Kitobni o'qish: «Carrots: Just a Little Boy»

CHAPTER I.
FLOSS'S BABY

 
"Where did you come from, Baby dear?
Out of the everywhere into here?
 
 
"But how did you come to us, you dear?
God thought about you, and so I am here!"
 

G. Macdonald.

His real name was Fabian. But he was never called anything but Carrots. There were six of them. Jack, Cecil, Louise, Maurice, commonly called Mott, Floss, dear, dear Floss, whom he loved best of all, a long way the best of all, and lastly Carrots.

Why Carrots should have come to have his history written I really cannot say. I must leave you, who understand such things a good deal better than I, you, children, for whom the history is written, to find out. I can give you a few reasons why Carrots' history should not have been written, but that is about all I can do. There was nothing very remarkable about him; there was nothing very remarkable about the place where he lived, or the things that he did, and on the whole he was very much like other little boys. There are my no reasons for you. But still he was Carrots, and after all, perhaps, that was the reason! I shouldn't wonder.

He was the baby of the family; he had every right to be considered the baby, for he was not only the youngest, but very much the youngest; for Floss, who came next to him, was nearly four years older than Carrots. Yet he was never treated as the baby. I doubt if even at the very outset of his little life, when he was just a wee pink ball of a creature, rolled up in flannel, and with his funny curls of red hair standing crisp up all over his head, I doubt, if even then, he was ever called "baby." I feel almost sure it was always "Carrots." He was too independent and sensible to be counted a baby, and he was never fond of being petted – and then, too, "Carrots" came so naturally!

I have said that Carrots loved his sister Floss better than anybody or anything else in the world. I think one reason of this was that she was the very first person he could remember in his life, and a happy thing for him that it was so, for all about her that there was to remember was nice and good and kind. She was four years older than he, four years old, that is to say, when he first came into the world and looked about him with grave inquiry as to what sort of a place this could be that he had got to. And the first object that his baby-wise eyes settled upon with content, as if in it there might be a possible answer to the riddle, was Floss!

These children's father and mother were not very rich, and having six boys and girls you can quite easily imagine they had plenty to do with their money. Jack was a great boy at school when Carrots first joined the family party, and Cecil and Louise had a governess. Mott learnt with the governess too, but was always talking of the time when he should go to school with Jack, for he was a very boy-ey boy, very much inclined to look down upon girls in general, and his sisters in particular, and his little sister Floss in particularest. So, till Carrots appeared on the scene, Floss had had rather a lonely time of it, for, "of course," Cecil and Louise, who had pockets in all their frocks, and could play the 'March of the Men of Harlech' as a duet on the piano, were far too big to be "friends to Floss," as she called it. They were friendly and kind in an elder sisterly way, but that was quite a different sort of thing from being "friends to her," though it never occurred to Floss to grumble or to think, as so many little people think now-a-days, how much better things would have been arranged if she had had the arranging of them.

There was only one thing Floss wished for very, very much, and that was to have a brother or sister, she did not much care which, younger than herself. She had the most motherly heart in the world, though she was such a quiet little girl that very few people knew anything about what she was thinking, and the big ones laughed at her for being so outrageously fond of dolls. She had dolls of every kind and size, only alike in one thing, that none of them were very pretty, or what you would consider grand dolls. But to Floss they were lovely, only, they were only dolls!

Can you fancy, can you in the least fancy, Floss's delight – a sort of delight that made her feel as if she couldn't speak, when one winter's morning she was awakened by nurse to be told that a real live baby had come in the night – a little brother, and "such a funny little fellow," added nurse, "his head just covered with curly red hair. Where did he get that from, I wonder? Not one of my children has hair like that, though yours, Miss Flossie, has a touch of it, perhaps."

Floss looked at her own tangle of fluffy hair with new reverence. "Hair something like my hairs," she whispered. "Oh nursie, dear nursie, may Floss see him?"

"Get up and let me dress you quickly, and you shall see him – no fear but that you'll see more of the poor little fellow than you care about," said nurse, though the last words were hardly meant for Floss.

The truth was that though of course every one meant to be kind to this new little baby, to take proper care of him, and all that sort of thing, no one was particularly glad he had come. His father and mother felt that five boys and girls were already a good number to bring up well and educate and start in life, not being very rich you see, and even nurse, who had the very kindest heart in the world, and had taken care of them all, beginning with Jack, ever since they were born, even nurse felt, I think, that they could have done without this red-haired little stranger. For nurse was no longer as young as she had been, and as the children's mother could not, she knew, very well afford to keep an under-nurse to help her, it was rather trying to look forward to beginning again with all the "worrit" of a new baby – bad nights and many tiring climbs up the long stairs to the nursery, etc., etc., though nurse was so really good that she did not grumble the least bit, and just quietly made up her mind to make the best of it.

