Hello.
Welcome to Sleep Stories with Steph.
A romantic bedtime podcast guaranteed to help you drift off into a calm relaxing sleep.
Come with me as we go back in time to visit Katie Carr.
She is all grown up now but she still has the same trials and tribulations she had as a child.
But before we begin let's take the time to focus on where we are now.
Take a deep breath in through your nose.
Take a deep breath in through your nose.
That's it.
Then let it out on a long sigh.
It is time to relax and really let go.
Feel yourself sink into the support beneath you.
And let the pressures of the day seep away.
Happy listening.
What Katie Did Next by Susan Coolidge Read and abridged by Stephanie Poppins Chapter 8 On the Track of Ulysses We are going to follow the track of Ulysses,
Said Katie with her eyes fixed on the little travelling map in her guidebook.
Do you realise that Polly dear?
He and his companions sailed these very seas before us and we shall see the sights they saw.
The Marco Polo had just cast off her moorings and was slowly steaming out of the crowded port of Genoa into the heart of a still rosy sunset.
The water was perfectly smooth.
No motion could be felt but the engines throb.
The trembling foam of the long wake showed glancing points of phosphorescence here and there while low on the eastern sky a great silver planet burned like a single lamp.
Polly dear,
Said Katie,
There's one delightful thing I forgot to tell you about.
The captain says he'll stay in the Leghorn all day tomorrow and we'll have plenty of time to run up to Pisa and see the cathedral and the leaning tower and everything else.
Now that's something Ulysses didn't do.
I'm so glad I didn't die of measles when I was little as Rose Red used to say.
Then she gave her book a toss into the air as she spoke and caught it again very much as the Katie car of 12 years ago might have done.
What a child you are,
Said Mrs.
Ash approvingly.
You never seem out of sorts or tired of things.
Out of sorts?
I should think not and pray why should I Polly dear?
Katie had taken to calling her friend Polly dear of late.
A trick picked up half unconsciously from Lieutenant Ned.
Mrs.
Ash liked it.
It was sisterly and intimate she said and made her feel nearer to Katie's age.
Does the tower really lean?
Questioned little Amy.
Far over I mean so that we can see it.
We shall know tomorrow replied Katie.
If it doesn't I shall lose all my confidence in human nature.
Katie's confidence in human nature was not doomed to be impaired.
There stood the famous tower.
When they reached the Place del Duomo in Pisa the next morning looked exactly as it did in the pictures and the alabaster models and seeming in another moment it must topple over from its own weight upon their heads.
Mrs.
Ash declared it was so unnatural it made her flesh creep and when she was coaxed up the winding staircase to the top she turned so giddy they were all thankful to get her safely down to firm ground again.
She turned her back upon the tower as they crossed the grassy space saying if she thought about it any more she should become a disbeliever in the attraction of gravitation.
She had always been told respectable people must believe in.
It was in coming out of that baptistry they met with an adventure which Amy could never quite forget.
The streets of Pisa were infested with a band of religious beggars who call themselves the Brethren of the Order of Mercy.
They wear loose black gowns,
Sandals laced over their bare feet and black cambric masks with holes through which their eyes glare awfully.
They carry tin cups for the reception of offerings which they thrust into the faces of all strangers visiting the city.
As Katie's party emerged from the baptistry two of these Brethren espied them and like great human bats came swooping down upon them.
Amy screamed and ran behind her mother but Katie stood her ground and her fingers trembled as she dropped some money in the cups.
One of them,
Katie observed,
Walked backwards for some distance in order to gaze longer at Mrs.
Ash whose cheeks were flushed with bright pink and who was looking particularly handsome.
Katie began to laugh instead and Mrs.
Ash laughed too but Amy could not get over the impression of being attacked by demons and soon afterwards recurred with a shudder to the time when those awful black things flew at her and she hid behind her mama.
She held fast to Katie's hand and their way led them through a narrow street inhabited by the poorer classes.
