Upon my honour, some married people don’t deserve to have a baby at
all. Take my parents. Here am I just about to celebrate the first
anniversary of my birthday, and, candidly, at times I feel disposed to
give up fighting even here, on the very threshold of a career which
many experts have agreed to consider most promising. If it were not for
my bottle-holder, I should have thrown up the sponge long ago. My papa
and mamma, to be frank, get on my nerves and age me; my nurse alone
has power to calm the storm. The truth is, that with a first child the
average inexperienced young father and mother expect a jolly deal too
much. The parents of a long family take new babies as they come, and
don’t worry about them and boast about them, and look for signs and
wonders before a chap is weaned. But your beginners! What my people
expect I don’t know. I try to oblige, but there is always something
wrong. If they would only leave me to my nurse--who is a particularly
pleasing, competent person, and knows her business--it might be better
for everybody concerned. And that is true, because I have heard her
say so a dozen times in private. Moreover, they--I mean my father
and mother--might give Nature a chance. To hear them you would think
that Nature had overlooked me altogether. For instance, it cannot be
denied that she was a trifle behindhand with my first teeth--the four
little front ones. Well, what then? It merely amounted to a question
of a few days. _I_ didn’t want the teeth. My whole life stretched out
before me, and a fortnight more or less without them made no practical
difference. I knew--nobody better--that they were on the way all right.
But my parents had read somewhere at what time the teeth were due; or
else my doctor, like a fool, had been worried into giving a definite
date; and when the day arrived and the teeth didn’t, my mother cried
and my father poked about in my mouth with his forefinger until I felt
I would have given something for a tooth or two, just to remonstrate
with. I couldn’t say what I thought about it, but my nurse could, thank
God, and did. And then my mother said she had produced a horrid,
toothless freak of Nature, and my father went away to town with a face
from which all joy in life had departed. It was the same look which he
wore for a week during my vaccinating troubles. It is not too much to
say that he added a pang to the horrors of that circumstance. I “took”
badly, and came out speckled one morning in consequence. My medical
man was sent for, and said it was a “noble arm,” and seemed pleased at
what he had arranged. Well, that was good enough for me. The man had
brought me into the world, and I trusted him. But my father declared
that he had never seen vaccination speckle a child on the stomach in
his life (which was doubtless true) and he murmured something about a
second opinion. The doctor was good-natured about it, fortunately; many
practitioners would have thrown up the case; but when the speckles went
off my father wrote and apologised.
Babies hate fussiness. But who realises that? Every morning it is, “How
has he slept, nurse?” “How is his little inside, nurse?” “How is his
precious outside, nurse?” “Has that mark where the cat scratched him
gone, nurse?” “Did I hear him crying at half-past four, nurse?” “Isn’t
he strangely silent this morning and puffy under the eyes, nurse?” and
so forth, and so forth. I often wonder why my nurse hangs on at all.
My nursemaid asked her the same question once, when she and my mother
had differed about some little matter involving magnesia; and the nurse
explained that she stopped for two reasons: because she got thirty
pounds a year for doing so, and because she felt it would be next
thing to murder to leave me until my mother knew her business. But,
mind you, I want to be just to both my parents. My mamma can sing me
to sleep with considerable skill; my papa can pick me up and fling me
towards the ceiling with a nerve and strength that causes me infinite
gratification when I am in the vein. But even upon a simple thing like
that he exercises no discretion. There are occasional times when a chap
doesn’t care to be flung up to the ceiling. How would he like it, for
instance, the next moment after he had drunk his bottle, or whatever
might be the equivalent with him? Then my mother will interfere with
the temperature of my bath. She has a conviction, amounting to mania,
that some day I shall be boiled alive or scalded to death. Her idea
seems to be that I should sit quietly and patiently while this painful
operation was being performed, and suffer nobody to hear anything
of it until I was cooked to a turn. The result of her alarm is that
I rarely get my dip at a tidy temperature, though everybody likes a
real hot bath now and again. Thank Heaven, they will grow older, these
parents of mine. With years must surely come experience and wisdom and
patience. At present--and I say it without the least animus--I would
not give a broken rattle for the united knowledge of the pair of them.
