X\\' v <- . \ *;. X WEE WILLIE WINKIE AND OTHER STORIES BY RUDYARD KIPLING NEW YORK MANHATTAN PRESS 474 WEST BROADWAY WEE WILLIE WINKIE. " AN officer and a gentleman." His full name was Percival William Wil- liams, but he picked up the other name in a nursery-book, and that was the end of the christened titles. His mother's ayah called him W\\\ie-l?al>a, but as he never paid the faintest attention to anything that the ayah said, her wisdom did not help matters. His father was the Colonel of the i95th, and as soon as Wee Willie Winkie was old enough to understand what Military Discipline meant, Colonel Williams put him under it. There was no other way of managing the child. When he was good for a week, he drew good- conduct pay ; and when he was bad, he was- deprived of his good-conduct stripe. Generally he was bad, for India offers so many chances* to little six-year-olds of going wrong. Children resent familiarity from strangers, and Wee Willie Winkie was a very particular child. Once he accepted an acquaintance, he was graciously pleased to thaw. He ac- cepted Brandis, a subaltern of the igsth, on. 2234735 8 Wee Willie Winkie sight. Brandis was having tea at the Col- onel's, and Wee Willie Winkie entered strong in the possession of a good-conduct badge won for not chasing the hens round the com- pound. He regarded Brandis with gravity for at least ten minutes, and then delivered him- self of his opinion. " I like you," said he slowly, getting off his chair and coming over to Brandis. " I like you. I shall call you Coppy, because of your hair. Do you mind being called Coppy ? it is because of ve hair, you know." Here was one of the most embarrassing of Wee Willie Winkie's peculiarities. He would look at a stranger for some time, and then, without warning or explanation, would give him a name. And the name stuck. No regi- mental penalties could break Wee Willie Winkie of this habit. He lost his good-con- duct badge for christening the Commissioner's wife " Fobs ; " but nothing that the Colonel could do made the Station forego the nick- name, and Mrs. Collen remained Mrs. " Fobs " till the end of her stay. So Brandis was christened " Coppy," and rose, therefore, in the estimation of the regiment. If Wee Willie Winkie took an interest in any one, the fortunate man was envied alike by the mess and the rank and file. And in their envy lay no suspicion of self-interest. " The Colonel's son " was idolized on his own merits entirely. Yet Wee Willie Winkie Wee Willie Winkie 9 was not lovely. His face was permanently freckled, as his legs were permanently scratched, and in spite of his mother's almost tearful remonstrances he had insisted upon having his long yellow locks cut short in the military fashion. " I want my hair like Sergeant Tummil's," said Wee Willie Winkie, and, his father abetting, the sacrifice was ac- complished. Three weeks after the bestowal of his youthful affections on Lieutenant Brandis henceforward to be called " Coppy " for the sake of brevity Wee Willie Winkie was destined to behold strange things and far beyond his comprehension. Coppy returned his liking with interest Coppy had let him wear for five rapturous minutes his own big sword just as tall as Wee Willie Winkie. Coppy had promised him a terrier puppy ; and Coppy had permitted him to witness the miraculous operation of shaving. Nay, more Coppy had said that even he, Wee Willie Winkie, would rise in time to the ownership of a box of shiny knives, a silver soap-box and a silver-handled " sput- ter-brush," as Wee Willie Winkie called it. Decidedly, there was no one except his father, who could give or take away good-conduct badges at pleasure, half so wise, strong, and valiant as Coppy with the Afghan and Egyptian medals on his breast. Why, then, should Coppy be guilty of the unmanly weak- io Wee Willie Winkie ness of kissing vehemently kissing a " big girl," Miss Allardyce to wit ? In the course of a morning ride, Wee Willie Winkie had seen Coppy so doing, and, like the gentleman he was, had promptly wheeled round and can- tered back to his groom, lest the groom should also see. Under ordinary circumstances he would have spoken to his father, but he felt instinct- ively that this was a matter on which Coppy ought first to be consulted. " Coppy," shouted Wee Willie Winkie, rein- ing up outside that subaltern's bungalow early one morning " I want to see you, Coppy 1 " " Come in, young 'un," returned Coppy, who was at early breakfast in the midst of his dogs. " What mischief have you been getting into now ? " Wee Willie Winkie had done nothing notor- iously bad for three days, and so stood on a pinnacle of virtue. " I've been doing nothing bad," said he, curling himself into a long chair with a studious affectation of the Colonel's languor after a hot parade. He buried his freckled nose in a teacup and, with eyes staring roundly over the rim, asked : " I say, Coppy, is it pwoper to kiss big girls ? " " By Jove 1 You're beginning early. Who do you want to kiss ? " " No one. My muvver's always kissing me if I don't stop her. If it isn't pwoper, how Wee Willie Winkie u was you kissing Major Allardyce's big girl last morning, by ve canal ? " Coppy's brow wrinkled. He and Miss Allardyce had with great craft managed to keep their engagement secret for a fortnight. There were urgent and imperative reasons why Major Allardyce should not know how mat- ters stood for at least another month, and this small marplot had discovered a great deal too much. "I saw you," said Wee Willie Winkie calmly. " But ve groom didn't see. I said, ' Hutjao? " " Oh, you had that much sense, you young Rip," groaned poor Coppy, half amused and half angry. " And how many people may you have told about it ? " " Only me myself. You didn't tell when I twied to wide ve buffalo ven my pony was lame ; and I fought you wouldn't like." " Winkie," said Coppy enthusiastically, shak- ing the small hand, " you're the best of good fellows. Look here, you can't understand all these things. One of these days hang it, how can I make you see it I I'm going to marry Miss Allardyce, and then she'll be Mrs. Coppy, as you say. If your young mind is so scandalized at the idea of kissing big girls, go and tell your father." " What will happen ? " said Wee Willie Winkie, who firmly believed that his father was omnipotent. 