These little sketches are called "Three of Them," but there are really
five, on and off the stage. There is Daddy, a lumpish person with some
gift for playing Indian games when he is in the mood. He is then known
as "The Great Chief of the Leatherskin Tribe." Then there is my Lady
Sunshine. These are the grown-ups, and don't really count. There remain
the three, who need some differentiating upon paper, though their little
spirits are as different in reality as spirits could be--all beautiful
and all quite different. The eldest is a boy of eight whom we shall call
"Laddie." If ever there was a little cavalier sent down ready-made it is
he. His soul is the most gallant, unselfish, innocent thing that ever
God sent out to get an extra polish upon earth. It dwells in a tall,
slight, well-formed body, graceful and agile, with a head and face as
clean-cut as if an old Greek cameo had come to life, and a pair of
innocent and yet wise grey eyes that read and win the heart. He is shy
and does not shine before strangers. I have said that he is unselfish
and brave. When there is the usual wrangle about going to bed, up he
gets in his sedate way. "I will go first," says he, and off he goes, the
eldest, that the others may have the few extra minutes while he is in his
bath. As to his courage, he is absolutely lion-hearted where he can help
or defend any one else. On one occasion Daddy lost his temper with
Dimples (Boy Number 2), and, not without very good provocation, gave him
a tap on the side of the head. Next instant he felt a butt down
somewhere in the region of his waist-belt, and there was an angry little
red face looking up at him, which turned suddenly to a brown mop of hair
as the butt was repeated. No one, not even Daddy, should hit his little
brother. Such was Laddie, the gentle and the fearless.
Then there is Dimples. Dimples is nearly seven, and you never saw a
rounder, softer, dimplier face, with two great roguish, mischievous eyes
of wood-pigeon grey, which are sparkling with fun for the most part,
though they can look sad and solemn enough at times. Dimples has the
making of a big man in him. He has depth and reserves in his tiny soul.
But on the surface he is a boy of boys, always in innocent mischief. "I
will now do mischuff," he occasionally announces, and is usually as good
as his word. He has a love and understanding of all living creatures,
the uglier and more slimy the better, treating them all in a tender,
fairylike fashion which seems to come from some inner knowledge. He has
been found holding a buttercup under the mouth of a slug "to see if he
likes butter." He finds creatures in an astonishing way. Put him in the
fairest garden, and presently he will approach you with a newt, a toad,
or a huge snail in his custody. Nothing would ever induce him to hurt
them, but he gives them what he imagines to be a little treat and then
restores them to their homes. He has been known to speak bitterly to the
Lady when she has given orders that caterpillars be killed if found upon
the cabbages, and even the explanation that the caterpillars were doing
the work of what he calls "the Jarmans" did not reconcile him to their
fate.
He has an advantage over Laddie, in that he suffers from no trace of
shyness and is perfectly friendly in an instant with any one of every
class of life, plunging straight into conversation with some such remark
as "Can your Daddy give a war-whoop?" or "Were you ever chased by a
bear?" He is a sunny creature but combative sometimes, when he draws
down his brows, sets his eyes, his chubby cheeks flush, and his lips go
back from his almond-white teeth. "I am Swankie the Berserker," says he,
quoting out of his favourite "Erling the Bold," which Daddy reads aloud
at bed-time. When he is in this fighting mood he can even drive back
Laddie, chiefly because the elder is far too chivalrous to hurt him. If
you want to see what Laddie can really do, put the small gloves on him
and let him go for Daddy. Some of those hurricane rallies of his would
stop Daddy grinning if they could get home, and he has to fall back off
his stool in order to get away from them.
If that latent power of Dimples should ever come out, how will it be
manifest? Surely in his imagination. Tell him a story and the boy is
lost. He sits with his little round, rosy face immovable and fixed,
while his eyes never budge from those of the speaker. He sucks in
everything that is weird or adventurous or wild. Laddie is a rather
restless soul, eager to be up and doing; but Dimples is absorbed in the
present if there be something worth hearing to be heard. In height he is
half a head shorter than his brother, but rather more sturdy in build.
The power of his voice is one of his noticeable characteristics. If
Dimples is coming you know it well in advance. With that physical gift
upon the top of his audacity, and his loquacity, he fairly takes command
of any place in which he may find himself, while Laddie, his soul too
noble for jealousy, becomes one of the laughing and admiring audience.
