'Oh such a lot of times! Oh such a very lot of times!' And seeing
that May had got her arms outside the cushion she had put on her
chest, she pounced on them, dragged them underneath again, smoothed
the cushion with resounding pats, and, bending down, shouted _schlaf,
Kindlein, schlaf_, into her ear. Séraphine was nowhere to be seen,
and indeed the lullabies were very maddening. May, however, seemed
to like them, and lay on the sofa quite comfortable, and pleased at
doing nothing; and though she sneezed a good deal, was otherwise
enjoying herself.
'That child's ears can't be very sensitive,' thought the mother,
getting away as quickly as possible; and she shut all the doors
between the schoolroom and the drawing-room, and, as lullabies were
the fashion, wrote a tune for _Hush-a-bye Baby_.
[Illustration: HUSH-A-BYE, BABY.
Hush-a-bye, baby, on the tree top,
When the wind blows the cradle will rock;
When the bough breaks the cradle will fall,
And down comes baby and cradle and all.]
By lunch time things were looking brighter. Séraphine had been so
deafened by the singing that she had kept out of the way and left
the babies alone; the mother was exhausted but pleased, for she had
managed to write three tunes; the thermometer had gone up several
degrees, the sun was shining gaily, and the babies would be able
to go and skate on the stream at the end of the garden. It was the
Thursday in Holy Week, and if a thaw set in soon there would still be
a chance of a green Easter, and the eggs would be hidden after all in
the garden. Of course if the garden is frozen up at Easter, or if it
rains, the eggs have to be hidden in the house, under the tables and
chairs, which is never half such fun; but where the babies lived it
was nearly always fine and blue on Easter Sunday, and they had never
yet been prevented from having their egg-hunt out of doors.
The mother watched them go off with their skates after lunch, jumping
and running down the path that had been shovelled in the snow, and
even Séraphine, the moment she got out of the house into the blessed
sunshine, began to look happy, and as though life, after all, were
a very pleasant thing. 'And so it is,' thought the mother, as she
stood for a moment in the sun, breathing in the pure cold air, and
sheltered by the house from the north wind, 'and so it always will
be, as long as there is sun to shine and people with the grace to say
thank you.' And she went into the house and wrote three more tunes.
When they were finished she leant back in her chair and felt rather
less sure about the pleasantness of life. 'May I never make another!'
she said to herself. 'To-morrow is Good Friday, and the babies go to
church. On Easter eve the egg-basket comes, and each one will be busy
hiding her eggs. On Easter Sunday they will go to church again, and
in the afternoon look for the eggs. And then perhaps the snow will
be gone, and lessons will begin again, and the garden grow greener
and greener every day, and never, never, never need I make any more
tunes!' And she gave a deep sigh of relief, for you see she had only
made the tunes to please the babies when they had nothing else to
please them, and wouldn't have done so for any other person or reason
in the world.
When, at dusk, the babies came tramping up the snow-path, jingling
their skates, and very warm and cheerful, the library windows were
ablaze with light. Their mother met them at the door, and told them
to take off their coats quickly and come to her, for the Easter hare
had been to see her and had left something for them. I don't think
the sort of hare that is called Easter ever goes to England, but
in Germany they are supposed to bring all the eggs and presents at
Easter in a basket, just as Father Christmas brings the presents at
Christmas. The babies had often seen hares in the garden, but they
never had baskets, and it was only the mother who was lucky enough to
meet the real Easter hare, basket and all. As Easter time drew near
she would come in from the garden and say, 'Who do you think I met,
babies, in the copse where the anemones grow?' And they would listen
with round eyes while she described the costume and conversation
and conduct of the Easter hare. They used to prowl round the copse
sometimes for hours, but they never saw him. 'He's rather shy,' said
the mother.
It was wonderful what things that Easter hare did. The library was
brilliant with lamps and candles, and the fire was blazing up the
great chimney, and on a low table round which stood three little
chairs, the Easter hare had put a cloth, and a new dolls' tea set
that the babies had never seen, with spoons, and knives, and tiny
napkins, and in the middle of the table a little flower-pot with a
whole snowdrop plant growing in it. There were a great many plates
of cake, and bread and butter, and pieces of scone, and jam, for the
plates were so small that one of each would never have filled the
babies, and there was a little dish of white radishes on one side of
the snowdrop, and a little dish of red radishes on the other side of
the snowdrop, and it looked as festive a banquet as any one could
wish to see. '_Oh!_' cried the babies when they came in.