12 Wee Willie Winkie " I shall get into trouble," said Coppy,, play- ing his trump card with an appealing look at the holder of the ace. "Ven I won't," said Wee Willie Winkie briefly. " But my faver says it's un-man-ly to be always kissing, and I didn't fink you'd do vat, Coppy." " I'm not always kissing, old chap. It's only ' now and then, and when you're bigger you'll do it too. Your father meant it's not good : for little boys." " Ah' I " said Wee Willie Winkie, now fully enlightened. " It's like ve sputter-brush ? " " Exactly," said Coppy gravely. "But I don't fink I'll ever want to kiss big girls, nor no one, 'cept my muvver. And I must vat, you know." There was a long pause, broken by Wee Willie Winkie. " Are you fond of vis big girl, Coppy ? " '" Awfully 1 " said Coppy. " Fonder van you are of Bell or ve Butcha or me ? " " Jt's in a different way," said Coppy. " You see, one of these days Miss Allardyce will belong to me, but you'll grow up and com- mand the Regiment and all sorts of things. It's quite different, you see." "Very well," said Wee Willie Winkie, rising 1 ; " If you're fond of ve big girl, I won't tell 'any one. 1 I must go now." Coppy rose and escorted his small guest to Wee Willie Winkie 13 the door, adding : " You're the best of little fellows, Winkie. I tell you what. In thirty days from now you can tell if you like tell any one you like." Thus the secret of the Brandis-Allardyce engagement was dependent on a little child's word. Coppy, who knew Wee Willie Winkie's idea of truth, was at ease, for he felt that he would not break promises. Wee Willie Winkie betrayed a special and unusual interest in Miss Allardyce, and, slowly revolving round that embarrassed young lady, was used to regard her gravely with unwinking eye. He was trying to discover why Coppy should have kissed her. She was not half so nice as his own mother. On the other hand, she was Coppy's property, and would in time belong to him. Therefore it behooved him to treat her with as much respect as Coppy's big sword or shiny pistol. The idea that he shared a great secret in common with Coppy kept Wee Willie Winkie unusually virtuous for three weeks. Then the Old Adam broke out, and he made what he called a " camp-fire " at the bottom of the garden. How could he have foreseen that the flying sparks would have lighted the Col- onel's little hayrick and consumed a week's store for the horses ? Sudden and swift was the punishment deprivation of the good- conduct badge and, most sorrowful of all, two days confinement to barracks the house and 14 Wee Willie Winkie veranda coupled with the withdrawal of the light of his father's countenance. He took the sentence like the man he strove to be, drew himself up with a quivering under- lip, saluted, and, once clear of the room, ran to weep bitterly in his nursery called by him " my quarters." Coppy came in the after- noon and attempted to console the culprit. " I'm under awwest," said Wee Willie Winkie mournfully, " and I didn't ought to speak to you." Very early the next morning he climbed on to the roof of the house that was not for- bidden and beheld Miss Allardyce going for a ride. " Where are you going " cried Wee Willie Winkie. " Across the river," she answered, and trot- ted forward. Now the cantonment in which the i95th lay was bounded on the north by a river dry in the winter. From his earliest years, Wee Willie Winkie had been forbidden to go across the river, and had noted that even Coppy the almost almighty Coppy had never set foot beyond it Wee Willie Winkie had once been read to, out of a big blue book, the his- tory of the Princess and the Goblins a most wonderful tale of a land where the Goblins were always warring with the children of men until they were defeated by one Curdie. Ever since that date it seemed to him that the bare Wee Willie Winkie 15 black and purple hills across the river were inhabited by Goblins, and, in truth, every one had said that there lived the Bad Men. Even in his own house the lower halves of the win- dows were covered with green paper on ac- count of the Bad Men who might, if allowed clear view, fire into peaceful drawing-rooms and comfortable bedrooms. Certainly, beyond the river, which was the end of all the Earth, lived the Bad Men. And here was Major Al- lardyce's big girl, Coppy's property, preparing to venture into their borders ! What would Coppy say if anything happened to her ? If the Goblins ran off with her as they did with Curdie's Princess ? She must at all hazards be turned back. The house was still. Wee Willie Winkie reflected for a moment on the very terrible wrath of his father ; and then broke his arrest! It was a crime unspeakable. The low sun threw his shadow, very large and very black, on the trim garden-paths, as he went down to the stables and ordered his pony. It seemed to him in the hush of the dawn that all the big world had been bidden to stand still and look at Wee Willie Winkie guilty of mutiny. The drowsy groom handed him his mount, and, since the one great sin made all others insig- nificant, Wee Willie Winkie said that he was going to ride over to Coppy Sahib, and went out at a foot-pace, stepping on the soft mould of the flower-borders. 