Helen's Babies - John Habberton (best time to read books txt) 📗

tell you a story?"

For a moment Toddie's face indicated a terrible internal conflict between old Adam and mother Eve, but curiosity finally overpowered natural depravity, and Toddie murmured:--

"Yesh."

"What shall I tell you about?"

"'Bout Nawndeark."

"About WHAT?"

"He means Noah an' the ark," exclaimed Budge.

"Datsh what _I_ shay--Nawndeark," declared Toddie.

"Well," said I, hastily refreshing my memory by picking up the Bible,--for Helen, like most people, is pretty sure to forget to pack her Bible when she runs away from home for a few days,--"well, once it rained forty days and nights, and everybody was drowned from the face of the earth excepting Noah, a righteous man, who was saved, with all his family, in an ark which the Lord commanded him to build."

"Uncle Harry," said Budge, after contemplating me with open eyes and mouth for at least two minutes after I had finished, "do you think that's Noah?"

"Certainly, Budge; here's the whole story in the Bible."

"Well, _I_ don't think it's Noah one single bit," said he, with increasing emphasis.

"I'm beginning to think we read different Bibles, Budge; but let's hear YOUR version."

"Huh?"

"Tell ME about Noah, if you know so much about him."

"I will, if you want me to. Once the Lord felt so uncomfortable cos folks was bad that he was sorry he ever made anybody, or any world or anything. But Noah wasn't bad--the Lord liked him first-rate, so he told Noah to build a big ark, and then the Lord would make it rain so everybody should be drownded but Noah an' his little boys an' girls, an' doggies an' pussies an' mama-cows an' little-boy-cows an' little-girl-cows an' hosses an' everything--they'd go in the ark an' wouldn't get wetted a bit, when it rained. An' Noah took lots of things to eat in the ark--cookies, an' milk, an' oatmeal, an' strawberries, an' porgies, an'--oh, yes; an' plum-puddin's an' pumpkin-pies. But Noah didn't want everybody to get drownded, so he talked to folks an' said, 'It's goin' to rain AWFUL pretty soon; you'd better be good, an' then the Lord'll let you come into my ark.' An' they jus' said, 'Oh, if it rains we'll go in the house till it stops;' an' other folks said, 'WE ain't afraid of rain--we've got an umbrella.' An' some more said, they wasn't goin' to be afraid of just a rain. But it DID rain though, an' folks went in their houses, an' the water came in, an' they went up-stairs, an' the water came up there, an' they got on the tops of the houses, an' up in big trees, an' up in mountains, an' the water went after 'em everywhere an' drownded everybody, only just except Noah and the people in the ark. An' it rained forty days an' nights, an' then it stopped, an' Noah got out of the ark, an' he and his little boys an' girls went wherever they wanted to, and everything in the world was all theirs; there wasn't anybody to tell 'em to go home, nor no Kindergarten schools to go to, nor no bad boys to fight 'em, nor nothin'. Now tell us 'nother story."

I determined that I would not again attempt to repeat portions of the Scripture narrative--my experience in that direction had not been encouraging. I ventured upon a war story.

"Do you know what the war was?" I asked, by way of reconnoissance.

"Oh, yes," said Budge; "papa was there, an' he's got a sword; don't you see it, hangin' up there?"

Yes, I saw it, and the difference between the terrible field where last I saw Tom's sword in action, and this quiet room where it now hung, forced me into a reverie from which I was aroused by Budge remarking:--

"Ain't you goin' to tell us one?"

"Oh, yes, Budge. One day while the war was going on, there was a whole lot of soldiers going along a road, and they were as hungry as they could be; they hadn't had anything to eat that day."

"Why didn't they go into the houses, and the people they was hungry? That's what _I_ do when I goes along roads."

"Because the people in that country didn't like them; the brothers and papas and husbands of those people were soldiers, too; but they didn't like the soldiers I told you about first, and they wanted to kill them."

"I don't think they were a bit nice," said Budge, with considerable decision.

"Well, the first soldiers wanted to kill THEM, Budge."

"Then they was ALL bad, to want to kill each other."

"Oh, no, they weren't; there were a great many real good men on both sides."

Poor Budge looked sadly puzzled, as he had an excellent right to do, since the wisest and best men are sorely perplexed by the nature of warlike feeling.

"Both parties of soldiers were on horseback," I continued, "and they were near each other, and when they saw each other they made their horses run fast, and the bugles blew, and the soldiers all took their swords out to kill each other with, when just then a little boy, who had been out in the woods to pick berries for his mama, tried to run across the road, and caught his toe some way, and fell down, and cried. Then somebody hallooed 'Halt!' very loud, and all the horses on one side stopped, and then somebody else hallooed 'Halt!' and a lot of bugles blew, and every horse on the other; side stopped, and one soldier jumped off his horse, and picked up the little boy--he was only about as big as you, Budge--and tried to comfort him; and then a soldier from the other side came up to look at him, and then more soldiers came from both sides to look at him; and when he got better and walked home, the soldiers all rode away, because they didn't feel like fighting just then."

