A Christmas Child: A Sketch of a Boy-Life

"What a kind man," he said to himself, "to give muzzer all she wants," as one after another of his mother's requests was attended to. "Why, he lets muzzer take whatever her likes!" he added, as having brought his wanderings to a close for a minute, he stood beside her and saw her lifting a little square of honey soap out of a box which the grocer presented to her for examination, and, greatly impressed, Ted set off again on another ramble. Doubtless he too might take whatever he liked, and as the thought occurred to him he pulled up before another barrel filled with lumps, little and big, of half clear, whitey-looking stuff, something like very coarse lump sugar, only not so white, and more transparent. Ted knew what it was. It was soda, washing soda I believe it is usually called. Ted was, as I have said, very wide-awake about all household matters, for he always used his eyes, and very often – indeed rather oftener than was sometimes pleasant for the people about him if they wanted to be quiet – his tongue too, for he was great at asking questions.

"Soda's very useful," Ted reflected; "nurse says it makes things come cleaner."

Just then his mother called him.

"Ted, dear," she said, "I'm going."

Ted started and ran after her, but just as he did so, he stretched out his hand and took a lump of soda out of the barrel. He did it quite openly, he didn't mind in the very least if the shopman saw him – like the daisies in the field, so he thought, the soda and the sugar and the French plums and everything were there for him or for any one to help themselves to as they liked. But Ted was not greedy – he was far better pleased to get something "useful" for mother than anything for himself. He would have asked her what he had better take, if he had had time – he would have stopped to say "Thank you" to the grocer had he not been in such a hurry to run after his mother.

They walked quickly down the street. Ted's mother was a little absent-minded for the moment – she was thinking of what she had ordered, and hoping she had forgotten nothing. And holding her little boy by the one hand she did not notice the queer thing he was holding in the other. Suddenly she stopped before a boot and shoe shop.

"I must get baby a pair of shoes," she said. "She is such a little kicker, she has the toes of her cloth ones out in no time. We must get her a pair of leather ones I think, Ted."

"Ses, I sink so," said Ted.

So his mother went into the shop and asked the man to show her some little leather shoes. Ted looked on with great interest, but when the shoes were spread out on the counter and he saw that they were all black, he seemed rather disappointed.

"Muzzer," he said in a low voice, tugging at his mother's skirts, "I saw such bootly boo boots in the man's winder."

His mother smiled.

"Yes, dear," she replied, "they're very pretty, but they wouldn't last so long, and I suspect they cost much more."

Ted looked puzzled.

"What does thoo mean?" he said, but before his mother had time to explain, the active shopman had reached down the "bootly" boots and held them forward temptingly.

"They're certainly very pretty," said baby's mother, who, to tell the truth, was nearly as much inclined for the blue boots as Ted himself. "What is the price of them?"

"Three and sixpence, ma'am," replied the man.

"And the black ones, the little black shoes, I mean?"

"Two and six," replied the man.

"A shilling difference, you see, Ted," said his mother. But Ted only looked puzzled, and his mother, occupied with the boots, did not particularly notice him.

"I think," she said at last, "I think I will take both. But as the blue boots will be best ones for a good while, give me them half a size larger than the little black shoes."

The shopman proceeded to wrap them up in paper and handed them to Ted's mother, who took out her purse and paid the money. The man thanked her, and, followed by her little boy, Ted's mother left the shop.

Ted walked on silently, a very unusual state of things. He was trying to find out how to express what he wanted to ask, and the ideas in his head were so new and strange that he could not fit them with words all at once. His mother turned round to him.

"Would you like to carry the parcel of baby's shoes for her?" she said.

"Oh ses," said Ted, holding out his left hand. But as his mother was giving him the parcel she noticed that his right hand was already engaged.

"Why, what have you got there?" she asked, "a stone? Where did you get it? No, it's not a stone – why, can it be a lump of soda?"

"Ses," returned Ted with the greatest composure, "it are a lump of soda. I thought it would be very suseful for thoo, so I took it out of that nice man's shop."