16 Wee Willie Winkie The devastating track of the pony's feet was the last misdeed that cut him off from all sympathy of Humanity. He turned into the road, leaned forward, and rode as fast as the pony could put foot to the ground in the direc- tion of the river. But the liveliest of twelve-two ponies can do little against the long canter of a Waler. Miss Allardyce was far ahead, had passed through the crops, beyond the Police-post, when all the guards were asleep, and her mount was scattering the pebbles of the river bed as Wee Willie Winkie left the cantonment and British India behind him. Bowed forward and still flogging, Wee Willie Winkie shot into Afghan territory, and could just see Miss Allardyce, a black speck, flickering across the stony plain. The reason of her wandering was simple enough. Coppy, in a tone of too-hastily-as- sumed authority, had told her over night that she must not ride out by the river. And she had gone to prove her own spirit and teach Coppy a lesson. Almost at the foot of the inhospitable hills, Wee Willie Winkie saw the Waler blunder and come down heavily. Miss Allardyce struggled clear, but her ankle had been severely twisted, and she could not stand. Having thus demon- strated her spirit, she wept copiously, and was surprised by the apparition of a white, wide-eyed child in khaki, on a nearly spent pony. Wee Willie Winkie 17 " Are you badly, badly hurted ? " shouted Wee Willie Winkie, as soon as he was within range. " You didn't ought to be here." "I don't know," said Miss Allardyce rue- fully, ignoring the reproof. " Good gracious, child, what are you doing here ? " " You said you was going acwoss ve wiver," panted Wee Willie Winkie, throwing himself off his pony. " And nobody not even Cop- py must go acwoss ve wiver, and I came after you ever so hard, but you wouldn't stop, and now you've hurted yourself, and Coppy will be angwy wiv me, and I've bwoken my awwest 1 I've bwoken my awwest 1 " The future Colonel of the igsth sat down and sobbed. In spite of the pain in her ankle the girl was moved. " Have you ridden all the way from canton- ments, little man ? What for ? " " You belonged to Coppy. Coppy told me so 1 " wailed Wee Willie Winkie disconsolately. " I saw him kissing you, and he said he was fonder of you van Bell or ve Butcha or me. And so I came. You must get up and come back. You didn't ought to be here. Vis is a bad place, and I've bwoken my awwest." " I can't move, Winkie," said Miss Allar- dyce, with a groan. " I've hurt my foot. What shall I do ? " She showed a readiness to weep afresh, which steadied Wee Willie Winkie, who had been brought up to believe that tears were the 2 r8 Wee Willie Winkie depth of unmanliness. Still, when one is as great a sinner as Wee Willie Winkie, even a man may be permitted to break down. " Winkie," said Miss Allardyce, " when you've rested a little, ride back and tell them to send out something to carry me back in. It hurts fearfully." The child sat still for a little time and Miss Allardyce closed her eyes ; the pain was nearly making her faint. She was roused by Wee Willie Winkie tying up the reins on his pony's neck and setting it free with a vicious cut of his whip that made it whicker. The little animal headed towards the cantonments. " Oh, Winkie I What are you doing ? " " Hush 1 " said Wee Willie Winkie. "Vere's a man coming one of ve Bad Men. I must stay wiv you. My faver says a man must always look after a girl. Jack will go home, and ven vey'll come and look for us. Vat's why I let him go." Not one man but two or three had appeared ifrom behind the rocks of the hills, and the 'heart of Wee Willie Winkie sank within him, for just in this manner were the Goblins wont to steal out and vex Curdie's soul. Thus had they played in Curdie's garden, he had seen the picture, and thus had they frightened the Princess's nurse. He heard them talking to each other, and recognized with joy the bastard Pushto that he had picked up from one of his father's grooms lately dismissed. People who Wee Willie Winkie 19 spoke that tongue could not be the Bad Men. They were only natives after all. They came up to the boulders on which Miss Allardyce's horse had blundered. Then rose from the rock Wee Willie Winkie, child of the Dominant Race, aged six and three-quarters, and said briefly and emphatically "Jaof" The pony had crossed the river-bed. The men laughed, and laughter from na- tives was the one thing Wee Willie Winkie could not tolerate. He asked them what they wanted and why they did not depart. Other men with most evil faces and crooked-stocked guns crept out of the shadows of the hills, till, soon, Wee Willie Winkie was face to face with an audience some twenty strong. Miss Allardyce screamed. " Who are you ? " said one of the men. " I am the Colonel Sahib's son, and my order is that you go at once. You black men are frightening the Miss Sahib. One of you must run into cantonments and take the news that the Miss Sahib has hurt herself, and that the Colonel's son is here with her." " Put our feet into the trap ? " was the laughing reply. " Hear this boy's speech ! " "Say that I sent you I, the Colonel's