^HIIIIIIII' IIHIIiiHinimiiliUIHMlt iHlmlliHImlmiHin Vv'. v„ y^2%^ vV il,LjUA.l C.ANTCyp THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES '!■ ^__2l^ The Invisible Playmate & W. V. Her Book THE INVISIBLE PLAYMATE First Edition, Afril i8g4 Second Edition, June iSg^. Third Edition, Jan. i8gj W. V. HER BOOK AND VARIOUS VERSES First EniTiON, May i8g6 THE INVISIBLE PLAYMATE & W. V. HER BOOK May i8gy ,=^:«<^ /7rr av;)i o/' '^ playing at botany " [/. 155 Her Friend Littlejohn THE first time Littlejohn saw W. V. — a year or so ago — she was sitting on the edge of a big red flower-pot, into which she had managed to pack herself. A brilliant Japanese sunshade was tilted over her shoulder, and close by stood a large green watering-can. This was her way of " playing at botany," but as the 156 W. V. old gardener could not be prevailed upon to water her, there was not as much fun in the game as there ought to have been. W. V. was accordingly consoling her- self with telling " Mr. Sandy " — the re- calcitrant gardener — the authentic and incredible story of the little girl who was "just 'scruciatingly good." Later, on an idyllic afternoon among the heather, Littlejohn heard all about that excellent and too precipitate child, who was so eager to oblige or obey that she rushed off before she could be told what to do ; and as this was the only story W. V. knew which had obviously a moral, W. V. made it a great point to explain that " little girls ought not to be too good ; if — they — only — did — what — they — were — told they would be good enough," W. V.'s mother had been taken seri- Her Friend Littlejohn 157 ously ill a few weeks before, and as a house of sickness is not the best place for a small child, nor a small child the most soothing presence in a patient's room, W. V. had undertaken a marvel- lous and what seemed an interminable journey into the West Highlands. Her host and hostess were delighted with her and her odd sayings and quaint, fanciful ways ; and she, in the plenitude of her good-nature, extended a cheerful patron- age to the grown-up people. Littlejohn had no children of his own, and it was a novel delight, full of charming sur- prises, to have a sturdy, imperious, sunny-hearted little body of four and a half as his constant companion. The child was pretty enough, but it was the alert, excitable little soul of her which peered and laughed out of her blue eyes that took him captive. Like most healthy children, W. V. 158 W. V. did not understand what sorrow, sick- ness, or death meant. Indeed it is told of her that she once exclaimed gleefully, " Oh, see, here's a funeral ! Which is the bride ? " The absence of her mother did not weigh upon her. Once she awoke at night and cried for her ; and on one or two occasions, in a sentimen- tal mood, she sighed " I should like to see my father ! Don't you think we could ' run over ' ? " The immediate present, its fun and nonsense and grave responsibilities, absorbed all her energies and attention ; and what a divine dis- pensation it is that we who never forget can be forgotten so easily. I fancy, from what I have heard, that she must have regarded Littlejohn's ignorance of the ways of children as one of her responsibilities. It was really very deplorable to find a great-statured, ruddy bearded fellow of two and thirty Her Friend Littlejohn 159 so absolutely wanting in tact, so in- capable of " pretending," so destitute of the capacity of rhyming or of telling a story. The way she took him in hand was kindly yet resolute. It began with her banging her head against something and howling. " Don't cry, dear," Little- john had entreated, with the crude pathos of an amateur ; " come, don't cry. When W. V. had heard enough of this she looked at him disapprovingly, and said, " You shouldn't say that. You should just laugh and say, ' Come, let me kiss that crystal tear away ! ' " " Say it ! " she added after a pause. This was Littlejohn's first lesson in the airy art of consolation. Littlejohn as a lyric poet was a melan- choly spectacle. " Now, you say, ' Come, let us go,' " W. V. would command. i6o W. V. »» " I don't know it, dear.' " I'll say half for you — " Come, let us go where the people sell " But Littlejohn hadn't the slightest notion of what they sold, " Bananas," W. V. prompted ; " say It. " Bananas," " And what .? " "Oranges.''" Littlejohn hazarded. " Pears ! " cried W. V. reproachfully ; " say it ! " " Pears." " And " with pauses to give her host chances of retrieving his honour ; " pine — ap — pel ! — ' Bananas and pears and pine-appel,' of course. I don't think you can pub- lish a poem." " I don't think I can, dear," Little- john confessed after a roar of laughter. Her Friend Littlejohii i6i " Pappa and I published that poem. Pine-appel made me laugh at first. And after that you say — *Away to the market ! and let us buy A sparrow to make asparagus pie.' Say it ! " So in time Littlejohn found his memory becoming rapidly stocked with all sorts of nonsensical rhymes and ridi- culous pronunciations. Inability to rhyme, like inability to reason, is a gift of nature, and one can overlook it, but Littlejohn's sheer im- becility in face of the demand for a story was a sore trial to W. V. After an impatient lesson or two, the way in which he picked up a substitute for imagination was really exceedingly creditable. Having spent a day in the " Forest " — W. V. could pack some of her forests in a nutshell, and feel her- 1 62 W. V. self a woodlander of Infinite verdure — Littlejohn learned which trees were " pappa-trees " ; how to knock and ask if any one was in ; how to make the dog inside bark if there was no one ; how to get an answer in the affirmative if he asked whether they could give his little girl a biscuit, or a pear, or a plum ; how to discover the fork in the branches where the gift would be found, and how to present it to W. V. with an air of in- exhaustible surprise and delight. Every Forest is full of " pappa-trees," as every verderer knows ; the crux of the