Baby Jane's Mission Part 4

'Oh,' said the Rabbit, 'you don't know how my toes swell when I've got chilblains!'

'You shouldn't try to cheat Santa Claus,' replied Baby Jane, and the Rabbit had to cut his stocking down.

It was now some time since tea, and growing dark. It was not an English Christmas Eve, with holly and snow, and darkness lit and warmed by cosy flickering fires, but it seemed to Baby Jane that at that time all over the world as the darkness deepens there spreads everywhere one same feeling of coming happiness growing and growing until, as the dawn breaks, a great loving kiss falls upon the poor world to comfort and bless it, so that it awakes with its heart full of warmth and joy on Christmas morning.

'Now, before we hang up our stockings and go to sleep,' said Baby Jane, 'we have got to go out and sing carols, and the people we sing to will give us hot things to drink, and cake.'

'Oh, will they?' said the Lion. He loyally believed everything that his mistress said, but knowing the folk who lived in this neighbourhood, he had his doubts of this.

'Now, whom shall we sing to?' she asked.

'Well,' said the Lion rubbing his chin doubtfully, 'there are the Ourang-outangs, a decent family--at least, now and then.'

'O'rang o'tang!' said Baby Jane. 'I can't say that word. I used to know some people called O'Flanagan; let us call them the O'Flanagans.'

'You are always so clever!' said the Lion admiringly. 'Well, let us go and sing to the Flanagans. They live in the third palm tree on the left in the riverside avenue.'

So they set off under the starlit sky, Baby Jane on the Bear's shoulder, and the others close round her, all practising their voices and all very merry.

It was rather undignified of the Lion to sing falsetto, but he seemed to fancy that he did it well, and so he kept it up--a shrill squeal that now and then broke down suddenly into his own deep roar.

When they were still some way from the riverside avenue they heard distant sounds of a terrible riot.

'I do hope it is not the Flanagans,' said Baby Jane.

But unfortunately it _was_ the Flanagans. The screeching and hurrooing and thwack-slamming that was going on up that tree was marvellous.

Now and then down came a shower of cocoa-nuts and little Flanagans, but the little Flanagans went scuttling up the tree again to join once more in the fray.

Baby Jane was afraid and trembling, and longed to tell the Bear to gallop away with her; but that was not what she had come out to do, so she gathered her sc.r.a.ps of courage and said:

'Let us sing a carol: in the story-books bad people always turn good when they hear a carol'; and she struck up in a shaking voice, 'Heav'n rest you, merry gentlemen!'

And all the animals joined in--not properly of course, but still as each kept up one note--the Lion's falsetto rising high above the rest--it made a fairly good accompaniment to Baby Jane's tune.

After the first few notes the hullaballoo up in the palm tree ceased.

'Oh,' thought Baby Jane, 'it has made them gentle, and the story-books are right--oh, I am glad!'

But at that moment a storm of cocoa-nuts came pelting down upon them, and a voice exclaimed:

'Ah, it's no manners you have at all to come disturbing a decent family at this time of the night. Go away with you!'

And with that the riot began again.

'They all want to thrash little Patsey at once,' shouted the Lion in Baby Jane's ear; 'that is what they usually quarrel about.'

'Oh, how cruel!' she sobbed. 'I am going up to save him.'

And before any one could stop her, she was climbing up the tree with a skill only given her by her pity for little Patsey. The Light-Horse happened to be nearest to her, and though equally unused to climbing trees, up she went in hot pursuit of Baby Jane, with all the creatures after her.

The fight that followed, words will not describe. You must imagine for yourself a combat in the branches of a palm tree between a family of ourang-outangs and a lion, a light-horse, a bear, a rabbit, a crocodile, and two little mortals. Thrice were the invaders driven down the tree, and thrice, with Baby Jane and the Light-Horse in the van, they scaled it again. But with that last attack came victory.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Up she went in hot pursuit of Baby Jane.]

Disputing every inch of the branches, the Flanagans were forced back until they broke and fled.

