Carrots: Just a Little Boy

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."

CHAPTER III.

PLANS

"'Have you invented a plan for it?' Alice inquired.
'Not yet,' said the knight."

    Through the Looking-glass.
The next morning Carrots woke very early, and the first thing he thought of was the plan. Floss and he slept in the night nursery, in two little beds, and nurse slept in a small room that had a door opening into the nursery. She used to sleep there herself, but now that Carrots was so big, Floss and he were quite safe by themselves, and poor old nurse enjoyed having her own little room.

Floss was still asleep, so Carrots only climbed out of his own cot into hers, and crouched himself down at the foot, watching for her to wake. Floss looked very nice asleep; her "fuzzy" hair was tumbling over the pillow, and her cheeks looked pinker than when she was awake.

"I wonder what being asleep is," thought the little boy as he looked at her. "I always go away, such a long way, when I am asleep. I wonder if Floss does."