The Adventures of Herr Baby Part 10

Auntie stared at Denny.

"Really, Denny," she said, "it is sometimes a little difficult to be sure that you have got all your senses. How can you have 'nothing for breakfast' when you have bacon, and--who in the world ever taught you to say 'heggs'?"

"I meant to say 'neggs,'" said Denny very humbly. "Grandfather laughed at me because I didn't say 'hippotamus' right--I called it a 'nippotamus,' and he made me say 'hi-hi-hip,' and that's got me into the way of saying it to everything, like calling a negg, a hegg."

"A _negg_," repeated auntie slowly. "Can't you hear any difference between 'a negg,' and 'an egg'? Spell, a-n an, e-g-g egg."

Denny repeated it.

"What dedful jography Denny's having," observed Baby; "I can say _a negg, quite_ right."

"And so you too call 'a negg' nothing for breakfast?" said auntie.

"Neggs and bacon is nothing for breakfast," answered Baby.

"Auntie," said Fritz, "you don't understand. We call it nothing for breakfast when there's not bread-and-milk, you know, for on bread-and-milk days we have just one little cup of tea and a bit of bread-and-b.u.t.ter after the bread-and-milk. But on Sundays, and birthdays, there's nothing for the _first_, and so we get better things, more like big people, and tea, and whatever there is, as soon as we begin. That's why we like 'nothing for breakfast,' do you see, auntie?"

"I see," said auntie, "but I certainly couldn't have guessed. I hope there's _something_ for breakfast to-day for us, for I'm very hungry, and look, there's grandfather coming out to meet us, which looks as if he were hungry too. And what have you to say to it, old man?" she added, as Herr Baby came up the steps, one foot at a time, of course, "aren't you hungry after your walk?"

"Him's hungry for him's _dinner_, but not for him's _breakfast_; in course not," said Baby, with great dignity.

CHAPTER VI.

AN OLD SHOP AND AN OGRE

"Innocent face with the sad sweet eyes, Smiling on us through the centuries."

Baby and Fritz went out a walk that afternoon in the town with auntie and Lisa. Celia and Denny had gone for a drive with mother and grandfather, which the big people thought would make a good division.

Grandfather was very fond of children, but in a carriage, he used to say, _two_ small people were enough of a good thing. So Celia and Denny worried Lisa to get out their best hats and jackets--which were not unpacked, as grandfather had not yet decided whether they should stay at the hotel or get a house for themselves--and set off in great spirits on the back seat of the carriage.

Fritz and Baby were in very good spirits too. Fritz wanted to walk along the sort of front street of the town which faced the sea, for he was never tired of looking at boats and ships. Baby liked them too, but what he most wanted to see was the shops. Baby was very fond of shops. He was fond of buying things, but before he bought anything he used to like to be quite sure which was the best shop to get it at--I mean to say at which shop he could get it best--and he often asked the price two or three times before he fixed. And he had never before seen so many shops or such pretty and curious ones as there were at Santino, so he was quite delighted, though if you hadn't known him well you would hardly have guessed it, for he trotted along as grave as a little judge, only staring about him with all his eyes.

And indeed there were plenty of things to stare at. Fritz's tongue went very fast. He wanted auntie to stop every minute to look at something wonderful. The carts drawn by oxen pleased him and Baby very much.

"That's the working cows they told us about," said Fritz. "They're very nice, but I think I like horses best, don't you, Baby?"

"No, him likes cows best," said Baby, "when him's a man him will have a calliage wif hundreds of cows to pull it along, and wif lots and lots of gold bells all tinkling. Won't that be lubly?"

"Not half so nice as a lot of ponies, all with bells," said Fritz, "they'd make ever so much more jingling, 'cos they go so fast. Isn't it funny to see all the women with handkerchers on their heads and no bonnets, Baby?"