Triumphant, though rather scratched and rumpled, Baby Jane rode off in triumph, bearing in her arms the rescued Patsey, who was a quaint little brown ape, all hands and feet, with bright inquisitive eyes.

All the way home they sang l.u.s.tily, and then, having hung up their stockings--Patsey should share hers, said Baby Jane--with their little queen in the middle of them, they curled up and went to sleep.

It should be said that, now that the nights had grown more chilly, they slept in a hollow in a great bush, and had to crawl in by a narrow tunnel. So thick were the leaves and branches that neither rain, nor enemies, nor even sunlight, could enter through the roof, and the floor was carpeted with soft moss. The Lion always slept in the doorway.

'A merry Christmas to you all,' said Baby Jane, as the new-risen sun shone straight down the tunnel, and she clapped her hands. Patsey, who had been nestling to her, clapped his hands and tried to say 'A merry Christmas.' That was his way. He would watch her with his head on one side, and thought it his solemn duty to do everything that she did.

The creatures all nodded and smiled and rubbed their eyes. Then some one said the word 'Stockings!' and there was a wild rush and then a joyful hubbub.

Every one wanted every one else to look at his presents and see how they worked. The Rabbit was the happiest of all. Though his stocking was empty there was a huge pile of presents underneath, for the reason that he had made it without any toes, so that Santa Claus had gone on trying to fill it up until he grew tired. The Rabbit did not seem a bit ashamed of his deceitfulness, and protested with indignant squeaks when Baby Jane picked him off his pile of ill-gotten gains by the ears with one hand and took as much as she could hold with the other and gave them to Patsey.

This was the only touch of unpleasantness.

Out of the presents each chose one favourite plaything. The Light-Horse had a skipping-rope, and she and the Bear, back to back, soon steadily hammered the desert for a hundred skips at a time.

And even then the Light-Horse, calm almost to sadness, was ready for another cool hundred.

The Rabbit's favourite was a clockwork mouse, but unfortunately he used its powers for bad purposes.

Among the presents that Baby Jane had taken from the greedy Rabbit and had given to Patsey was a wooden Dutch doll, and it was the darling of Patsey's heart. Now the Rabbit cast jealous eyes on that Dutch doll, so while the others were playing he decoyed Patsey into a quiet place and then whispered in a tone of cold, cruel ferocity:

'The very worst pain in the world is to be gnawed by mad clockwork mice.

Now you will give me back my Dutch doll, or I'll set my mouse on you!'

Patsey made no answer, but burst into a roar of terror and grief, and holding the doll above his head for safety, he pattered away as fast as his little legs could carry him.

After him, straight and swift as a motor-car, with a cruel gleam in its bead eyes, hissed the clockwork mouse, with the Rabbit racing behind, holding it by a string.

[Ill.u.s.tration: The Rabbit racing behind, holding it by a string.]

But when Patsey already felt the mouse's whiskers tickling his legs, a strange thing happened. There was a click inside it and it suddenly wheeled round, and, to the Rabbit's horror, made straight for _him_. He dropped the string and ran faster than he had ever run before, because, to his guilty conscience, it seemed that it was some spirit of Justice and not clockwork that propelled that mouse.

While this was going on, the Lion and the Crocodile were learning how to use their new roller skates upon a smooth hard patch of sand, and soon were swaying round and round like swallows on the wing. To see them link arms and, with the other hand on the hip, sweep along on the outside edge was wonderful, and Miss Crocodile's slender and flexible figure was shown to great advantage.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Miss Crocodile's slender and flexible figure was shown to great advantage.]

Baby Jane and the Piccaninny also had the very presents they had wanted, but Baby Jane had no time to play with hers just then.

The creatures played with their things all the morning until the time for dinner, which was as fine as you ever saw. In fact, the only thing wanting was a sprig of holly to stick in the rich fruit of the plum-pudding plant. And the cooking? Oh, there is no difficulty about cooking in a place where you use your window-sill for an oven and where you only use dish-covers to keep the food from being burned.