A ROOMFUL OF BABIES, AND A GIANT’S CHAIR
“Now then, let’s change places,” said Loveday impatiently, as
Priscilla’s last curl was freed.
“Oh no; you _must_ wait until we have quite reached the top of the
hill! You don’t want to make poor Betsy stand here with the carriage
dragging her back all the time, do you?”
“I fink Betsy would like to stop and rest for a little while, and I am
_sure_ she wouldn’t mind. She is very strong, and I am not a bit heavy.
I don’t suppose she feels whether I am in the carriage or not. Do you
think she does?”
“She hears you, if she doesn’t feel you,” said Dr. Carlyon.
“Do you think that Priscilla and I and your medicine-case, all put
together, weigh as much as you do, father?”
“I think that if we had waited a year or two before we chose a name for
you, we should have called you ‘Chatterpie’ instead of Loveday.”
“Oh, I wish you had!” cried Loveday. “Wouldn’t it have been funny:
Chatterpie Jane Carlyon? Now, Prissy, _do_ make Betsy stop; we have
come to the very top. It is quite flat here.”
“I am going to draw up near that gate,” said Priscilla firmly, “so that
I can smell the charlock in that field.”
“That horrid weed!” said Dr. Carlyon. “You surely don’t like that?
Whoa, Betsy!” And without much coaxing Betsy came to a standstill by
the gate of the field where the charlock grew.
“I love it,” said Priscilla, drawing in deep breaths of the
charlock-scented air; “it always reminds me of--of--oh,
something--drives, and nice things, and sunny days, and the day you
gave me ‘Grimm’s Fairy Tales,’ father.”
“I will get down now,” said her father, “then you must slip up on to
the box-seat, and I will get up on the other side and take Loveday on
my lap.”
Priscilla was delighted. She did not say much, but she was in a perfect
rapture of joy at being given the box-seat, and allowed to drive on the
level, and even downhill. She had never done so much before, and she
thought she should never, never forget this happy day. She longed to
get down and hug Betsy, and pat her as her father was doing. Instead,
she looked up at the darting, thrilling larks, and sniffed in the smell
of the charlock. It could not really have been the scent that she
loved, but the associations it had, and the thoughts it brought to her;
and she felt that she should love it more than ever after this day.
Then Dr. Carlyon got up and took Loveday on his knee, and on they went
again. Presently they saw a cart coming towards them, and Priscilla’s
heart beat a little faster as she realised that she would have to pass
it. She did not say anything, but her cheeks grew very red, and she
felt a great desire to take one rein in each hand; it seemed to her
that she could pull Betsy in better if she did; but she did not do it;
she knew it was not the right way to hold the reins, and she was rather
proud of her skill as a driver.
“You know which side of the road to keep, don’t you?” asked her father.
“You haven’t forgotten the verse I taught you, have you?”
“No,” said Priscilla. “At least, I remember most of it.
“‘The rules of the road are a paradox quite.’”
Then she paused. “Um-um, I never can remember that second line; but it
doesn’t matter, it doesn’t tell you anything. I know the others--
“‘If you keep to the left you are sure to be right,
If you keep to the right you are wrong.’”
Priscilla did not know what “paradox” meant, but she thought the last
two lines were wonderfully clever, and she always said them to herself
when she was driving. The worst of it was, she could not always decide
in a moment which was her left hand and which her right. She had to
think of the nursery at home, where, if she faced the window, the
gas-bracket was on her left hand, and she had to picture herself there,
facing the window, and then she knew. But she had not always time to
think of those things, particularly when she was driving.
Now if the boy, who was coming nearer and nearer, had only drawn in to
one side or the other, she would have known what to do, and would have
pulled in to the opposite side, but he came right along the middle of
the road, and the only thing he seemed inclined to do was to drive into
them, until at last poor Priscilla was struck with a sudden panic of
alarm.
“Father,” she cried, “please, will you drive--I--I don’t know where to
go!”