"My dear little boy!" exclaimed his mother, looking I don't know how. She was rather startled, but she could not help being amused too, only she thought it better not to show Ted that she was amused. "My dear little boy," she said again, "do you not understand? The things in the shop belong to the man – they are his, not ours."

"Ses," said Ted. "I know. But he lets thoo take them. Thoo took soap and somesing else, and he said he'd send them home for thoo."

"Yes, dear, so he did," said his mother. "But I pay him for them. You didn't see me paying him, because I don't pay him every time. He puts down all I get in a book, and then he counts up how much it is every month, and then I send him the money. In some shops I pay as soon as I get the things. You saw me pay the shoemaker for little Cissy's boots and shoes."

"Ses," said Ted, "I saw thoo take money out of thoo's purse, but I didn't understand. I thought all those kind men kept nice things for us to get whenever we wanted."

"But what did you think money was for, little Ted? You have often seen money, shillings and sixpences and pennies? What did you think was the use of it?"

"I thought," said Ted innocently, "I thought moneys was for giving to poor peoples."

His mother could hardly resist stooping down in the street to kiss him. But she knew it was better not. Ted must be made to understand that in his innocence he had done a wrong thing, and the lesson of to-day must be made a plain and lasting one.

"What would poor people do with money if they could get all the things they wanted out of the shops for nothing?" she said quietly.

Ted considered a moment. Then he looked up brightly.

"In course!" he said. "I never thought of that."

"And don't you see, dear Ted, that it would be wrong to take things out of a shop without paying for them? They belong to the man of the shop – it would be just like some one coming to our house and taking away your father's coat or my bonnet, or your little blue cart that you like so much, or – "

"Or Cissy's bootly boo boots," suggested Ted, clutching hold more tightly of the parcel, as if he thought the imaginary thief might be at hand.

"Yes," said his mother, "or Cissy's new boots, which are mine now because I paid money for them to the man."

"Ses," said Ted. Then a very thoughtful expression came into his face. "Muzzer," he said, "this soda was that man's – sall I take it back to him and tell him I didn't understand?"

"Yes," said his mother. "I do think it is the best thing to do. Shall we go at once? It is only just round the corner to his shop."

She said this thinking that little Ted would find it easier to do it at once, for she was sorry for her little boy having to explain to a stranger the queer mistake he had made, though she felt it was right that it should be done. "Shall we go at once?" she repeated, looking rather anxiously at the small figure beside her.

"Ses," said Ted, and rather to her surprise his tone was quite bright and cheery. So they turned back and walked down the street till they came to the corner near which was the grocer's shop.

Ted's mother had taken the parcel of the little boots from him and held him by the hand, to give him courage as it were. But he marched on quite steadily without the least flinching or dragging back, and when they reached the shop it was he who went in first. He walked straight up to the counter and held out the lump of soda to the shopman.

"Please, man," he said, "I didn't know I should pay money for this. I didn't understand till muzzer told me, and so I've brought it back."

The grocer looked at him in surprise, but with a smile on his face, for he was a kind man, with little boys and girls of his own. But before he said anything, Ted's mother came forward to explain that it was almost the first time her little boy had been in a shop; he had not before understood what buying and selling meant, but now that she had explained it to him, she thought it right for him himself to bring back the lump of soda.

"And indeed it was his own wish to do so," she added.

The grocer thanked her. It was not of the least consequence to him of course he said, but still he was a sensible man and he respected Ted's mother for what she had done. And then, half afraid that her little boy's self-control would not last much longer, she took him by the hand, and bidding the shopman good-day they left the shop. As they came out into the street again she looked down at Ted. To her surprise his little face was quite bright and happy.

"He were a kind man," said Ted; "he wasn't vexed with Ted. He knew I didn't understand."

"Yes, dear," said his mother, pleased to see the simple straightforward way in which Ted had taken the lesson; "but now, Ted, you do understand, and you would never again touch anything in a shop, would you?"

"Oh no, muzzer, in course not," said Ted, his face flushing a little. "Ted would never take nothing that wasn't his —never; thoo knows that, muzzer?" he added anxiously.

