the people lived on sugar, and never quarreled. No one was ill; and if any one was broken, as sometimes happened with so brittle creatures, the fractured parts were just stuck together and all was right again. When they grew old they became thinner and thinner, till there was danger of their vanishing. Then the friends of the old person bore him to the great golden urn, always full of a certain fine syrup, which stood in their largest temple; and into that he was dipped and dipped till he was stout and strong again, and went home as good as new, to enjoy himself for a long time.
This was very interesting to Lilly, and she went to many such rejuvenations. But the weddings were better still; for the lovely white brides were so sweet that Lilly longed to eat them. The feasts were delicious; the guests all went in their best clothes, and danced at the ball till they grew so warm that half-a-dozen would stick together and would have to be taken to the ice-cream room to cool off. Then the happy pair would drive away in a fine carriage with white horses to a new palace in some other part of the country, and Lilly would have another pleasant place to visit.
But by and by, when she had seen everything, and eaten so many sweet things that at last she longed for plain bread and butter, she began to be cross, as children always are when they live on candy; and the little people wished she would go away, for they were afraid of her. No wonder, for she would sometimes catch up a dear sugar baby and eat it, or break some respectable old grand-mamma all into bits because she reproved her for her naughty ways. Finally, Lilly calmly sat down on the biggest church, crushing it flat, and one day in a pet, she even tried to poke the moon out of the sky. The King ordered her to go home; but she said, “I wont!” and, with a petulant motion, she knocked off his head, crown and all.
Such a wail went up at this awful deed that she ran away out of the city, fearing that some one would put poison in her candy, since she had no other food.
“I suppose I shall bring up somewhere if I keep on walking; and I can’t starve, though I hate the sight of this horrid stuff,” she said to herself, as she hurried over the mountains of Gibraltar rock that divided the city of Saccharissa behind her from the great desert of brown sugar that lay beyond.
Lilly marched bravely across this desert for a long time, and saw at last a great smoke in the sky, smelt a spicy smell, and felt a hot wind blowing toward her.
“I wonder if there are sugar savages here, roasting and eating some poor traveler like me,” she said, thinking of Robinson Crusoe and other wanderers in strange lands.
She crept carefully along till she saw a settlement of little huts very like mushrooms, for they were made of cookies set on lumps of brown sugar. Queer people, looking as if made of gingerbread, were working very busily around several stoves which seemed to be baking away at a great rate.
“I’ll creep nearer and see what sort of people they are before I show myself,” thought Lilly, going into a grove of spice trees and sitting down on a stone which proved to be the plummy sort of cake we used to call Brighton Rock.
Presently one of the tallest men came striding toward the trees with a pan, evidently to get spice; and before Lilly could run away he saw her.
“Hullo, what do you want?” he asked, staring at her with his black-currant eyes, while he briskly picked the bark off a cinnamon tree.
“I’m traveling, and should like to know what place this is, if you please,” answered Lilly, very politely, as she was rather frightened.
“Cake-land. Where did you come from?” asked the gingerbread man, in a crisp tone of voice.
“I was blown into the Candy country, and have been there a long time; but I grew tired of it and ran away to find something better.”
“Sensible child!” and the man smiled till Lilly thought his cheeks would crumble. “You’ll like it better here with us Cake-folk than with the lazy Bonbons, who never work and are all for show. They wont recognize us, though we all are related through our grandparents Sugar and Molasses. We are busy folk; so they turn up their noses and don’t speak when we meet at parties. Poor creatures,—silly, and sweet, and unsubstantial! I pity ’em.”
“Could I make you a visit? I’d like to see how you live and what you do. I’m sure it must be interesting,” said Lilly, picking herself up after a tumble, having eaten nearly all the cake she was sitting on, she was so hungry.
“Of course you can,” said her friend. “Come on! I can talk while I work.”
And the funny gingerbread man trotted away toward his kitchen, which was full of pans, rolling-pins, and molasses jugs.
“Sit down. I shall be at leisure as soon as this batch is baked. There are still some wise people down below who like gingerbread, and I have my hands full,” he said, dashing about, stirring, rolling out, and slapping the brown dough into pans, which he whisked into the oven and out again so fast that Lilly knew there must be magic about it somewhere.
Every now and then he threw her a delicious cookie warm from the oven. She liked the queer fellow, and soon began to ask all sorts of questions, as she was very curious about this country.
“What is your name, sir?” she ventured, first.
“Ginger-Snap,” he answered, briskly.
Lilly thought it a good name; for he was very quick, and she fancied he could be short and sharp if he liked.
“Where does all this cake go?” she asked, after she had watched a great many other kitchens full of workers, who all were of different kinds of cake, and each making its own sort.