"Oh, Uncle Harry! I think it was an AWFUL good soldier that got off his horse to take care of that poor little boy."

"Do you, Budge? Who do you think it was?"

"I dunno."

"It was your papa."

"Oh--h--h--h--h!" If Tom could have but seen the expression upon his boy's face as he prolonged this exclamation, his loss of one of the grandest chances a cavalry officer ever had would not have seemed so great to him as it had done for years. He seemed to take in the story in all its bearings, and his great eyes grew in depth as they took on the far-away look which seemed too earnest for the strength of an earthly being to support.

But Toddie,--he who a fond mama thought endowed with art sense,--Toddie had throughout my recital the air of a man who was musing on some affair of his own, and Budge's exclamation had hardly died away, when Toddie commenced to wave aloud an extravaganza wholly his own.

"When _I_ was a soldier," he remarked, very gravely, "I had a coat an' a hat on, an' a muff an' a little knake [Footnote: Snake: tippet.] wound my neck to keep me warm, an' it wained, an' hailed, an' 'tormed, an' I felt bad, so I whallowed a sword an' burned me all down dead."

"And how did you get here?" I asked, with interest proportioned to the importance of Toddie's last clause.

"Oh, I got up from the burn-down dead, an' COMED right here. An' I want my dolly's k'adle."

Oh persistent little dragon! If you were of age, what a fortune you might make in business!

"Uncle Harry, I wish my papa would come home right away," said Budge.

"Why, Budge?"

"I want to love him for bein' so good to that poor little boy in the war."

"Ocken Hawwy, I wants my dolly's k'adle, tause my dolly's in it, an' I want to shee her;" thus spake Toddie.

"Don't you think the Lord loved my papa awful much for doin' that sweet thing, Uncle Harry?" asked Budge.

"Yes, old fellow, I feel sure that he did."

"Lord lovesh my papa vewy much, so I love ze Lord vewy much," remarked Toddie. "An' I wants my dolly's k'adle an' my dolly."

"Toddie, I don't know where either of them are--I can't find them now--DO wait until morning, then Uncle Harry will look for them."

"I don't see how the Lord can get along in heaven without my papa, Uncle Harry," said Budge.

"Lord takesh papa to heaven, an' Budgie an' me, an' we'll go walkin' an' see ze Lord, an' play wif ze angels' wings, an' hazh good timsh, an' never have to go to bed at all, at all."

Pure hearted little innocents! compared with older people whom we endure, how great thy faith and how few thy faults! How superior thy love--

A knock at the door interrupted me. "Come in!" I shouted.

In stepped Mike, with an air of the greatest secrecy, handed me a letter and the identical box in which I had sent the flowers to Miss Mayton. What COULD it mean? I hastily opened the envelope, and at the same time Toddie shrieked:--

"Oh, darsh my dolly's k'adle--dare 'tish!" snatched and opened the box, and displayed--his doll! My heart sickened, and did NOT regain its strength during the perusal of the following note:--

"Miss Mayton herewith returns to Mr. Burton the package which just arrived, with his card. She recognizes the contents as a portion of the apparent property of one of Burton's nephews, but is unable to understand why it should have been sent to her. "June 20, 1875."

"Toddie," I roared, as my younger nephew caressed his loathsome doll, and murmured endearing words to it, "where did you get that box?"

"On the hat-wack," replied the youth, with perfect fearlessness; "I keeps it in ze book-case djawer, an' somebody took it 'way an' put nasty ole flowers in it."

"Where are those flowers?" I demanded.

Toddie looked up with considerable surprise but promptly replied:--

"I froed 'em away--don't want no ole flowers in my dolly's k'adle. That's ze way she wocks--see!" And this horrible little destroyer of human hopes rolled that box back and forth with the most utter unconcern, as he spoke endearing words to the substitute for my beautiful bouquet!

To say that I looked at Toddie reprovingly is to express my feelings in the most inadequate language, but of language in which to express my feelings to Toddie. I could find absolutely none. Within two or three short moments I had discovered how very anxious I really was to merit Miss Mayton's regard, and how very different was the regard I wanted from that which I had previously hoped might be accorded me. It seemed too ridiculous to be true that I, who had for years had dozens of charming lady acquaintances, and yet had always maintained my common sense and self-control; I, who had always considered it unmanly for a man to specially interest himself in ANY lady until he had an income of five thousand a year; I who had skilfully, and many times, argued, that life-attachments, or attempts thereat, which were made without a careful preliminary study of the mental characteristics of the partner desired, was the most unpardonable folly,--I had transgressed every one of my own rules, and, as if to mock me for any pretended wisdom and care, my weakness was made known to me by a three-year-old marplot and a hideous rag-doll!

That merciful and ennobling dispensation