It was of my first experiment in language that I set out to speak,
when other grievances came between me and my subject. At ten months,
or a shade over, I had amassed a vocabulary of three words--not that
three words were of the slightest use in dealing with a woman like my
mamma; but I did my best with them. The second and third were more or
less trivial expressions of good feeling depending for their result on
my inflection of voice; the first, of which I want more particularly
to speak, created some sensation in its way and, indeed, produced a
sort of result so startling that I have never to this moment entirely
fathomed the significance of it. The matter fell out thus. After my
ninth month had passed and nothing but my own language of laughter and
tears had broken the silence, my father had a gloomy inspiration that I
must be a dumb idiot, and that he and my mamma were jointly responsible
for a being unlikely to add to the fame or repute of either. To
calm their poor, foolish fears as soon as possible was obviously my
duty under these circumstances, and I set about it. A brief, jocund
monosyllable commended itself to me in this connection. I had heard
my father use it under somewhat humorous circumstances, after falling
over a chair on a night when he crept into my room to see me asleep. I
was not asleep and we both laughed heartily at the time. He doubtless
went away and forgot the incident; I, on the contrary, thought over it,
practised the word, and tried it as a simple exclamation on my mother,
doubting nothing that she would glory in it and perhaps reward me.
Judge then of my surprise when she regarded me with horror and fear,
almost dropped me back into my cradle, and burst into a flood of tears.
“Oh, baby! how could you?” she asked, between her sobs. “I’ve been
praying for you to talk for months and months, and now--oh, it can’t be
true--it can’t!”
Suspecting that my pronunciation was at fault, I uttered the word again
with the greatest distinctness, whereupon my mamma became hysterical
and fled from the nursery. She brought my father up when he came home,
and I observed she was still in tears.
“Such--such a dreadful thing,” she said; “he’s spoken, James.”
“Good business!” exclaimed my father. “The little beggar isn’t dumb
then, thank the Lord. What did he say? I’ll bet he tried to lisp your
name.”
“He didn’t lisp at all--he spoke only too clearly. I don’t know how to
tell you. He--he swore!”
And my mamma broke down entirely, while my papa gazed upon me with
frank amazement.
“He swore?” repeated my papa, blankly. “What at? Why should he swear?
I’m sure no kid ever had a better time.”
“To think that the very first word which has passed his lips----!”
cried my mamma.
“But what did he swear at?”
“At me, his own loving mother. I just woke him up and danced him and
cuddled him and asked him when he was going to bring joy into my life
and prattle sweet baby words into my ear. Then, without any warning, he
said--he said, ‘Damn!’ And when I dropped him into his cradle and began
to cry, he said it again!”
“Such a thing was never heard of in the whole history of infancy,”
declared my father. “I see how it is; he’s picked it up from nurse.
Nurse must go!”
“He might have heard you,” said my mother, reproachfully. “You _do_ say
it oftener than you think. But what will the career of a baby be who
begins swearing before he can even walk straight? It’s horrible--it’s
ruined my life!”
“I should be the last to swear before a child,” said my papa.
And then they went wrangling off. Not a jump to the ceiling did I get,
not a smile, not a word of affection. Perhaps ingratitude in a parent
is as painful a spectacle as a family furnishes. I kept my mouth shut
for two months after that fiasco, but it made them mad to hear of the
good things I said to nurse when they were not present. I will affirm
of nurse that she is a capital listener, and lets me use what language
I like, and never questions either my statements or conclusions. But
there, when all is said, a really capable nurse is a luxury, whereas
parents appear to be a grim necessity, as far as I have yet been able
to understand.
“STAR O’ BOSTON”
He was a very elderly merman, and he had lived in one cave under the
Caribbean Sea for seventy submarine years.
“It’s hard,” he said, “cruel hard at my time of life to be turned out
after all the rent I’ve paid. If I’d only gone to a Building Society I
should have bought the blessed place ten times over by this time.”
He wept a senile tear, which added one drop to the waters of the
Caribbean; then he drew his black seaweed covering round him, put out
a phosphorescent lamp, and went to sleep. The morrow would see him and
his merdaughter turned away for ever from the home of their fathers.
And all about a paltry matter of two years’ rent.
“San Francisco” slept peacefully despite the pending eviction. His
coverlet of living seaweed rose and fell regularly; once he turned
and smiled sadly and uttered the name of his dead merwife. “Alas! my
fair ‘Moonflower,’” he said; “it is well-nigh over with us now, for
‘Lord Aberdeen’ refuses me tenancy of the old cavern any longer, owing
to my natural and increasing disinclination to pay rent. For how can
I pay what I myself lack? His only alternative offer is that he have
our little ‘Star o’ Boston’ to wife; and she with a mergirl’s unwisdom
loves elsewhere, her affections being wholly fixed on the penniless but
personable merboy ‘Theodore H. Jackson.’”