situa- tion presents itself when the tenant of the tree is cross, or the barking dog intimates that he has gone " to the City." Now, about a mile from Cloan Den, Littlejohn's house, there was a bit of the real " old ancient " Caledonian Forest. There was not much timber, it is true, Her Friend Littlejohn 163 but still enough ; and occasionally one came across a shattered shell of oak, which might have been a pillar of cloudy foliage in the days when woad was the fashionable dress material. I have reason to believe that W. V. in- vested all that wild region with a rosy atmosphere of romance for Littlejohn. Every blade of grass and fringe of larch was alive with wood-magic. She trotted about with him holding his hand, or swinging on before him with her broad boyish shoulders thrown well back and an air of unconscious proprietorship of man and nature. It was curious to note how her father's stories had taken hold of her, and Littlejohn, with some surprise at himself and at the nature of things at large, began to fancy he saw motive and purpose in some of these fantastic nar- ratives. The legend of the girl that I 6a W. V. was "just 'scruciatlngly good," had evidently been intended to correct a possible tendency towards priggishness. The boy whose abnormal badness ex- pressed itself in " I don't care " could not have been so irredeemably wicked, or he would never have succeeded in locking the bear and tiger up in the tree and leaving them there to dine off each other. And all the stories about little girls who got lost — there were several of these — were evidently lessons against fright and incentives to courage and self-confidence. W. V. quite believed that if a little girl got bewildered in the underwood the grass would whisper " This way, this way ! " or some little furry creature would look up at her with its sharp beady eyes and tell her to follow. Even though one were hungry and thirsty as well as lost, there was nothing to be Her Friend Littlejohn 165 afraid of, if there were only oaks in the Forest. For when once on a time a Httle girl — whose name, strangely enough, was W. V. — got lost and began to cry, did not the door of an oak-tree open and a little, little, wee man all dressed in green, with green boots and a green feather in his cap, come out and ask her to " step inside," and have some fruit and milk ? And didn't he say, " When you get lost, don't keep going this way and going that way and going the other way, but keep straight on and you are sure to come out at the other side F Only poor wild things in cages at the Zoo keep going round and round." And that is " truly and really," W. V. would add, " because I saw them doing it at the Zoo." Even at the risk of being tedious, I must finish the story, for it was one that greatly delighted Littlejohn and haunted 1 66 W. V. him in a pleasant fashion. Well, when this little girl who was lost had eaten the fruit and drunk the milk, she asked the wee green oak- man to go with her a little way as it was growing dusk. And he said he would. Then he whistled, and close to, and then farther away, and still farther and farther, other little oak • men whistled in answer, till all the Forest was full of the sound of whist- ling. And the oak-man shouted, " Will you help this little girl out ? " and you could hear " Yes, yes, yes, yes," far away right and left, to the very end of the Forest. And the oak-man walked a few yards with her, and pointed ; and she saw another oak and another oak- man ; and so she went on from one to another right through the Forest ; and she said, " Thank you, Mr. Oak-man," to each of them, and bent down and gave each of them a kiss, and they all Her Friend Littlejohn 167 laughed because they were pleased, and when she got out she could still hear them laughing quietly together. Another story that pleased Littlejohn hugely, and he liked W. V, to tell it as he lay in a hollow among the heather with his bonnet pulled down to the tip of his nose, was about the lost little girl who walked among the high grass — it was quite up to her eyes — till she was " tired to death." So she lay down, and just as she was beginning to doze off she heard a very soft voice humming her to sleep, and she felt warm soft arms snuggling her close to a warm breast. And as she was wondering who it could be that was so kind to her, the soft voice whispered, " It is only mother, dearie ; sleep-a-sleep, dearie ; only mother cuddling her little girl." And when she woke there was no one there, and she had been lying in quite a i68 W. V. little grassy nest in the hollow of the ground. Littlejohn himself could hardly credit the change which this voluble, piquant, imperious young person had made not only in the ways of the house, but in his very being and in the material landscape itself. One of the oddest and most in- congruous things he ever did in his life was to measure W. V. against a tree and inscribe her initials (her father always called her by her initials and she liked that form of her name best), and his own, and the date, above the score which marked her height. The late summer and the early autumn passed delightfully in this fashion. There was some talk at inter- vals of W. V. being packed, labelled, and despatched "with care" to her own woods and oak-men in the most pleasant suburb of the great metropolis, but it Her Friend Littlejohn 169 never came to anything. Her father was persuaded to spare her just a little longer. The patter of the little feet, the chatter of the voluble, cheery voice, had grown well-nigh indispensable to Littlejohn and his wife, for though I have confined myself to Littlejohn's side of the story, I would not have it supposed that W. V.'s charm did not radiate into other lives. So the cold rain and the drifted leaf, the first frost and the first snow came ; and in their train come Christmas and the Christmas-tree and the joyful vision of Santa Claus. Now to make a long story short, a polite note had arrived at Cloan Den asking for the pleasure of