son. They will give you money." " What is the use of this talk ? Take up the child and the girl, and we can at least ask for the ransom. Ours are the villages 2O Wee Willie Winkie on the heights," said a voice in the back ground. These were the Bad Men worse than Gob- lins and it needed all Wee Willie Winkie's training to prevent him from bursting into tears. But he felt that to cry before a. native, excepting only his mother's ayah, would be an infamy greater than any mutiny. More- over, he, as future Colonel of the. i95th, had that grim regiment at his back. " Are you going to carry us away ? " said Wee Willie Winkie, very blanched and un- comfortable. " Yes, my little Sahib Bahadur" said the tallest of the men, " and eat you afterwards." "That is child's talk," said Wee Willie Winkie. " Men do not eat men." A yell of laughter interrupted him, but he went on firmly, " And if you do carry us away, I tell you that all my regiment will come up in a day and kill you all without leaving one. Who will take my message to the Colonel Sahib ? " Speech in any vernacular and Wee Willie Winkie had a colloquial acquaintance with three -was easy to the boy who could not yet manage his " r's " and " th's " aright. Another man joined the conference, cry- ing : " O foolish men ! What this babe says is true. He is the heart's heart of those white troops. For the sake of peace let them go both, for if he be taken, the reg* Wee Willie Winkie 21 imeit will break loose and gut the valley. Our villages are in the valley, and we shall not escape. That regiment are devils. They broke Khoda Yar's breast-bone with kicks when he tried to take the rifles ; and if we touch this child they will fire and rape and plunder for a month, till nothing remains. Better to send a man back to take the mes- sage and get a reward. I say that this child is their God, and that they will spare none of us, nor our women, if we harm him." It was Din Mahommed, the dismissed groom of the Colonel, who made the diver- sion, and an angry and heated discussion followed. Wee Willie Winkie, standing over Miss Allardyce, waited the upshot Surely his " wegimcnt, ' his own " wegiment," would not desert him if they knew of his extrem- ity The riderless pony brought the news to the 1 95th, though there had been consternation in the Colonel's household for an hour be- fore. The little beast came in through the parade-ground in front of the main barracks, where the .men were settling down to play Spoil-five till the afternoon. Devlin, the color Sergeant of E Company, glanced at the empty saddle and tumbled through the barrack-rooms, kicking up each Room Cor- poml as he passed. " Up, ye beggars I 22 Wee Willie Winkie There's something happened to the Colonel's son," he shouted. " He couldn't fall off 1 S'elp me, 'e couldn't fall off," blubbered a drummer-boy. " Go an' hunt acrost the river. He's over there if he's anywhere, an* maybe those Pathans have got 'im. For the love o* Gawd don't look for 'im in the nullahs 1 Let's go over the river." " There's sense in Mott yet," said Devlin. " E Company, double out to the river sharp 1" So E Company, in its shirt-sleeves mainly, double for the dear life, and in the rear toiled the perspiring Sergeant, adjuring it to double yet faster. The cantonment was alive with the men of the igsth hunting for Wee Willie Winkie, and the Colonel finally overtook E Company, far too exhausted to swear, struggling in the pebbles of the river-bed. Up the hill under which Wee Willie Winkie's Bad Men were discussing the wis- dom of carrying off the child and the girl, a lookout fired two shots. t'What have I said?" shouted Din Ma- hommed. " There is the warning 1 The pulton are out already and are coming across the plain 1 Get away 1 Let us not be seen with the boy 1 " The men waited for an instant, and then, as another shot was fired, withdrew into the hills, silently as they had appeared. " The wegiment is coming," said Wee Wee Willie Winkie 23 Willie Winkie confidently to Miss Allardyce, " and it's all wight. Don't cwy 1 " He needed the advice himself, for ten min- utes later, when his father came up, he was weeping bitterly with his head in Miss Allar- dyce's lap. And the men of the iQ5th carried him home with shouts and rejoicings ; and Coppy, who had ridden a horse into a lather, met him, and, to his intense disgust, kissed him openly in the presence of the men. But there was balm for his dignity. His father assured him that not only would the breaking of arrest be condoned, but that the good-conduct badge would be restored as soon as his mother could sew it on his blouse-sleeve. Miss Allardyce had told the Colonel a story that made him proud of his son. " She belonged to you, Coppy," said Wee Willie Winkie, indicating Miss Allardyce with a grimy forefinger. " I knew she didn't ought to go acwoss ve wiver, and I knew ve wegiment would come to me if I sent Jack home." " You're a hero, Winkie," said Coppy " a pukka hero 1 " " I don't know what vat means," said Wee Willie Winkie, " but you mustn't call me Winkie any no more. I'm Percival Will'am Will'ams."' And in this manner did Wee Willie Win- kle enter into his manhood. BAA BAA, BLACK SHEEP. BAA Baa, Black Sheep, Have you any wool ? Yes, Sir, yes, Sir, three bags full. One for the Master, one for the Dame None for the Little Boy that cries down the lane. THE FIRST BAG. * WHEN I was in my father's house, I was in a better place." THEY were putting Punch to bed the ayah and the hamal and Meeta, the big Surti boy with the red and gold turban. Judy, already tucked inside her mosquito-curtains, was nearly asleep. Punch had been allowed to stay up for dinner. Many privileges had been accorded to Punch within the last ten days, and a greater kindness from the people of his world had encompassed his ways and works, which were mostly obstreperous. He sat on the edge of his bed and swung his bare legs defiantly. 