From these dreamy utterances of the venerable merman you will learn
certain interesting facts. First, it becomes apparent that the
merpeople are faced with like problems and plagued by emotions similar
to those within human experience; while secondly, as to the matter of
nomenclature, the submarine system differs widely from any other. Every
merchild is in fact named after a sunken ship; and as the merfolks are
not a numerous race nor yet a prolific, maritime disaster sufficient
for the purpose occurs annually, and merbabies receive their names in
order. Sometimes the wrecks are in excess of the sea-children, then the
names of the ill-fated vessels are preserved until those are born who
will bear them.
“Star o’ Boston” sat and watched her father sleeping his last sleep
in the old home. Her hair was the colour of the red-brown seaweed
torn from the rocks in times of storm; her eyes were aqua-marine and
reflected the cool, green, eternal twilight of the deep. She was fair
to see even for a mermaid, and mystery shared her face with beauty.
She drew her wonderful hair over her bosom, murmured the name of
“Theodore H. Jackson,” and sighed. Love and duty struggled in her
heart; she swayed her golden tail idly and drew conventional designs
on the sand with the delicate coral-red fins at the end of it. Little
fishes swam about her and rubbed themselves lovingly against her fair
body; an octopus, who served the purposes of a chandelier, stretched
down three or four of his arms and stroked her; a hermit-crab sat upon
her shoulder, and there was a pathos in his black, beady eyes as they
poked out of his head on stalks and looked at his mistress. Thus her
pets--the poor dumb creatures of the Caribbean--showed their humble
sympathy; but they could not help “Star o’ Boston” to a decision. She
thought of “Lord Aberdeen” and shivered. He was a wealthy sea-owner,
and lived in a cave of pink coral gloriously illumined by electricity
stolen from a cable. He was old and ugly; he had been married three
times and divorced twice. He had lost an eye in a fight with a
sword-fish, which he was torturing from a mere love of cruelty. He
habitually used the vilest language, and his temper was soured by the
sea-snails which are the mosquitoes of the ocean, and cannot be kept
out of a house. Many a bald-headed merman has been driven mad by them.
“Star o’ Boston” pictured her fair person in the grasp of this marine
satyr, and pressed her little pink hands over her face to shut out the
hideous scene. Then she imagined her father limping away from the old
home to return no more.
At the same moment a merpage in mother-o’-pearl buttons brought a note
from “Lord Aberdeen.” It was written in verse, which he constantly
employed with indifferent success, and in the effusion his lordship
made a last appeal, and reminded “Star o’ Boston” that the offer would
not be renewed.
The mergirl dropped the oyster-shell on which the letter was written
from her hand, then with a gliding and almost snake-like motion swam
out of the cavern. She designed to consult “Anna Bailey,” a vivacious
but shrewd merwidow who knew life and who usually wore the blue coat,
with gold braid and brass buttons, of a dead sea-captain. This she did,
by the way, from motives of vanity, not delicacy, for the merpeople
have never eaten from the Tree of Knowledge and are clean of mind as
the sea in which they live is clean. Of course there are exceptions
amongst them. “Lord Aberdeen,” for example, was a notorious libertine,
with the morals of a porpoise.
“Marry him,” said “Anna Bailey.” “You take my advice. He cannot live
long. And afterwards you’ll be among the wealthiest in the sea and able
to marry again where your heart suggests. There he is. Mark my words:
he’s nearly run his course. Blessed if he hasn’t got a face like a
dog-fish! But what does that matter? You needn’t look at him.”
“Lord Aberdeen” rolled by in a huge conch shell drawn by two sharks.
His wicked little eyes glittered and he waved a pearl-laden hand to
“Star o’ Boston.” Hardly had he disappeared when “Theodore H. Jackson”
came along, swimming thoughtfully. He was a god-like merman, mighty of
size, with hair as crisp and emerald green as sea-endive, with a fine
forehead, a straight nose and ruby eyes, of a colour like to the red
sea-anemones.
“Come, ‘Star o’ Boston,’ my own little green-eyed love,” he said.
“Leave talking with this worldly widow and follow me and take the air,
for there is nothing like a whiff of the strange, pure fluid of the
air-breathers at times of sorrow and anxiety.”
He put his Titan arm round her, and they swam away to a little coral
island in the Caribbean--one of those uprising islets not known of men
and not marked in the charts of ships until some vessel has perchance
found it in the dark, and gone down.
