Fauntleroy's welcome into the world: "F'ow him in 'er fire!"
AND A VERY REAL LITTLE BOY BECAME AN
IDEAL ONE
It has always been rather interesting to me to remember that he first presented himself in an impenetrable disguise. It was a disguise sufficiently artful to have disarmed the most wary. I, who am not at all a farsighted person, was completely taken in by him. I saw nothing to warrant in the slightest degree any suspicion that he had descended to earth with practical intentions; that he furtively cherished plans of making himself into the small hero of a book, the picturesque subject of illustrations, the inspiration of a fashion in costume, the very jcunc premier in a play over which people in two continents would laugh and cry.
Perhaps, in periods before he introduced himself to his family that morning of April 5, 1876, in a certain house in Paris, he may have known all this, and laid out his little plans with adroitness and deliberation; but when I first examined him carefully, as he lay on my arm, looking extremely harmless and extremely fast asleep in his extremely long nightgown, he did not bear at all the aspect of a crafty and designing person; he only looked warm and comfortable, and quite resigned to his situation.
He had been clever enough to disguise himself as a baby—a quite new baby, in violet powder and a bald head and a florid complexion. He had even put on small, indefinite features and entirely dispensed with teeth, besides professing inability to speak, a fastidious simplicity of taste in the matter of which limited him to the most innocuous milk diet. But beneath this disguise there he lurked, the small individual who, seven years later—apparently quite artlessly and unconsciously—presented his smiling, ingenuous little face to the big world, and was smiled back upon by it—Little Lord Fauntleroy. He was a quite unromantic little person. Only a prejudiced maternal parent could have picked him out from among seventy-five other babies of the same age ; but somehow we always felt that he had a tiny character of his own, and somehow it was always an amusing little character, and one's natural tendency was to view him in rather a jocular light.
In the first place, he had always been thought of as a little girl. It was the old story of "Your sister, Betsey Trotwood;" and when he presented himself, with an unflinching firmness, in the unexpected character of a little boy, serious remonstrance was addressed to him.
"This habit you have contracted of being a little boy," his mamma said to him, "is most inconvenient. Your name was to be Vivien. 'Vivien' is Early English, and picturesque and full of color; Vivian, which is a boy's name, I don't think so much of. It sounds like a dandy, and reminds me of Vivian Grey; but, after the way you have behaved, it is about all I can do for you, because I am too tired of thinking of names to be equal to inventing anything else."
If it had not been for his disguise, and his determination not to be betrayed into the weakness of speech, it is quite possible he might have responded:
"If you will trust the matter to me, I will manage to reconcile you to the name, and make you feel there is some consolation for the fact that I preferred to be myself, instead of Vivien. Just give me time."
We were, of course, obliged to give him time, and he wasted none of it. One of the favorite jokes was that he was endeavoring to ingratiate himself with us, and by a strict attention to business to merit future patronage. We felt it very clever of him to elect to do this quietly; to occupy the position he had chosen for himself with such unobtrusiveness that no one could possibly object to him. This might really have been the deepest craft. To have proved one's self an individual to whom no one can object on any pretext, is really an enormous step in the direction of gaining a foothold. It is quite possible that he realized that the step he had taken had been somewhat premature ; that to introduce himself to a family absorbed in study and foreign travel, and an elder brother aged eighteen months, had not been entirely discreet, and that a general decorum of manner would be required to obliterate the impression that he had been somewhat inconsiderate.
His elder brother had decided to become a stately beauty, and after some indeterminate months had set up as premonitory symptoms large brown eyes, a deepening golden tinge of hair, and a distinguished and gracefully exclusive demeanor. His opinion of the new-comer was that he was an interloper. I think his private impression was that he was vulgar, also that he was fatuous and unnecessary. He used to stand by his nurse's knee when she held the intruder, and regard her with haughty reflection from under his eyelids. She had hitherto been his sole property, and her defection seemed to him to denote inferior taste and instability of character. On one occasion, after standing by her in disapproving silence for some time, while he alternately looked at her and then at the white bundle on her knee, he waved his hand toward the grate, remarking, with more dignity of demeanor than clearness of enunciation:
"F'ow him in 'er fire!"
We were sure that the new member of the family appreciated the difficulty of his position. We wondered if he had understood when he had heard us refer to him as the "Little Calamity." After a few days' acquaintance with him we were afraid he had, and felt a delicacy in using the term, which we had at first thought rather a good joke.