It was a dusty street with high shabby buildings on either side and wide doorways giving glimpses of interior courtyards where empty hogsheads and barrels and rusty cauldrons lay and great wooden trays of macaroni spread out in the sun to dry.
Some of the macaroni was white,
Some yellow and some grey but none of it looked at all desirable to eat as it lay exposed to the dust with long lines of ill-washed clothes flapping above on wires stretched from one house to another.
As was usual in poor streets there were swarms of children and the appearance of little Amy with her long bright hair falling over her shoulders and her doll Mabel clasped in her arms created a great sensation.
The children shouted and exclaimed and other children within the houses heard the sounds and came trooping out.
Their black eyes fixed upon big beautiful Mabel who with her thick wig of flaxen hair,
Her blue velvet dress and jacket,
Feathered hat and little muff seemed to them like some strange small marvel from another world.
They could not decide whether she was a living child or a make-believe one and they dared not come near enough to find out so they clustered at a little distance,
Pointed with their fingers and whispered and giggled while Amy,
Much pleased with the admiration shown for her darling,
Lifted Mabel up for them to view.
At last one droll little girl with a white cap on her round head seemed to make up her mind and darting in doors she returned with her doll,
A poor little image of wood,
Its only garment a cool shirt of red cotton.
This she held out for Amy to see.
Amy smiled for the first time since her encounter with the bat-like friars and Katie,
Taking Mabel from her,
Made signs the two dolls should kiss each other but though the little Italian screamed with laughter at the idea she would by no means allow it and hid her treasure behind her back blushing and giggling while she waved two fingers at them with a curious gesture.
I do believe she's afraid Mabel cast the evil eye on her doll said Katie at last a sudden understanding what this pantomime meant.
Why you silly thing,
Cried the outraged Amy,
Do you suppose for one minute my child could hurt your dirty old doll?
You ought to be glad to have her noticed at all by anybody that's clean.
The sound of this foreign tongue shocked the little Italian girl and with a shriek she fled taking all the other children with her pausing at a distance to look back at the alarming creatures who didn't speak the familiar language.
All that night over a sea as smooth as glass the Marco Polo slipped along the coasts past which the ships of Ulysses sailed in those old legendary days which wear so charmed a light to her modern eyes.
Katie roused at three in the morning and looking from her cabin window had a glimpse of an island.
Her map showed it to be Elba where that war eagle Napoleon was chained for a while.
About 11 o'clock a dream-drawn bubble appeared on the horizon which the captain assured them was the dome of St Peter's nearly 30 miles distant.
This was one of the moments which Clover had been fond of speculating about and Katie contrasting the real with the imaginary moment could not help smiling.
Neither she nor Clover had ever supposed her first glimpse of the great dome was to be so little impressive.
They woke the next morning to a summer atmosphere full of yellow sunshine and true July warmth.
Flower vendors stood on every corner and pursued each newcomer with their fragrant wares.
Katie could not stop exclaiming over the cheapness of the flowers which were thrust in at the carriage windows as they drove slowly up and down the streets.
They were tied into flat nosegays whose centre was a white camellia encircled with concentric rows of pink tea rosebuds ring after ring till the whole was the size of an ordinary milk pan all to be had for the sum of 10 cents.
But after they brought two or three of this enormous bouquets and discovered not a single rose boasted an inch of stem and that all were pierced with long wires through their very hearts she ceased to care for them.
I would rather have one souvenir with a long stem and plenty of leaves than a dozen of these stiff platters of bouquets Katie told Mrs.
Ash.
But when they drove beyond the city gates and the coachman came to anchor beneath walls overhung with the same roses and Katie found she might stand on the seat and pull down as many as she liked she was entirely satisfied.
This is the Italy of my dreams she said.
We'll take a rapid look at a few of the principal things said Mrs.
Ash then get as far away as fast as we can.
Amy is so on my mind I have no peace of my life I keep feeling her pulse and imagining she does not look right and although I know it's my fancy I'm impatient to be off.
You won't mind at all will you Katie?
Katie didn't mind.
There seems something deadly in the air.