"When him's a man," said Baby again--he was growing more talkative now--"when him's a man, him's going to have auntie and Lisa," auntie and Lisa came first, of course, because they happened to be in his sight, "and mother, and Celia, and Denny _all_ for his wifes, and them shall all wear most bootly hankerwifs on them's heads, red and blue and pink and every colour, and gold--lots of gold."

"Thank you," said auntie, "but by that time my hair, for one, will be quite gray; I shall be quite an old woman. I don't think such splendid trappings would suit me."

"Him said _handkerwifs_, not traps--him doesn't know what traps is,"

said Baby. "And him will be werry kind to you when you're old. Him will always let you come in and warm yourself, and give you halfpennies."

"Thank you, dear, I'm sure you will," said auntie. But she and Fritz looked at each other. That was one of Herr Baby's ideas, and they couldn't get him to understand, so mother settled it was better to leave it and he'd understand of himself when he grew bigger. He thought that _everybody_, however rich and well off they might be, had to grow quite, quite poor, and to beg for pennies in the streets before they died. Wasn't it a funny fancy? It was not till a good while afterwards that mother found out that what had made him think so was the word "old." He couldn't understand that growing old could mean only growing old in years--he thought it meant as well, poor and worn-out, like his own little old shoes. Just now it would have been no good trying to explain, even if mother had quite understood what was in his mind, which she didn't till he told her himself long after. For it only made him cry when people tried to explain and _he_ couldn't explain what he meant.

There was nothing vexed him so much! And I think there was something rather nice mixed up with this funny idea about getting old. It made Baby wish to be so kind to all poor old people. He would look at any poor old beggar in such a strange sad way, and he always _begged_ to be allowed to give them a penny. And, though no one knew of it, in his own mind he was thinking that his dear little mother or his kind auntie would be like that some day, and he would like rich little boys to be kind to them then, just as he was now to other poor old people. Of course, he said to himself, "If _him_ sees dear little mother and auntie when they get old, _him_ will take care of them and let them rest at his house every time they come past, but _p'raps_ him might be far away then."

And sometimes, when grandfather spoke about getting old and how white his hair was growing, Baby would look at him very gravely, for in his own mind he was wondering if the time was very soon coming for poor grandfather to be an old beggar-man. Baby thought it _had_ to be, you see, he thought it was just what must come to everybody.

Just as auntie and he had finished talking about getting old they turned a corner and went down a street which led them away from the view of the sea. This street had shops at both sides, and some of them were very pretty, but they were not the kind of shops that the little boys cared much for--they were mostly dressmakers' and milliners' and shawl shops.

Lots of grand dresses and hats and bonnets were to be seen, which would have pleased Celia and Denny perhaps, but which Fritz said were very stupid. Auntie did not seem to care for them either--she was in a hurry to go to an office where she was going to ask about a house that might do for them. So she walked on quickly, as quickly at least as Baby's short legs could go, for she held him by the hand, and Fritz and Lisa came behind. They left this street in a minute and crossed through two or three others before auntie could find the one she wanted. Suddenly Baby gave her a tug.

"Oh auntie," he said, "p'ease 'top one minute. Him sees shiny gla.s.s jugs like dear little mother's. Oh, do 'top."

Auntie stopped. They were pa.s.sing what is called an old curiosity shop; it was a funny looking place, seeming very crowded even though it was a large shop, for it was so very full of all sorts of queer things. Some among them were more queer than pretty, but some were very pretty too, and in one corner of the window there were several jugs, and cups, and bottles, and such things, of very fine gla.s.s, with the same sort of soft-coloured shine on it that Baby remembered in the two jugs that he had pulled down in the tiny trunk. Baby's eyes had spied them out at once.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "Oh, auntie," he said, "p'ease 'top one minute.

Him sees shiny gla.s.s jugs like dear little mother's. Oh, do 'top."--P. 106.]

"Look, look, auntie," he said, again gently tugging her.

"Yes, Baby dear, very pretty," said auntie, but without paying much attention to the gla.s.s, for she was not thinking of Baby's adventure in the pantry at the moment, and did not know what jugs of his mother's he meant.

