GOING AWAY
"She did not say to the sun good-night,
As she watched him there like a ball of light,
For she knew he had God's time to keep
All over the world, and never could sleep."
How, I can't tell, but, after all, _some_how the packing got done, and
everything was ready. They left a _few_ things behind that Herr Baby
would certainly have taken had he had the settling of it. They didn't
take the horses, _nor_ the fireplaces, and, of course, as the horses
weren't to go, Thomas and Jones had to be left behind too to take care
of them, which troubled Baby a good deal. And no doubt Thomas and Jones
would have been _very_ unhappy if it hadn't been for the nice way Baby
spoke to them about coming back soon, and the letters he would send them
on their birthdays, and that he would never like any other Thomases and
Joneses as much as them. It was really quite nice to hear him, and
Jones had to turn his head away a little--Baby was afraid it was to hide
that he was crying.
It was a very busy time, and Baby was the busiest of any. There was so
much to think of. The rabbits too had to be left behind, which was very
sad, for one couldn't write letters to _them_ on their birthdays;
neither Denny, whom he asked about it, nor Baby himself, could tell when
the rabbits' birthdays were, and besides, as Baby said, "what would be
the good of writing them letters if they couldn't read them?" The only
thing to do was to get the little girl at the lodge to _promise_ to take
them fresh cabbages every morning--that was one of the things Herr Baby
had to see about, himself. Lisa lost him one morning, and found him at
the lodge, after a great hunt, talking very gravely to the little girl
about it.
[Illustration: "Zou will p'omise, Betsy, p'omise certain sure, _nebber_
to forget."--P. 61.]
"Zou will p'omise, Betsy, p'omise certain sure, _nebber_ to forget," he
was saying, and poor Betsy looked quite frightened, Herr Baby was so
very solemn. Fritz wanted to make her kiss her mother's old Testament,
the way he had seen men do sometimes in his grandfather's study when
they came to tell about things, and to promise they would speak the
truth; but Betsy, though she was ready enough to _promise_, didn't like
the other idea at all. She might be had up to the court for such like
doings, she said, and as neither Fritz nor Baby had any idea what sort
of place the court was, though they fancied it was some kind of prison
for people who didn't keep their word, they thought it better to leave
it.
The "calanies" and the "Bully" were to go, that was a comfort, and
Peepy-Snoozle and Tim, the two dormice, also, another comfort. Baby's
own packing was a serious matter, but, on the whole, I think mother and
Lisa and everybody were rather glad he had it to do, as it gave other
people a chance of getting _theirs_ done without the little feet
pattering along the passage or up the stairs, and the little shrill
voice asking what was going to be put into _this_ trunk or into _that_
carpet-bag. He gave up thinking so much about the other packing after a
while, for he found his own took all his time and attention. Mother had
found him a box after all. Not _the_ box of course--that was left empty,
by Baby's wish, till some day when he was a big man, he should go to the
country of the fairy glass and buy mother some new jugs--but a very nice
little box, and she gave him cotton wool and crushy paper too, and
everything was as neat as possible, and the box quite packed and ready,
the first evening. But it was very queer that _every_ day after that
Herr Baby found something or other he had forgotten, or something that
Denny and he decided in their early morning talks, that it would be
silly to take. Or else it came into his head in the night that his best
Bible would be better in the _other_ corner, and the scenty purse on the
top of it instead of at one side. Any way it always happened that the
box had to be unpacked and packed again, and the very last evening there
was Herr Baby on his knees before it on the floor, giving the finishing
touches, long after he should have been in bed.
"And we have to be up so early to-morrow morning," said mother, "my dear
little boy, you really _should_ have been fast asleep by this time."
"And he wakes me _so_ early in the morning," said Denny, who was
standing before the fire giving herself little cross shakes every time
poor Lisa, who was combing out her long fair hair, came to a tuggy bit.
"_Lisa_, you're _hurting_ me; _Lisa_, do take care," she added
snappishly.
"My dear Denny, how very impatient you are!" said her mother. "I don't
know how you will bear all the little discomforts of a long journey if
you can't bear to have your hair combed."