'The Easter hare did it all,' said the mother, 'and has lent you
his best tea things. He is coming in again to-night to fetch them,
because he's giving rather a lot of parties himself just now, and
can't spare them long.'
'Oh how dear he is!' cried April, dancing round the little table,
while May hung fondly over the radishes.
But June took her mother aside. 'I wants to say you something,' she
said, in a voice that sounded hollow, pulling her by her dress into a
remote corner.
'Well?' said the mother bending down.
June put her arms round her mother's neck and drew her head close.
'I doesn't believe there _is_ one Easter hare,' she whispered in a
loud and awful whisper.
'Oh you tickle me!' cried the mother, pulling herself up straight
again with a jerk, and rubbing her ear.
'I doesn't believe there _ever_ is Easter hares,' continued June, in
a tone of gloomy conviction, while her mother rubbed her tickled ear
without answering, 'nor any baskets too not. I doesn't believe there
ever did _was_ any, either.'
The mother stood looking down at her, mechanically rubbing her ear.
'What a dreadful baby you are,' she murmured at last; 'why don't you
believe in him? When I was a little girl I believed everything.'
'But I not,' said June, shaking her head with a sort of solemn
triumph, as though she thought it was very clever of her not to
believe everything, and a great advance on the easy faith of her
mother's youthful years; 'there isn't any hares with baskets, but
only mummies.'
Then the mother stooped down and whispered that it was to be a secret
between them, and June was so pleased at sharing a secret with her
mother that she has faithfully kept it ever since, and has never
breathed a doubt to April and May, who firmly believe in him to this
day. I saw the mother a little while ago, and she told me so.
[Illustration: _The Tea Party_]
The tea party began, very properly, with a German grace, and then
April sat where the teapot was and poured out the tea; but the little
cups came back to be filled again so quickly that she had no peace,
and couldn't get on with her bread and butter, and as May and June
wouldn't wait they began to help themselves, June drinking three cups
to the other babies' one, so that by the time the party was over she
was extremely full and unpopular. But she liked the feeling of being
full, and as for being unpopular what did she care? She laughed till
the tears rolled down her cheeks at the discomfiture of the others,
when they found that even turning the teapot and milk jug upside down
failed to produce another drop. They had had five cups each, and
June had had fifteen. Saints would have been provoked at such gross
unfairness and revolting greediness. April glared at her across the
table: 'Guttersnipe!' she cried, in a voice of thunder.
'Look here, babies,' interrupted the mother from the other end of
the room, feeling that the next thing to happen would be April's
flinging herself upon June and sitting on her and jumping up and
down, this being a favourite form of punishment, and knowing that
people with fifteen cups of tea inside them mustn't be jumped on;
'look here, babies, at all the tunes I've made for you to-day. Did
you ever hear of such a good mummy? Don't you want me to tell you the
stories belonging to them?'
She knew this suggestion would bring them crowding round. It always
did. There was nothing they loved so much as being told stories.
Séraphine told them blood-curdling ones in French, all about bears
and wolves coming to gobble up children who didn't prize and cherish
their nurses as much as they deserved; you know the sort of story,
I am sure,--the sort that makes your hair try to stand on end in
the night if you wake up and begin to think of them. The babies'
hair couldn't stand on end because it was too long, and besides, it
was safely wrapped up in curl papers; but even if it could have it
wouldn't have, for happily they were tough babies, and refused to be
anything but amused by Séraphine's bears. I suppose nearly every baby
has to pass through the stage of having to listen to the results in
bears and black men of their nurse's fruitful imaginings, and it is
a mercy if the victim is tough enough not to mind. When this mother
I am telling you about was small, which she was in the days that for
you children are merely pre-historic, during the greater part of
three years she woke up every night and shivered for two or three
hours, sick with fright, and very cold; and what do you think she was
afraid of? A thing called the Crack of Doom, which her nurse had told
her would usher in the Last Day; and the Last Day, said the nurse,
might be expected to begin any night. The baby lay awake trembling,
waiting to hear the crack, sure it would be a most horrible bang, her
ears stuffed with as much of her stockings as would go in, besides
her fingers, in abject misery every night for all that long time,
when she might have been comfortably asleep. So when she grew up, and
turned into a mother, she was thankful that her babies were so tough;
and I hope all children who read this will try and be tough too, and
refuse to be made wretched by such silly tales.
