The World Is Round Read online

  And Willie began to laugh and by the time he stopped laughing he had begun again to laugh. That was Willie not Billie, Billie never had had to laugh not Billie because Billie was a lion and a lion had never had to laugh.

  So that was all there was about Billie the lion and he was never there any more anywhere neither here nor there neither there nor here, Billie the lion never was anywhere. The end of Billie the lion.

  13

  A CHAIR ON THE MOUNTAIN

  When mountains are really true they are blue.

  Rose knew they were blue and blue was her favorite color. She knew they were blue and they were far away or near just as the rain came or went away. The rain came or the rain went away any day.

  And so Rose would look and see and deary me the mountains would be blue.

  And then one day she saw a mountain near and then it was all clear.

  This was the way Rose knew what to say.

  Listen.

  Mountains are high, up there is a sky, rain is near, mountains are clear mountains are blue that is true and one mountain two mountains three mountains or four when there are mountains there always are more.

  Even from the door.

  So Rose would say when every day she came that way.

  Rose was at school there.

  There the mountains were and they were blue, oh dear blue blue just blue, dear blue sweet blue yes blue.

  And then Rose began to think. It was funny about Rose she always could just begin to think. She would say to her father Bob, Father I have a complaint to make, my dog Love does not come when I call.

  Rose was always thinking. It is easy to think when your name is Rose. Nobody’s name was ever Blue, nobody’s, why not. Rose never thought about that. Rose thought she thought a lot but she never did think about that.

  But mountains yes Rose did think about mountains and about blue when it was on the mountains and feathers when clouds like feathers were on the mountains and birds when one little bird and two little birds and three and four and six and seven and ten and seventeen and thirty or forty little birds all came flying and a big bird came flying and the little birds came flying and they flew higher than the big bird and they came down and one and then two and then five and then fifty of them came picking down on the head of the big bird and slowly the big bird came falling down between the mountain and the little birds all went home again. Little birds do go home again after they have scared off the big bird.

  How Rose thought when she was thinking. Rose would get all round thinking her eyes her head her mouth her hands, she would get all round while she was thinking and then to relieve her hearing her thinking she would sing.

  She sang a song of the mountain.

  She sang,

  Dear mountain tall mountain real mountain blue mountain yes mountain high mountain all mountain my mountain, I will with my chair come climbing and once there mountain once there I will be thinking, mountain so high, who cares for the sky yes mountain no mountain yes I will be there.

  Tears came to her eyes.

  Yes mountain she said yes I will be there.

  And then as she looked she saw that one mountain had a top and the top was a meadow and the meadow came up to a point and on the point oh dear yes on the point yes Rose would put a chair and she would sit there and yes she did care yes there she would put a chair there there and everywhere she would see everywhere and she would sit on that chair, yes there.

  And she did and this was how she did it. All alone she did it. She and the chair there there, and it was not blue there, no dear no it was green there, grass and trees and rocks are green not blue there no blue was there but blue was her favorite color all through.

  14

  THE GOING UP WITH THE CHAIR

  The first thing about which Rose had to make up her mind was what kind of a chair would she want way up there. She might take a camp stool that would be easiest to carry but that would not look very well up there.

  She would want one that would look well way up there and that would be comfortable to sit in because she would be sitting a long time once she really did get all the way up there and it would have to be one that the rain would not harm because clouds are rain and surely there would be clouds up there. No matter how many things Rose thought about there would always be some way it could be done better and a chair dear me, a chair well a chair just had to be there.

  When Rose knew she had to climb and climb all the time she knew she would have to go away all day and she knew no matter how she tried that that would not do. She knew she did not know the name of the mountain she would climb she knew it had a nice name, any name is a nice name, just have it be a name and it is a nice name, but the mountain perhaps the mountain did not have a name and if it did not have a name would it be a nice name. And if it had no name could a chair stay there right on top of a mountain that did not have a name.

  As Rose thought of this she began to feel very funny she just naturally did begin to feel very very funny.

  Do you suppose that Rose is a rose

  If her favorite color is blue

  Noses can be blue but not roses but Rose was a rose and her favorite color was blue.

  And now she had to make up her mind what to do.

  Would the chair be a green chair or a blue

  The chair she was to take up there

  There where

  She was to sit on the mountain so high

  Right up under the sky

  But always remember that the world is round no matter how it does sound. Remember.

  So Rose had to do so many things too beside deciding whether her chair should be green or blue.

  She had to think about number 142. Why.

  Numbers are round.

  All she took was the blue chair to go there.

  It was a long way to go

  And so

  From morning to evening she did not get there.

  But from evening to morning she did get there she and the blue chair.

  15

  THE TRIP

  It was not a trip she had to grip the blue chair and sometimes it hung by a hair not Rose’s hair but any hair so great had been Rose’s scare.