On this, Denny, as Fritz would have said, "shut up." She could not bear
it to be thought that she was babyish or "silly." Her great, great wish
was to be considered quite a big girl. You could get her to do anything
by telling her it would be babyish not to do it, or that doing it would
be like big people, which, of course, showed that she _was_ rather
babyish in reality, as sensible children understand that they cannot be
like big people in everything, and that they wouldn't be at all nice if
they were.
Baby always felt sorry for Denny or any of them when mother found fault
with them. He jumped up from the floor--at least he _got_ up, his legs
were too short for him to spring either up or down very actively--and
trotted across to his sister.
"Poor Denny," he said, reaching up to kiss her, "him won't wake her up
so early to-mollow morning."
"But we'll _have_ to wake early to-morrow," said Denny, rather crossly
still, "it's no use you beginning good ways about not waking me now,
just when everything's changed."
Baby looked rather sad.
"Is your box quite ready now, dear?" said his mother. "Well then, let
Lisa get you ready for bed as quick as she can, and you and Denny must
go to sleep without any talking, and wake fresh in the morning."
But Baby still looked sad; his face began working and twisting, and at
last he ran to mother and hid it in her lap, bursting into tears.
"Denny makes him so unhappy," he said. "Him doesn't like everysing to be
changed like Denny says. Him is so sorry to go away and to leave him's
house and Thomas and Jones, and oh! him is _so_ sorry to leave the
labbits!"
"And him's a tired little boy. I think it's because he's so tired that
he's so sad about going away," said mother. "Think, dear, how nice it is
that we're all going _together_, not Celia or Fritz or anybody left
behind. For you know Thomas has his old mother he wouldn't like to
leave, and Jones has his wife and children. And if the rabbits could
talk, I'm quite sure they would tell you that they'd far rather stay
here in their own nice little house, with plenty of cabbages, than be
bundled into a box and taken away in the railway ever so far, without
being able to run about for ever so many days."
Baby's face cleared a little.
"Betsy has p'omised," he said to himself. Then he added, "_Him_ won't
like the railway neither if it's like that."
"But _him's_ not going to be put in a box or a basket," said mother,
laughing. "Him will have a nice little corner all to himself in a
cushioned railway carriage, only just now he really _must_ go to bed."
So she kissed him for good-night, and Denny too, who, by this time, had
recovered her good-humour in the interest of listening to the
conversation between her mother and Herr Baby, and soon both little
sister and brother were fast asleep in their cots, dreaming about the
journey before them I daresay, or perhaps forgetting all about it in the
much queerer and stranger journeys that small people are apt to fly away
upon at night, when their tired little bodies _seem_ to be lying quite
still and motionless in bed.
It was strange enough--_almost_ as strange as a dream--the next morning
when, long before it was light, they had all to get up and be dressed at
once in their going-out things--that is to say their thick boots and
gaiters, and woollen under-jackets (for it was very cold, though not yet
far on in November), while their ulsters and comforters and caps, and
the girls' sealskin coats and muffs and hats, were all laid out in four
little heaps by Lisa, so that they should be ready to put on the moment
breakfast was over.
What a funny breakfast! Candles on the table, for it was not, of course,
worth while to light the lamp, and everything looking more like a sort
of "muddley tea," Fritz said, than their usual trim nursery breakfast.
"I can't eat," said Fritz, throwing down his bread and butter; "it's no
use."
"And there's eggs!" said Denny, who was comfortably at work at hers,
looking across at Fritz as if it wouldn't be very difficult to eat up
his egg too. "I think it's very kind of cook to have got up so early and
made us eggs 'cos we were going away, and----"
"'Twasn't cook, 'twas Abigail," said Fritz. "I saw her coming up with
the eggs all in a pan with hot water, so that they shouldn't get cold,
she said to Lisa."
"Well then it was very kind of Abigail, and----" said Denny.
"'Twasn't Abigail that made the eggs," said Baby, "'twas the hens zat
laid them. Denny should say the _hens_ was werry kind."
"Oh bother," said Denny, "I wish you'd not interrupt me. I don't care
who it was. I only want to say it's very stupid of Fritz not to eat his
egg, when _somebody_ made them for us, extra you know, because we're
going away, and I think Fritz is very stupid."
"Come, Herr Fritz," said Lisa, encouragingly, "try and eat. You will be
so hungry."