Miss W. V.'s company at Bargeddie Mains — about a mile and a half beyond the " old ancient " Caledonian Forest — where a Christmas- tree was to be despoiled of its fairv L 170 W. V. fruitage. The Bargeddie boys would drive over for Miss W. V, in the after- noon, and " Uncle Big- John " would perhaps come for the young lady in the evening, unless indeed he would change his mind and allow her to stay all night. Uncle Big-John, of course, did not change his mind ; and about nine o'clock he reached the Mains. It was a sharp moonlight night, and the wide snowy strath sweeping away up to the vast snow-muffled Bens looked like a silvery expanse of fairyland. So far as I can gather it must have been well on the early side of ten when Littlejohn and W. V. (rejoicing in the spoils of the Christmas-tree) bade the Bargeddie people good-night and started home- ward — the child warmly muffled, and chattering and laughing hilariously as she trotted along with her hand in his. Her Friend Littlejohn 171 It has often since been a subject of wonder that Littlejohn did not notice the change of the weather, or that, having noticed it, he did not return for shelter to the Mains. But we are all too easily wise after the event, and it is to be remembered that the distance from home was little over three miles, and that Littlejohn was a perfect giant of a man. They could have hardly been more than half a mile from Bargeddie when the snow-storm began. The sparse big flakes thickened, the wind rose bitterly cold, and then, in a fierce smother of darkness, the moonlight was blotted out. For what follows the story depends principally on the recollections of W. V., and in a great measure on one's know- ledge of Littlejohn's nature. The biting cold and the violence of the wind soon exhausted the small traveller 1/2 W. V. Littlejohn took her in his arms, and wrapped her in his plaid. For some time they kept to the highroad, but the bitter weather suggested the advisability of taking a crow-line across the Forest. " You're a jolly heavy lumpumpibus, Infanta," Littlejohn said with a laugh ; " I think we had better try a short cut for once through the old oaks." When they got into some slight cover among the younger trees, Littlejohn paused to recover his breath. It was still blowing and snowing heavily. *' Now, W. v., I think it would be as well if you knocked up some of your little green oak-men, for the Lord be good to me if I know where we are." " You must knock," said W. V., *' but I don't think you will get any bananas." W. V. says that Littlejohn did knock and that the bark of the dog showed that the oak-man was not at home ! Her Friend Littlejohn 173 " I rather thought he would not be, W. v.," said Littlejohn; "they never are at home except only to the little people. We big ones have to take care of ourselves." " The oak-man said, ' Keep straight on, and you're sure to come out at the other side,'" W. V. reminded him. " The oak-man spoke words of wis- dom, Infanta," said Littlejohn. " Come along, W. V." And he lifted the child again in his arms. " Are you cold, my dearie-girl ? " " No, only my face ; but I am so sleepy." " And so heavy, W. V. I didn't think a little girl couid be so heavy. Come along, and let us try keeping straight on. The other side must be some where." How long he trudged on with the child in his arms and the bewilder- 174 W. V. ing snow beating and clotting on them both will never be known. W. V., with a spread of his plaid over her face, fell into a fitful slumber, from which she was awakened by a fall and a scramble. *' You poor helpless bairn," he groaned, " have I hurt you ? " W. V. was not hurt ; the snow-wreath had been too deep for that. "Well, you see, W. V., we came a lamentable cropper that time," said Littlejohn. " I think we must rest a little, for I'm fagged out. You see, W. v., there is no grass to whisper, ' This way, this way ; ' and there are no furry things to say, ' Follow me ; ' and the oak-men are all asleep ; and — and, God forgive me, I don't know what to do ! " " Are you crying, Uncle Big-John ? " asked W. V. ; for " his voice sounded Her Friend Littlejohn 175 just like as if he was crying," she ex- plained afterwards. " Crying ! no, my dear ; there's no need to kiss the crystal tear away ! But, you see, I'm tired, and it's jolly cold and dark ; and, as Mother Earth is good to little children " He paused to see how he should be best able to make her understand. " You remember how that little girl that was lost went to sleep in a hollow of the grass and heard the Mother talking to her .? Well, you must just lie snug like that, you see. " But I'm not lost." " Of course, you're not lost. Only you must lie snug and sleep till it stops snowing, and I'll sit beside you." Littlejohn took off his plaid and his thick tweed jacket. He wrapped the child in the latter, and half covered her with snow. With the plaid, propped 176 W. V. up with his stick, he made a sort of tent to shelter her from the driving flakes. He then lay down beside her till she fell asleep. " It's only mother, dearie ; mother cuddling her little girl ; sleep-a-sleep." Then he must have arisen shuddering in his shirt-sleeves, and have lashed his arms again and again about his body for warmth. In the hollow in which they were found, the snow-wreath, with the excep- tion of a narrow passage a few feet in width where they had blundered in, was impassably deep on all sides. All round and round the hollow the snow was very much trampled. Worn out with fatigue and exposure the strong man had at last lain down beside the child. His hand was under his head. In that desperate circular race against Her Friend Littlejohn 177 cold and death he must have been struck by his own resemblance to the wild creatures padding round and round in their cages in the Zoo, and what irony he must have felt in the counsel of the wee green oak-man. Well, he had followed the advice, had he not ? And, when he awoke, would he not find that he had come out at the other side ? Hours