Then there is Baby, a dainty elfin Dresden-china little creature of five,
as fair as an angel and as deep as a well. The boys are but shallow,
sparkling pools compared with this little girl with her self-repression
and dainty aloofness. You know the boys, you never feel that you quite
know the girl. Something very strong and forceful seems to be at the
back of that wee body. Her will is tremendous. Nothing can break or
even bend it. Only kind guidance and friendly reasoning can mould it.
The boys are helpless if she has really made up her mind. But this is
only when she asserts herself, and those are rare occasions. As a rule
she sits quiet, aloof, affable, keenly alive to all that passes and yet
taking no part in it save for some subtle smile or glance. And then
suddenly the wonderful grey-blue eyes under the long black lashes will
gleam like coy diamonds, and such a hearty little chuckle will come from
her that every one else is bound to laugh out of sympathy. She and
Dimples are great allies and yet have continual lovers' quarrels. One
night she would not even include his name in her prayers. "God bless--"
every one else, but not a word of Dimples. "Come, come, darling!" urged
the Lady. "Well, then, God bless horrid Dimples!" said she at last,
after she had named the cat, the goat, her dolls, and her Wriggly.
That is a strange trait, the love for the Wriggly. It would repay
thought from some scientific brain. It is an old, faded, disused downy
from her cot. Yet go where she will, she must take Wriggly with her. All
her toys put together would not console her for the absence of Wriggly.
If the family go to the seaside, Wriggly must come too. She will not
sleep without the absurd bundle in her arms. If she goes to a party she
insists upon dragging its disreputable folds along with her, one end
always projecting "to give it fresh air." Every phase of childhood
represents to the philosopher something in the history of the race. From
the new-born baby which can hang easily by one hand from a broomstick
with its legs drawn up under it, the whole evolution of mankind is re-
enacted. You can trace clearly the cave-dweller, the hunter, the scout.
What, then, does Wriggly represent? Fetish worship--nothing else. The
savage chooses some most unlikely thing and adores it. This dear little
savage adores her Wriggly.
So now we have our three little figures drawn as clearly as a clumsy pen
can follow such subtle elusive creatures of mood and fancy. We will
suppose now that it is a summer evening, that Daddy is seated smoking in
his chair, that the Lady is listening somewhere near, and that the three
are in a tumbled heap upon the bear-skin before the empty fireplace
trying to puzzle out the little problems of their tiny lives. When three
children play with a new thought it is like three kittens with a ball,
one giving it a pat and another a pat, as they chase it from point to
point. Daddy would interfere as little as possible, save when he was
called upon to explain or to deny. It was usually wiser for him to
pretend to be doing something else. Then their talk was the more
natural. On this occasion, however, he was directly appealed to.
"Daddy!" asked Dimples.
"Yes, boy."
"Do you fink that the roses know us?"
Dimples, in spite of his impish naughtiness, had a way of looking such a
perfectly innocent and delightfully kissable little person that one felt
he really might be a good deal nearer to the sweet secrets of Nature than
his elders. However, Daddy was in a material mood.
"No, boy; how could the roses know us?"
"The big yellow rose at the corner of the gate knows _me_."
"How do you know that?"
"'Cause it nodded to me yesterday."
Laddie roared with laughter.
"That was just the wind, Dimples."
"No, it was not," said Dimples, with conviction. "There was none wind.
Baby was there. Weren't you, Baby?"
"The wose knew us," said Baby, gravely.
"Beasts know us," said Laddie. "But them beasts run round and make
noises. Roses don't make noises."
"Yes, they do. They rustle."
"Woses wustle," said Baby.
"That's not a living noise. That's an all-the-same noise. Different to
Roy, who barks and makes different noises all the time. Fancy the roses
all barkin' at you. Daddy, will you tell us about animals?"
That is one of the child stages which takes us back to the old tribe
life--their inexhaustible interest in animals, some distant echo of those
long nights when wild men sat round the fires and peered out into the
darkness, and whispered about all the strange and deadly creatures who
fought with them for the lordship of the earth. Children love caves, and
they love fires and meals out of doors, and they love animal talk--all
relics of the far distant past.
"What is the biggest animal in South America, Daddy?"