"I can't," said Fritz, "I've got a horrid feeling just like when mother
took me to have that big tooth out. I feel all shaky and cruddley."
"Yes, _I_ know," said Denny, going on with _her_ breakfast all the same,
"but eating's the best thing to make it go away. I felt just that way
the day I broke grandfather's hotness measure, and mother said I must
tell him myself. I couldn't eat a bit of dinner, and I sat on the stair
all _screwged_ up, waiting for him to go to the study."
"How dedful!" said Baby, with great feeling. But neither Fritz nor Celia
seemed to think much of Denny's sufferings. No one had ever seen her
nerves disturbed, and they did not therefore much believe in her having
any.
"Grandfather's _what_ did you say?" asked Celia.
"His hotness measure--the little glass pipe thing with a blob that goes
up and down. He's got another now, you know."
"You mean his thermometer; you really should learn the proper names of
things," said Celia, "you're quite big enough."
Denny would probably not have taken this in good part, though the "quite
big enough" at the end was very much to her taste, but there was no time
_this_ morning for squabbling.
"Quick, quick, mine children," said Lisa, "the cart with the luggage is
'way, and the Herr Grandpapa is buttoning his coat."
"And Fritz hasn't eaten his egg!" said Denny, eyeing it dolefully, as
Lisa was fastening her jacket.
"I _couldn't_," said Fritz. "There'll be sandwiches or something in the
train--sure to be. Now come on; let's see what have I got to look after.
Only Tim and Peepy-Snoozle. I _couldn't_ lose my satchel, you see, for
its strapped on me. Much more sensible than _girls_, who have to carry
their bags over their arms."
And Fritz, in a new ulster, very long and rather stiff, and feeling, to
tell the truth, a little uncomfortable at first, as new things generally
do, stalked off--I don't think he _could_ have run!--with the air of a
very big man indeed.
Celia and Denny had a slight dispute as to which was which of the
bird's cages. For it had been settled that, for the journey at least,
the canaries were to be Celia's charge and the "Bully" Denny's, though,
hitherto, these three little birds had belonged to all the children
together.
"You've got my cage, Denny," said Celia, sharply.
"I haven't," said Denny, holding hers the more tightly. It was not very
easy to see, for both were covered up with dark blue stuff wrappers, to
keep the birds warm, "and to make them think it's night all the way,"
said Baby.
"I haven't," repeated Denny, "there, don't you see _two_ yellow tails in
yours? Peep through."
And Denny proved to be right, so Celia had to give in.
And at last they were off! The drive to the station safely over without
any misadventures, the luggage all locked up in the van, the children
and the dormice and the birds--far more important things, of course,
than the big people!--all comfortably settled at one end of the nice big
saloon carriage, which grandfather had had sent down on purpose from
London.
"Dear me," said Denny, jigging up and down on her seat, "so we're really
off! How nice and springy these cushions are! And this carriage is as
big as a little house. I could _never_ be tired of travelling in a
carriage like this."
"Him zought we'd _nebber_ get away," said Baby, with his usual
solemnity. "Dear, dear, what dedful lots of boxes there is! Him's box is
'aside the 'normous big straw one; did zou know, Denny?"
"Poor grandfather," said Celia, "_what_ a lot of times he said over,
'three black portmanteaux, four, no five canvas-covered, four carpet
bags, one--fourteen in all. Is _that_ right, Helen? Grandfather's
something like Baby, he thinks no one can do anything right but himself;
and there's Peters come on purpose to bother about these things."
(Peters was grandfather's own servant.) "I wish grandfather wouldn't
fuss so. I hate people to think he's a fussy old man, something like Mr.
Briggs in Punch. As if he had never travelled before!"
As may be imagined, these remarks of Celia's were made in a low voice,
for, of course, they were intended for the nursery party alone. Fritz
flew up in grandfather's defence.
"Very fine, Miss Celia," he said. "You may laugh at grandfather for
fussing, but _suppose_ he didn't, and _suppose_ that when we get to--oh,
bother, I can't say those French names--wherever it is we're going to,
_suppose_ that Madamazelle Celia's trunk was lost, and Madamazelle Celia
hadn't any best frocks or flounces, or Sunday hats, how would
Madamazelle Celia look _then_? Perhaps she'd wish then that grandfather
had fussed a little."
