Transcribed from the [1890] W. & R. Chambers edition, by David Price,
email ccx074@pglaf.org
{Book cover: cover.jpg}
DICKORY DOCK
BY
L. T. MEADE
AUTHOR OF
'SCAMP AND I,' 'DADDY'S BOY,' 'A WORLD OF GIRLS,'
'POOR MISS CAROLINA,' &C.
W. & R. CHAMBERS, LIMITED
LONDON AND EDINBURGH
Edinburgh:
Printed by W. & R. Chambers, Limited.
CHAPTER I.
Of course there was a baby in the case--a baby and mongrel dog, and a
little boy and girl. They baby was small, and not particularly fair, but
it had round limbs and a dimple or two, and a soft, half-pathetic, half-
doggy look in its blue eyes, and the usual knack, which most helpless
little babies have, of twining itself round the hearts of those who took
care of it.
The caretakers of this baby were the two children and the dog. Of course
a woman, who went by the name of nurse, did duty somewhere in the
background; she washed the baby and dressed it in the morning, and she
undressed it at night, and she prepared food for it; but the caretakers
who called up smiles to the little white face, who caused the baby to
show that enticing little dimple which it had in one of its cheeks, who
made that strange, sweet, half-pathetic, half-humorous look come into its
eyes, were the children and the dog. The baby had a sad history; it had
entered the world with sorrow. Its mother had died at its birth, and the
little wee orphan creature had been brought away almost directly to an
uncle's house.
'We must do it, wife,' said Mr Franklin; 'there's poor John died two
months back, and now there's his widow following him, poor creature, and
no one to look after that wee mite of a babe. We must have it here, it's
our plain duty, and I don't suppose one extra mouth to feed can make much
difference.'
'That's all you men know,' replied Mrs Franklin, who was a very tall,
thin, fretful-looking woman. 'No difference indeed! A baby make no
difference! And who's to tend on the lodgers, and bring in the grist to
the mill, if all my time, day and night, is taken up minding the baby!'
'Well, well,' said Mr Franklin. He was as peaceable as his wife was the
reverse. He did not want the baby, but neither did he wish to send poor
John's child to the workhouse.
'You must make the best of it, wife,' he said. 'Martha'll help you, and
I daresay Peter and Flossy will take a turn in looking after the young
'un.'
Mrs Franklin said no more; she went up-stairs, and got a certain disused
attic into some sort of order. The attic was far away from the rest of
the house; it was the top story of a wing, which had been added on to the
tall, ramshackle old house. In some of the rooms underneath, the
Franklin family themselves slept; in others they lived, and in others
they cooked. The rest of the house, therefore, was free for the
accommodation of lodgers.
Mrs Franklin earned the family bread by taking in lodgers. She was far
more active than her husband, who had a very small clerkship in the city;
without her aid the children, Peter and Flossy, could scarcely have
lived, but by dint of toiling from morning to night, of saving every
penny, of turning and re-turning worn-out clothes, and scrubbing and
cooking and brushing and cleaning, Mrs Franklin contrived to make two
ends meet. Her lodgers said that the rooms they occupied were clean and
neat, that their food was well cooked, and above all things that the
house was quiet. Therefore they stayed on; year after year the same
people lived in the parlours, and occupied the genteel drawing-room
floor; and hard as her lot was, Mrs Franklin considered herself a lucky
woman, and her neighbours often envied her.
The house where the Franklins lived was in one of those remote old-world
half-forgotten squares which are to be found at the back of Bloomsbury.
In their day these squares had seen fashion and life, but the gay world
had long, long ago passed them by and forgotten them, and in consequence,
although the houses were large and commodious, the rents were low.
Things had gone fairly well with the Franklins since they took the old
house--that is, things had gone fairly well until the arrival of the
baby--but, as Mrs Franklin said to her husband, no baby could come into
any house without making a sight of difference. She had only two
servants to help her in all her heavy work, and how could either she or
they devote much time to nursing and tending a little new-born child?
The baby, however, arrived. It was sent up at once to the nursery which
was hastily prepared for it. Flossy, aged six, and Peter, who was
between eight and nine, followed it up-stairs, and watched it with
profound and breathless interest, while Martha, the most trustworthy of
the servants, undressed it, and fed it, and put it to sleep.
'It's a perfect duck,' said Flossy. 'Look at its wee little face, and
isn't its skin soft! Might we kiss it, Martha? Would it break it, or
anything, if we was to kiss it very soft and tender like?'
'It ain't a doll, child,' said Martha. 'It won't break with you loving
of it. Kiss it, Flossy--babes is meant for kissing of.'
The children bent down, and printed a tender salute on the wee baby's
face, and that night they scarcely slept themselves for fear of
disturbing it.
'I hope we'll be allowed to take care of the wee baby,' whispered Flossy
to her brother. 'I think we could do it werry nice; don't you, Peter?'
'Yes,' replied Peter. 'It would be something to amuse us; it's rather
dull, you know, always having to keep quiet on account of the lodgers.'
Peter and Flossy soon found they were to have their wish. Martha could
only spare a very short time to attending to the baby's wants, and the
poor little mite would have had a very unhappy and neglected life but for
the children.
As it happened, however, the wee white baby had not a dull life of it at
all; when its teeth were not troubling it, and when it was not very
hungry, it had quite a merry time. It was devoted to the children, and
even when it was sending forth its wail for more food and some real
mother's love, it would stop crying and give a clear hearty little laugh
if Flossy shook her head of tangled red-brown hair in front of it, or if
Snip-snap, the mongrel terrier, stood on his hind-legs and begged to it.