Her father, looking up and seeing what was happening, took the reins,
and as he drew Betsy in to the hedge, he called out very sharply to the
stupid boy:
“Keep to your own side, boy; do you hear? Pull to the left. Don’t take
the whole road. Ah, I see it is Mr. Bennet’s horse and cart you are
in charge of? Well, I shall tell Mr. Bennet that you must have a few
lessons in driving before you can be trusted with a horse again. You
are a danger to every one you meet. You were quite right, Prissy,” he
said, giving her back the reins; “the drivers should be next each other
when passing, but that boy required the whole road and the ditches too.
Would you rather I drove now?”
“Oh no, thank you, I want to drive again.”
She felt ashamed of herself for having been so frightened, and made
up her mind to drive past the next vehicle she met, no matter what it
was. A great hay-waggon with a load of hay on it soon loomed in sight,
and for a moment it seemed as though there was no room in the road for
anything else, but Priscilla tried very hard not to be foolish. “The
drivers must pass next each other,” she repeated to herself; but this
driver was walking at the horse’s head, and he was on the far side of
the horse. She would have to go right across the road to pass close by
him. “He must be on the wrong side,” she thought. “Oh dear, what a lot
of men don’t know the rules of the road.”
When they were safely past she drew a big deep breath of relief, but
she felt very glad that she had managed by herself.
“Father, don’t you think all the boys should be made to learn at school
that verse you taught me; then they would know better how to drive?”
“I do indeed,” said Dr. Carlyon; “perhaps they would remember a simple
little thing like that. It isn’t much they do remember six months after
they have left school.”
“Hocking’s son Ned can draw a pear beautifully,” said Priscilla very
impressively, “but Hocking didn’t seem a bit glad. He said, ‘Better
fit they took and taught ’em how to grow ’em;’ he didn’t see what time
Ned was going to have for drawing pears on a bit of paper when he was
‘prenticed.’ Neither do I,” added Priscilla gravely.
Dr. Carlyon burst into hearty laughter.
“Quite true,” he said, “quite true. I am glad Hocking has so much
common sense, and I foresee that some day we shall have you sitting on
School Boards, and such-like.”
Priscilla supposed a School Board was some sort of hard seat or form,
but she did not like to ask, though she wondered very much why her
father should laugh so about it.
“I think, though, Prissy, you had better not talk as Hocking does. It
is not quite the way that little girls should speak.”
Priscilla sighed.
“I wish I was a boy,” she said earnestly. “I don’t want to sit on
School Boards and things, but I want to talk like Hocking, and to be a
miller’s man, and drive a waggon with four horses, and shout ‘Gee wug.’
Or else I’d like to be a Coachman or a bus-driver. I would rather be a
miller’s man, though, ’cause I like the little short whip the best; it
is so much easier to crack.”
“I am sorry,” said her father, smiling at her. “I suppose that driving
poor old Betsy only, and with a long-handled whip, which is never
required, is very poor fun to you, you ambitious young person!”
“Oh no; I love Betsy, and I love driving her, but, of course, I can’t
drive Betsy always; I am going to earn my own living when I grow up.”
“Would you have bells on the horse’s harness if you were a miller’s
man?” asked Loveday.
“Oh yes--a whole lot of dear little brass ones, and I’d keep them
always shining like new.”
“Well, here we are at Lantig School-house,” said Dr. Carlyon. “Draw
up here, Prissy. Would you two like to come inside, or wait in the
carriage?”
“Is it vaccinations?” asked Priscilla.
“Yes, it is vaccinations. I think there will be about a dozen or more
babies to-day.”
“Then I’ll come. Come along, Loveday, in, and see all the dear little
babies.”
Priscilla scrambled down, and Dr. Carlyon lifted out Loveday.
“You look very warm in that shawl,” he said. “I think you might take it
off while you are inside.”
Loveday, though, preferred to keep it.
“I’ll unpin it,” she said, “but I think I will wear it, ’cause it goes
with my parasol, and I am going to take in my parasol for the babies to
see. I think they will think it very pretty, don’t you, Priscilla?”