Fauntleroy's welcome into the world: "F'ow him in 'er fire!"
Dear Little Calamity, how often we have spoken of that misnomer since! From his first hour his actions seemed regulated by the peaceful resolve never to be in the way, and never to make any one uncomfortable.
The unvarying serenity with which he devoted himself to absorbing as much nourishment as his small system would hold, and then sleeping sweetly for hours and most artistically assimilating it, was quite touching.
"Look at him," his mamma would say. "He is trying to insinuate himself. He intends to prove that he is really an addition, and that no family should be without him. But no family can have him," she burst forth in a very short time, "no family but ours. Nobody is rich enough to buy him. He has made his own price, and it is five hundred thousand million dollars!" When he had selected her as a parent he had probably observed that she was a susceptible person—peculiarly susceptible to the special variety of charms he had to offer. He had analyzed her weakness and his strength, and had known she was a fitting victim for his seductive arts.
The unflinchingness with which he applied himself to the fine art of infant fascination was really worth reflecting upon. At thirty there are numerous methods by which a person may prove that he is worthy of affection and admiration ; at three months his charms and virtues are limited to a o-ood digestion, a tendency to somnolence, and an unobtrusive temper. The new arrival did not obtrude upon us any ostentatiously novel attractions. He merely applied himself to giving his family the most superior specimens of the meritorious qualities his tender age was entitled to. He never complained of feeling unwell, he was generally asleep, and when he was awake he would lie upon his back without revolt for a much longer period than is submitted to usually by persons of his months. And when he did so he invariably wore the air of being engaged in sweet-tempered though profound reflection.
He had not seemed to regret being born in Paris, but he seemed agreeably impressed by America when he was taken there at the age of six weeks. Feeling himself restored to a land of republican freedom, he began to feel at liberty to unfold his hitherto concealed resources. He began by giving less time to sleep and more to agreeable, though inarticulate, conversation. He began to sit up and look around him with soft, shadowy, and peculiarly thoughtful eyes. The expression—the dear little dreamy, reflective expression—of his eyes was his most valuable possession. It was a capital. It attracted the attention of his immediate relatives and ensnared them into discussing his character and wondering what he was thinking of. His eyes were brown, and having heard their color remarked on in a complimentary manner, he, with great artistic presence of mind, stealthily applied himself to developing upon his hitherto bald head golden hair with a curl in it.
It was his mamma who first discovered this. She was lying upon a grassy slope, playing with him, and holding him up in the sunlight at arm's length; she saw in the brightness a sort of faint little nimbus of gold crowning him.
"Oh, the Lammie day!" she cried out. ("Lammie day" is not in the dictionary; it was a mere maternal inspiration.) "See what he is doing now! He is putting out a lovely little golden fuzz all over his head, and there is a tiny curl at the ends—like little duck-tails! He has asked somebody or something, perhaps a fairy, what kind of hair I like with brown eyes, and he is doing it on purpose." It seemed not improbable that, on inquiring into her character before selecting her, he had grounded himself thoroughly in the matter of her tastes, and had found that an insistent desire for a certain beauty in the extremely young was one of her weaknesses also.
From his earliest hours he considered her. He had not anticipated walking alone at nine months old, but in their intimate moments he discovered she had really set her heart upon his doing so.
"Your brother walked alone beautifully when he was nine months old," she would remark, "and if you wait until you are ten months old I shall feel that you have dishonored your family and brought my reddish hair with sorrow to the grave."
This being the case, he applied himself to making determined, if slow, little pilgrimages upon the carpet on his hands and knees. His reward was that the first time he essayed this he was saluted with cries of adulation and joy, notwithstanding the fact that his attempt was rather wabbly in character, and its effect was marred by his losing his balance and rolling over in a somewhat ignominious manner.
"He is creeping!" his mamma said. "He has begun to creep! He is going to walk as soon as Lionel did!" and everything available in the form of an audience was gathered together in the room, to exult with acclamations over the enrapturing spectacle of a small thing dragging its brief white frock and soft plump body, accompanied and illumined by a hopeful smile, over a nursery carpet.
"He is so original!" his unprejudiced parent exclaimed, with fine discrimination. "He's creeping, of course, and babies have crept before, but he gives it a kind of air, as if he had invented it, and yet was quite modest."