Celia turned to look for her bag, and having found it, she took out the
book which she had brought with her to read on the way.
"You're too silly to speak to, Fritz," she said; "I'm going to read."
"So am I," said Denny, who had likewise armed herself with a book,
though she was rather a dunce for her age, and couldn't read "runningly"
as French people say. But _big_ people always had books to read in the
railway--that was enough for Denny, of course, to try to do so too.
"_I'm_ going to take a nap, then," said Fritz, who was really looking
rather white and tired. He had been wakened out of a very sound sleep
this morning, and had not been able to eat any breakfast. Lisa thought
that taking a nap was the best thing he could do, so she got down a
bundle of the rugs to make him a pillow, and helped him to tuck up his
legs comfortably, and Fritz settled himself for his little sleep, making
Lisa promise to waken him when they came to a big station.
So everybody seemed inclined to be quiet. Herr Baby's corner was by the
window. He looked about him. Celia and Denny were buried in their books,
Fritz seemed asleep already; of the big people at the other end,
grandfather's face was quite hidden in his newspaper, which he had kept
over from last night on purpose to have something to read in the train,
knowing that they would start before the postman came in the morning,
and mother and auntie were talking together, softly, not to disturb him.
"Should you like the window more open?" said grandfather, suddenly
looking up.
"No, thank you," said auntie. "I think that little chink is enough. It
is really very cold this morning."
"How good the children are!" said mother. She spoke in a lower voice
than auntie; but Baby heard her, for he had quick ears. "One could
almost fancy they were all asleep."
"Yes," said auntie, "if it would last all the way to Santino, or even to
Paris!"
"Or even to London!" said mother. "But they'll all be jumping about like
grasshoppers before long."
Then they went on talking softly again about other things; and Baby
didn't hear, and didn't care to hear. Besides, he had already been
taught a lesson that boys and girls cannot learn too young, which is,
that to listen to things you are not meant to hear is a _sort_ of
cheating, for it is like taking something not meant for you. Of course,
while auntie and mother were talking in a louder voice he could not help
hearing, and it was no harm to listen, as if they had minded his hearing
they would have spoken more in a whisper.
Baby turned to his window to amuse himself by looking out. First he
tried to count the telegraph wires, but he could never be sure if there
were eight or nine--he had not yet learnt to count higher than ten--for
the top ones were so tiresome, they danced away out of sight, and all of
a sudden danced down again, and sometimes they seemed to join together,
so that he could not tell if they were one or two. He wondered what made
them wave up and down so; whether there were men down in the ground
that pulled them, and what they did it for; he had heard of "sending
telegrams," and Denny had told him it meant sending messages on wires,
but he did not know that these were the wires used for that. He fancied
these wires must have something to do with the railway; perhaps they
were to show the people living in the fields that the trains were
coming, so that they shouldn't get in the way and be "runned over."
This made Baby begin to think of the people living in the fields; they
were just then passing a little cottage standing all by itself. It
looked a nice cottage, and it had a sort of little garden round it, and
some cocks and hens were picking about. Baby looked back at the little
cottage as long as he could see it; he wondered who lived in it, if
there were any little boys and girls, and what they did all day. He
wondered if they went to school, or if perhaps they sometimes went
messages for their mother, and if they weren't frightened if they had
to pass through the wood, which by this time the train was running
along the edge of. Could this be Red Riding Hood's wood, perhaps? Baby
shuddered as this idea came into his mind. Or it might be the wood that
Hop-o'-my-thumb and his six brothers had to make their way through,
where the birds _would_ pick the crumbs they dropped to show the path.
It would be very "dedful" for seven little boys to be lost in a wood
like that, and still worse for one little boy all alone. Baby was very
glad that when little boys had to go through woods _now_ it was in nice
railway carriages with mothers and aunties and everybodies with them.
But even in this way the wood made him feel a _very_ little frightened;
just then it got so much darker. He looked up to see if they were all
still reading or asleep; he _almost_ thought he would ask Lisa to take
him on her knee a little, when, all of a sudden, the "railway," as he
called it, screamed out something very sharp and loud, the rattle and
the noise got "bummier" and yet sharper; Baby could see no trees, no
fields, "no nothing." What could it be? It was worse than the wood.
