The Adventures of Herr Baby

"Well, you weren't there," said Denny again.

"Children, don't contradict each other. It's not nice," said auntie.

"Him didn't begin," said Baby, "t'were Denny beginned."

"I didn't. I only said once that Baby wasn't born hundreds of years ago," said Denny, "and then he – "

"Onst is as wurst as twicet," said Baby.

Mother turned round at this. There was a funny look on her face, but still she spoke rather gravely.

"Baby, I don't know what's coming over you," she said. "It isn't like you to speak like that."

Baby's face grew red, and he turned his head away.

"Him didn't mean zeally that ganfather were lazy," he said, in a low voice.

"It wasn't that I was vexed with you for," said mother. "I know you were joking when you said that. I meant what you said to Denny."

"Him's werry sorry," said Baby, on the point of tears.

"Never mind. Don't cry about it," said mother, who really wanted the children to be very good and happy this first day. And she was a little afraid of Baby's beginning to cry, for, sometimes, once he had begun, it was not very easy to stop him.

"You don't understand about grandfather and his breakfast," said auntie. "Here nobody has big breakfast when they first get up except you children, who have the same that you have at home."

"No we don't," said Denny. "At home we have bread and milk every day except Sunday – on Sunday we have bacon or heggs, because that's the nothing-for-breakfast day."

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-butter 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 glass jugs like dear little mother's. Oh, do 'top."

Auntie stopped. They were passing 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 glass, 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.

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

"Yes, Baby dear, very pretty," said auntie, but without paying much attention to the glass, 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 glass 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 glass 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.