There was quite a little packet of tunes in the mother's hand, for,
as I said, she had actually managed to write six that day. The babies
sat at her feet, and she began to tell them the nursery rhymes,
beginning with _Hush-a-bye, Baby_, and its perilous position, left
in its cradle on the top of a tree. They thought the poor hush-a-bye
baby couldn't have had a very nice mummy, and asked if it was
smashed, and if so whether it ever got mended again, and what became
of the cradle, and if _Lieber Gott_ wasn't very angry with the mummy
for letting her baby get broken, and a great many other questions
that were not always easy to answer.
This is its tune:
[Music: HUSH-A-BYE, BABY.
Hush-a-bye, baby, on the tree top,
When the wind blows the cradle will rock,
When the bough breaks the cradle will fall,
and down comes baby and cradle and all.]
Then the mother told them about Jack and Jill going off so cheerfully
in the morning, all clean and tidy, to the pump on the top of the
hill to fetch water for their mother's cooking; and how they began
to quarrel on the way down again, as boys and girls will, instead of
walking carefully over the loose stones; and how Jack, while he was
reaching across to pinch his sister, stumbled, and fell, and broke
his head, and the pail of water fell on the top of him, and Jill
fell on the top of the pail of water, and there was a horrid mess;
so that instead of two nice clean good children bringing the water
to cook with, their mother, after waiting ever so long and getting
crosser each minute, saw a broken pail, and a broken head, and a pair
of dripping children with torn clothes and foolish faces coming into
her kitchen. 'Oh! it is a sad thing when children quarrel!' observed
the mother, pointing the moral when she had reached the end of this
tragic story; and she wagged her head several times, turning up her
eyes so far that the babies at her feet couldn't see what they called
the yolks of them at all, but only the whites, and were greatly
impressed. They began to wag their heads too, shaking them slowly
from side to side, all their sympathies being with Jack and Jill's
mother. But June remarked that nothing would have happened if the
pump hadn't been on a hill. 'I never did see pumps on hills,' she
added; which was very true, for where she lived there were no hills,
and there was only one pump.
[Illustration: JACK AND JILL.
Jack and Jill went up the hill
To fetch a pail of water;
Jack fell down and broke his crown,
And Jill came tumbling after.]
This is the _Jack and Jill_ tune:
[Music: JACK AND JILL.
Jack and Jill went up the hill
to fetch a pail of water,
Jack fell down and broke his crown,
and Jill came tumbling after.]
Then the mother told them about the Pussy Cat who went to London
expressly to look at the Queen, but did nothing so grand as that
after all, only chasing a poor little mouse under a chair and
frightening it out of its wits, which of course it could have done
just as well at home, and saved all the expense of the journey.
'Was she one German puss?' asked June.
'Oh, the poor German pussies are much too busy getting out of the
way of all the stones that are thrown at them to have time for going
anywhere and enjoying themselves. This puss must have been English,
and sleek, and well cared for, with a kind master and mistress to
stroke it every day and give it milk.'
[Illustration: PUSSY CAT, PUSSY CAT.
Pussy Cat, Pussy Cat, where have you been?
I've been to London to look at the Queen.
Pussy Cat, Pussy Cat, what did you there?
I frighten'd a little mouse under the chair.]
The babies sat looking into the fire. A contented, amiable,
affectionate cat was an animal they had never yet met. Where they
lived, the poor cats were forced to be wild and spend their lives
hunting in the fields and forests, because if they ever appeared
within reach of a stone and a person to throw it, they were certain
to have a bit of themselves broken or bruised. If a man with a gun
met a cat he naturally shot it. If an old maid kept a cat, as old
maids sometimes will, it was sure sooner or later to come home from
an evening stroll with its ears cut off by the nearest farmer, who
hoped by this means to make hunting in his fields, with the rain and
dew getting into the exposed parts, a thing so disagreeable that the
cat would never again indulge in it, and as for the next time it came
home from an evening stroll, it would probably come in the character
of a corpse.