24 Baa Baa, Black Sheep 25 " Punch-/W>al>a will wake up," said the ayah. "]\idy-baba is waking," piped a small voice from the mosquito-curtains. " There was a Ranee that lived at Delhi. Go on, Meeta," and she fell fast asleep again while Meeta began the story. Never had Punch secured the telling of that tale with so little opposition. He reflected for a long time. The hamal made the tiger- noises in twenty different keys. " 'Top ! " said Punch, authoritatively. " Why doesn't Papa come in and say he is going to give me put-put 1 " " Punch-&al>a is going away," said the ayah. " In another week there will be no Punch- baba to pull my hair any more." She sighed softly, for the boy of the household was very dear to her heart. "Up the Ghauts in a train ? " said Punch, standing on his bed. " All the way to Nas- sick where the Ranee-Tiger lives ? " " Not to Nassick this year, little Sahib," said Meeta, lifting him on his shoulder. " Down to the sea where the cocoanuts are 26 Wee Willie Winkie thrown, and across the sea in a big ship, Will you take Meeta with you to Belait ? " " You shall all come," said Punch, from the height of Meeta's strong arms. " Meeta and the ayah and the hamal and Bhini-in-the- Garden, and the salaam-Captain-Sahib-snake- man." There was no mockery in Meeta's voice when he replied " Great is the Sahib's favor," and laid the little man down in the bed, while the ayah, sitting in the moonlight at the door- way, lulled him to sleep with an interminable canticle such as they sing in the Roman Cath- olic Church at Parel. Punch curled himself into a ball and slept. Next morning Judy shouted that there was a rat in the nursery, and thus he forgot to tell her the wonderful news. It did not much matter, for Judy was only three, and she would not have understood. But Punch was five ; and he knew that going to England would be much nicer than a trip to Nassick. And Papa and Mama sold the brougham and the piano, and stripped the house, and curtailed the allowance of crockery for the daily meals, and took long council together over a bundle of letters bearing the Rockling- ton postmark. " The worst of it is that one can't be cer- tain of anything," said Papa, pulling his Baa Baa, Black Sheep 27 mustache. " The letters in themselves are ex- cellent, and the terms are moderate enough." " The worst of it is that the children will grow up away from me," thought Mama ; but she did not say it aloud. " We are only one case among hundreds," said Papa, bitterly. " You shall go Home again in five years, dear." " Punch will be ten then and Judy eight. Oh, how long and long and long the time will be 1 And we have to leave them among strangers." " Punch is a cheery little chap. He's sure to make friends wherever he goes." " And who could help loving my Ju ? " They were standing over the cots in the nursery late at night, and I think that Mama was crying softly. After Papa had gone away, she knelt down by the side of Judy's cot. The ayah saw her and put up a prayer that the memsahib might never find the love of her children taken away from her and given to a stranger. Mama's own prayer was a slightly illog- ical one. Summarized it ran : " Let stran- gers love my children and be as good to them as I should be, but let me preserve their love and their confidence for ever and ever. Amen." Punch scratched himself in his sleep, and Judy moaned a little. That seems to be the only answer to the prayer : and, next day, they all went down, to the sea, and there was 28 Wee Willie Winkie a scene at the Apollo Bunder when Punch discovered that Meeta could not. come too, and Judy learned that the ayah. must be left behind. But Punch found a thousand fasci- nating things in the rope, block, and steam- pipe line , on the big P. and O. Steamer, long before Meeta and the ayah had dried their tears. " Come back, Punch-&z&z," said the ayah. " Come back," said Meeta, " and be a Burra Sahib." " Yes," said Punch, lifted up in his father's arms to wave good-by. "Yes, I will come back, and 'I will be a Burra Sahib Baha dur > " At the end of the first day Punch demanded to be set down in England, which, he was certain must be close at hand. Next day there was a merry breeze, and Punch was very sick. " When I come back to Bombay," said Punch on his recovery, " I will come by the road in a broom-gtiarri. This is a very naughty ship." The Swedish boatswain consoled him, and he modified his opinions as the voyage went on. There was so much to see and to handle and ask questions about that Punch nearly forgot the ayah and Meeta and the hamal, and with difficulty remembered a few words of the Hindustani, once his second-speech. But Judy was much worse. The day before the steamer reached Southampton, Mama Baa Baa, Black Sheep 29 asked her if she would not like to see the ttya/t again. Judy's blue eyes turned to the stretch of sea that had swallowed all her tiny past, and she said : " Ayah ! What ayah ? " Mama cried over her and Punch marveled. It was then that he heard for the first time Mama's passionate appeal to him never to let Judy forget Mama. Seeing that Judy was young, ridiculously young, and that Mama, every evening for four weeks past, had come into the cabin to sing her and Punch to sleep with a mysterious rune that he called " Sonny, my soul," Punch could not understand what Mama meant. But he strove to do his duty ; for, the moment Mama left the cabin, he said to Judy : " Ju, you bemember Mama ? " " 'Torse I do," said Judy. " Then always bemember Mama, 'r else I won't give you the paper ducks that the red- haired Captain Sahib cut out for me." So Judy promised always to " bemember Mama." Many and many a time was Mama's com- mand laid upon Punch, and Papa would say the same thing with an insistence that awed the child. " You must make haste and learn to write, Punch," said Papa, " and then you'll be able to write letters to us in Bombay." " I'll come into your room," said Punch, and Papa choked. 