The Adventures of Herr Baby Part 4

"'Oh Nelly, Nelly. I'se here; I'se shut up in the big box with the cupboards.'

"They didn't hear me at first. My little voice must have sounded very faint and squeaky from out of the trunk, besides they were not half-way up the attic-stairs. So I went on crying--

"'Oh Nelly, Nelly! I'se up here. Oh Nelly, Nelly!'

"She heard me this time. Dear Nelly! I never have called to her in vain, children, in all my life. And in half a minute she had dashed up the stairs, and, guided by my voice, was kneeling down beside the trunk.

"'Little May, my poor little May,' Nelly called out; and do you know I really think she was crying too! I was--by the time Nelly and the servants who were with her had got the lid unhooked and raised, and had lifted me out--I was in floods of tears. I clung to Nelly, and told her how 'dedful' it had been, and she petted me so that I am afraid I quite forgot it was all my own fault.

"'You might have been there for hours and hours, May,' Nelly said to me, 'if it hadn't been for nurse thinking of the window on the stair. You must never go off by yourself to do things like that,' and when I told her that I had asked her and she had given me leave, she said she had not at all known what I meant, and that I must try to remember not to tease about things once I had been told to wait. Any way I think I had got a good lesson of patience that day, and one that I never forgot, for it really is not at all a pleasant thing to be shut up in a big trunk."

Mother stopped.

Baby, who had been listening with solemn eyes, said slowly,

"Him will not pack by hisself. Him will wait till somebody can help him.

It would be so dedful sad if him was to get shuttened up like poor little mother, and perhaps you'd all go away ac'oss the sea and nebber find him."

The corners of his mouth went down at this sorrowful picture, and his eyes looked as if they were beginning to think about crying. But mother and Celia set to work petting and kissing him before the tears had time to come.

"As if we would ever go across the sea without _him_," said mother.

"Why, we should never know how to do _anything_ without Herr Baby," said Celia.

"Fritz and Baby will do all the fussy things in travelling--taking the tickets, and counting the luggage, and all that--they're such big men, aren't they?" said Denny, with mischief in her twinkling green eyes.

"Now you, just mind what you're about," said Fritz, gallantly. "You'll make him cry just when mother's been comforting him up. Such stupids girls are!" he added in a lower voice.

"I really must go now," said mother, getting up from her chair. "Auntie will not know what has become of me. I have been up here, why a whole half hour, instead of five minutes!"

"Auntie will think mother's got shut up in a trunk again," said Denny, whose tongue _never_ could be still for long, and at this piece of wit they all burst out laughing.

All but Herr Baby. He couldn't see that it was any laughing matter.

Mother's story had sunk deep into his mind. Trunks were things to be careful of. Baby saw this clearly.

CHAPTER III.

UP IN THE MORNING EARLY

"Sweet, eager promises bind him to this, Never to do so again."

He woke early next morning. He had so much to think of, you see. So much that even his dreams were full of all he had heard yesterday.

"Him's been d'eaming him was in the big, big, 'normous boat, and zen him d'eamed of being shuttened up in a t'unk like _poor_ little mother," he confided to Denny.

He was forced to tell Denny a good many things, because they slept in the same room, and, of course, everybody knows that _whatever_ mammas and nurses say, going-to-sleep-in-bed time is _the_ time for talking.

Waking-up-in-the-morning time is rather tempting, too, particularly in summer, when the sun comes in at the windows _so_ brightly and the birds are _so_ lively, chattering away to each other, and all the world is up and about, except "_us_," who _have_ to stay in bed till seven o'clock!

Ah, it _is_ a trial! On the whole, I don't think chattering in the mornings is so much to be found fault with as chattering at night. It is only children who are so silly as to keep themselves awake when the time for going to sleep has come. The birds and the bees, and the little lambs even, all know when that time has come, and go to sleep without any worry to themselves or other people. But children are not always so sensible. I _could_ tell you a story--only I am afraid if she were to read it in this little book it would make her feel so ashamed that I should really be sorry for her, so I will not tell you her name nor where she lives--of a little girl who was promised two pounds, two whole gold pounds--fancy! if for one month she would go quietly to sleep at night when she was put to bed, and let her sister do the same; and she was to lose two s.h.i.+llings every night she forgot or disobeyed. Well, what do you think? at the end of two weeks the two pounds had come down already to nineteen s.h.i.+llings! She had forgotten already ten times, or ten and a half times--I don't quite understand how it had come to nineteen, but so it had; and at the end of the month--no I don't think I will tell you what it had come down to. Only this will show you how much more difficult it is to get out of a bad habit than to get into a good one, for this little girl is very sweet and good in many ways, and I love her dearly--_only_ she had got into this bad habit, and it was stronger, as bad habits so often are, than her real true wish to do what her mother told her.