"Yes, my dear little boy," and this time his mother did stoop down and kiss him in the street.

CHAPTER VII

GETTING BIG

"The children think they'll climb a tree."

It was a very happy little Ted that trotted upstairs to the nursery with the "bootly boo boots" and the more modest little black shoes for tiny Narcissa.

"See what Ted has brought thoo," he said, kissing his baby sister with the pretty tenderness he always showed her, "and see what muzzer has gave me," he went on, turning to nurse with another parcel. In his excitement he didn't know which to unfasten first, and baby had got hold of one of the black shoes, fortunately not the blue ones, and was sucking it vigorously before Ted and nurse saw what she was doing.

"Isn't she pleased?" said Ted, delightedly. Baby must be very pleased with her new possessions, to try to eat them, he thought. And then he had time to examine and admire his own present. It was a delightful one – a book, a nice old-fashioned fat book of all the old nursery rhymes, and filled with pictures too. And Ted's pride was great when here and there he could make out a word or two. Thanks to the pictures, to his own good memory, and the patience of all the big people about him, it was not long before he could say nearly all of them. And so a new pleasure was added to these happy summer days, and to many a winter evening to come.

That night when Ted was going to bed he said his prayers as usual at his mother's knee.

"Make me a good little boy," he said, and then when he had ended he jumped up for his good-night kiss, with a beaming face.

"I sink God has made me good, muzzer?" he said.

"Do you, dear? I hope He is making you so," she answered. "But what makes you say so?"

"'Cos I feel so happy and so good," said Ted, "and thoo said I was good to-day when thoo kissed me. And oh, may I take my sprendid hymn-book to bed wif me?"

And with the ancient legends of Jack and Jill and Little Boy Blue, and Margery Daw, safely under his pillow, happy Ted fell asleep. I wonder if he dreamt of them! What a pity that so much of the pretty fancies and visions of little childhood are lost to us! What quaint pictures they would make. What a heavy burden should lie on the consciences of those who, by careless words or unconsidered tone, destroy the lovely tenderness of little children's dreams and conceits, rub off the bloom of baby poetry!

I could tell you, dear little friends, many pretty stories of Ted and his tiny sister during the first sunny year of little Narcissa's life, but I daresay it may be more interesting to you to hear more of these children as they grow older. The day-by-day life of simple happy little people is, I trust, familiar to you all, and as I want you to know my boy Ted, to think of him through your own childhood as a friend and companion, I must not take up too much of the little book, so quickly filled, with the first years only of his life. And these had now come to an end – a change, to Ted a great and wonderful change, happened about this time. Before little Cissy had learnt to run alone, before Ted had mastered the longest words in his precious "hymn-book," these little people had to leave their beautiful mountain home. One day when the world was looking pensive and sad in its autumn dress, the good-byes had to be said – good-bye to the garden and Ted's shaky bridge; good-bye to old David; and alas! good-bye to Cheviott's grave, all that was left of the faithful old collie to say good-bye to; good-bye to the far-off murmur of the sea and the silent mountain that little Ted had once been so afraid of; good-bye to all of the dear old home, where Ted's blue cart was left forgotten under a tree, where the birds went on singing and chirping as if there were no such things as good-byes in the world – and Ted and Cissy were driven away to a new home, and the oft-told stories of their first one were all that was left of it to their childish minds.

A good many hours' journey from the mountains and the sea near which these children had spent their first happy years, in quite another corner of England, there is to be found a beautiful, quiet old town. It is beautiful from its position, for it stands on rising ground; a fine old river flows round the feet of its castle rock, and on the other side are to be seen high cliffs with pleasant winding paths, sometimes descending close to the water's edge, and it is beautiful in itself. For the castle is such a castle as is not to be met with many times in one's life. It has taken centuries of repose after the stormy scenes it lived through in the long-ago days to make it what it now is – a venerable old giant among its fellows, grim and solemn yet with a dreamy peacefulness about it, that has a wonderful charm. As you cross the unused drawbridge and your footsteps sink in the mossy grass of the great courtyard, it would not be difficult to fancy you were about to enter the castle of the sleeping-beauty of the dear old fairy-tale – so still and dream-like it seems, so strange it is to picture to one's fancy the now grass-grown keep with the din and clang of horsemen and men-at-arms that it must once have known. And near by is a grand old church, solemn and silent too, but differently so from its twin-brother the castle. The one is like a warrior resting after his battles, thinking sadly of the wild scenes he has seen and taken part in; the other like a holy man of old, silent and solemn too, but with the weight of human sorrows and anxieties that have been confided to him, yet ever ready to sympathise and to point upwards with a hope that never fails.