30 Wee Willie Winkle Papa and Mama were always choking in those days. If Punch took Judy to task for not " bemembering," they choked. If Punch sprawled on the sofa in the Southampton lodging-house and sketched his future in purple and gold, they choked ; and so they did if Judy put up her mouth for a kiss. Through many days all four were vagabonds on the face of the earth : Punch with no one to give orders to, Judy too young for any- thing, and Papa and Mama grave, distracted, and choking. " Where," demanded Punch, wearied of a loathsome contrivance on four wheels with a mound of luggage atop " where is our broom- gharri? This thing talks so much that / can't talk. Where is our own broom-gftarri ? When I was at Bandstand before we corned away, I asked Inverarity Sahib why he was sitting in it, and he said it was his own. And I said, ' I will give it you ' I like Inver- arity Sahib and I said, ' Can you put your legs through the pully-wag loops by the win- dows ? ' And Inverarity Sahib said No, and laughed. / can put my legs through the pully- wag loops. I can put my legs through these pully-wag loops. Look ! Oh, Mama's cry- ing again I I didn't know. I wasn't not to do so." Punch drew his legs out of the loops of the four-wheeler : the door opened and he slid to the earth, in a cascade of parcels, at the Baa Baa, Black Sheep 31 door of an austere little villa whose gates bore the legend " Downe Lodge." Punch gathered himself together and eyed the house with disfavor. It stood on a sandy road, and a cold wind tickled his knickerbockered legs. " Let us go away," said Punch. " This is not a pretty place." But Mama and Papa and Judy had quitted the cab, and all the luggage was being taken into the house. At the doorstep stood a woman in black, and she smiled largely, with dry chapped lips. Behind her was a man, big, bony, gray, and lame as to one leg behind him a boy of twelve, black-haired and oily in appearance. Punch surveyed the trio, and advanced without fear, as he had been ac- customed to do in Bombay when callers came and he happened to be playing in the veranda. " How do you do ? " said he. " I am Punch." But they were all looking at the luggage all except the gray man, who shook hands with Punch and said he was " a smart little fellow." There was much running about and banging of boxes, and Punch curled him- self up on the sofa in the dining-room and considered things. " I don't like these people," said Punch. " But never mind. We'll go away soon. We have always went away soon from everywhere. I wish we was gone back to Bombay soon." The wish bore no fruit. For six days Mama wept at intervals, and showed the woman 32 Wee Willie Winkie in black all Punch's clothes a liberty which Punch resented. " But p'r'aps she's a new white ayah" he thought. " I'm to call her Antirosa, but she doesn't call me Sahib. She says just Punch," he confided to Judy. " What is Antirosa ? " Judy didn't know. Neither she nor Punch had heard anything of an animal called an aunt. Their world had been Papa and Mama, who knew everything, permitted everything, and loved everybody even Punch when he used to go into the garden at Bombay and fill his nails with mold after the weekly nail- cutting, because, as he explained between two strokes of the slipper to his sorely tried Father, his fingers " felt so new at the ends." In an undefined way Punch judged it advis- able to keep both parents between himself and the woman in black and the boy in black hair. He did not approve of them. He liked the gray man, who had expressed a wish to be called " Uncleharri." They nodded at each other when they met, and the gray man showed him a little ship with rigging that took up and down. " She is a model of the Brisk the little Brisk that was sore exposed that day at Navarino." The gray man hummed the last words and fell into a reverie. "I'll tell you about Navarino, Punch, when we go for walks together ; and you mustn't touch the ship, be- cause she's the Brisk." Baa Baa, Black Sheep 33 Long before that walk, the first of many, was taken, they roused Punch and Judy in the chill dawn of a February morning to say Good-by ; and of all people in the wide earth to Papa and Mama both crying this time. Punch was very sleepy and Judy was cross. " Don't forget us," pleaded Mama. " Oh, my little son, don't forget us, and see that Judy remembers too." " I've told Judy to bemember," said Punch, wriggling, for his father's beard, tickled his neck. " I've told Judy ten forty 'leven thousand times. But Ju's so young quite a baby isn't she ? " " Yes," said Papa, " quite a baby, and you must be good to Judy, and make haste to learn to write and and and "... Punch was back in his bed again. Judy was fast asleep, and there was the rattle of a., cab below. Papa and Mama had gone away. Not to Nassick ; that was across the