I Know a Secret/Chapter 10

by Christopher Darlington Morley

Ferdinand and the Taste for Cheese

WHEN Mr. Mistletoe was born the fairies held a meeting in the good old-fashioned way. And, just as happens in the stories, there was a malicious fairy among them, who was annoyed about something or other, and expressed her feelings by a mischievous magic. "My gift," said this bad fairy. "is that every evening, toward midnight, he shall have an irresistible impulse to raid the ice-box. And of the things he will find in the ice-box he shall be specially fond of cheese."

The ill-natured fairy's idea was that cheese, eaten largely at bed-time, is indigestible. She supposed that this would keep Mr. Mistletoe awake. But one of the other fairies came cleverly to the rescue. "My gift," said this far-sighted spirit, "is that he shall have so excellent a digestion that not even the cheese shall disturb him."

Mr. Mistletoe grew up and fulfilled his destiny, which is simply another way of saying that he was, quite unconsciously, obedient to the commands of the mysterious fairies who had power over him. He did eat a great deal of cheese, late at night; and his digestion was so efficient that he was rarely the worse. All this is just a preface to the real story.

The story deals with a mouse in the pot-closet. The pot-closet was in the kitchen, and the latch was broken, so that the closet door stood a little ajar. This enabled the mouse, whose name was Ferdinand, to go out for cautious expeditions in the dark. It had to be done carefully, for there were many dangers. But Ferdinand had heard rumours, from mice who lived in other parts of the house, that under Mr. Mistletoe's couch, in his study, there were often magnificent harvests of cheese crumbs. That couch, you see, was where Mr. Mistletoe lay, late at night, reading detective stories and munching cheese. He was allowed to do as he liked in that room; no one was even supposed to do any housecleaning there without warning him first. That was a privilege such as few men have; but Mr. Mistletoe was exceptional. Mrs. Mistletoe was very patient with him.

Ferdinand, therefore, having heard of this treasure trove, was eager to investigate. It was not easy. In the first place, it was only when the swinging door from the kitchen into the dining room had been hitched open that he could start in that direction. Many a time the closed door prevented him from getting farther. Even then, if he got safe into the dining room, terrors beset him. Footsteps creaked overhead, Donny breathed heavily, or he fancied he heard a cat. .Then he would fly wildly back to the safety of the pot-closet. It is all very well for a mouse to say to himself, safe in the shelter of the oatmeal boiler, that this time he is going to be brave and not let anything scare him. A mouse's legs move faster than his mind: when he hears a sound in the dark house he always runs first and thinks about it afterward. If you are a mouse, that is the safest plan.

One night Ferdinand got safely through the dining room, through the living room, and as far as the door of the study. He paused on the sill, and his small jewelled eyes glittered with excitement at the scene before him. All was plainly visible, for Mr. Mistletoe had fallen asleep with the light still burning—as he often did: perhaps that too was the influence of the bad fairy. Those two large objects overhanging the end of the couch were evidently his feet. But it was the gathering underneath the couch that caused Ferdinand's nose to tremble with desire. It was a kind of picnic. Among several pairs of slippers and a book that had tumbled when their host fell asleep, sat several of Ferdinand's friends, enjoying crumbs of crackers and cheese. They waved to him gaily. "Hurry up!" they squeaked. "It's Roquefort!" Their mouths were so full as they spoke that Ferdinand could hardly make out what they said. But his nose had already explained it to him. Roquefort was the kind of cheese that he favoured most of all.

He was about to dash under the couch and join them when he heard heavy pads on the floor behind him. Donny, roused by the squeaking, was coming in. In another instant Ferdinand's retreat would have been cut off.

He did not wait to argue. With one frantic scurry, he looped out of reach of Donny's drowsy paws and was back in the dining room. But return to the kitchen was impossible. There in the doorway was Fourchette, her eyes green as two starboard lights. The desperate mouse gave a wild leap to the nearest place of refuge. It was the keyboard of the piano. The instrument was open, for Junior had been strumming there after supper; and the music rack was pulled out, leaving a small opening. Ferdinand fled into the inside of the piano just as Fourchette sprang for him. There was a heavy crash of bass notes as she landed fiercely on the ivory keys. Donny growled, Mr. Mistletoe woke with a start. Perhaps he thought it was a burglar, for he went first to the sideboard where the silver spoons were kept. Evidently he was puzzled, for next he went and looked carefully at the piano. Perhaps he decided that the noise was a dream, due to the cheese. But he noticed that the piano had been left open, and he closed the lid and the music rack. Ferdinand was trapped.