Peter and Flossy had been rather troublesome children before the arrival
of the baby. Mrs Franklin's lodgers were fond of calling them 'little
termagants,' and liked exceedingly to hint to the mother that if the
termagants did not make themselves scarce they would be obliged to seek
other quarters. Poor Mrs Franklin was always extremely frightened when
these things were said, for she knew the rent, and to a certain extent
the daily bread of the children, depended on the lodgers. When she
learned that the baby must inevitably come to them, she laid one very
solemn command upon her household.
'On no account whatever let out to Mrs Sinclair, and Mrs Potts, and Mr
Martin that there is a baby in the house. If you do, go they will, and
nothing that I can possibly say will keep them. I'm terribly frightened
to think how the baby's existence can be kept from them, but if they know
it, most certainly go they will.'
'Mother,' said Flossy, who was rather afraid of her mother, and did not
often put a direct question to her, 'if the baby stays up in the old, old
attic-nursery, and if Pete and me and Snip can play with it and it never
cries, then Mrs Potts and Mr Martin needn't know nothing about it, need
they, mother?'
'If it never cries, Flossy, they need not know about it,' answered Mrs
Franklin; 'but whoever yet heard of a baby not crying? Of course it will
cry all day and all night. I know it will be the ruin of us, and I think
it was very unkind of your father to allow it to be brought here.'
'But suppose, mother, Pete and I play with the baby, and we make it so
happy that it doesn't cry?' answered little Flossy.
Mrs Franklin gave a short sniff, and said in decidedly an unbelieving
voice, 'You may try your best, my dear, of course.'
Then Flossy looked at Peter, and Peter looked back at her, and they
called Snip-snap and went out of the room.
This was the way in which the baby became the children's special care;
she was immediately thrown upon their tender mercies, they considered
themselves answerable for her good behaviour, and Flossy almost wore
herself out in devising amusements for her. She would toss all her hair
over her face and dance wildly up and down, and contort that same little,
funny, freckled face into all sorts of grimaces; and when the baby
laughed and crowed, and made chirrupy sounds, she was abundantly
satisfied. Peter, too, was most ingenious in keeping off the fatal
sounds of baby's wailing: he would blow into a paper bag, and then when
the baby had screwed up her face, and was preparing to let out a whole
volley of direful notes, he would clap his hands violently on the bag and
cause it to explode, thereby absolutely frightening the poor little
creature into smiles.
Peter would sing all kinds of nursery rhymes for the baby, and walk up
and down with it, and even run with it until his arms ached very badly
indeed. But after all, the one who suffered most in the cause of the
baby was Snip-snap. The patience with which he bore being dressed up in
all kinds of costumes, being made to represent grannie with her
spectacles, and lame John with his crutch, and a soldier in full-dress
uniform, and a sailor with a broken arm, and everything in the world, in
short, except a spirited little dog with four legs, was truly wonderful.
He never did attempt to bite, and he was only once guilty of barking; but
during the grandmother exhibition he could not help throwing up his head
and giving a prolonged and unearthly howl. But the naughty baby only
laughed quite merrily over the howl, and the two children begged of Snip-
snap to do it again. He never did howl any more--that was his last
despairing protest--in future he submitted to the baby's caprices, but
with the air of a broken-hearted dog.
Peter and Flossy had commenced their care of the baby without any special
love for her, but of course they could not long hold her in their arms,
and play with her, and think for her, and earnestly desire to win her
smiles and banish her tears, without the usual thing happening. The baby
stole their little hearts into her own safe keeping. Notwithstanding his
sufferings she also stole Snip-snap's heart. After that the baby was of
course mistress of the situation.
The children took care of her by day, and the lodgers knew nothing about
her existence; but at night Martha, the old nurse, went into her nursery
and slept with her, and attended to her wants. Peter and Flossy having
learned the mystery of amusing the small mite, were tolerably happy about
her during the daytime, but at night they were obliged to be parted from
her, and in consequence at night they were full of fears. Martha meant
to be kind, but she was tired, and she often slept soundly, and did not
hear the baby when she awoke and demanded attention.
Flossy became quite a light sleeper herself, and would sometimes steal
into the nursery and try to quiet the baby; so that, on the whole, for
some time, even at night, the lodgers heard no sound of the new little
inmate. But all happy and worthy things come to an end, and so, alas!
did the baby's good behaviour. There came a night, about three months
after her arrival, and when she was about six months old, when baby was
very restless, cross, and fidgety, with the cutting of her first tooth.
The children had quite worn themselves out in her cause in the daytime,
and Snip-snap had allowed himself to be arrayed in all his costumes for
her benefit; but Martha had come to bed as tired and weary as the baby
herself, and in consequence she fell fast asleep, and never heard the
little creature's cries.
Peter and Flossy heard them at the other side of the wall, and knowing
that they were much louder and more piercing than usual, they both got up
and, hand-in-hand, went to the nursery door. Snip-snap also followed
them, but unwillingly, and with his tail between his legs. The door on
this unfortunate night was locked, and the children could not get in.
Martha slept on, and the baby screamed on, and presently poor Peter and
Flossy heard Mr Martin get up and ring his bell violently. Mrs Potts was
also heard to open her room door and come out on the landing, and sniff
in a very disagreeable way, and go back again. Flossy's heart quite beat
with terror, and Peter said:
'It's all up, Flossy; they'll all know about our baby in the morning.'
'What'll they do?' asked Flossy in an awe-struck voice.
'I don't know,' answered Peter. 'I daren't think. Something bad I
'spect.'
Then the two children crept back to their beds, and Flossy cried herself
to sleep.
{The Sleeping Baby: p20.jpg}