But Priscilla was already inside the building, gazing with fascinated
eyes at the rows of mothers and babies. The building, which was the
school-house, and stood a little way outside the village, had been
cleared of its usual occupants, and on the forms, which had been moved
back in two lines along the sides, sat a lot of country women, each
one holding a baby. Such jolly babies they were, most of them, great,
plump, smiling, healthy, country babies. Some were too young to notice
anything, and just lay asleep, or staring contentedly about them, but
others sat up and looked at Priscilla and each other and their mothers,
and laughed and crowed, and waggled their bald heads about. They were
all specklessly, spotlessly clean and kissable in their cotton frocks
and big pinafores, and the mothers looked as clean and tidy as the
babies, and most of them were just as smiling. When they saw the doctor
come in the mothers all stood up and curtseyed, and Dr. Carlyon had a
word and a smile for each one.
“Iss, they’m good enough now, doctor!” said one woman, in answer to his
remark on the babies’ good temper; “but I reckon you’ll soon set ’em
laughing the other side of their faces, poor dears.”
Loveday, who had become rather shy when she found herself entering a
room so full, stood and looked with interest at the woman who spoke,
and presently drew nearer to her:
“Does your baby scream on the other side of his face sometimes?” she
asked eagerly.
For a moment Mrs. Rouse looked at her, not quite understanding her.
“Iss, that ’e do, missie,” she said at last, “and pretty often too,
when he gets contrairy.”
“I wish you would tell me how he does it,” said Loveday anxiously; “I
do want to know.”
But, to her surprise and annoyance, Mrs. Rouse only burst into a peal
of laughter. Loveday could not bear to be laughed at at any time, but
there, before a whole roomful of strangers, it was really dreadful, she
thought. With very red cheeks she turned away and walked straight out
of the school-house, and glad she was that she did, for as she left she
heard Mrs. Rouse telling the others what she had said; after which they
all laughed.
* * * * *
Loveday was very mortified and angry.
“I wish I hadn’t gone in,” she thought; “I won’t look at their babies
again, if they want me to ever so much. _I_ think they are very ugly
babies, and--and I’ll _say_ so if they laugh at me any more.”
She climbed up into the carriage, and perched herself on the seat, but
very soon she remembered that by-and-by the women and their babies
would all come out by that same door, and she would have to face them
all. When she remembered this she felt she could not possibly stay
there, so she climbed down again and wondered what she should do with
herself. She walked along the road a little way while she pondered,
and at last, around a bend in it, she saw to her great astonishment the
“giant’s arm-chair.”
The “giant’s arm-chair” stood high up in the hedge-bank beside the
road; it was made of white granite, and the seat of it was as large
as the floor of a small room; it had also an enormously wide, rounded
back, and two large arms; down in front of it, at one corner, was
a smaller block of granite, which was always known as the “giant’s
footstool.”
Loveday had driven past the great chair very often, and longed to stop
and climb up into it, but until to-day she had never had a chance. In
her delight she forgot all about the women and their laughter. But,
alas! when she reached the chair she found that the seat was far too
high for her to climb up into by herself; it would have taken a very
tall man to lift her high enough to reach it.
“Never mind, I can sit on the footstool,” she thought; but even that
proved a climb, and it was a difficult matter to get up and hold on to
her parasol all the time. She did manage it, though, after a struggle,
and when she sat up on it, holding her parasol open over her, she felt
quite repaid for her trouble, and very pleased and proud, only she did
wish Priscilla was there too.
“I wonder if the giant had any little children, and if they used to sit
on this footstool. I expect so. Oh, I _do_ wish Prissy would come and
see me now. She can’t really want to stay and look at those babies any
longer.”
[Illustration: “THE ‘GIANT’S FOOTSTOOL.’”]
Only a very low hedge bordered the road on the other side, and beyond
that stretched a large piece of wild moorland, covered with large
blocks of granite. “That was one of the giant’s play-grounds,” her
father had once told her, “when Cornwall was full of giants, and very
probably the great rocks scattered about were the stones they had
thrown at each other in play, or when quarrelling.”