afterwards, when at last Little- john slowly drifted back to conscious- ness, he lay staring for a moment or two with a dazed bewildered brain. Then into his eyes there flashed a look of horror, and he struggled to pull himself together. *' My God, my God, where is the Infant V he groaned. W. V. was hurried into the room, obliviously radiant. With a huge sigh Littlejohn sank back smiling, and held M 178 W. V. out his hand to her. Whereupon W. V., moving it gently aside, went up close to him and spoke, half in inquiry half in remonstrance, " You're not going to be died, are you ? " Her Bed-Time Her Bed-Time IN these winter evenings, thanks to the Great Northern, and to Hes- perus who brings all things home, I reach my doorstep about half an hour before W. V.'s bed-time. A sturdy, rosy, flaxen-haired little body opens to my well-known knock, takes a kiss on the tip of her nose, seizes my umbrella, 1 82 W. V. and makes a great show of assisting me with my heavy overcoat. She leads me into the dining-room, gets my shppers, runs my bootlaces into Gordian knots in her impetuous zeal, and announces that she has " set " the tea. At table she slips furtively on to my knee, and we are both happy till a severe voice, *' Now, father ! " reminds us of the reign of law in general, and of that law in particular which enacts that it is shocking in little girls to want every- thing they see, and most reprehensible in elderly people (I elderly !) to en- courage them. We are glad to escape to the armchair, where, after I have lit my pipe and W. V. has blown the elf of fiame back to fairyland, we conspire — not overtly in- deed, but each in his deep mind — how we shall baffle domestic tyranny and evade, if but for a few brief minutes of Her Bed-Time 183 recorded time, the cubicuJar moment and the inevitable hand of the bath-maiden. The critical instant occurs about half- way through my first pipe, and W. V.'s devices for respite or escape are at once innumerable and transparently ingenious. I admit my connivance without a blush, though I may perchance weakly observe : " One sees so little of her, mother ; " for how delightful it is when she sings or recites — and no one would be so rude as to interrupt a song or recitation — to watch the little hands waving in " the air so blue," the little fingers flickering above her head in imitation of the sparks at the forge, the little arms nursing an imaginary weeping dolly, the blue eyes lit up with excitement as they gaze abroad from the cherry-tree into the " foreign lands " beyond the garden wall. She has much to tell me about the 1 84 W. V. day's doings. Yes, she has been clay- modelling. I have seen some of her marvellous baskets of fruit and birds' nests and ivy leaves ; but to-day she has been doing what dear old Mother Nature did in one of her happy moods some millenniums ago — making a sea with an island in it ; and around the sea mountains, one a volcano with a crater blazing with red crayon ; and a river with a bridge across it ; quite a boldly conceived and hospitable frag- ment of a new planet. Of course Miss Jessie helped her, but she would soon be able, all by herself, to create a new world in which there should be ever- blossoming spring and a golden age and fairies to make the impossible common- place. W. V. does not put it in that way, but those, I fancy, would be the characteristics of a universe of her happy and innocent contriving. Her Bed-Time 185 In her early art days W. V. was distinctly Darwinian. Which was the cow, and which the house, and which the lady, was always a nice question. One could differentiate with the aid of a few strokes of natural selection, but essentially they were all of the same protoplasm. Her explanations of her pictures afforded curious instances of the easy magic with which a breath of her little soul made all manner of dry bones live. I reproached her once with wasting paper which she had covered with a whirling scribble. "Why, father," she exclaimed with surprise, "that's the north wind ! " Her latest masterpiece is a drawing of a stone idol ; but it is only exhibited on con- dition that, when you see it, you must "shake with fright." At a Kindergarten one learns, of course, many things besides clay-model- M 1 86 W. V. Jing, drawing and painting : poetry, for instance, and singing, and natural history ; drill and ball-playing and dancing. And am I not curious — this with a glance at the clock which is on the stroke of seven — to hear the new verse of her last French song ? Shall she recite " Purr, purr ! " or " The Swing " ? Or would it not be an agreeable change to have her sing " Up into the Cherry Tree," or " The Busy Blacksmith " ? Any or all of these would be indeed delectable, but parting is the same sweet sorrow at the last as at the first. How- ever, we shall have one song. And after that a recitation by King Alfred ! The king is the most diminutive of china dolls dressed in green velvet. She steadies him on the table by one leg, and crouches down out of sight while he goes through his performance. The Fciuntleroy hair and violet eyes are the Her Bed-Time 187 eyes and hair of King Alfred, but the voice is the voice of W. V. When she has recited and sung I draw her between my knees and begin : *' There was once a very naughty httle girl, and her name was W. V." " No, father, a good little girl." "Well, there was a good little girl, and her name was Gladys." *' No, father, a good little girl called W. V." " Well, a good little girl called W. V. ; and she was ' quickly obedient ' ; and when her father said she was to go to bed, she said : ' Yes, father,' and she 'yistflew^ and gave no trouble." " And did her father come up and kiss her ^ " " Why, of course, he did." A few minutes later she is kneeling on the bed with her head nestled in my breast, repeating her evening prayer : i88 W. V, " Dear f'ather, whom I cannot see, Smile down from heaven on little me. Let angels through the darkness spread Their holy wings about my bed. And keep me