The babies had themselves possessed kittens that they had loved and
lost. Directly they were big enough they took to tree-climbing and
bird-nesting, and finally stayed away altogether. It was in their
blood,--the blood of ancient German cats, passed on through rows and
rows of fathers and mothers who also had had stones thrown at them,
and had climbed trees and eaten birds; and what is a poor cat to
do? Rose, the black cat in the kitchen, had developed such strange
and unpleasant habits of spitting and biting, and clawing, that it
had been banished from the playroom. The servants only tolerated
it because it killed the mice, and even they (I mean the servants,
not the mice) never passed it without tweaking its tail. Think how
dreadful it must be to go through life with a thing following you
about behind that anyone can tweak who wants to! No wonder poor
Rose's temper was so uncertain.
But what, thought the babies, must these cats of England be
like,--these glorious cats of liberty and luxury of whom their mother
so often talked? Fascinating pussies with cheerful faces, unclipped
ears, and ribbons round their necks, creatures who were often more
spoilt than anybody else in the house, who rubbed themselves,
confident and purring, against the legs of strangers, who spent
their days deliciously snoozing before the fire, who walked about
with their untweaked tails straight up in the air in the excess of
their contentment? The babies could hardly imagine such a happy state
of things; but the mother showed them the cat pictures in English
weekly papers from time to time, and there sure enough were just
such cats as she had described, ribbons and all. They took a ribbon
once to Rose, going up to him timidly, and offering, with polite
and flattering speeches, to tie it round his neck; but he jumped
off his chair and ran under a table, and, crouching down, glared at
them out of the shadow with fiery eyeballs; so that they went away
sorrowfully, for in his days of innocence they had loved him much.
This is the tune for _Pussy Cat_:
[Music: PUSSY CAT, PUSSY CAT.
Pussy Cat, Pussy Cat, where have you been?
I've been to London to look at the Queen.
Pussy Cat, Pussy Cat, what did you there?
I frighten'd a little mouse under the chair.]
The next rhyme the mother took up was the one about Curly Locks. You
English children all know it, of course,--how somebody, who evidently
wanted to marry her, offered her a cushion as a perpetual seat if
only she would be his, and instead of washing dishes and feeding
pigs, as she was doing when he made her his offer, she was to spend
her time sitting on this cushion sewing, and being fed at intervals
with strawberries and sugar and cream.
'Strawberries and cream, babies, are very nice things.'
'_Ach ja!_' sighed the babies.
'But I shouldn't have liked the cushion and the needlework all day
long.'
'No, no,' agreed the babies.
'And I know what I would have done in Curly Locks' place--I'd have
let the young man go, and kept to the pigs.'
'But the strawberries?' insinuated May.
'_Ach ja!_' sighed April.
'I'd have let the strawberries go too,' said the mother; anything
rather than the hot cushion and the sewing.'
'_Ach nein!_' sighed April softly, shaking her head, 'better take the
strawberries.' And the other two silently nodded their approval.
'But we don't know what Curly Locks decided to do,' said the mother,
'for the rhyme doesn't go any farther. Perhaps she did marry him,
and is sitting to this day on her cushion, and has grown dreadfully
fat through never moving and eating so much sugar and cream, and
hasn't even the energy to curl her hair any more. But perhaps she was
wise, and kept to the pigs.'
[Illustration: CURLY LOCKS.
Curly Locks, Curly Locks, wilt thou be mine?
Thou shalt not wash dishes nor yet feed the swine,
But sit on a cushion and sew a fine seam,
And feed upon strawberries, sugar, and cream.]
'_Ach nein!_' gently disagreed the babies, 'the strawberries is
better.'
The mother laughed. Strawberries did seem rather pleasant things
just then, with the snow on the ground, and no prospect of them for
months. 'Curly Locks was a little dear, anyhow,' she said, putting
down her tune, 'and I am sure she chose whatever was best.'
'_Ach ja!_' murmured the babies, 'she chose the strawberries.'
'Well, well,' said the mother.
This is the tune for _Curly Locks_:--
[Music: CURLY LOCKS.
Curly locks, Curly locks, wilt thou be mine?
Thou shalt not wash dishes nor yet feed the swine,
But sit on a cushion and sew a fine seam,
And feed upon strawberries, sugar, and cream.]
There were only two rhymes left, and the mother took up the top one.
It was _Sing a Song of Sixpence_. But the pie in it was a difficulty,
because pies and pie-dishes don't exist in Germany, and the babies
had never seen one, and seemed, moreover, incapable of imagining one.
[Illustration: SING A SONG OF SIXPENCE.