“I’ll show you by and by,” answered Snap, beginning to pile up the heaps of gingerbread on a little car that ran along a track leading to some distant store-room, Lilly thought.
“Don’t you become tired of doing this all the time?” she asked.
“Yes; but I wish to be promoted, and I never shall be till I’ve done my best, and won the prize here,” Snap explained.
“Oh, tell me about it!” cried Lilly. “What is the prize, and how are you promoted? Is this a cooking-school?”
“Yes; the prize for best gingerbread is a cake of condensed yeast,” said Snap. “That puts a soul into me, and I begin to rise until I am able to float over the hills yonder into the blessed land of bread, and be one of the happy creatures who are always wholesome, always needed, and without which the world below would be in a bad way.”
“Dear me! that is the queerest thing I’ve heard yet!” said Lilly. “But I don’t wonder you want to go; I’m tired of sweets myself, and just long for a good piece of bread, though I always used to want cake and candy at home.”
“Ah, my dear, you’ll learn a great deal here; and you are lucky not to have fallen into the clutches of Giant Dyspepsia, who always gets people if they eat too much of such rubbish as cake and candy, and scorn wholesome bread. I leave my ginger behind when I go, and become white and round and beautiful, as you will see. The Gingerbread family have never been as foolish as some of the other cakes. Wedding-cake is the worst; such extravagance in the way of wine and spice and fruit I never saw, and such a mess to eat when it’s done! I don’t wonder it makes people sick; serves ’em right.” And Snap flung down a pan with a bang that made Lilly jump.
“Sponge-cake isn’t bad, is it? Mamma lets me eat it, but I like frosted pound-cake better,” she said, looking over to the next kitchen, where piles of that sort of cake were being iced.
“Poor stuff. No substance. Ladies’ fingers will do for babies, but Pound has too much butter to be wholesome. Let it alone, and eat cookies or seed-cakes, my dear. Now, come along; I’m ready.” And Snap trundled away his car-load at a great pace.
Lilly ran behind to pick up whatever fell, and looked about her as she went, for this was certainly a very queer country. Lakes of eggs all beaten up, and hot springs of saleratus foamed here and there, ready for use. The earth was brown sugar or ground spice; and the only fruits were raisins, dried currants, citron, and lemon peel. It was a very busy place; for every one cooked all the time, and never failed and never seemed tired, though they were always so hot that they only wore sheets of paper for clothes. There were piles of it to put over the cake, so it shouldn’t burn; and they made cooks’ white caps and aprons of it, which looked very fine. A large clock made of a flat pancake, with cloves to mark the hours and two toothpicks for hands, showed them how long to bake things; and in one place an ice wall was built around a lake of butter, which they cut in lumps as they wanted it.
“Here we are. Now, stand aside while I pitch ’em down,” said Snap, stopping at last before a hole in the ground where a dumb-waiter, with a name over it, hung ready.
There were many holes all about, and many dumb-waiters, each with a special name; and Lilly was amazed when she read “Weber,” “Copeland,” “Dooling,”* and others, which she knew very well.
Over Snap’s place was the name “Newmarch,” and Lilly said: “Why, that’s where Mamma gets her hard gingerbread, and Weber’s is where we go for ice-cream. Do you make cake for them?”
“Yes, but no one knows it. It’s one of the secrets of the trade. We cook for all the confectioners, and people think the good things come out of the cellars under their shops. Good joke, isn’t it?” And Snap laughed till a crack came in his neck and made him cough.
Lilly was so surprised that she sat down on a warm queen’s-cake that happened to be near, and watched Snap send down load after load of gingerbread to be eaten by children, who would have liked it much better if they had only known, as did she, where it all came from.
As she sat on the queen’s-cake there came up through the nearest hole, which was marked “Copeland,” the clatter of many spoons, the smell of many dinners, and the sound of many voices calling:—“One vanilla, two strawberries, and a Charlotte Russe”; “Three stews, cup coffee, dry toast”; “Roast chicken and apple without!”
“Dear me! it seems as if I were there,” said Lilly, longing to hop down, but afraid of the bump at the other end.
“That’s done. Come along. I’ll ride you back,” called Snap, shying the last cookie after the dumb-waiter as it went slowly out of sight with its spicy load.
“I wish you’d teach me to cook. It must be great fun, and Mamma wants me to learn; only our cook hates to have me around the kitchen, and she is so cross that I don’t like to try, at home,” said Lilly as she went trundling back on Snap’s car.
“Better wait till you go to Bread-land, and learn to make bread. It’s a great art, and worth knowing. Don’t waste your time on cake, though plain gingerbread isn’t bad to have in the house. I’ll teach you that in a jiffy, if the clock doesn’t strike my hour too soon,” answered Snap, helping her down.