safe, because I am The heavenly Shepherd's little lamb. Dear God our Father, watch and keep Father and mother while they sleep ; " and bless Dennis, and Ronnie, and Uncle John, and Auntie Bonnie, and Phyllis (did Phyllis use to squint when she was a baby ? Poor Phyllis !) ; and Madame, and Lucille (she is only a tiny little child ; a quarter past three years or something like that) ; and Ivo and Wilfrid (he has bronchitis very badly ; he can't come out this winter ; aren't you sorry for him ? Really a dear little boy)." " Any one else ? " "Auntie Edie and Grandma. (He will have plenty to do, won't He ^)" Her Bed-Time 189 " And * Teach me ' " — I suggest. " Teach me to do what I am told, And help me to be good as gold." And a whisper comes from the pillow as I tuck in the eider-down : " Now He will be wondering whether I am going to be a good girl." I t Her Violets Her Violets (c^HALL we go into the Forest and O get some violets ? " W. V. asks gleefully, as she muffles herself in what she calls her bear-skin. " And can't we take the Man with us, father ? " It is a clear forenoon in mid January ; crisp with frost, but bright, and there is not a ripple in the sweet air. On the N 194 W. V. morning side of things the sun has blackened roofs and footpaths and hedges, but the rest of the world looks delightfully hoar and winterly. Now when trunks and branches are clotted white to windward, the Forest, as every one knows, is quite an exceptional place for violets. Of course, you go far and far away — through the glades and dingles of the Oak-men, and past the Webs of the Iron Spider, and beyond the Water of Heart's-ease, till you are on the verge of the Blue Distances. There all the roads come to an end, and that is the real beginning of the ancient wilderness of wood, which, W. V. tells me, covered nearly the whole of Eng- land in the days before the " old Romans " came. From what she has read in history, it appears that in the rocky regions of the wold there are still plenty of bears and fierce wolves and Her Violets 195 wild stags ; and that the beavers still build weirs and log-houses across the streams. Well, when you have gone far enough, you will see a fire blazing in the snow on the high rocky part of the Forest, and around it twelve strange men sitting on huge boulders, telling stories of old times. " And if January would let April change places with him," W. V. ex- plains, "you would SQG. jumbos of violets just leaping up through the snow in a minute. And I think he would, if we said we wanted them for the Man." You see, the Man, who has been only three months with us and has had very little to say to any one since he came, is still almost a stranger, and W. V. treats him accordingly with much deference and consideration. The bleak foggy weather had set in when he arrived, and it has grown sharper and more trying 196 W. V. ever since ; and as he came direct from a climate of perpetual sunshine and everlasting blossom, there is always danger of his catching cold. He keeps a good deal to his own room, never goes abroad when the wind is in the east or north, and has not yet set foot in the Forest. This January day, however, is so bright and safe that we think we may lure him away ; and in all the divine region of fresh air, what place is sunnier and more sheltered than the Forest ? And then there is the hint of violets I So off to the woods we go, and with us the Man, warm and snug, and com- panionable enough in his peculiar silent way. It is pleasant to notice the first catkins, and to get to white sunlit spots where the snow shows that no one has pre- ceded us. And what a delightful sur- prise it is to catch sight of the footprints Her Violets 197 of the wild creatures along the edge of the paths and among the bushes ! " Are the oak-men really asleep, father?" asks W. V. "Nobody else IS. We Stop to examine the trail where Bunny has scuttled past. And here some small creature, a field-mouse per- haps, has waded through the fluffy drift. And do look at the bird-tracks at the foot of the big oaks ! " Oh, father, these go right inside that little hole under the root ; is the bird there ^ " And others go right round the trunk as though there had been a search for some small crevice of shelter. As we wander along I think of all the change which has taken place since last I recorded our birthday rambles in the Forest. It is only a year ago, and yet 198 W. V. how amazingly W. V. has grown in a twelvemonth ! Even to her the Forest is no longer quite the same vague enchanted region it used to be. Strange people have started up out of history and in- vaded its green solitude ; on the outskirts "Ancient Britons," tattooed with blue woad, have made clearings and sown corn, and "old Romans" have run a long straight " street " through one portion of it. There still lingers in her heart a coy belief in little green-clad oak- men, and flower-elves, and subtle sylvan creatures of fancy ; indeed, it was only the other day that she asked me, " How does the sun keep up in the sky } Is it hanging on a fairy tree ^ " but I notice a growing impatience at " sham stories," and a preference for what has really happened — " something about the Romans, or the Danes or Saxons, or Jesus." When I begin some wonder- Her Violets 199 ful saga, she looks up alertly, " True ? " — then settles down to her enjoyment. The shadowy figures of our old England perplex as much as they delight her imagination. I believe she cherishes a wild hope of finding some day the tiled floor of a Roman villa in a corner of her garden, " like the one in the Cotswolds, you know, father ; Miss Jessie saw it." I find a note of the following conversation, just after the last hug had been given and the gas was being turned down to a peep : W. V. The Ancient Britons are all dead, are they not ^ Mother. Oh yes, of course ; long ago. W. V. Then they can't come and attack us now, can they? Mother. No! No one wants to attack us. Besides, we are Britons ourselves, you know. 200 W. V. W. V. [after