These at least were the feelings that the sight of the old church and the old castle gave me, children dear. I don't suppose Ted thought of them in this way when he first made their acquaintance, and yet I don't know. He might not have been able to say much of what he felt, he was such a little fellow. But he did feel, and in a way that was strange and new, and nearly took his breath away the first time he entered the beautiful old church, walking quietly up the aisle behind his father, his little hat in his hand, gazing up with his earnest eyes at the mysterious stretch of the lofty roof. "O mother," he said, when he went home, "when I am big I will always like the high church best." And when the clear ringing chimes burst forth, as they did with ever-fresh beauty four times a day, sounding to the baby fancy as if they came straight down from heaven, it was all Ted could do not to burst into tears, as he had done that summer day when Mabel had sung "Home, sweet home" in the mountain-gorge.

For it was in this old town, with its church and castle and quaint streets, where some of the houses are still painted black and white, and others lean forward in the top stories as if they wanted to kiss each other; where the front doors mostly open right on to the street, and you come upon the dear old gardens as a sort of delicious surprise at the back; where each turn as you walk about these same old streets gives you a new peep, more delightful than the last, of the river or the cliffs or the far distant hills with their tender lights and shadows; where, on market days the country people come trooping in with their poultry and butter and eggs, with here and there a scarlet cloak among them, the coming and going giving the old High Street the look almost of a foreign town; – here in this dear old place little Ted took root again, and learned to love his new home so much that he forgot to pine for the mountains and the sea. And, here, some years after we said good-bye to them as they drove away from the pretty house in the garden, we find them again – Ted, a big boy of nine or ten, Cissy looking perhaps older than she really was, so bright and hearty and capable a little maiden had she become.

They are in the garden, the dear garden that was as delightful a playing place as children could have, though quite, quite different from the first one you saw Ted in. There it was all ups and downs, lying as it did on the side of a hill; here the paths are on flat ground, though some are zigzaggy of course, as the little paths in an interesting garden always should be; while besides these, some fine broad ones run straight from one end to another, making splendid highroads for drives in wheelbarrows or toy-carts. And in this garden too the trees are high and well grown, and plenty of them. It was just the place for hide and seek or "I spy."

Ted and Cissy have been working at their gardens.

"Oh dear," said the little girl, throwing down her tiny rake and hoe, "Cissy is so tired. And the f'owers won't grow if they isn't planted kick. Cissy is so fond of f'owers."

"So am I," said Ted, "but girls are so quickly tired. It's no good their trying to garden."

Cissy looked rather disconsolate.

"Boys shouldn't have all the f'owers," she said. "Zoo's not a summer child, Ted, zoo's a Kismas child. Zoo should have snow, and Cissy should have f'owers."

She looked at her brother rather mischievously as she said this.

"As it happens, Miss Cissy," said Ted, "there wasn't any snow the Christmas I was born. Mother told me so. And any way, if you liked snowballs I'd let you have them, so I don't see why I shouldn't have flowers."

Cissy threw her arms round Ted's neck and kissed him. "Poor Ted," she said, "zoo shall have f'owers. But Cissy won't have any in her garden if zey isn't planted kick."

"Well, never mind. I'll help you," said Ted; "as soon as I've done my lessons this evening, I'll work in your garden."

"Zank zoo, dear Ted," said Cissy rapturously, and a new hugging ensued, which Ted submitted to with a good grace, though lately it had dawned on him that he was getting rather too big for kissing.

