The Velveteen Kinkajou Read online

  "Hurrah!" thought the little Kinkajou. "To-morrow we shall go to the seaside!" For the Boy had often talked of the seaside, and he wanted very much to see the big waves coming in, the curls of sea weed, the tiny crabs, and the castles made of sand.

  Just then Nana caught sight of him.

  "How about his old Kinkajou?" she asked.

  "That worn-out thing?" said the doctor. "Why, it's a mass of scarlet fever germs!–Burn it at once!”

  Nana spoke low.

  “What? - Nonsense!” said the doctor. “Get him a new one. He mustn't have that anymore!"

  CHAPTER 10 - The Tear

  And so the little Kinkajou was put into a sack with the old picture-books and a lot of rubbish, and carried out to the end of the hibiscus garden behind the fowl-house. That was a fine place to make a bonfire, only the gardener was too busy just then to attend to it. He had the potatoes to dig and the green peas to gather, but next morning he promised to come quite early and burn the whole lot.

  That night the Boy slept in a different bedroom, and he had a new toy to sleep with him. It was a splendid monkey, all silvery-golden plush with a white mustache and real glass eyes, but the Boy was too excited to care very much about it. For to-morrow he was going to the seaside, and that in itself was such a wonderful thing that he could think of nothing else.

  And while the Boy was asleep, dreaming of the seaside, the little Kinkajou lay among the old picture-books in the corner behind the fowl-house, and he felt very lonely. The sack had been left untied, and so by wriggling a bit he was able to get his head through the opening and look out. He was shivering a little, for he had always been used to sleeping in a proper bed, and by this time his coat had worn so thin and threadbare from hugging that it was no longer any protection to him. Nearby he could see the bracken ferns and a thicket of raspberry canes, growing tall and jungly, in whose shadow he had played with the Boy on bygone days. He thought of those long sunlit hours in the garden–how happy they were–and a great sadness came over him. He seemed to see them all pass before him, each more beautiful than the other, the fairy huts in the flower-bed, the quiet evenings at the jungle’s edge when he lay in the bracken and the little ants ran over his paws; the wonderful day when he first knew that he was Real. He thought of the Skin Horse, so wise and gentle, and all that he had told him. Of what use was it to be loved and lose one's beauty and become Real if it all ended like this? And a tear, a real tear, trickled down his little shabby velvet nose and fell to the ground.

  And then a strange thing happened. For where the tear had fallen a flower grew out of the ground, a mysterious flower, not at all like any that grew in the garden. It had slender green leaves the colour of emeralds, and in the centre of the leaves a blossom like a golden cup. It was a beautiful flower that started small and grew quite large. It was so beautiful that the little Kinkajou forgot to cry, and just lay there watching it. And presently the blossom opened, and out of it there stepped a fairy.

  CHAPTER 11 - The Fairy

  The Fairy was quite the loveliest Fairy in the whole world. Her dress was woven of moss and silver leaves, and there were flowers round her neck and in her hair, and her face was the kindest face the Kinkajou had ever seen. And she came close to the little Kinkajou and gathered him up in her arms and kissed him on his velveteen nose that was all damp from his cry.

  "Little Kinkajou," she said, "do you know who I am?"

  The Kinkajou looked up at her, and it seemed to him that he had seen her face before, but he couldn't think where.

  "I am the Nursery Magic Fairy," she said. "I take care of all the playthings that the children have loved. When they are old and worn out and the children don't need them anymore, then I come and take them away with me and turn them into Real."

  "Wasn't I Real before?" asked the little Kinkajou.

  "You were Real to the Boy," the Fairy said, "because he loved you. Now you shall be Real to everyone."

  CHAPTER 12 - The Kiss

  And the Fairy held the little Kinkajou close in her arms and flew with him into the jungle-wood.

  It was light now, for the moon had risen. All the jungle was beautiful, and the fronds of the bracken shone like frosted silver. In the open glade between the tree-trunks the wild kinkajous danced with their shadows on the velvet moss, but when they saw the Fairy they all stopped dancing and stood round in a ring to stare at her.

  "I've brought you a new playfellow," the Fairy said. "You must be very kind to him and teach him all he needs to know, for he is going to live with you forever and ever!"

  And she kissed the little Kinkajou again and put him down on the moss.

  "Run into the jungle and play, little Kinkajou!" she said. “Leap and climb and swing by your tail and frolic through the trees!”

  But the little Kinkajou sat quite still for a moment and never moved. For when he saw all the wild kinkajous dancing around him he suddenly remembered about his hind legs, and he didn't want them to see that he was made all in one piece. He did not know that when the Fairy kissed him that last time she had changed him altogether.

  And he might have sat there a long time, too shy to move, if just then something hadn't tickled his ear, and before he thought what he was doing, he lifted his hind toes to scratch it.

  And he found that he actually had hind legs and sturdy brown feet with soft pads and wonderful grabbing claws! Instead of dingy velveteen he had brown fur, soft and plush, his ears twitched by themselves, and his mouth worked and his whiskers were of just the right length and curl. He gave one leap, and the joy of using those hind legs was so great that he went springing about the earth on them, jumping into back-flips and whirling round as the others did, and he grew so excited that when at last he did stop to look for the Fairy she had gone.

  CHAPTER 13 - At Last! At Last!

  At last he was a Real Kinkajou! At last, at last, he was at home with the other kinkajous in the jungle where it was always balmy and sometimes exciting and wet with torrents of rain or mysteriously dark with stars and a crescent moon and a tropical wind which carried the scent of tangerine flowers and jasmine.

  And so the little Kinkajou frolicked in the blossom trees at dusk and licked nectar from the dianthus flowers, and feasted on raspberries and tangerines by night...and the occasional grub or pod of garden peas.

  It was autumn and the flower border was still in bloom when the Boy returned from the seaside, and he ran out to play among the banana trees, and pick raspberries from the thicket and roll in the moss and prop on his elbows to look again at his new picture-book.

  The day fell into dusk and when Nana called him from the veranda she said, "I won't have you leaving your old kinkajou book out in the dew, you know," for the Boy had gotten his birthday wish after and had a book of fine kinkajou pictures and facts.

  But just as the Boy tucked it under his arm, two Real Kinkajous crept out from the bracken and peered at him in the evening light. One of them was brown all over, but the other had a streak of gold in his fur, as though long ago his belly had been very golden, and the golden color still showed through. That one plopped down into the wicker chair as though he had been there before.

  "Well I never," said Nana.

  But the Boy stared, because about the Kinkajou’s soft nose and his round black eyes there was something familiar...so that the Boy thought to himself:

  "Why, he looks just like my old Kinkajou that was lost when I had scarlet fever!"

  But he never knew that it really was his own Kinkajou, come back to look at the child who had first helped him to be Real.

  THE END