a pause]. I suppose we are the Ancient Britons' little babies. How funny ! And so to sleep, with, it may be, lively dreams springing out of that fearsome legend which Miss Jessie inscribes (in letters of fire) on the black- board as a writing exercise : " England was once the home of the Britons. They were wild and savage." In spite of her devotion to history and her love of truth, I fear W. V. can- not be counted on for accuracy. What am I to say when, in a rattle-pate mood, she tells me that not only Julius Caesar but Oliver Cromwell was lost on board the White Ship — like needles in a haystack ^ Her perception of the lapse of time and the remoteness of events is altogether untrustworthy. Last August we went across the Heath to visit the tumulus of Boadicea. As we passed the Ponds the Her Violets 201 sparkling of the water in the sun lit up her fancy — " Wasn't it like fairies dancing ? " After a little silence she was anxious to know whether there was a wreath on Boadicea's grave. Oh no. " Not any leaves either ? " No, all the people who knew her had died long ago. There used to be two pine-trees, but they were dead too — only two broken trunks left, which she could see yonder against the sky. A pause, and then, " We might have taken some flowers." Poor queen of old days, hear this, and smile and take solace ! " If she hadn't poisoned herself, would she be alive now.^" (Did she poison herself.'' How one forgets !) Alas, no ! she, too, would have been dead long ago. A strange mystery, this of the long, long, long time that has gone by. When I told her the story of the hound Gelert — " True .?" — and described 202 W. V. how, after the Prince had discovered that the child was safe, and had turned, full of pity and remorse, to the dying hound, poor Gelert had just strength to lick his hand before falling back dead, the licking of the hand moved her deeply and set her thinking for hours. Next day she wanted to know whether " that Gelert Prince " was still alive. No, Well, the Prince's son ^ No. His son then ^ No ; it was all long, long ago. It is incomprehensible to her that "every one" should have died so long ago. She does not understand how it happens that even I, venerable as I am, did not know the Druids, or the Saxons, or any of " those old Romans." " You are very old, aren't you, father ? — thirty-four ? " " I am more than thirty-five, dear ! " " That is a lot older than me," some- what dubiously. " Nearly six times." After a long pause : " What was your Her Violets 203 first little girl's name ? " " Violet, dear." " How old would she have been ? " " Nearly twenty, dearie." " Did I ever see her, father .? " " No, chuck." " Did she ever see me .'' " N Who can tell ? Perhaps, perhaps. All these things appeal strongly to her imagination. What a delight it is to her to hear read for the twentieth time that passage about the giant Atlas in " The Heroes " : " They asked him, and he answered mildly, pointing to the seaboard with his mighty hand^ ' I can see the Gorgons lying on an island far away ; but this youth can never come near them unless he has the hat of darkness.' " And they touch her feel- ings more nearly than I should have thought. On many occasions we have heard her crying shortly after being tucked up for the night. Some one 204 W. V. always goes to her, for it is horrible to leave a child crying in the dark ; and the cause of her distress has always been a mysterious pain, which vanishes at the moment any one sits down beside her. One evening, however, I had been reading her " The Wreck of the Hes- perus," and while she was being put to bed she was telling her mother what a sad story it was — and what should she do if she thought of it in her sleep ? Here was a possible clue to her troubles. Ten minutes later we heard the sound of sobbing. It was the pain, she said ; the mysterious pain ; but I was as certain as though I had been herself that it was " The salt sea frozen on her breast, The salt tears in her eyes." Yet another evening she begged me to stay a little while with her, as she was Her Violets 205 sure she could not fall asleep. The best way for a little girl to fall asleep, I told her — and every little girl ought to know it — is to think she is in a garden, and to gather a lot of moss- roses, and to make a chain of them ; and then she must glide away over the grass, without touching it, to a stile in the green fields and wait till she hears a pattering of feet ; and almost imme- diately a flock of sheep will pass by, dozens and dozens, and then a flock of lambs, and she must count them every one ; and at last a lovely white lamb with a black face will come, and she must throw the rose-chain over its head and trot along beside it till she reaches the daflbdil meadows where the dream-tree grows, and the lamb will lie down under the tree, and she must lie down beside it, and the tree will shake down the softest sleep on them, and 2o6 W. V. there will be no waking till daylight comes. Once more, a few minutes later, there was a sound of weeping in the dark. Oh yes, she had counted the sheep and the lambs, every one of them, and had got to the meadows ; but one little lamb had stayed behind and had got lost in the mountains, and she could hear it crying for the others. There is a foolish beatitude in dally- ing with these childish recollections, but unless I record them now I shall be the poorer till the end of time ; they will vanish from memory like the diamond dust of dew which I once saw covering the nasturtium leaves with a magical iridescent bloom. All during the sum- mer months it has been a joy to see the world through her young eyes. She is a little shepherdess of vagrant facts and fancies, and her crook is a note of Her Violets 207 interrogation. " What is a sponge, father ? " she asks. And there is a story of the blue sea-water and the strange jelly-like creature enjoying its dim life on the deep rocks, and the diver, let down from his boat by a rope with a heavy stone at the end to