"There is two _just_ like mother's," said Baby, but he spoke lower now, almost as if he were speaking to himself. An idea had come into his mind which he had hardly yet understood himself, and he did not want to speak of it to any one else. He just stood at the window staring in, his two eyes fixed on the gla.s.s jugs, and the great question he was saying to himself was, "How many pennies would they cost?"

"Them's a little smaller, him sinks," he murmured, "but p'raps mother wouldn't mind."

It was a mistake of his that they were smaller; they were really a little larger than the broken ones. Besides Baby had never seen the broken ones till they _were_ broken. One of them had been much less smashed than the other, and mother had examined it to see if it could possibly be mended so as to look pretty as an ornament, even though it would never do to hold water, and, when she found nothing could be done, she had told Thomas to keep the top part of it as a sort of pattern, in case she ever had a chance of getting the same. I think I forgot to explain this to you before, and you may have wondered how Baby knew so well what the jugs had been like.

"Them is a little smaller," he said again to himself. He did not understand that things often look smaller when they are among a great many others of the same kind, and though there was not a very great deal of the shiny gla.s.s in the shop window, there was enough to make it rather a wonder that such a little boy as Baby had caught sight of the two jugs at all, for they were behind the rest. He had time to look at them well, for, though auntie had been rather in a hurry, she, too, stood still in front of the shop, for something had caught her eyes too.

"How _very_ pretty, how sweet!" she said to herself, "I wish I could copy it. It seems to me beautifully done," and when Fritz, who had not found the shop so interesting as the others had done, in his turn gave her a tug and said, "Auntie, aren't you coming?" she pointed out to him what it was she was so pleased with.

"Isn't it sweet, Fritz?" said auntie.

"Yes," said Fritz, "but it's rather dirty, auntie, isn't it?"

Fritz was very, what is called, _practical_. The "it" that auntie was speaking about was an old picture, hanging up on the wall at the side of the door. It was the portrait of a little girl, a very little girl, of not more than three or four years old. She had a dear little face, sweet and bright, and yet somehow a very little sad, or else it was the long-ago make of the dress, and the faded look of the picture itself, beside the baby-like face that made it _seem_ sad. You couldn't help thinking the moment you saw it, "Dear me, that little girl must be a very old woman by now or most likely she must be dead!" I think it was that that made one feel sad on first looking at the picture, for, after all, the face _was_ bright and happy-looking: the rosy, roguish, little mouth was smiling, the soft blue eyes had a sort of twinkling fun in them, though they were so soft, and the fair hair, so fair that it almost seemed white, drawn up rather tight in an old-fashioned way, fell back again on one side as if little Blue-eyes had just been having a good run. And one fat, dimpled shoulder was poked out of the prim white frock in a way that, I daresay, had rather shocked the little girl's mother when the painter first showed her his work, for our little, old, great-great-grandfathers' and great-great-grandmothers', children, must have had to sit very, very still in their very best and stiffest frocks and suits when their pictures were painted, poor little things! They were not so lucky as you are nowadays, who have only to go to the photograph man's for half an hour, and keep your merry faces still for a quarter of a minute, if your mothers want to have a picture of you!

But Blue-eyes must have had some fun when _her_ picture was painted, I think, or else that little shoulder wouldn't have got leave to poke itself out of its sleeve, and there wouldn't have been that mischievous look about the comers of her mouth.

"_Isn't_ it a little dirty, auntie?" said Fritz.

"Wouldn't your face look a little dirty if it had been hanging up in a frame for over a hundred years?" said auntie, laughing, at which Fritz looked rather puzzled.

Then auntie's eyes went back to the picture again.

"It _is_ sweet," she said, "very, very sweet, and so perfectly natural."

All this time, as I told you, Herr Baby's whole mind had been given to the shiny gla.s.ses. Suddenly the sound of his aunt's voice caught his ear, and he looked up.

"What is it that is so 'weet, auntie?" he said.