sea. To some place much nearer, of course, and equally of course they would return. They came back after dinner-parties, and Papa had come back after he had been to a place called " The Snows," and Mama with him, to Punch and Judy at Mrs, Inver- arity's house in Marine Lines. Assuredly they would come back again. So Punch fell asleep till the true morning, when the black- haired boy ,met him with the information that Papa and Mama had gone to Bombay, and 3 34 Wee Willie Winkie that he and Judy were to stay at Downe Lodge " forever." Antirosa, tearfully appealed to for a contradiction, said that Harry had spoken the truth, and that it behooved Punch to fold up his clothes neatly on going to bed. Punch went out and wept bitterly with Judy, into whose fair head he had driven some ideas of the meaning of separation. When a matured man discovers that he has been deserted by Providence, deprived of his God, and cast without help, comfort, or sympathy, upon a world which is new and strange to him, his despair, which may find expression in evil-living, the writing of his experiences, or the more satisfactory diversion of suicide, is generally supposed to be im- pressive. A child, under exactly similar circumstances as far as its knowledge goes, cannot very well curse God and die. It howls till its nose is red, its eyes are sore, and its head aches. Punch and Judy, through no fault of their own, had lost all their world, They sat in the hall and cried ; the black- haired boy looking on from afar. The model of the ship availed nothing, though the gray man assured Punch that he might pull the rigging up and down as much as he pleased ; and Judy was promised free entry into the kitchen. They wanted Papa and Mama gone to Bombay beyond the seas, and their grief while it lasted was withoul remedy. Baa Baa, Black Sheep 35 When the tears ceased the house was very still. Antirosa had decided it was better to let the children " have their cry out," and the boy had gone to school. Punch raised his head from the floor and sniffed mournfully. Judy was nearly asleep. Three short years had not taught her how to bear sorrow with full knowledge. There was a distant, dull boom in the air a repeated heavy thud. Punch knew that sound in Bombay in the Monsoon. It was the sea the sea that must be traversed before any one could get to Bombay. " Quick, Ju 1 " he cried, " we're close to the sea. I can hear it 1 Listen 1 That's where they've went. P'r'aps we can catch them if we was in time. They didn't mean to go without us. They've only forgot." " Iss," said Judy. " They've only forgotted. Less go to the sea." The hall-door was open and so was the garden-gate. 41 It's very, very big, this place," he said, looking cautiously down the road, " and we will get lost; but /will find a man and order him to take me back to my house like I did in Bombay." He took Judy by the hand, and the two fled hatless in the direction of the sound of the sea. Downe Villa was almost the last of a range of newly-built houses running out, through a chaos of brick-mounds, to a heath 36 Wee Willie Winkie where gipsies occasionally camped and where the Garrison Artillery of Rocklington prac- tised. There were few people to be seen, and the children might have been taken for those of the soldiery who ranged far. Half an hour the wearied little legs tramped across heath, potato-field, and sand-dune. " I'se so tired," said Judy, " and Mama will be angry." " Mama's never angry. I suppose she is waiting at the sea now while Papa gets tickets. We'll find them and go along with. Ju, you mustn't sit down. Only a little more and we'll come to the sea. Ju, if you sit down I'll thmack you ! " said Punch. They climbed another dune, and came upon the great gray sea at low tide. Hun- dreds of crabs were scuttling about the beach, but there was no trace of Papa and Mama, not even of a ship upon the waters nothing but sand and mud for miles and miles. And " Uncleharri " found them by chance very muddy and very forlorn Punch dis- solved in tears, but trying to divert Judy with an " ickle trab," and Judy wailing to the piti- less horizon for " Mama, Mama I " and again " Mama 1 Baa Baa, Black Sheep 37 THE SECOND BAG. AH, well-a-day, for we are souls bereaved ! Of all the creatures under Heaven's wide scope We are most hopeless, who had once most hope, And most belierless, who had most believed. The City of Dreadful Night. ALL this time not a word about Black Sheep. He came later, and Harry the black- haired boy was mainly responsible for his coming. Judy who could help loving little Judy ? passed, by special permit, into the kitchen and thence straight to Aunty Rosa's heart. Harry was Aunty Rosa's one child, and Punch was the extra boy about the house. There was no special place for him or his little affairs, and he was forbidden to sprawl on sofas and explain his ideas about the manu- facture of this world and his hopes for his future. Sprawling was lazy and wore out sofas, and little boys were not expected to talk. They were talked to, and the talking to was intended for the benefit of their morals. As the unquestioned despot of the house at Bombay, Punch could not quite understand how he came to be of no account in this his new life. Harry might reach across the table and take what he wanted ; Judy might point and 38 Wee Willie Winkie get what she wanted. Punch was forbidden to do either. The gray man was his great hope and stand-by for many months after Mama and Papa left, and he had forgotten to tell Judy to " bemember Mama." This lapse was excusable, because