But still Floss was the only person to give the baby a really hearty welcome. And by some strange sort of baby instinct he seemed to know it almost from the first. He screamed at Jack, and no wonder, for Jack, by way of salutation, pinched his poor little nose, and said that the next time they had boiled mutton for dinner, cook need not provide anything but turnips, as there was a fine crop of carrots all ready, which piece of wit was greatly applauded by Maurice and the girls. He wailed when Cecil and Louise begged to be allowed to hold him in their arms, so that they both tumbled him back on to nurse's lap in a hurry, and called him "a cross, ugly little thing." Only when little Floss sat down on the floor, spreading out her knees with great solemnity, and smoothing her pinafore to make a nice place for baby, and nurse laid him carefully down in the embrace of her tiny arms, "baby" seemed quite content. He gave a sort of wriggle, like a dog when he has been pretending to burrow a hole for himself in the rug, just before he settles down and shuts his eyes, and in half a second was fast asleep.

It was wonderful how trusty she was. And "as handy," said nurse, "indeed far more handy than many a girl of five times her age." "I have been thinking," she said one day to Floss's mother, "I have been thinking, ma'am, that even if you had been going to keep an under-nurse to help with baby, there would have been nothing for her to do. For the help I get from Miss Flossie is really astonishing, and Master Baby is that fond of her already, you'd hardly believe it."

And Floss's mother kissed her, and told her she was a good little soul, and Floss felt, oh, so proud! Then a second thought struck her, "Baby dood too, mamma," she said, staring up into her mother's face with her bright searching grey-green eyes.

"Yes," said her mother with a little sigh, "poor baby is good too, dear," and then she had to hurry off to a great overhauling of Jack's shirts, which were, if possible, to be made to last him another half-year at school.

So it came to pass that a great deal of Floss's life was spent in the nursery with Carrots. He was better than twenty dolls, for after a while he actually learnt, first to stand alone, and then to walk, and after a longer while he learnt to talk, and to understand all that Floss said to him, and by-and-by to play games with her in his baby way. And how patient Floss was with him! It was no wonder he loved her.

This chapter has seemed almost more about Floss than Carrots you will say, perhaps, but I couldn't tell you anything of Carrots' history without telling you a great deal about Floss too, so I daresay you won't mind. I daresay too you will not care to hear much more about Carrots when he was a baby, for, after all, babies are all very like each other, and a baby that wasn't like others would not be a baby! To Floss I fancy he seemed a remarkable baby, but that may have been because he was her very own, and the only baby she had ever known. He was certainly very good, in so far as he gave nurse exceedingly little trouble, but why children should give trouble when they are perfectly well, and have everything they can possibly want, I have never been able to decide. On the whole, I think it must have something to do with the people who take care of them, as well as with themselves.

Now we will say good-bye to Carrots, as a baby.

CHAPTER II.
SIX YEARS OLD

 
"As for me, I love the sea,
The dear old sea!
Don't you?"
 

Song.

I think I said there was nothing very remarkable about the place where Carrots lived, but considering it over, I am not quite sure that you would agree with me. It was near the sea for one thing, and that is always remarkable, is it not? How remarkable, how wonderful and changeful the sea is, I doubt if any one can tell who has not really lived by it, not merely visited it for a few weeks in the fine summer time, when it looks so bright and sunny and inviting, but lived by it through autumn and winter too, through days when it looks so dull and leaden, that one can hardly believe it will ever be smiling and playful again, through fierce, rough days, when it lashes itself with fury, and the wind wails as if it were trying to tell the reason.

Carrots' nursery window looked straight out upon the sea, and many and many an hour Floss and he spent at this window, watching their strange fickle neighbour at his gambols. I do not know that they thought the sea at all wonderful. I think they were too much accustomed to it for that, but they certainly found it very interesting. Floss had names for the different kinds of waves; some she called "ribs of beef," when they showed up sideways in layers as it were, of white and brown, and some she called "ponies." That was the kind that came prancing in, with a sort of dance, the white foam curling and rearing, and tossing itself, just exactly like a frisky pony's mane. Those were the prettiest waves of all, I think.