Her discrimination with regard to his elder brother had been quite as fine. There were even persons who regarded her as being prejudiced by undue affection. It has never been actually proved that the aspirant for pedestrian honors had privately procured a calendar and secreted it for daily reference as to the passage of time, but if this were not the case, it was really by a rather singular coincidence that the day before his ninth month was completed he arrested his creeping over the carpet, and, dragging himself up by a chair to a standing position, covered himself with glory by staggering, flushed, uncertain, but triumphant, at least six steps across the floor unaided and alone.
He was snatched up and kissed until he was breathless. He was ruffled and tumbled with delightful little shakes and ecstatic little hugs. He bore it all with the modest composure of a conqueror, who did not deign trivial airs and graces. His cheeks were warm and pink; he made no remark whatever, but there was in his eyes a soft, coy little smile which only a person of his Machiavellian depth of character could have accomplished. By that time, by adroit machinations and an unbounded knowledge of human weakness, he had assured his position in the respectable family of which he had chosen to become a member. It would have been impossible to oust him, or to work upon the feelings of his relatives in any such manner as would have induced them to listen for a moment to any animadversions upon his conduct. His eyelashes, his indefinite features, his totter, his smile, were considered to become matters of the most thrilling national importance. On the magnificent occasion when he first decided to follow his mamma upstairs, and consequently applied himself to the rather prolonged and serious athletic task of creeping up step by step on his dusty little hands and soft knees, and electrifying her by confronting her, when she turned and saw him, with a sweetly smiling and ardent little upturned face—on that occasion it seemed really that it could only be by the most remarkable oversight that there were not columns of editorials on the subject in the London Times.
"They wrote about the passing of bills in Parliament," his parent remarked, "and about wars and royal marriages; why don't they touch on things of really vital importance?" It was at this period of existence that his papa was frequently distracted in moments of deep absorption in scientific subjects, by being implored to leave his essay upon astigmatism and revert his attention upon his offspring.
"Don't waste him!" he was besought. "He could not possibly keep up this degree of fascination always. He might grow out of it, and then just think how you would feel when you reflected that you had read medical books when you might have been watching him pretending to be looking at pictures. He ought to be economized every moment!"
But the most charming feature of his character was that his knowledge of the possession of glittering accomplishments, which were innumerable, never betrayed him into forgetting that his attitude toward the entire world was one of the most perfect good-fellowship. When he was spoken to, he smiled; when he was kissed, even by unprepossessingly familiar persons, he always comported himself with graceful self-control and dignity. The trying fact, which I am sure was more apparent to no one than to himself, that there were individuals whose idea of entertaining him was to make blatant idiots of themselves, was never resented by him openly. When they uttered strange sounds, and poked his soft cheeks, or tumbled him about in an unseemly manner, it was his habit to gaze at them with deep but not disdainful curiosity and interest, as if he were trying to be just toward them and explain to himself their point of view.
"It really must be rather fatiguing to him not to be able to express himself," was his mamma's opinion. "He has evidently so many opinions in reserve."
He was so softly plump, he was so sweet-tempered, he was so pretty! One forgot all about his Early English sister Vivien. It was as if she had never been contemplated for a moment. The word "calamity" was artfully avoided in conversation. One felt unworthy, and rather blushed if one caught sight of it in literature. When he invented a special little habit of cuddling up to his mamma in a warm, small heap, and in his sleep making for her a heavenly downy necklace of both his arms, with his diminutive palms locked together to hold her prisoner through the night, she began to feel it quite possible that his enslaving effect upon her might be such as to enfeeble an intellect even of the most robust. But she knew him by this time well enough to realize that it would be useless to rebel, and that she might as well succumb.
She succumbed more and more as the days went by. But she also observed that everybody else succumbed. While making the most of his mental charms and graces he gave a great deal of attention to his physical attractions. It was believed that he concentrated his attention upon his hair. He encouraged it to develop from the golden fuzz into a golden silk, from the tiny duck-tails to shining rings, from rings to a waving aureole, from the aureole to an entrancing mop of yellow, which tumbled over his forehead and gave his up-looking eyes a prettiness of expression.