“What hour?” inquired Lilly.
“Why, the hour of my freedom. I shall never know when I’ve done my task until I’m called by the chimes and go to get my soul,” answered Snap, turning his currant eyes anxiously toward the clock.
“I hope you will have time,” said Lilly as she fell to work with all her might, after Snap had fitted her with a paper apron and a cap like his.
It was not hard; for when she was about to make a mistake, a spark flew out of the fire and burnt her in time to remind her to look at the recipe, which was hung up before her on a sheet of gingerbread in a frame of pie-crust; the directions had been written on it while it was soft and baked in. The third sheet she made came out of the oven spicy, light, and brown; and Snap, giving it one poke with his finger, said, “That’s all right. Now you know. Here’s your reward.”
He handed her a recipe-book made of thin sheets of sugar gingerbread held together by a gelatine binding, with her name stamped on the back, and each leaf crimped with a cake-cutter in a very delightful manner.
Lilly was charmed with it, but had no time to read all it contained; for just then the clock began to strike, and a chime of bells to ring:
“Gingerbread,
Go to the head.
Your task is done:
A soul is won.
Take it and go
Where muffins grow,
Where sweet loaves rise
To the very skies,
And biscuits fair
Perfume the air.
Away, away!
Make no delay;
Into the Flour
Sea, plunge this hour.
Safe in your breast
Let the yeast-cake rest,
Till you rise in joy,
A white-bread boy!”
“Ha, ha! I’m free! I’m free!” cried Snap, catching up a square silver-covered cake that seemed to fall from somewhere above; and running to the great white sea of flour, he dashed in, head first, holding the yeast-cake clasped to his breast as if his life depended on it.
Lilly watched breathlessly, while a curious working and bubbling went on, as if Snap were tumbling about down there like a small earthquake. The other cake-folk stood with her upon the shore; for it was a great event, and all were glad that the dear fellow had been promoted so soon. Suddenly a cry was heard, and on the farther side of the sea up rose a beautiful white figure. It waved its hand as if bidding all “Good-bye,” and ran over the hills so fast they had only time to see how plump and fair it was, with a little knob on the top of its head like a crown.
“He’s gone to the happy Land of Bread, and we shall miss him; but we’ll follow his example and soon find him again,” said a gentle Sponge-cake, with a sigh, as they all went back to their work; while Lilly hurried after Snap, eager to see the new country, which she was sure must be the best of all.
A delicious odor of fresh bread blew up from the valley as she stood on the hill-top and looked down on the peaceful scene below. Fields of yellow grain waved in the breeze; hop-vines grew from tree to tree; and the white sails of many windmills whirled around as they ground the different grains into fresh, sweet meal, for the loaves of bread with which the houses were built and the streets paved, and which in many shapes formed the people, furniture, and animals. A river of milk flowed through the peaceful land, and fountains of yeast rose and fell with a pleasant foam and fizz. The ground was a mixture of many meals, and the paths were golden Indian, which gave a very gay look to the scene. Buckwheat flowers bloomed on their rosy stems, and tall corn-stalks rustled their leaves in the warm air that came from the ovens hidden in the hill-sides; for bread needs a slow fire, and an obliging volcano did the baking there.
“What a lovely place!” cried Lilly, feeling the charm of the home-like landscape, in spite of the funny, plump people moving about.
Two of these figures came running to meet her as she slowly walked down the yellow path from the hill. One was a golden boy, with a beaming face; the other a little girl in a shiny brown cloak, who looked as if she would taste very nice. They each put a warm hand into Lilly’s, and the boy said: “We are glad to see you. Muffin told us you were coming.”
“I thank you. But who is Muffin?” asked Lilly, feeling as if she had seen both these little people before, and liked them. The boy answered her question immediately:
“He was Ginger-Snap once, but he’s a Muffin now. We begin in that way, and work by degrees up to the perfect loaf. My name is Johnny-Cake, and here’s Sally Lunn. You know us; so come on and have a race.”
Lilly burst out laughing at the idea of playing with these old friends of hers; and away ran all three as fast as they could tear, down the hill, over a bridge, into the middle of the village, where they stopped, panting, and sat down on some very soft rolls to rest.
“What do you all do here?” asked Lilly, when she got her breath again.
“We farm, we study, we bake, we brew, and are merry as crickets all day long. It’s school-time now, and we must go; will you come?” said Sally, jumping up as if she liked going to school.
“Our schools are not like yours; we study only two things—grain and yeast. I think you’ll like it. We have yeast to-day, and the experiments are very jolly,” added Johnny, trotting off to a tall brown tower of rye and Indian bread, where the school was kept.