It was not at all a dangerous coast, where the Cove House, that was Carrots' home, stood. It was not what is called "picturesque." It was a long flat stretch of sandy shore, going on and on for miles just the same. There were very few trees and no mountains, not even hills.

In summer, a few, just a very few visitors used to come to Sandyshore for bathing; they were always visitors with children, for every one said it was such a nice safe place for little people.

But, safe as it was, it wasn't till Carrots was growing quite a big boy, nearly six, I should think, that Floss and he got leave to go out and play on the shore by themselves, the thing they had been longing for ever since they could remember.

This was how they did get leave at last. Nurse was very, very busy, one day; really quite extra busy, for she was arranging and helping to pack Jack's things to go to a new school. Jack was so big now, about sixteen, that he was going to a kind of college, or grown-up school, the last he would go to, before entering the army. And there was quite a fuss in the house. Jack thought himself almost as grand as if he was an officer already, and Mott was overpowered with envy. Everybody was fussing about Jack, and no one had much time to think of the two little ones.

They stood at the nursery window, poor little souls, when Floss came up from her lessons, gazing out wistfully. It was a nice spring day, not exactly sunny, but looking as if the sun were only hiding himself to tease you, and might come out any minute.

"If we might go down to the shore," said Floss, half to herself, half to Carrots, and half to nurse. I shouldn't have said it so, for there can't be three halves of anything, but no doubt you will understand.

"Go down to the shore, my dear?" repeated nurse, "I wish you could, I'm sure, but it will be afternoon, at least, before I have a minute to spare to take you. And there's no one else to-day, for cook and Esther are both as busy as busy. Perhaps Miss Cecil and Miss Louise will take you when they have done their lessons."

"We don't care to go with them, much," said Floss, "they don't understand our plays. We like best to go with you, nursie, and you to sit down with your sewing near – that's the nicest way. Oh, nurse," she exclaimed, with sudden eagerness, "wouldn't you let us go alone? You can peep out of the window and see us every few minutes, and we'll be so good."

Nurse looked out of the window doubtfully.

"Couldn't you play in the garden at the back, instead?" she said. "Your papa and mamma won't be home till late, and I am always in a terror of any harm happening while they are away."

"We won't let any harm happen," said Floss, "and we are so tired of the garden, nurse. There is nothing to play at there. The little waves are so pretty this morning."

There was certainly very little to play at in the green, at the back of the house, which was called the garden. Being so near the sea, the soil was so poor, that hardly any flowers would grow, and even the grass was coarse and lumpy. Then there were no trees, and what is a garden without trees?

Nurse looked out of the window again.

"Well," she said, "if you will really be very good, I think I might trust you. Now, Master Carrots, you will promise to do exactly what Miss Floss tells you?"

"Yes, I promise," said Carrots, who had been listening with great anxiety, though he had not hitherto spoken – he was not a great talker – "I promise, nurse. I will do exactly what Floss tells me, and Floss will do exactly what I tell her, won't you, Floss? So we shall both be kite good, that way, won't we?"

"Very well," said nurse gravely, though she felt very much inclined to laugh, "then run and get your things as fast as you can."

And, oh, how happy the two were when they found themselves out on the shore all alone! They were so happy, they did not know what to do; so first of all, they ran races to run away a little of the happiness. And when they had run themselves quite hot, they sat down on a little heap of stones to consider what they should do next. They had no spades with them, for they did not care very much about digging; children who live always by the sea never care so much about digging as the little visitors who come down in the summer, and whose very first idea at the sight of the sea is "spades and buckets."

"What shall we play at, Carrots?" said Floss, "I wish it was warm enough to paddle."

Carrots looked at the little soft rippling waves, contemplatively.

"When I'm a man," he said, "I shall paddle always. I shall paddle in winter too. When I'm a man I won't have no nurse."

"Carrots," said Floss, reproachfully, "that isn't good of you. Think how kind nurse is."

"Well, then," replied Carrots, slowly, "I will have her, but she must let me paddle always, when I'm a man."

"When you are a man, Carrots," said Floss, solemnly still, "I hope you will have something better to do than paddling. Perhaps you'll be a soldier, like Jack."

"Killing people isn't better than paddling," retorted Carrots. "I'd rather be a sailor, like papa."

"Sailors have to kill people, too, sometimes," said Floss.

"Have they?" said Carrots. Then he sat silent for a few minutes, finding this new idea rather overwhelming. "Naughty people, do you mean, Floss?" he inquired at last.

"Yes," said Floss, unhesitatingly, "naughty people, of course."