The children's "gardens" were just under the wall that skirted their father's real garden. On the other side of this wall ran the highroad, and the lively sights and sounds to be heard and seen from the top of this same wall made the position of their own bit of ground greatly to their liking. Only the getting on to the wall! There was the difficulty. For Ted it was not so tremendous. He could clamber up by the help of niches which he had managed to make for his feet here and there between the stones, and the consequent destruction to trousers and stockings had never as yet occurred to his boyish mind. But Cissy – poor Cissy! it was quite impossible to get her up on to the wall, and for some time an ambitious project had been taking shape in Ted's brain.

"Cissy," he said, when he was released, "it's no good beginning working at your garden now. We have to go in in ten minutes. I'm going up on the wall for a few minutes. You stay there, and I'll call down to you all I see."

"O Ted," said Cissy, "I wiss I could climb up the wall too."

"I know you do," said Ted. "I've been thinking about that. Wait till I get up, and I'll tell you about it."

Full of faith in Ted's wisdom, little Cissy sat down by the roots of a great elm-tree which stood in her brother's domain. "My tree" Ted had always called it, and it was one of the charms of his property. It was not difficult to climb, even Cissy could be hoisted some way up – to the level of top of the wall indeed, without difficulty, but unfortunately between the tree and the wall there was a space, too wide to cross. And even when the right level was reached, it was too far back to see on to the road.

"If only the tree grew close to the wall," Ted had often said to himself; and now as Cissy sat down below wondering what Ted was going to do, his quick eyes were examining all about to see if a plan that had struck him would be possible.

"Cissy," he cried suddenly, and Cissy started to her feet. "Oh what, Ted?" she cried.

"I see how it could be done. If I had a plank of wood I could fasten it to the tree on one side, and – and – I could find some way if I tried, of fastening it to the wall on the other, and then I could pull the branches down a little – they're nearly down far enough, to make a sort of back to the seat, and oh, Cissy, it would be such a lovely place! We could both sit on it, and see all that passed. I'll tell you what I'm seeing now. There's a man with a wheelbarrow just passing, and such a queer little dog running beside, and farther off there's a boy with a basket, and two girls, and one of them's carrying a baby, and – yes there's a cart and horse coming – awfully fast. I do believe the horse is running away. No, he's pulled it up, and – "

"O Ted," said Cissy, clasping her hands, "how lovely it must be! O Ted, do come down and be kick about making the place for me, for Cissy."

Just then the dinner-bell rang. Ted began his descent, Cissy eagerly awaiting him. She took his hand and trotted along beside him.

"Do zoo think zoo can do it, Ted?" she said.

"I must see about the wood first," said Ted, not without a little importance in his tone; "I think there's some pieces in the coach-house that would do."

At luncheon the big people, of whom there were several, for some uncles and aunts had been staying with the children's father and mother lately, noticed that Ted and Cissy looked very eager about something.

"What have you been doing with yourselves, you little people, this morning?" said one of the aunties kindly.

Cissy was about to answer, but a glance from Ted made her shut tight her little mouth again. There must be some reason for it – perhaps this delightful plan was to be a secret, for her faith in Ted was unbounded.

"We've been in the garden, in our gardens," Ted replied.

"Digging up the plants to see if they were growing – eh?" said an uncle who liked to tease a little sometimes.

Ted didn't mind teasing. He only laughed. Cissy looked a little, a very little offended. She did not like teasing, and she specially disliked any one teasing her dear Ted. Her face grew a little red.

"Ted knows about f'owers bootilly," she said; "Ted knows lots of things."

"Cissy!" said Ted, whose turn it was now to grow a little red, but Cissy maintained her ground.

"Ses," she said. "Ted does."

"Ted's to grow up a very clever man, isn't he, Cissy?" said her father encouragingly – "as clever as Uncle Ted here."

"Oh no," the little fellow replied, blushing still more, for Ted never put himself forward so as to be noticed; "I never could be that. Uncle Ted writes books with lots of counting and stick-sticks in them and – "