Whispered reports met their ears of cases of fever which the landlords at the hotels were doing their best to hush up.
After that everything they did was in a hurry.
Katie felt as if she were being driven about by a cyclone as they rushed from one site to another filling up all the chinks between with shopping which was irresistible when everything was so pretty and so wonderfully cheap.
She purchased a tortoiseshell fan and a chain for Rose Red and had her monogram carved upon it.
A coral locket for Elsie,
Some studs for Dory and for her father a small beautiful vase of bronze made from one of the Pompeian antiques.
How charming it is to have money to spend in such a place like this she said to herself with a sigh of satisfaction as she surveyed the delightful buyings.
I only wish I could get 10 times as many things and take them to 10 times as many people.
Papa was so wise about it.
I can't think how it is he always knows beforehand exactly how people are going to feel and what they'll want.
Mrs.
Ash bought a great many things for herself and Amy and to take home as presents and it was all very pleasant and satisfactory except for that subtle sense of danger from which they could not escape.
See Naples and die said the old adage and the same proved sadly true in the case of many an American traveller.
Beside the talk of fever there was also a good deal of gossip about brigands going about as is generally the case in Naples and its vicinity.
Something was said to have happened to a party on one of the heights over Sorrento and although nobody knew exactly what the something was Mrs.
Ash and Katie felt a good deal of trepidation as they entered the carriage which was to take them to the neighbourhood where the mysterious something had occurred.
With groves of oranges and lemons and olive orchards above and the bay of Naples beneath it stretched away like a solid sheet of lapis lazuli and gemmed with islands of the most picturesque form the journey was beautiful but such beauty was wasted on Mrs.
Ash and Katie they were too frightened to half enjoy it.
Their carriage was driven by a shaggy young savage who looked quite wild enough to be abandoned himself.
He cracked his whip loudly as they rolled along and every now and then gave a long shrill whistle.
Mrs.
Ash was sure that was a signal to his band who was lurking somewhere on the olive hung hillsides.
Her fears then affected Katie though they talked and laughed and made jokes to amuse Amy who must not have been scared or led to suppose anything was a myth.
They were privately quaking in their shoes all the way.
They did reach Sorrento in perfect safety though and the driver who had looked so dangerous turned out to be quite a respectable young man.
Their hotel was perched directly over the sea.
From the balcony of their sitting room they looked down over a sheer cliff some 60 feet high into the water.
Their bedrooms opened on a garden of roses with an orange grove beyond.
Katie was never tired of peering down into this strange and beautiful cleft whose sides 200 feet in depth were hung with vines and trailing groves of all sorts.
She and Amy took walks along the coast to look over the lovely island shapes in the bay and admire the great clumps of cactus and Spanish bayonet which grew by the roadside.
From here they made two different excursions to Pompeii and on Katie's birthday which fell towards the end of January Mrs.
Ash let her have her choice of a treat.
They were to go to the island of Capri which none of them had seen.
It turned out to be a perfect day.
They climbed the great cliff rise at the island's end and saw the ruins of the villa built by the wicked emperor Tiberius.
That return voyage was almost the pleasantest thing of all the day.
The water was smooth,
The moon at its full and it was larger and more brilliant than American moons are and seemed to possess an actual warmth and colour.
The boatmen timed their oar strokes to the cadence of Neapolitan folk songs full of rhythmic movement which seemed caught from the pulsing tides and when at last the boat grated on the sands of the Sorrento landing place back to their hotel Katie drew a long regretful breath and declared this was her best birthday gift of all.
Katie said Mrs.
Ash one afternoon in early February.
I heard some ladies talking about now in the salon.
They said that Rome is filling up very fast and the carnival begins in less than two weeks.
If we don't make haste we'll not be able to get any rooms.
Oh dear said Katie.
I do love this place and it's very trying not to be able to be in two places at once.
I want to see Rome dreadfully and yet I cannot bear to leave Sorrento.
We've been very very happy here haven't we?
So at last they took up their wandering staves again and departed for Rome just like the Apostle not knowing what should befall them there.