“I am very glad I didn’t live then,” thought Loveday; “I wonder what
happened to little girls like me. I wonder if they ate them all up! I
expect they did if they caught them sitting in their armchairs,” and a
little thrill of fear ran through her at the thought. It was very wild
and lonely there, with not a living thing in sight, except a few big
crows cawing noisily as they flew overhead, and a few goats clambering
about over the moorland opposite her. If one had not known that there
was the school-house and a little shop and a house round the bend of
the road, one might have felt oneself miles and miles from anywhere,
and anybody. Loveday felt as though she were, and it really seemed to
her that at any minute a big giant might come striding along the wide
white road to have a rest in his chair, and would catch her!
Of course, she did not really expect him, and she knew there were no
giants nowadays, but she felt she would rather like to see Betsy again,
and be safely in the dear old carriage, where there were rugs and
things to hide under, and she at once scrambled down from the footstool
and ran, not because she was nervous, of course! but because she wanted
a change, and to see Betsy.
“O Betsy, I am so glad to see you!” she cried, as she ran up to the
dear old horse and hugged her; and Betsy, who had been having “forty
winks,” opened her eyes and looked down at her little mistress with
what was certainly a smile, and she put down her soft nose and snuzzled
her affectionately. Once more Loveday mounted the carriage, but as she
did so she remembered the mothers and babies in the schoolroom. “Oh
dear,” she cried impatiently, “it seems to me I can’t get any rest; if
it isn’t giants it’s mothers! But I know what I’ll do: I will lie down
here, and when I hear them coming I will pull the rug up over me so
that they can’t see me.”
So she curled herself up on the lower of the two seats, with the rug
all over her except her head. She was only to pull it right up when she
heard any of them coming. But at one moment she thought she heard the
handle of the door being turned, and then she thought she heard voices
and footsteps coming out; and she had so many false alarms and grew so
nervous that at last she snuggled right down under the rug and stayed
there, and then she forgot to listen, and somehow, instead of being in
the carriage she was in the giant’s oven, and oh, it was so hot there
she felt she was being suffocated, when suddenly the oven door was
opened, and such beautiful cool air rushed in, and--
“Why, what has the child wrapped herself up like this for?” exclaimed a
voice; “she must be trying to cook herself, I think.”
“Perhaps she is afraid of getting a cold where her tooth came out,”
said another voice, which was Prissy’s. Loveday roused herself, and sat
up and stretched; she was very hot and tumbled, and rosy and she could
not remember for a moment what had happened. Then out came a woman with
a crying baby in her arms. Loveday recognised Mrs. Rouse, and wanted to
be under the rug again.
“There, missie! He’s laughing the other side of his face now,” she
said, smiling good-temperedly up at Loveday, and holding out the
sobbing baby for her to see.
“I don’t think he is at all pretty, whichever side he smiles,” said
Loveday very crossly, and without a ghost of a smile on her own face.
She knew she was rude and unkind, but she felt at that moment that
she wanted to say something nasty, and she said it. Priscilla was
shocked, and her father was vexed with her, but Mrs. Rouse only laughed
good-temperedly.
“It was your pa that made him to. You must ask him to learn you how to
laugh the other side of your face.”
“I don’t want to know, thank you,” said Loveday shortly. “Prissy, will
you pin up my shawl, please? If I talk any more I shall catch a cold in
my mouth.”
Priscilla got up, and, kneeling on the seat beside her little sister,
arranged the shawl very carefully about her.
“I wouldn’t speak like that if I were you, dear,” she said gently;
“Mrs. Rouse is such a nice, kind woman, and she doesn’t understand
that you don’t like her--her joking.” Loveday jerked away her head
quite crossly, but Priscilla went on. “If you laugh and don’t take any
notice, they won’t think anything about it; but if you look so cross
and say nasty rude things, they will talk ever so much about it.”
Loveday saw the sense of this, and it seemed so dreadful that she
forced herself to be less disagreeable, and to look at some of the
other babies, and even to smile at some of the mothers, but she could
not forgive Mrs. Rouse quite yet.