Sing a song of sixpence, a pocket full of rye,
Four-and-twenty blackbirds baked in a pie;
When the pie was open'd the birds began to sing,
Was not that a dainty dish to set before a King.]
'What's a pie?' asked June at once; and the mother began to
explain pies,--as she thought, with beautiful clearness. She
explained pies in theory and pies in practice, their nature and uses;
pies generalised and pies particularised, and of particularised pies
particularly this pie, with its wonderful blackbirds who went on
singing, undaunted by having been baked; and when she had finished,
and was looking round for a gleam of interest, they sat stolidly
gazing into the fire, and June merely said, 'But what's a pie?'
Then she went into details, expatiating eloquently on the joys of
those pies so dear to English children,--gooseberry pie in the early
summer, cherry pie later on, plum and apple pie still later, and at
Christmas those peculiar pies that bear the name of mince.
But the babies sat unmoved.
Then she took down _The Fairchild Family_ from her bookshelves, an
old children's book that your grandmothers used to read and whose
pages bristle with pies, and she read out the descriptions of all
the pies the Fairchild Family ate, still hoping to bring fire into
the babies' eyes and water into their mouths. The Fairchild Family
ate a great many pies. As a rule they were made of raspberries
and currants, and sometimes they were hot, and sometimes they were
cold, and sometimes they were only apple; but the family was so
fond of them that if one appeared on the table in front of him, Mr.
Fairchild would cry out, on catching sight of it, 'What blessings we
have about us, even in this world!' or something equally surprised
and delighted. 'They all sat down,' read out the mother, with great
expression and one eye on the babies,--'they all sat down, full
of joy, to eat roast fowl and some boiled bacon, with a nice cold
currant and raspberry pie.'
But the babies remained blank.
'I shall send to England for a pie-dish, babies,' she rashly
promised, in her effort to get a spark of enthusiasm out of them,
'and we'll make all the pies I have told you about.'
But the babies didn't turn a hair.
'Or, what would be still nicer,' she went on, even more rashly, 'I'll
take you all to England on purpose to eat pies!'
But the babies sat like stones.
The mother gave it up.
This is the tune:--
[Music: SING A SONG OF SIXPENCE.
Sing a Song of Sixpence, a pocket full of rye.
Four and twenty blackbirds baked in a pie.
When the pie was open'd the birds began to sing.
Was not that a dainty dish to set before a King.]
'The last one of all,' said the mother, 'is to be sung by two babies
only, for it is a duet. May can't learn it to-night because of her
cold, so April and June shall do it.'
It was _Where are you going to, my pretty maid?_ First the mother
told them the story, and described how very pretty the pretty maid
was, but how, directly the young man found she had no money, he
wouldn't marry her.
[Illustration: WHERE ARE YOU GOING TO, MY PRETTY MAID?
Where are you going to, my pretty maid?
I'm going a-milking, Sir, she said.
May I go with you, my pretty maid?
You're kindly welcome, Sir, she said.
Who is your father, my pretty maid?
My father's a farmer, Sir, she said.
Say will you marry me, my pretty maid?
Yes, if you please, kind Sir, she said.
What is your fortune, my pretty maid?
My face is my fortune, kind Sir, she said.
Then I won't marry you, my pretty maid!
Nobody ask'd you, Sir, she said.]
'But why must she have some money?' asked April.
'_I_ has got seven _pfennings_,' said June, trying not to look proud.
'First he says will she marry him, and then he says he doesn't want
to?' asked April, wonderingly.
'But mummy, was she one really milkmaid?' asked May.
'Yes, she was going milking when he met her.'
'And so pretty?'
'Oh, she was so pretty that the moment he saw her he wanted to marry
her.'
'I never did yet see one pretty milkmaid,' remarked May.
'Neither did I,' confessed the mother; neither has any one else where
the babies lived. Sometimes they used to go into the cow-sheds, and
though there were long rows of cows stretching away as far as they
could see, and a great many milkmaids all busy milking, no one could
ever have called them pretty, however hard they tried. They were
very strong, and very big, and wore short skirts reaching to their
knees, and had bare legs and feet, and they milked very well, and
were altogether estimable, but they weren't pretty. Most of them were
married, with large families, and were quite old; so that the gay
little milkmaid tripping across the buttercups, with shoes and
stockings on, and a face like a flower, was almost as difficult to
impress on the babies' imaginations as the pie had been.