Unlucky Ferdinand! At first he gave himself up to despair. The inside of a piano is an uncanny place for a mouse to be lost. How he longed for the comfortable pot-closet, for the oatmeal boiler and the baby's saucepan where he was so much at home. As he ran miserably to and fro among the crowded mechanisms of the piano his paws made queer ghostly shivers of sound on the wires. This angered Donny and Fourchette: he could hear them sniffing and miauling outside. After a hurried exploration of the place, which seemed to him as large and tall as a cathedral, he was convinced that no escape was possible. But then a surprising discovery elated him. The front of the piano was full of crumbs.

That needs explaining. Mr. Mistletoe's love of eating between meals, given him by the Bad Fairy, must have been inherited by his boy Junior. For Junior liked to nibble biscuits, cookies, or a slice of cake, while doing his music practice. The family had all wondered at the queer tone of the old piano. They had supposed that the unusual sound of some of the notes was due to the damp weather; a piano tuner would have been summoned long ago except that Mr. Mistletoe went quite wild at the thought of a piano tuner in the house when he was trying to work. But what the piano really needed was not a tuner but someone to clean out the crumbs.

Ferdinand proceeded to do just that. He made himself very comfortable, and was so busy eating that he almost forgot his dangerous situation. When, the next day, Junior sat down to strum tunes, Ferdinand was badly alarmed for a while. The noise, heard from inside, was rather terrible, and of course Ferdinand did not understand it. When Junior played the Star Spangled Banner Ferdinand was much too shaken to stand up and salute. He supposed it was a very severe thunderstorm, and his whiskers went a little gray with fright. But the playing did not last long, and then he discovered a very generous deposit of fudge crumbs up toward the treble end of the keyboard, and that consoled him.

How long Ferdinand stayed inside the piano I do not know. It must have been several days, for he had time to get quite fat on his rich diet. Then came Helen's birthday (she was six). Mr. Mistletoe wanted to compose a folk-dance in honour of the occasion. He knew nothing at all about music, but he enjoyed sitting down some'times to play random chords and invent tunes of his own that came into his head. He played very forcibly, with much attention to the bass and a strong foot on the loud pedal.

The tune that he composed for the birthday was supposed to give a suggestion of Helen going upstairs to bed. It began with a series of chords climbing slowly, reluctantly, upward. That was Helen going unwillingly up the stairs, her brown eyes looking sorrowfully over the banisters. Then there was a sudden scamper of music trotting down again. That was Helen thinking of a good excuse for one more return to civilization. There followed a little airy skirmish of melody representing her pleasure at being allowed to stay a few moments longer. Then the tune, very solemnly, pursued her upstairs again to the nursery with strong parental chords, hoisted her into bed with a definite thump, and said "No nonsense, now! Not another word!"

Mr. Mistletoe was pleased with this music. He played it with enthusiasm, and the uproar was so vast that poor Ferdinand was frightened almost out of his wits. He ran wildly to and fro inside, thinking the world was coming to an end. And now he had grown so stout that when he trod on the delicately balanced little hammers his weight made them strike the wires, and dainty trills of sound were added to the notes Mr. Mistletoe was playing. It was really a duet: Mr. Mistletoe outside and Ferdinand inside. The little undercurrent of swift shimmering grace-notes, contributed by the frightened hurry of Ferdinand's racing paws, gave the tune just the sweet pathos of a little girl climbing reluctantly to bed. But Mr. Mistletoe did not guess this. He took all the credit to himself, and merely believed that he was playing better than he had ever done before. Really, he thought, the old piano is in better condition than I supposed. It's getting back its tone. I do believe I should have been a composer. This is really wonderful! He finished the tune with a rolling volley of harmony and sat back waiting for applause.

To his amazement, although his hands were now off the keyboard, a thin little music went on, streaking runs of notes, twinkling up and down. He stared, and then he pulled open the music rack. Out flashed Ferdinand, and was on the floor with one spring. Luckily the kitchen door was open, and in the twinkling of four feet he gained the safety of the pot-closet.

Mr. Mistletoe was looking the other way at that instant, so he did not see Ferdinand dart out and speed across the room. He often wondered why he could never again play the tune Helen Going To Bed with such skill and such a richness of wistful melody. Certainly he never guessed that in a way it all went back to the Bad Fairy who makes both mice and men crave cheese late at night.

Ferdinand still lives in the pot-closet. His adventure cured him of his habit of dangerous roaming. It is just as well, for his hearing is no longer as sharp as a mouse's needs to be. The rolling thunders of sound that he lived with inside the piano made him a little deaf.