Then Ariel and Titania, Prospero, and the Witch made a magic—they were a mighty quartet, you see. John suggested that they were really the “Biggest Four.” They waved their wands and lifted their hands, and Caliban helped with a mighty “Wow!” Then in came Puck and the other fairies bearing a huge iron kettle, with a ladle sticking out of the top. From the kettle rose a cloud of smoke and a sweet smell that made Caliban sneeze. The fairies put the kettle in the middle of the room, and the four magicians waved their wands over it, and moved slowly about it singing,— When the spell was finished, the smoke died away, and the Witch stooped over and ladled something out, which she threw into the fireplace. “Now, come, everybody!” she cried in a cracked voice, “and dip pot-luck out of the magic kettle.” [107]One by one the guests came and helped themselves to a ladleful of pot-luck. The “luck” turned out to be a tissue-paper package tied with red ribbon. In each package was a little present. Sometimes the children did not get an appropriate gift; but then they could “swap.” Shylock, who was one of the biggest boys, drew a Japanese doll, which he exchanged for a jack-knife that had fallen to the lot of a little girl-fairy. Cleopatra drew a conductor’s whistle, and Hamlet had a beautiful bow of pink hair-ribbon; so they made a trade. The Ghost was made happy with a jews-harp, and the Ass secured a fan; while fat Falstaff made every one roar with laughter by unrolling from the great bundle of tissue paper, which he had carefully picked out, a tiny thimble. [107] After this they danced and played games, and made the roof of Aunt Nan’s old house echo with such sounds as it had not heard for many years. Shakespeare characters flitted from room to room, up the stairs to the attic and down to the cellar, in a joyous game of hide-and-seek. And nobody said “Don’t!” or “Careful!” or “Sh!” This was a night when Dream-People had their way undisturbed. Then they all went out into the dining-room[108] and had supper—sandwiches and chocolate and cake and ice-cream. And they all voted that they liked Shakespeare very much, and that they ought to celebrate his birthday every year. [108] Nobody wanted to go home, of course. But in time, mere ordinary fathers and mothers and big sisters and big brothers, in ugly, common clothes, came and dragged away the Shakespeare people, one by one. When they had all, as Prospero said, “melted into air, into thin
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