sink him. "Poor sponge!" says W. V., touching it gently. As we go along the fields we see a horse lying down and another standing beside it — both of them as motionless as stone. " They think they are having their photographs taken," says W. V. The yellow of a daisy is of course " the yolk." On a windy May morning " it does the trees good being blown about ; it is like a little walk for them," When she sees the plane-tree catkins all fluffed over with wool, she thinks they are very like little kittens. Crossing the fields after dusk I tell her that all that white 2o8 W. V. shimmer in the sky is the Milky Way ; " Oh, is that why the cows He out in the grass all night ? " After rain I show her how the water streams down the hill and comes away in a succession of little rushes ; " It is like a wet wind, isn't it ? " she observes. Having modelled an ivy leaf in clay, she wonders whether God would think it pretty good if He saw it ; but " it is a pity it isn't green." When the foal springs up from all four hoofs drawn together and goes bounding round in a wild race, "Doesn't he foidlre, father ? " then in explanation, " that comes in Madame's lesson, Le poulain foldtreT In the woods in June we gathered tiny green oaklets shooting from fallen acorns, and took them home. By-and- by we shall have oaks of our own, and a swing between them ; and if we like we can climb them, for no one will then Her Violets 209 have any right to shout " Hi ! come down, there ! " So we planted our pro- spective woods, and watered them. " They think it is raining," whispered W. V. with a laugh ; " they fancv we are all indoors, don't they r " At 7.30 P.M. on the longest day of the year the busiest of bumble-bees is diving into bell after bell of the three foxglove spires in the garden. W. V.'s head just reaches the lowest bell on the purple spire. " Little girls don't grow as fast as foxgloves, do they ? " She notices that the bells are speckled inside with irregular reddish-brown freckles on a white ground ; " Just like a bird's eggs." This is the only plant in the garden which does not outrun its flower ; there is always a fresh bell in blossom at the top ; however high it goes, it always takes its joy with it. That will be a thing to tell her when she is older ; o 2IO W. V. meanwhile — " I 7nay have some of the gloves to put on my fingers, mayn't I, father ? " In July the planet was glorified by the arrival of her Irish terrier. She threw us and creation at large the crumbs from her table, but her heart was bound up in her " hound." She named him Tan. " Tan," she explained, " is a better name than Dan. Tan is his colour. Dan is a sleepy sort of voice (sound). If he had been called Dan, perhaps he would have been sleepy." Seeing the holes in my flower-beds and grass-plot, I wish he had. " He thinks it a world of delight to get outside," she remarks ; and she is always somewhat rueful when he has to be left at home. On these occasions Tan knows he is not going, and he races round to the yard-door, where he looks out from a hole at the bottom — one bright dark brown eye and a black Her Violets 21 1 muzzle visible — with pleading wistful- ness, " Can't I go too ? " " Look at One-eye-and-a-nose ! " cries W. V. " I don't think he likes that name ; his proper name is Tan. It wouldn't be a bad idea to make a poem — ' One-eye-and-a-nose looks out at the gate,' would it, father ? Will you make it ? " And she laughs remorselessly ; but long before we return her thoughts are with the " hound." The puffing of the train is like his panting ; its whistle reminds her of his howl. " I expect he will be seeking for me sorrowfully," she tells me, " but when he sees me all his sorrow will be gone. The dear old thing ! You'll pat him, father, won't you?" All which contrasts drolly enough with her own occasional intoler- ance of tenderness. " Oh, mother, don't kiss me so much ; too many kisses spoil 212 W. V. the girl ! " But then, of course, her love for her " hound " is mixed with savagery. Ever since I taught her the craft of the bow and arrow. Tan (as a wolf) goes in terror for his life. Still, it is worth noting that she continues to kiss the flowers good-night. Do flowers touch her as something more human, something more like herself in colour ? At any rate, Tan has not superseded them. Early in the spring it occurred to me to ascertain the range of her vocabulary. I did not succeed, but I came to the conclusion that a child of six, of average intelligence, may be safely credited with a knowledge of at least 2000 words. A clear practical knowledge, too ; for in making up my lists I tried to test how far she had mastered the sense as well as the sound. Punctual^ she told me, meant "just the time"; ^^ ^^, " when Her Violets 213 you have left off breathing — and your heart stops beating too," she added as an afterthought ; messenger, " anybody who goes and fetches things " ; then, as a bee flew past, " a bee is a messenger ; he leaves parcels of flower-dust on the sticky things that stand up in a flower." " The pistils ? " " Oh yes, pistils and stamens ; I remember those old words." Flame, she explained, is " the power of the match." What did she mean by " power " .