  16

  THIS WAS HER TRIP

  She had decided about the chair it was a blue chair a blue garden chair otherwise scratches and rain and dew and being carried all through would do a chair harm but not a blue garden chair.

  So Rose left early so no one saw her and her chair she held before her and the mountain was high and so was the sky and the world was round and was all ground and she began to go, even so it was a very long way to go even if a mountain does not grow even so, climb a mountain and you will know even if there is no snow. Oh no.

  Well shall I go Rose said as she was going, nobody does like to go nobody does say no and so Rose did go, even so she did go.

  As she began to go it was early morning you know.

  The birds began to stir

  And then she heard some birds making funny screams as they flew.

  And she thought of cousin Willie but that would not do.

  Did the blue garden chair have arms or was it without arms, I am wondering.

  17

  UP THE HILL

  A hill is a mountain, a cow is a cat,

  A fever is heating and where is she at.

  She is climbing the mountain a chair in her arms, and always around her she is full of alarms. Why not, a chair is something but not to talk to when it is too cold to be bold too hot to be cold a lot too white to be blue, too red to be wed. Oh Willie she said and there was no Willie but there was a simple noise just a noise and with a noise there were eyes and with the eyes there was a tail and then from Rose there was a wail, I wish I was not dead said Rose but if I am I will have torn my clothes, blackberries are black and blueberries are blue strawberries are red and so are you, said Rose to Rose and it was all true. She could not sit down on her chair because if she did sit down on her chair she would think
she was already there and oh dear she just could not see how high it all could be but she knew oh dear yes she knew and when those birds flew she just could not do so too and she could not sing and cry no matter how much she could try because she was there right in the middle of everything that was around her and how little she could move just a little and a little and the chair was sticking and she was sticking and she could not go down because she would not know where, going down might be anywhere, going up had to be there, oh dear where was Rose she was there really she was there not stuck there but very nearly really very nearly really stuck there. And now everything began and if it had not been on a mountain and if it had not been a chair there where she was she would not care but she did not run she never ran, there was no tin can, she was not hungry oh never that, but everything helped to hold her back, but if she stayed she was afraid, run ran a chair can be a man, oh dear chair do dear chair be a man so I will not be all scare, that is what Rose said trying not to see her own hair. Dear me hair chair ran man, Rose is beginning to feel as funny as she can. Anybody try to climb a mountain all alone with only a blue garden chair to hold there and everything on a mountain that is there and then see what it is that ran. Water yes and birds yes and rats yes and snakes yes and lizards yes and cats yes and cows yes, and trees yes and scratches yes, and sticks yes, and flies yes, and bees yes but not a Rose with a chair, all a Rose with a chair can dare is just not stare but keeping on going up there.

  She did.

  18

  DAY AND NIGHT

  Was she awake or did she dream that her cousin Willie heard her scream.

  She was asleep right there with her arms around her chair.

  She never dragged the chair she carried it before and in a way it was a cane, she leaned upon it all the same and she went on climbing and then it was all still, she heard a sound like a trill and then she thought of her cousin Willie and his lion Billie who was never still but it was not that, no not that, it was nothing completely nothing like that, it was something moving perhaps it was just fat. It, fat can burn like that to make a trill and to be all still and to smell like the lion of cousin Will. Anything can happen while you are going up hill. And a mountain is so much harder than a hill and still. Go on.

  19

  THE NIGHT

  Rose did go on smelling and breathing and pushing and shoving and rolling, she sometimes just rolled, and moving. Anything on a mountain side is moving, rocks are rolling, stones are turning, twigs are hitting, trees are growing, flowers are showing and animals are glowing that is their eyes are and everywhere there oh dear everywhere there well Rose was there and so was her chair.

  How many minutes go around to make a second how many hours go round to make a minute how many days go around to make an hour how many nights go round to make a day and was Rose found. She never had been lost and so how could she be found even if everything did go around and around.

  20

  THE NIGHT

  It all grew rosy they call it an alpine glow when it does so but Rose well Rose is her name and blue is her favorite color.

  And then she knew yes she had heard it too,

  Red at night is a sailor’s delight

  Red in the morning is a sailor’s warning,

  And said she is it rose or red

  And said she is it morning or evening

  And said she am I awake or am I in bed,

  And said she perhaps a sailor does not know perhaps somebody just told him so.