But I have wandered away from Herr Baby, and I am afraid you won't be pleased. He was forced, I was saying, to tell Denny a good many things, because he was most with her. I don't think he would have told her as much but for that, for Denny's head was a very flighty one, and she never cared to think or talk about the same thing for long together, which was not _at all_ Herr Baby's way. _He_ liked to think a good deal about everything, and one thing lasted him a good while.

"Him's been d'eaming such a lot," he said to Denny this morning.

"I think dreams are very stupid," said Denny. "What's the good of them?

If they made things come _real_ they would be some good. Like, you know, if I was to dream somebody gave me something awfully nice, and then when I woke up I was to see the thing on my bed, _then_ dreams would be some good."

"But if zou d'eamed somesing dedful, like being shuttened up in a t'unk like _poor_ little mother, _zen_ it wouldn't be nice for it to come zeal," said Baby, who never forgot to look at things from both sides.

"No, of course it wouldn't. How stupid you are!" said Denny. "And how your head does run on one thing. I'm quite tired of you talking about mother being shut up in the trunk. Do talk of something else."

"Him can't talk of somesing else when him's sinking of one sing," said Baby gravely.

"Well, then don't talk at all," said Denny sharply, "and indeed I think we'd better be quiet, or Lisa will be coming in, and scolding us. It's only half-past six."

Baby did not speak for a minute or two. Then he said solemnly,

"When us goes away ac'oss the sea in the 'normous boat, him _hopes_ him won't sleep in the same zoom as you any more."

"I'm sure I hope not," said Denny snappishly. There was some excuse for her this morning, she was really rather sleepy, and it is very tiresome to be wakened up at half-past six, when one is quite inclined to sleep till half-past seven.

But Baby could not go to sleep again. His mind was still running on packing. If he could but have a _little_ box of his own to pack his own treasures in, then he would be sure none would be forgotten. He did not want a _big_ trunk--not one in which he could be shuttened up like mother, but just a nice little one. If mother would give him one!

Stay--where had he seen one, just what he wanted, was it in the nursery or in the cupboard where Fritz kept his garden-tools and his skates, and all the big boy things which Baby too hoped to have of his own some day?

No, it was not there. It must have been--yes, it was in the pantry when he went to ask James for a gla.s.s of water. Up on a shelf, high up it stood, "a tiny _sweet_ little t'unk," said Herr Baby to himself, "wouldn't mother let him have it?" He would ask her this morning as soon as he saw her. Then he lay still and thought over to himself all the things he would pack in the tiny sweet little t'unk; his best Bible with his name

"Raymond Arthur Aylmer,"

in the gold letters on the back, should have the nicest corner, of course, and his "_scented_ purse," as he called the Russia leather purse which grandfather had given him on his last birthday, that would go nicely beside the Bible, and his watch that _really_ ticked as long as you turned the key in it--all those things would fit in, nicely packed in "totton wool," of course, and crushy paper. The thought of it all made Baby's fingers fidget with eagerness to begin his packing. If only mother would give him the box! It must be mother's, for if it was James's he would keep it in his own room instead of up on the pantry shelf among all the gla.s.ses and cups. If Baby could just see it again he would know 'ezackly if it would do!

Baby looked about him. Everything was perfectly still, he heard no one moving about the house--Denny had said it was only half-past six.

"Denny," said Baby softly.

No reply.

"_Denny_," a very little louder.

Still no reply; but Baby, by leaning over the edge of his cot a little, could see that Denny's eyes were shut, and her nose was half buried in the pillow in the way she always turned it when she went to sleep. Denny had gone to sleep again.

"Zes," said Herr Baby to himself; "her's a'leep--her's beazing so soft."

He looked about him again; he stuck one little warm white foot out of bed--it did feel _rather_ cold; he felt more than half inclined just to cuddle himself up warm again and lie still till Lisa came to dress him.

But the thought of the little t'unk was too much for him.

"Him would so like just to _see_ it," he said to himself.