And how like him it was to make a point of never objecting to have this wayward, though lovely, growth brushed! What a supplice he might have made of the ceremony for his family if he had resented it and rebelled! But, on the contrary, it was believed that he seized upon the opportunity offered by it to gild the refined gold of his amiability of disposition, as it were. Speaking as a person with some knowledge of the habits of the extremely young, I should say that there may be numbers of maternal parents who will scarcely believe that one of the most enchanting hours of the day was a certain time in the morning, when he leaned against his mamma's knee and gave himself up to engaging conversation while his tangles were being taken out. He made not the slightest objection to being curled and brushed and burnished up and made magnificent. His soft, plump body rested confidingly against the supporting knee, and while the function proceeded he devoted himself to agreeable remark and analytical observation.
There was an expression of countenance it was his habit to wear at such times which was really a matter of the finest art. It combined philosophic patience, genial leniency, and a sweet determination to make the very best of a thing, which was really beautiful to behold. It was at these times that a series of nursery romances, known as "The Hair-Curling Series," was invented and related. They were notable chiefly for good, strong, dramatic coloring, and their point was the illustration of the useful moral that little boys with a great deal of beautiful curly hair are naturally rewarded—if they are always good when it is brushed—by delightful adventures, such as being played with by fairies and made friends with by interesting wild animals, whose ravenous propensities are softened to the most affectionate mildness by the sight of such high-mindedness in tender youth. There was one story, known as "The Good Wolf," which lasted for months, and was a never-ending source of delight, as it rejoiced in features which could be varied to adapt themselves to any circumstance or change of taste in playthings. It was the laudable habit of the good wolf to give presents to little boys who were deserving, besides taking them delightful rides in a little sleigh, and one could vary the gifts and excursions to an unlimited extent. Another, known as " The Mournful Story of Benny," was a fearful warning, but ended happily, and as it was not of a personal nature was not disapproved of, and was listened to with respectful and sympathizing interest, though "The Good Wolf" was preferred.
A delightfully intelligent little expression and an occasional dear little gurgling laugh when the best points were made, convinced me that the point of view of the listener was an appreciation of the humor between the lines quite as clear, in a four-year-old way, as that of the relater of the incidents. He revelled in the good wolf and was concerned" by the misfortunes of Benny, who had brought tragedy upon himself by being so lost to all sense of virtue as to cut off his curls, but he knew they were highly colored figures, and part of a subtile and delightful joke.
But long before this he had learned to talk, and it was then that we were introduced to the treasures of his mind.
What was the queer little charm which made every one like him so much, which made every one smile when he looked at them, which made every one listen when he spoke, which made arms quite involuntarily close around his small body when he came within reach?
The person who made the closest study of his character devoted five or six years to it before she was quite sure what this charm consisted in. Then she decided that it was formed of a combination of fortunate characteristics which might have lost all their value of fascination but for their being illumined by the warmth and brightness of a purely kind little heart, full of friendliness to the whole world.
He was pretty, but many little boys were pretty; he was quaint and amusing, but so are many scores. The difference between this one tiny individuality and others was that he seemed to have been born without sense of the existence of any barrier between his own innocent heart and any other.
I think it had never occurred to him that any one could possibly be unfriendly or unloving to him. He was a perfectly human little thing, not a young cherub, but a rational baby, who made his frocks exceedingly dirty, and rejoiced sweetly in the making of mud pies. But, somehow, his radiant smile of belief in one's sympathy, even with his mud pies, minimized the trouble of contending with the earthly features of him.
His opinion evidently was that the world was made of people who loved him and smiled if they saw him, of things one could play with and stories one could listen to, and of friends and relations who were always ready to join in the play and tell the stories. He went peacefully to the curl-brushing ordeal, perhaps because of this confiding sureness that any hand that dealt with him would touch him tenderly. He never doubted it.
One morning, before he was three years old, he trotted into the dining-room with a beautifully preoccupied expression, evidently on business thoughts intent. The breakfast was over, but his mamma was still sitting at the table, reading.
She heard the tiny pattering of feet coming down the hall before he entered. She had thought him with his nurse, but he appeared to be returning from some unusual expedition to the front door, which, as it was a warm, early summer morning, stood open.
She was always curious about his mental processes, and so, when he trotted to the table with his absorbed air, and stood upon his tiptoes, making serious efforts to gain possession of a lone loaf of French bread, she regarded him with interest—he was so little, and the roll of bread was so long, and his intentions to do something practical with it were so evident. Somehow, one of his allurements was that he was always funny, and he was so purely because his small point of view was always so innocently serious.
