SIX YEARS OLD.
"As for me, I love the sea,
The dear old sea!
Don't you?"
_Song._
I think I said there was nothing very remarkable about the place where
Carrots lived, but considering it over, I am not quite sure that you
would agree with me. It was near the sea for one thing, and _that_ is
always remarkable, is it not? _How_ remarkable, how wonderful and
changeful the sea is, I doubt if any one can tell who has not really
lived by it, not merely visited it for a few weeks in the fine summer
time, when it looks so bright and sunny and inviting, but lived by it
through autumn and winter too, through days when it looks so dull and
leaden, that one can hardly believe it will ever be smiling and playful
again, through fierce, rough days, when it lashes itself with fury, and
the wind wails as if it were trying to tell the reason.
Carrots' nursery window looked straight out upon the sea, and many and
many an hour Floss and he spent at this window, watching their strange
fickle neighbour at his gambols. I do not know that they thought the sea
at all wonderful. I think they were too much accustomed to it for that,
but they certainly found it very _interesting_. Floss had names for the
different kinds of waves; some she called "ribs of beef," when they
showed up sideways in layers as it were, of white and brown, and some
she called "ponies." That was the kind that came prancing in, with a
sort of dance, the white foam curling and rearing, and tossing itself,
just exactly like a frisky pony's mane. Those were the prettiest waves
of all, I think.
It was not at all a dangerous coast, where the Cove House, that was
Carrots' home, stood. It was not what is called "picturesque." It was a
long flat stretch of sandy shore, going on and on for miles just the
same. There were very few trees and no mountains, not even hills.
In summer, a few, just a very few visitors used to come to Sandyshore
for bathing; they were always visitors with children, for every one said
it was such a nice safe place for little people.
But, safe as it was, it wasn't till Carrots was growing quite a big boy,
nearly six, I should think, that Floss and he got leave to go out and
play on the shore by themselves, the thing they had been longing for
ever since they could remember.
This was how they did get leave at last. Nurse was very, very busy, one
day; really quite extra busy, for she was arranging and helping to pack
Jack's things to go to a new school. Jack was so big now, about sixteen,
that he was going to a kind of college, or grown-up school, the last he
would go to, before entering the army. And there was quite a fuss in
the house. Jack thought himself almost as grand as if he was an officer
already, and Mott was overpowered with envy. Everybody was fussing about
Jack, and no one had much time to think of the two little ones.
They stood at the nursery window, poor little souls, when Floss came up
from her lessons, gazing out wistfully. It was a nice spring day, not
exactly sunny, but looking as if the sun were only hiding himself to
tease you, and might come out any minute.
"If we _might_ go down to the shore," said Floss, half to herself, half
to Carrots, and half to nurse. I shouldn't have said it so, for there
can't be three halves of anything, but no doubt you will understand.
"Go down to the shore, my dear?" repeated nurse, "I wish you could, I'm
sure, but it will be afternoon, at least, before I have a minute to
spare to take you. And there's no one else to-day, for cook and Esther
are both as busy as busy. Perhaps Miss Cecil and Miss Louise will take
you when they have done their lessons."
"We don't care to go with them, much," said Floss, "they don't
understand our plays. We like best to go with you, nursie, and you to
sit down with your sewing near--that's the nicest way. Oh, nurse," she
exclaimed, with sudden eagerness, "wouldn't you let us go alone? You can
peep out of the window and see us every few minutes, and we'll be so
good."
Nurse looked out of the window doubtfully.
"Couldn't you play in the garden at the back, instead?" she said. "Your
papa and mamma won't be home till late, and I am always in a terror of
any harm happening while they are away."
"We won't let any harm happen," said Floss, "and we are _so_ tired of
the garden, nurse. There is nothing to play at there. The little waves
are so pretty this morning."
There was certainly very little to play at in the green, at the back of
the house, which was called the garden. Being so near the sea, the soil
was so poor, that hardly any flowers would grow, and even the grass was
coarse and lumpy. Then there were no trees, and what is a garden without
trees?
Nurse looked out of the window again.
"Well," she said, "if you will really be very good, I think I might
trust you. Now, Master Carrots, you will promise to do exactly what Miss
Floss tells you?"
"Yes, I promise," said Carrots, who had been listening with great
anxiety, though he had not hitherto spoken--he was not a great
talker--"I promise, nurse. I will do exactly what Floss tells me, and
Floss will do exactly what I tell her, won't you, Floss? So we shall
both be _kite_ good, that way, won't we?"
"Very well," said nurse gravely, though she felt very much inclined to
laugh, "then run and get your things as fast as you can."
And, oh, how happy the two were when they found themselves out on the
shore all alone! They were so happy, they did not know what to do; so
first of all, they ran races to run away a little of the happiness. And
when they had run themselves quite hot, they sat down on a little heap
of stones to consider what they should do next. They had no spades with
them, for they did not care very much about digging; children who live
always by the sea never care so much about digging as the little
visitors who come down in the summer, and whose very first idea at the
sight of the sea is "spades and buckets."
"What shall we play at, Carrots?" said Floss, "I wish it was warm enough
to paddle."
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 pique 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."