Lilly never liked to go to school, but she was ashamed to own it; so she went along with Sally, and was so amused with all she saw that she was glad she had come. The brown loaf was hollow, and had no roof; and when she asked why they used a ruin, Sally told her to wait and see why they chose strong walls and plenty of room overhead. All around was a circle of very small biscuits like cushions, and on these the Bread-children sat. A square loaf in the middle was the teacher’s desk, and on it lay an ear of wheat, with several bottles of yeast well corked up. The teacher was a pleasant, plump lady from Vienna, very wise, and so famous for her good bread that she was a Professor of Grainology.
When all were seated, she began her lesson with the wheat ear, and told all about it in so interesting a way that Lilly felt as if she had never before known anything about the bread she ate. The experiments with the yeast were quite exciting,—for Fraulein Pretzel showed them how it would work until it blew the cork out, and went fizzing up to the sky. If it were kept too long; how it would turn sour or flat, and spoil the bread if care were not taken to use it at just the right moment; and how too much would cause the loaf to rise until there was no substance to it.
The children were very bright; for they were fed on the best kinds of oatmeal and Graham bread, with very little white or hot cakes to spoil their young stomachs. Hearty, happy boys and girls they were, and their yeasty souls were very lively in them; for they danced and sang, and seemed as bright and gay as if acidity, heaviness, and mold were quite unknown.
Lilly was very happy with them, and when school was done raced home with Sally, and ate for dinner the best bread and milk that she had ever tasted. In the afternoon Johnny took her to the corn-field, and showed her how they kept the growing ears free from mildew and worms. Then she went to the bake-house, and here she found her old friend Muffin hard at work making Parker House rolls, for he was so good a cook that he was set to work at once on the lighter kinds of bread.
“Well, isn’t this better than Saccharissa or even Cake-land?” he asked, as he rolled and folded his bits of dough with a dab of butter tucked inside.
“Ever so much!” cried Lilly. “I feel better already, and I mean to learn all I can. Mamma will be so pleased if I can make good bread when I go home! She is rather old-fashioned, and wishes me to be a good housekeeper. I never could think bread interesting, then, but I do, now; and Johnny’s mother is going to teach me to make Indian cakes to-morrow.”
“Glad to hear it!” said Snap. “Learn all you can, and tell other people how to make healthy bodies and happy souls by eating good plain food. Not like this, though these rolls are better than cake. I have to work my way up to the perfect loaf, you know; and then, oh, then, I shall be a happy thing!”
“What happens then? Do you go on to some other wonderful place?” asked Lilly, as Muffin paused, with a smile on his face.
“Yes; I am eaten by some wise, good human being, and become a part of him or her. That is my happy destiny; for I may nourish a poet and help him sing, or feed a good woman who makes the world better for being in it, or be crumbed into the golden porringer of a baby prince who is to rule a kingdom. Isn’t that a noble hope to have, and an end worth working for?” asked Muffin, in a tone that made Lilly feel as if she had some sort of fine yeast inside her, which was setting her brain to work with quite new thoughts.
“Yes, it is. I suppose that all things are made for some such purpose, if we only knew it; and people should be glad to do anything to help the world along, if only by making good bread in a kitchen,” answered Lilly in a sober way.
She staid in Bread-land a long time, and enjoyed and learned a great deal that she never forgot. But at last, when she had made the perfect loaf, she wished to go home, that her mother might see it and taste it.
“I’ve put a great deal of myself into it, and I’d love to think I had given her strength or pleasure by my work,” she said, as she and Sally stood looking at the handsome loaf.
“You can go whenever you like; just take the bread in your hands and wish three times, and you’ll be wherever you desire to be. I’m sorry you must go, but I don’t wonder you want to see your mother. Don’t forget what you have learned, and you will always be glad that you came to us,” said Sally, kissing her good-bye.
“Where is Muffin? I can’t go without seeing him—my dear old friend,” answered Lilly, looking around for him.
“He is here,” said Sally, touching the loaf. “He was ready to go, and chose to pass into your bread rather than any other; for he said he loved you, and would be glad to help feed so good a little girl.”
“How kind of him! I must be careful to grow wise and excellent, or he will be disappointed and will have lived in vain,” said Lilly, touched by his devotion.
Then bidding them all farewell, she hugged her loaf close, wished three times to be at her own home, and like a flash she was there.
Whether her friends believed the wonderful tale of her adventures, I can not tell; but I know that she was a nice little housekeeper from that day, and made bread so good that other girls came to learn of her. She also grew from a sickly, fretful child into a fine, strong, healthy woman, because she ate very little cake and candy, except at Christmas-time, when the oldest and the wisest of us like to make a short visit to Candy-land.
* Well-known Boston caterers.