"What does mamma's baby want?" she asked. He looked at her with an air of sweet good faith, and secured the bread, tucking it in all its dignity of proportion under the very shortest possible arm.
"Lady," he said, "lady, font door—want b'ead," and he trotted off, with a simple security in the sense of doing the right and only admissible thing, which it was reposeful to behold.
His mamma left her book hurriedly and trotted after him. Such a quaint baby figure he was, with the long French roll under his arm! And he headed straight for the front door.
Standing upon the top step was an exceedingly dilapidated and disreputable little negro girl with an exceedingly dirty and broken basket on her arm. This basket was intended to contain such scraps of food as she might beg for. She was grinning a little, and at the same time looking a little anxious, as the baby came toddling to her, the sun on his short curls, the loaf under his short arm.
His initial act of charity: “Lady,” he said, “lady, f'ont door—want b'ead”
He dropped the loaf into her basket with sweet friendliness.
"B'ead, lady," he said. And as she scurried away he turned to smile at his approaching mamma with the confidence of a two-year-old angel.
"Lady, b'ead," he remarked succinctly, and the situation was explained.
The dirty little colored girl was a human thing in petticoats, consequently she was a lady. His tender mind saw no other conclusion to be arrived at. She had expressed a desire for bread. On his mamma's breakfast table there was a beautiful long loaf. Of course it must be given to her. The question of demand and supply was so easily settled; so he trotted after the bread. The mere circumstances of short legs and short arms did not deter a spirit like his.
And it was this simple and unquestioning point of view which made him adorable.
In the drawing-room, in full war-paint of white frock and big sash, he was the spirit of innocent and friendly hospitality, in the nursery he was a brilliant entertainment, below stairs he was the admiration and delight of the domestics. The sweet temper which prompted him to endeavor to sustain agreeable conversation with the guest who admired him led him, also, to enter into friendly converse with the casual market-man at the back door, and to entertain with lively anecdote and sparkling repartee the extremely stout colored cook in the kitchen. He endeavored to assist her in the performance of her more arduous culinary duties, and by his sympathy and interest sustained her in many trying moments. When he was visiting her department chuckles and giggles might be heard issuing from the kitchen when the door was opened. Those who heard them always knew that they were excited by the moral or social observations or affectionate advice and solace of the young but distinguished guest.
"Me an' Carrie made that pudding," he would kindly explain, at dinner. "It's a very good pudding. Carrie's such a nice cook. She lets me help her."
And his dimples would express such felicity, and his eyes beam from under his tumbling love-locks with such pleasure, at his confidence in the inevitable rapture of his parents at the announcement of his active usefulness, that no one possessed sufficient strength of mind to correct the grammatical structure of his remarks.
There is a picture—not one of Mr. Birch's—which I think will always remain with me. It is ten years since I saw it, but I see it still. It is the quaint one of a good-looking, stout, colored woman climbing slowly up a back staircase with a sturdy little fellow on her back, his legs astride her spacious waist, his arms clasped round her neck, his lovely mop of yellow hair tumbling over her shoulder, upon which his cheek affectionately and comfortably rests.
It does not come within the province of cooks to toil up-stairs with little boys on their backs, especially when the little boys have stout little legs of their own, and are old enough to wear Jersey suits and warlike scarfs of red, but in this case the carrying up-stairs was an agreeable ceremony, partly jocular and wholly affectionate, engaged in by two confidants, and the bearer enjoyed it as much as did her luxurious burden.
"We're friends, you know," he used to say. "Carrie's my friend, and Dan's my friend. Carrie's such a kind cook, and Dan's such a nice waiter."
That was the whole situation in a nutshell. They were his friends, and they formed together a mutual admiration society.