in the interval he had been introduced by Aunty Rosa to two very impressive things an ab- straction called God, the intimate friend and ally of Aunty Rosa, generally believed to live behind the kitchen range because it was hot there and a dirty brown book filled with un- intelligible dots and marks. Punch was al- ways anxious to oblige everybody. He, there- fore, welded the story of the Creation on to what he could recollect of his Indian fairy tales, and scandalized Aunty Rosa by repeat- ing the result to Judy. It was a sin, a griev- ous sin, and Punch was talked to for a quarter of an hour. He could not understand where the iniquity came in, but was careful not to repeat the offense, because Aunty Rosa told him that God had heard every word he had said and was very angry. If this were true why didn't God come and say so, thought Punch, and dismissed the matter from his mind. Afterwards he learned to know the Lord as the only thing in the world more aw- ful than Aunty Rosa as a Creature that stood in the background and counted the strokes of the cane. But the reading was, just then, a much more Baa Baa, Black Sheep 39 serious matter than any creed. Aunty Rosa sat him upon a table and told him that A B meant ab. " Why ? " said Punch. " A is a and B i bee. Why does A B mean ab ? " " Because I tell you it does," said Aunty Rosa, " and you've got to say it." Punch said it accordingly, and for a month* hugely against his will, stumbled through the brown book, not in the least comprehending* what it meant. But Uncle Harry, who walked much and generally alone, was wont to come into the nursery and suggest to Aunty Roso> that Punch should walk with him. He sel- dom spoke, but he showed Punch all Rock- lington, from the mud-banks and the sand oi the back-bay to the great harbors where ship* lay at anchor, and the dockyards where the hammers were never still, and the marine-store shops, and the shiny brass counters in the Offices where Uncle Harry went once every three months with a slip of blue paper and 1 received sovereigns in exchange ; for he held a wound-pension. Punch heard, too, from his' lips the story of the battle of Navarino, where the sailors of the Fleet, for three days after- wards, were deaf as posts and could only sign* to each other. " That was because of the noise of the guns," said Uncle Harry, " and t- have got the wadding of a bullet somewhere inside me now." Punch regarded him with curiosity. He 4O Wee Willie Winkle had not the least idea what wadding was, and his notion of a bullet was a dockyard cannon- ball bigger than his own head. How could Uncle Harry keep a cannon-ball inside him ? He was ashamed to ask, for fear Uncle Harry might be angry. Punch had never known what anger real anger meant until one terrible day when Harry had taken his paint-box to paint a boat with, and Punch had protested with a loud and lamentable voice. Then Uncle Harry had appeared on the scene and, muttering some- thing about " stranger's children," had with a stick smitten the black-haired boy across the shoulders till he wept and yelled, and Aunty Rosa came in and abused Uncle Harry for cruelty to his own flesh and blood, and Punch shuddered to the tips of his shoes. " It wasn't my fault," he explained to the boy, but both Harry and Aunty Rosa said that it was, and that Punch had told tales, and for a week there were no more walks with Uncle Harry. But that week brought a great joy to Punch. He had repeated till he was thrice weary the statement that " the Cat lay on the Mat and the Rat came in." " Now I can truly read," said Punch, " and now I will never read anything in the world." He put the brown book in the cupboard where his school-books lived and accidentally tumbled out a venerable volume, without cov- Baa Baa, Black Sheep 41 ers, labeled Sharpe's Magazine. There was the most portentous picture of a griffin on the first page, with verses below. The griffin carried off one sheep a day from a German village, till a man came with a " falchion " and split the griffin open. Goodness only knew what a falchion was, but there was the Griffin, and his history was an improvement upon the eternal Cat " This," said Punch, " means things, and now I will know all about everything in all the world." He read till the light failed, not understanding a tithe of the meaning, but tantalized by glimpses of new worlds here- after to be revealed. " What is a ' falchion ' ? What is a ' e-wee lamb ' ? What is a ' base #,mirper ' ? What is a ' verdant me-ad ' ? " he demanded, with flushed cheeks, at bedtime, of the astonished Aunt Rosa. " Say your prayers and go to sleep," she replied, and that was all the help Punch then or afterwards found at her hands in the new and delightful exercise of reading. " Aunt Rosa only knows about God and things like that," argued Punch. "Uncle Harry will tell me." The next walk proved that Uncle Harry could not help either ; but he allowed Punch to talk, and even sat down on a bench to hear about the Griffin. Other walks brought othei stories as Punch ranged further afield, for the 42 Wee Willie Winkie house held large store of old books that no one ever opened from Frank Fairlegh in serial numbers, and the earlier poems of Ten- nyson, contributed anonymously to Sharpe's Magazine, to '62 Exhibition Catalogues, gay with colors and delightfully incomprehensible, and odd leaves of Gulliver's Travels. As soon as Punch could string a few pot- hooks together, he wrote to Bombay, demand- ing by return of post " all the books in all the world." Papa could not comply with this