"Oh, Lisa," cried poor Herr Baby, "the railway horses must have runned
the wrong way. We's going down into the cellars of the world."
Lisa caught him up in her arms and comforted him as well as she could.
It was only a tunnel, she told him, and she explained to him what a
tunnel was, just a sort of passage through a hill, and that there was
nothing to be frightened at. And she persuaded him to look up and see
what a nice little lamp there was at the top of the carriage, on purpose
to light them up while they were in the dark. Baby was quite pleased
when he saw the little lamp.
"Who put it 'zere?" he said. "Were it God?"
He was rather disappointed when Lisa told him that it was the railway
men who put it up, but then he thought again that it was very kind of
the railway men, and that it must have been God who taught them to be
so kind, which Lisa quite agreed in. But even though the little lamp
was very nice, Baby was very pleased to get out of the tunnel, and out
of the rumbly, rattly noise, into the open daylight again, with the
beautiful sun shining down at them out of the sky. For the day was
growing brighter as it went on, and the air was a little frosty, which
made everything look clear and fresh.
"Nice sun," said Baby, glancing up at his old friend in the sky, "that's
the bestest lamp of all, isn't it? and it _were_ God put it up there."
After that he must, I think, have taken a little nap in Lisa's arms
almost without knowing it, for he didn't seem to hear anything more or
to think where he was or anything, till all of a sudden he heard
mother's voice speaking.
"Won't Baby have a sandwich, Lisa? And Denny, why, have you been asleep
too, Denny?"
And sitting up on Lisa's knee, all rosy and dimpled with sleeping, his
fair curls in a pretty tumble about his eyes, Baby saw Denny, looking
very sleepy too, but trying hard to hide it.
"Oh," she said, smoothing down her hair and sitting up very straight,
"I've been reading such a long time that my eyes got quite tired; that
was why I shut them."
"Oh indeed!" said mother, but Baby could see that she was smiling at
Denny, though she didn't laugh right out like Fritz and Celia.
They were all very happy, however, with their sandwiches and buns, and
after they had eaten as much as they wanted, auntie taught them a sort
of guessing game, which helped to pass the time, for already Denny and
Fritz were beginning to think even the big saloon carriage rather a
small room to spend a whole day in.
They passed two or three big stations, and then they were allowed to get
out and walk up and down the platform a little, which was a nice change.
But Baby was so dreadfully afraid of any of them being left behind that
he could hardly be persuaded to get out at all, and once when he and
Lisa were waiting alone in the carriage while the others walked about,
and the train moved on a little way to another part, he screamed so
loudly--
"Oh, mother, oh, auntie, oh, ganfather, and Celia, and Fritz, and Denny!
All, all is left behind!"--that there was quite a commotion in the
station, and when the train moved back again, and they all got in, he
was obliged to kiss and hug each one separately, several times over,
before he could feel quite sure he had them all safe and sound, and
that "not nobody" was missing.
It seemed a long time after it got dark, even though the little lamp was
still lighted. But it was not light enough to see to read, and "the big
lamp up in the sky," as Baby said, "was _kite_ goned away." It puzzled
him very much how the sun could go away every night and come back every
morning, and the queerest thing of all was what Celia had told him--that
"away there," in the far-off country where they were going, there would
still be the same sun, the _very_ same sun, that they had seen every
morning peeping up behind the kitchen-garden wall, and whose red face
they had said good-night to on the winter evenings, as he slipped away
to bed down below the old elms in the avenue, where the rooks had their
nests. Somehow as Baby sat in his corner, staring out now and then at
the darkness through which they were whizzing, blinking up sometimes at
the little lamp shining faintly in the roof, there came before his mind
the pictures of all they had left behind; he seemed to see the garden
and the trees _so_ plain, and he thought how very, very quiet and lonely
it must seem there now, and Baby's little heart grew sad. He felt so
sorry for all the things they had left--the rabbits and the pussy most
of all, of course, but even for the dear old trees, and the sweet,
"denkle" flowers in the garden; even for the tables and chairs in the
house he felt sorry.
"Him's poor little bed will be so cold and lonely," he said to himself.
"Him sinks going away is _werry_ sad."