His conversation with them we knew was enriched by gems of valuable and entertaining information. Among his charms was his desire to acquire information, and the amiable readiness with which he imparted it to his acquaintances. We gathered that while assisting in the making of pudding he was lavish in the bestowal of useful knowledge. Intimate association and converse with him had revealed to his mamma that there was no historical, geographical, or scientific fact which might not be impressed upon him in story form, and fill him with rapture. Monsoons and typhoons, and the crossing of the Great Desert on camels, he found absorbing; the adventures of Romulus and Remus, and their good wolf, and the founding of Rome, held him spellbound. He found the vestal virgins and their task of keeping up the sacred fires in the temple sufficiently interesting to be made into a species of dramatic entertainment during his third year. It was his habit to creep out of his crib very early in the morning, and entertain himself agreeably in the nursery until other people got up. One morning his mamma, lying in her room, which opened into the nursery, heard a suspicious sound of unlawful poking at the fire.
"Vivvie," she said, "is that you?"
The poking ceased, but there was no reply. Silence reigned for a few moments, and then the sound was heard again.
"Vivian," said his anxious parent, "you are not allowed to touch the fire."
Small, soft feet came pattering hurriedly into the room ; round the footboard of the bed a ruffled head and seriously expostulatory little countenance appeared.
"Don't you know," he said, with an air of lenient remonstrance, "don't you know I's a westal wirgin?"
It would be impossible to explain him without relating anecdotes. Is there not an illustration of the politeness of his demeanor and the grace of his infant manners in the reply renowned in his history, made at the age of four, when his mamma was endeavoring to explain some interesting point in connection with the structure of his small, plump body? It was his habit to ask so many searching questions that it was necessary for his immediate relatives to endeavor to render their minds compact masses of valuable facts. But on this occasion his inquiries had led him into such unknown depths as were beyond him for the moment—only for the moment, of course. He listened to the statement made, his usual engaging expression of delighted interest gradually becoming tinged with polite doubtfulness. When the effort at explanation was at an end he laid his hand upon his mamma's knee with apologetic but firm gentleness.
"Well, you see," he said, "of course you know I believe you, dearest "(the most considerate stress was laid upon the "believe"), "but, ascuse me," with infinite delicacy, "ascuse me, I do not think it is true."
The tender premonitory assurance that his confidence was unimpaired, even though he was staggered by the statement made, was so affectionately characteristic of him, and the apologetic grace of the "ascuse me, dearest," was all his own.
There might be little boys who were oblivious of, and indifferent to, the attractions of simooms, who saw no charm in the interior arrangements of camels, and were indifferent to the strata of the earth, but in his enterprising mind such subjects wakened the liveliest interest, and a little habit he had, of suddenly startling his family by revealing to them the wealth of his store of knowledge, by making casual remarks, was at once instructive and enlivening.
"A camel has ever so many stomachs," he might sweetly announce, while sitting in his high chair and devoting himself to his breakfast, the statement appearing to evolve itself from dreamy reflection. "It fills them with water". Then it goes across the desert and carries things. Then it isn't thirsty."
He was extremely pleased with the camel, and was most exhaustive in his explanations of him. It was not unlikely that Carrie and Dan might have passed a strict examination on the subject of incidents connected with the crossing of the Great Desert. He also found his bones interesting, and was most searching in his inquiries as to the circulation of his blood. But he had been charmed with his bones from his first extremely early acquaintance with them, as witness an incident of his third year, which is among the most cherished by his family of their recollections of him.
He sat upon his mamma's knee before the nursery fire, a small, round, delightful thing, asking questions. He had opened up the subject of his bones by discovering that his short, plump arm seemed built upon something solid, which he felt at once necessary to investigate.
"It is a little bone," his mamma said, "and there is one in your other arm, and one in each of your legs. Do you know," giving him a caressing little shake, "if I could see under all the fat on your little body I should find a tiny, weenty skeleton?"
He looked up enraptured. His dimples had a power of expressing delight never equalled by any other baby's dimples. His eyes and his very curls themselves seemed somehow to have something to do with it.
"If you did," he said, "if you did, would you give it to me to play with?"
He was a very fortunate small person in the fact that nature had been extremely good to him in the matter of combining his mental sweetness and quaintness with the great charm of physical picturesqueness. All his little attitudes and movements were picturesque. When he stood before one to listen he fell unconsciously into some quaint attitude; when he talked he became ingenuously dramatic; when he sat down to converse he mentally made a droll or delightful and graceful little picture of himself. His childish body was as expressive as his glowing little face. Any memory of him is always accompanied by a distinct recollection of the expression of his face, and some queer or pretty position which seemed to be part of his mental attitude. When he wore frocks his habit of standing with his hands clasped behind his back in the region of a big sash, and his trick of sitting down with a hand upon each of the plump knees a brevity of skirt disclosed, were things to be remembered; when he was inserted into Jersey suits and velvet doublet and knickerbockers, his manly little fashion of standing hands upon hips, and sitting in delicious, all unconsciously aesthetic, poses were positively features of his character. What no dancing-master could have taught him, his graceful childish body fell into with entire naturalness, merely because he was a picturesque small person in both body and mind.