"But I don't like killing," said Carrots, "not killing naughty people, I don't like. I won't be a soldier, and I won't be a sailor, and I won't be a butcher, 'cos butchers kill lambs. Perhaps I'll be a fisherman."

"But fishermen kill fish," said Floss.

"Do they?" said Carrots, looking up in her face pathetically with his gentle brown eyes. "I'm so sorry. I don't understand about killing, Floss. I don't like it."

"I don't either," said Floss; "but perhaps it has to be. If there was no killing we'd have nothing to eat."

"Eggs," said Carrots; "eggs and potatoes, and – and – cake?"

"But even that would be a sort of killing," persisted Floss, though feeling by no means sure that she was not getting beyond her depth, "if we didn't eat eggs they would grow into chickens, and so eating stops them; and potatoes have roots, and when they're pulled up they don't grow; and cake has eggs in, and – oh I don't know, let's talk of something else."

"What?" said Carrots, "Fairies?"

"If you like, or supposing we talk about when auntie comes and brings 'Sybil.'"

"Yes," said Carrots, "I like that best."

"Well, then," began Floss, "supposing it is late in the evening when they come. You would be in bed, Carrots, dear, but I would have begged to sit up a little longer and – "

"No, Floss, that isn't nice. I won't talk about Sybil, if you make it like that," interrupted Carrots, his voice sounding as if he were going to cry. "Sybil isn't not any bigger than me. I wouldn't be in bed, Floss."

"Very well, dear. Never mind, darling. I won't make it like that. It was very stupid of me. No, Sybil and auntie will come just about our tea-time, and we shall be peeping along the road to see if the carriage from the station is coming, and when we hear it we'll run in, and perhaps mamma will say we may stay in the drawing-room to see them. You will have one of your new sailor suits on, Carrots, and I shall have my white piqué and blue sash, and nurse will have made the nursery tea-table look so nice – with a clean table-cloth, you know, and quite thin bread and butter, and jam, and, perhaps, eggs."

"I won't eat one," interrupted Carrots; "I won't never eat eggs. I'll keep all mine that I get to eat, in a box, till they've growed into chickens."

"But they're boiled when you get them," said Floss; "they wouldn't grow into chickens when they're boiled."

Carrots sighed. "Well, never mind," he said, "go on, Floss."

"Well, then," started Floss again, "you see the nursery tea would look so nice that Sybil would be sure to ask her mamma to let her have tea with us, even though it was the first evening. Perhaps, you know, she would be rather shy, just at first, till she got to know us. So we would be very, very kind to her, and after tea we would show her all our things – the dolls, only – Carrots, I'm afraid the dolls are getting rather old."

"Are they?" said Carrots, sympathisingly. "When I'm a man I'll buy you such a lot of new dolls, Floss, and Sybil, too, if she likes dolls – does she, Floss?"

"I don't know. I should think so," said Floss. "When papa and mamma went to see auntie, they said Sybil was like a doll herself. I suppose she has beautiful blue eyes and long gold curls. That was a year ago; she must be bigger now, Carrots."

"What?"

"We must get up and run about a little now. It's too cold to sit still so long, and if we get cold, nurse won't let us come out alone again."

Up jumped Carrots on to his sturdy little legs. "I'll run, Floss," he said.

"Floss," he began, when they stopped to take breath again, "once I saw a little boy with a hoop. It went so nice on the sands. I wish I had a hoop, Floss."

"I wish you had, dear," said Floss. "I'd buy you one, if I had any money. But I haven't, and we couldn't ask mamma, because I know," and Floss shook her head mysteriously, "I know poor mamma hasn't any money to spare. I must think of a plan to get some."

Carrots kept silence for about three quarters of a minute. "Have you thinkened, Floss?" he asked, eagerly.

"Thought," gravely said Floss, "not thinkened, what about?"

"About a plan," replied Carrots. He called it "a pan," but Floss understood him.

"Oh, dear, no," said Floss, "not yet. Plans take a great lot of thinking. They're real things, you see, Carrots, not like fancies about fairies and Sybil coming."

"But when Sybil does come, that'll be real then," said Carrots.

"Of course," agreed Floss, "but fancying about it before, isn't real."

It took Carrots a little while to get this into his head. Then he began again.

"When will you have thinkened enough, Floss? By tea-time?"

"I don't know. No, I think you had better wait till to-morrow morning, and then perhaps the plan will be ready."

"Very well," said Carrots, adding, with a little sigh, "to-morrow morning is a long time, Floss."

"Not very," said Floss, consolingly. "Now, Carrots, let's have one more race, and then we must go in."