  And then she remembered everything she had heard it was not about a bird it was about a spider,

  A spider at night is a delight a spider in the morning is an awful warning,

  And then she remembered about if you put shoes on a table it makes awful trouble, but she had not a table she only had a chair and after all she could not take off her shoes there up upon the mountain so high and that funny black that first was blue and then grey up there in the sky, and then she remembered about the moon, if you see the new moon through a window with glass not any trouble will ever pass no it will not and then she remembered just when she was about to be scared that after all she had never cared no she never had cared for any moon so what was the use how it was seen. And then,

  Then she remembered if you see a girl or a woman dwarf it is awful more awful than any cough it is just awful awful all awful and then she remembered just before she began to cry, not that she really would cry, she only cried when she sang, and climbing a mountain was too occupying ever to sing so then she remembered that it was true if you saw a female dwarf everything was through everything was over there was nothing to do. And then she remembered if she saw a boy or a man dwarf not a fairy nothing so foolish as that but a dwarf something little that should have been big and then if she saw it and it was not a female but a man then everything would be better and better and she would get the mountain the mountain would not get her.

  And just then was it a pen was it a cage was it a hut but anyway there was no but, she saw it was a dwarf, and it was not a woman it was a man and if it knew how, and it did, away it ran, so Rose oh Rose was as happy then as any hen and she fell on her chair and embraced it there the blue chair.

  And then she said perhaps it was not a dwarf perhaps it was a little boy and I could have it for a toy, she knew what a little boy was because she had her cousin whose name was Willie even if he was a little silly. That is the way Rose felt about it but not on the mountain up there, there she would not care if Willie was silly if he would only be there.

  21

  NIGHT

  Rose did not want Willie, it was at night and she was not really resting and yet why did she think Willie was singing about what a day it was when Rose was not there. As she thought of that she almost let go her chair and went and went down and not up there. And then of course Willie never came. Why not when Willie was his name. Why not.

  And so Rose went on again.

  And now it was really night and when she could see them the stars were bright, and she remembered then that they say when the stars are bright rain comes right away and she knew it the rain would not hurt the chair but she would not like it to be all shiny there. Oh dear oh dear where was that dwarf man, it is so easy to believe whatever they say when you are all alone and so far away.

  22

  ROSE SAW IT CLOSE

  What did Rose see close, that is what she never can tell and perhaps it is just as well, suppose she did tell oh dear oh dear what she saw when she fell. Poor dear Rose. She saw it close. Never again would she stay on that spot, the chair quick the chair anywhere but there.

  Rose and the chair went on, it was dark at least it would have been if it had not been so bright, alright, alright it was alright of course it was alright it was just night, that is all it was just at night.

  23

  NIGHT

  What is it that water does do.

  It falls it does too

  It rises up that is when it is dew but when it falls, it is a water-fall and Rose knew all about that too, Rose knew almost everything that water can do, there are an awful lot when you think what, dew lakes rivers oceans fogs clouds and water-falls too, the thing that Rose heard it was night and Rose heard what she heard, dear little bird dear little water and dear little third, not dew, not a few but a water otter, a brown water otter, a long water otter and Rose said not you no not you you cannot frighten me no not you.

  So then Rose was frightened all through Rose and the chair which was blue and the otter the brown otter, Rose would have liked him better if he had been blue, and then the water-fall, the water-fall, the water-fall, the water was full of water-fall. Rose carrying the chair went to look behind there to see if there was room for the blue chair. There always is room behind a water-fall when it is tall, and this water-fall even in the night was quite tall.

  So Rose went in there it was all dark darker than out there and then she put down the chair and then she saw she did not know but it was so, she did see it there behind the water
-fall, although it was all dark there. It was written three times just how it looked as if it was done with a hair on a chair, and it said, oh dear yes it said, Devil, Devil, Devil, it said Devil three times right there. There was no devil there of course there was no devil there there is no devil anywhere devil devil devil where. But just there where there might be a chair and written in large writing and clear in the black there, it was written there.

  Dear me, Rose came out with her blue chair she decided no she would not sit down there. She decided she did not like water to fall, water fall water fall, that is what cows call but there was no cow there there was only writing there. It was too bad that Rose could read writing otherwise she would not have known that it said devil three times there. There are people who cannot read writing, but Rose was not one of them. Oh no.

  So Rose and the blue chair went away from there she never could go down not there not ever again there, she could never go anywhere where water is falling and water does fall even out of a faucet, poor Rose dear Rose sweet Rose only Rose, poor Rose alone with a blue chair there.

  So she went on climbing higher and higher and higher and blinking, the stars were blinking and she had to think of something. If she did not she would think of seeing that, was the Devil round, was he around, around round, round around, oh dear no think of Pépé, do not think of cousin Willie, he could go around and around, Willie did, and do not think of the blue chair after all the seat of a chair, might it be round oh dear around and around, and Pépé Pépé the little dog who bit her, no he was not round, well his eyes were but not his teeth, they bit oh dear she just thought of that, they had told her that little dogs like Pépé when there are many they bite at the back of the legs of little donkeys and the donkeys fall and the little dogs eat them and do they when they eat a donkey get round like a ball, and there was the moon it was setting a little flat but it was a little round oh dear and it looked as if there was a little girl way up there in the moon with its hair flying and partly lying and she had no chair oh dear oh dear up there.