Could one ever forget him as he appeared one day at the seaside', when coming up from the beach with his brief trousers rolled up to his stalwart little thighs? He stood upon the piazza., spade and bucket in hand, looking with deep, sympathetic interest at a male visitor who was on the point of leaving the house. This visitor was a man who had recently lost his wife suddenly. He was a near relative of a guest in the house, and the young friend of all the world had possibly heard his bereavement discussed. But at six years old it is not the custom of small boys to concern themselves about such events. It seems that this one did, however, though the caller was not one of his intimates. He stood apart for a few moments, looking at him with a tenderly reflective countenance. His mamma, seeing his absorption, privately wondered what he was thinking of. But presently he transferred both spade and bucket to one hand, and came forward, holding out the other. I do not think anything could have been quainter and more sweet than the kind little face which uplifted itself to the parting guest.
“I'm very sorry to you, Mr. Wenham, about your wife being dead”
"Mr. Wenham," he said, "I'm very sorry for you, Mr. Wenham, about your wife being dead. I'm very sorry for you. I know how you must miss her."
Even the sympathy of six years old does not go for nothing. There was a slight moisture in Mr. Wenham's eyes as he shook the small, sandy hand, and his voice was not quite steady as he answered, "Thank you, Vivvie, thank you."
It was when he was spending the summer at this place that he made the acquaintance of the young lady whose pony he regarded as a model of equine strength and beauty.
It was the tiniest possible pony, whose duty it was to draw a small phaeton containing a small girl and her governess. But I was told it was a fine sight to behold the blooming little gentleman caller standing before this stately equipage, his hands on his hips, his head upon one side, regarding the steed with quite the experienced air of an aged jockey.
"That's a fine horse," he said. "You see, it's got plenty of muscle. What I like is a horse with plenty of muscle."
And when we drove away from the cottage at the end of the summer, I myself perhaps a shade saddened, as one often is by the thought that the days of sunshine and roses are over, he put his small hand in mine and looked up at me wistfully.
"We liked that little house, didn't we, dearest?'1 he said. "We will always like it, won't we?"
"Do you know my friend Mrs. Wilkins?" he inquired one day, when he was still small enough to wear white frocks, and not old enough to extend his explorations further than the part of the quiet street opposite the house he lived in.
"And who is your friend Mrs. Wilkins?" his mamma inquired.
"She is a very nice lady that saw me through her window when I was playing on the pavement, and we talked to each other, and she asked me to come into her house. She's such a kind lady, and she paints beautiful cups and saucers. She's my friend. And her cook is a nice lady too. She lives in the basemen' and she talks to me through the window. She likes little boys. I have two friends in that house."
"My friend Mrs. Wilkins" became one of his cherished intimates. His visits to her were frequent and prolonged.
"I've just been to see my friend Mrs. Wilkins," he would say; or, "My friend Mrs. Wilkins's husband is very kind to me. We go to his store, and he gives me oranges."
It is not improbable that he also painted china during his calls upon his friend Mrs. Wilkins. It is certain that, if he did not otherwise assist, his attitude was that of an enthusiastic admirer of the art. That his conversation with the lady embraced many subjects, we have evidence in an anecdote frequently related with great glee by those to whom the incident was reported. I myself was not present during the ingenuous summing up of the charm of social life, but I have always mentally seen him taking his part in the scene in one of his celebrated conversational attitudes, in which he usually sat holding his plump knee in a manner which somehow seemed to express deep, speculative thought.
"Are you in society, Mrs. Wilkins?" he inquired, ingenuously.
"What is being in society, Vivvie?" Mrs. Wilkins replied, probably with the intention of drawing forth his views.
"It's—well—there are a great many carriages, you know, and a great many ladies come to see you. And they say, 'How are you, Mrs. Burnett? So glad to find you at home.' Gabble, gabble, gabble, gabble. 'Good morning!' And they go away. That's it."