Even so it was now; and as the merman and his maid approached along
the dim-lit floor of the ocean to where the coral island swelled like
a mountain through it, they saw, beside the great achievement of a
million generations of coral insects, a lesser object lying unsightly,
black and alone.
“It is a new monster. Let us go speak with it,” said “Star o’ Boston,”
who feared nothing but “Lord Aberdeen.”
“Nay, golden-tail, ’tis a human wreck! Of such are the ships that sail
the face of the sea. This is Fate, and we are the first to find it,
save the fishes. Heaven grant there is bullion aboard, then all may yet
be well.”
[Illustration: “‘OLD TOM RUM,’ READ OUT ‘STAR O’ BOSTON’”]
It will be news to the reader that the submarine currency depends
on nautical mishaps. Their coinage is silver and gold. It explains a
point which often puzzles quite well-informed people. Why do the Marine
Treasure Recovery Companies never recover anything but old cannons and
similar rubbish? Because the merfolks take the money and use it for
their own purposes.
“Star o’ Boston” likewise hoped that she and her lover might chance
upon some bullion.
“I’ll catch a torpedo fish,” said “Theodore H. Jackson,” “then we’ll
burst open the ship’s safe and see.”
But there was no bullion apparently. The vessel proved to be only a
little coasting schooner called “Flying Fish.” She was laden with
cocoanuts, and as the merman broke open the imprisoned bags, the nuts
rushed up to the surface of the sea, like balloons. Then “Star o’
Boston” found a dead sailor with a big black beard, clasping a bottle.
He had broken into the spirit locker as the ship went down, but had not
found time to drown his death agony with alcohol, for the bottle was
apparently unopened.
“Old Tom Rum,” read out “Star o’ Boston.” “What’s that?”
“A drink of the Upper People. We will carry it with us. It may perhaps
serve to cheer the desolation of your parent.”
“Theodore H. Jackson” drove off the great grey shark that glimmered
sulkily at him out of wolfish eyes; then approached the dead sailor and
wrenched the bottle from his grasp.
“Now I come to think of it, I have heard ‘Lord Aberdeen’ speak of this
same rum,” declared “Star o’ Boston.” “He told my father that once,
long ago, he became possessed of a bottle and that it was like glorious
fire in a merman’s veins.”
“By Neptune! then this liquor may prove as valuable as bullion after
all--in fact more so. Money won’t buy rum as a rule, excepting on dry
land. He shall pay for this.”
Clutching her treasure, “Star o’ Boston” swam back as fast as her fins
would carry her.
“I believe,” she said, “that it will be possible to make any bargain I
like with him.”
“Then don’t let it go too cheaply. Let him pay heavily for his
luxuries. He wants you much; I only hope we may find he wants the rum
more.”
“There are plenty of mermaids, but only one bottle of rum that we know
of. I swam all through the sunken ship and drove the fishes from the
dead men, and a drowned woman with a baby in her arms. There is no rum
left there. Air-breathers must love the liquid also, for they had all
rushed to drink before their drowning. Only this one poor wretch had no
time. Hence our happiness now.”
“I will come with you, my green-eyes, for the rascal may prove too much
for you.”
So “Theodore H. Jackson” supported his love and together they entered
the pink coral abode of “Lord Aberdeen.”
That old scamp’s black eyes glittered strangely as he saw the mermaid,
but when he observed what she carried with her, his excitement was
terrific and burst all bounds.
“Great Serpent! Rum, as I live!” he screamed.
But for the paucity of opportunities his lordship had long since drunk
himself to death. His spirit was willing, but alcohol proved too rare a
thing. He remembered rum in the past; he was getting old; and he felt
that the treasure displayed before him now was worth half his fortune.
“Rum it is,” said “Star o’ Boston,” “the last bottle left from a wreck.
The air-breathers drank all the rest before they were drowned. I
thought you’d like to see the bottle.”
“Ay, mergirl of the crimson fins,--and more than the bottle; this must
be mine!”
“Not so, ‘Lord Aberdeen,’ it goes to cheer my dear father, ‘San
Francisco,’ in his desolation. He much wants this warm, delicious
stuff to strengthen his sore heart. Remember, to-morrow he and I are
homeless.”
“Circumstances alter cases,” said “Lord Aberdeen.” “Rum is a luxury,
and you are not justified in giving your parent luxuries in his present
financial position.”
“Nevertheless, he will drink this bottle,” said “Star o’ Boston.”
“Every luscious drop will go to cheer his failing spirit.”
“Sit down,” replied the other. “This is a matter which cannot be
settled in a moment. Recline on yonder velvet sea-moss and listen. I am
willing to offer reasonable terms for that bottle.”
“’Tis the seller’s place to dictate the terms,” said “Theodore H.
Jackson.”
“Well, perhaps so. At least let us be reasonable. Not that I am myself
particularly anxious to buy the stuff,” answered the old merman,
growing cautious. Nevertheless his mouth watered as he looked at the
squat, four-sided bottle; he passed his hands nervously over his round
bald head and licked his lips in spite of himself.
“Then we need talk no more, for my terms are high. But I will not abate
them. You must first undertake to let my father dwell in his cave for
the remainder of his life; and you must next give to me rent free
another cave suitable to a young couple beginning life--a four-caverned
cave handsomely furnished. And I don’t want it more than twenty fathoms
deep either.”
“Quite right; it’s very important in the case of merbabies that they
have ample light, with occasional visits to the sea surface for air,”
declared “Theodore H. Jackson.”
“All this for one bottle of rum?” asked “Lord Aberdeen” indignantly.
“A thing is worth what it will fetch. Now I come to think of it, I
shall want six strings of good orient pearls and fifty pounds in
English money as well,” replied “Star o’ Boston,” with admirable
coolness.
“Death and the Kraaken!”
“And--and--I shall also want----”
“Done on the last bargain!” screamed “Lord Aberdeen.” He knew that the
longer he waited the worse the position would become from his point of
view.
“Very well; ‘Theodore H. Jackson’ is our witness. You are going to give
me a nice new home and let my dear father stop on in his old one.
Then six strings of good pearls and fifty pounds in English money. I,
in my turn, shall yield up to you this beautiful bottle of rum. I may
say that my dear ruby-eyed merboy here and myself design to marry at
no distant date. A little memento on that occasion will increase our
regard for you considerably.”
“I’ll see about that when the time comes. Now we will adjourn to my
solicitor’s office. I shall demand that this bottle of rum be placed in
a safe position before I go further. It makes my blood run cold to see
the careless way you hold it.”
* * * * *
Thus did prosperity and unlooked-for happiness crown the last days of
“San Francisco,” and brighten the wedded life of “Star o’ Boston” and
her merhusband. But, unfortunately for himself, “Lord Aberdeen” came
badly out of the transaction after all. He made good his promises,
acquired the bottle of rum, and reached that supreme moment when he
opened it to have his first nautilus-shell full. Then a strange thing
transpired, for though the bottle was labelled “Rum” in large letters,
its contents resembled neither rum nor any other liquor. There was
only a piece of crumpled paper inside it with words written thereon.
“Lord Aberdeen” gazed blankly at the scrawl, then gave full play to his
vile and varied vocabulary.
“_‘Flying Fish’ struck on unknown rock or wreck. Going down fast.
God have mercy upon us! John Ladywell, Master. (Wife, child, and six
hands aboard.)_”
Three merjudges tried the action brought against “Star o’ Boston,” and
the defendant won her case and costs. It was argued, you see, that a
corked bottle labelled “Rum” might reasonably be supposed to contain
that liquid. The bargain had been carried out in good faith. “In fact,”
said the President of the Tribunal, “‘_Caveat emptor_’ sums up the
position. ‘Lord Aberdeen’ has been unfortunate and is the victim of
chance; but it cannot be considered or justly argued that any criminal
attempt was made to obtain from him money or property under false
pretences. As to the real contents of the rum bottle, it would appear
that one John Ladywell, finding his ship going down under him, and
knowing that death lay hidden in the deep water and the grey sharks
which live beneath it, conceived the idea of recording the sudden end
which he saw was now to fall upon himself, his wife, child, and the six
seamen of the ‘Flying Fish.’ Had the bottle not gone down with him,
clenched to his breast in his last agony, it might have floated away
and reached some shore whereon the Upper People congregate. But it sank
instead. Hence a natural and unfortunate confusion.”
So that is the end of this mer-story, and I shall only add that
“Star o’ Boston” and “Theodore H. Jackson” lived mighty happily ever
afterwards, though “Lord Aberdeen” sent no wedding present. Anon a
merbaby was born to them, and they called her “Flying Fish” in memory
of a great experience. Their narrative is perhaps interesting from some
points of view, for it shows that deep-sea researches are as yet quite
incomplete, so far at least as the Caribbean is concerned; and it also
indicates that, assert what people may to the contrary, fiction is
still frequently stranger than fact.