^ " Oh, well, we have a power of talking " ; so that flame, I gather, is a match's way of expressing itself. What was a hero ? " Perseus was one ; a very brave man who could kill a Gorgon." " Brain is what you think with in your head ; and " — physiological afterthought — " the more you think the more crinkles there are." And sensible ? " The opposite to silly." And opposite ? " One at the top " (pointing to the 214 W. V. table) " and one at the bottom ; they would be opposite." Lady? "A woman." But a woman is not always a lady. " If she was kind I would know she was a lady." Nohle ? " Stately ; a great person. You are the noble of the office, you know, father." " Domino," as an equivalent for " That's done with," has a ring of achievement about it, but "jumbos " in the sense of " lots," " heaps," cannot commend itself even to the worshippers of the immortal elephant. While I linger over these fond triviali- ties, let me set down one or two of her phrases. " You would laugh me out of my death-bed, mother," she said the other day, when her mother made a remark that greatly tickled her fancy. As the thread twanged while a button was being sewn on her boot, " Auntie, you are making the boot laugh ! " "I shall clench my teeth at you, if you Her Violets 215 won't let me." ''Mother, I haven't said my prayers ; let me say them on your blessed lap of heaven," What a little beehive of a brain it is, and what busy hustling swarming thoughts and fancies are filling its cells ! I told her that God made the heavens and the earth and all things a long, long while ago. "And isn't He dead.?" — like the " old Romans " and the others. " I think God must be very clever to make people. We couldn't make our- selves, could we ? Is there really a man in the sky who made us .? " " Not a man, a great invisible Being." " A Sorcerer .? I suppose we have to give Him a name, so we call Him God." And yet at times she is distinctly orthodox. " Do you really love your father .'^ " " Oh yes, father." " Do you worship him ? " " I should think not," with a gracious smile. " Why .? What 2i6 W. V. is worship ? " " You and mother and I and everybody worships God. He is the greatest King in the world." I was telling her how sternly children were brought up fifty or sixty years ago ; how they bowed to their father's empty chair, stood when he entered the room, did not dare speak unless they were spoken to, and always called him " sir." " Did they never say ' father ' ^ Did they not say it on Sundays for a treat ? " A little while later, after profound reflec- tion, she asked—" God is very old ; does Jesus call Him Father ? " " Yes, dear ; He always called Him Father." It was only earthly fathers after all who did not suffer their babes to come to them. Oh, the good summer days when merely to be alive is a delight. How easily we were amused. One could Her Violets 217 always float needles on a bowl of water — needles ? nay, little hostile fleets of ironclads which we manoeuvred with magnets, and which rammed each other and went down in wild anachronism, galley and three-decker, off Salamis or Lepanto. Did you ever play at rain- bows ? It is refreshing on a tropical day ; but you need a conservatory with a flagged floor and the sun shining at your back. Then you syringe the inside of the glass roof, and as the showers fall in fine spray, there is the rainbow laugh- ing on the wet pavement ! When it is " too hot for anything," W. V. makes a small fire of dry leaves and dead wood under a tree, and we sit beside it making- believe it is wet and wintry, and glad at heart that we have a dry nook in a cold world. Still in the last chilly days of autumn, and afterwards, we have our resources. 2i8 W. V. Regiments of infantry and squadrons of rearing chargers make a gay show, with the red and blue and white of their uniforms reflected on the polished oak table. The drummer-boys beat the charge, the buglers blow. The artillery begins ; and Highlanders at the double spin right about face, and horsemen topple over in groups, and there is a mighty slaughter and a dire confusion around the man with the big drum — " his Grace's private drum." Then farewell the plumed troop and the big wars ! We are Vikings now. Here is the atlas and Mercator's projection. W. V. launches her little paper boat with its paper crew, and a snoring breeze carries us through the Doldrums and across the Line, and we double the Cape of Storms and sniff the spices of Tapro- bane, and — behold the little island where I was born ! " That little black spot. Her Violets 219 father ? " " Yes." " Oh, the dear old place ! " I am surprised that the old picturesque Mappemonde, with its ele- phants and camel trains and walled towns and queer-rigged ships, does not interest her. She will enjoy it later. The day closes in and the curtains are drawn, and I light a solitary candle. As I bnng out the globe, she calls laugh- ingly, " Oh father, you can't carry the world — don't try ! " Here we are in the cold of stellar space, with a sun to give us whatever season we want. With her fan she sets a wind blowing over half the planet. She distributes the sun- shine in the most capricious fashion. We feel like icy gods in this bleak blue solitude. " I suppose God made the suns to keep Himself warm." *' He made you, dear, to keep me warm, and He made all of us to keep Him warm." She will get the meat out of that nut 220 W. V. later. " I wonder what will happen when everybody is dead. Will the world go whirling round and round just as it does now ? " In all these amusements one con- sideration gives her huge joy: "You ought to be doing your work, oughtn't you, father ? " Once, when I admitted that I really ought, she volunteered assistance. " Would it help you, father, if I was to make you a poem ? " "In- deed it would, dear." " Well, then, I must think." And after due thought, this was the poem she made me : " Two little birdies sat on a tree, having a talk with each other. In the room sat a little girl reading away at her picture-book. And in the room, as well, there was a boy playing with his horse and cart. Said one little birdie to the other, How nice it would be if you were Her Violets 221 a girl and I was a boy." (Hands are dropped full length and swept backward, and she bows.) This was after the Man came. Oh, the Man ! I have been day- dreaming and have forgotten the snowy woods, and the tracks of the wild creatures. This is the story of the Man. The Man arrived on the fifth of November. As soon as I reached home in the evening, W. V. had her lantern ready to go out Guy-Fawkesing. " I must go and see mother first, dear ; " for mother had not been well. " May I go too, father .? " " Certainly, dear." We found mother looking very deli- cate and very happy. " We are going out to see the bonfires; we shall not be long. Give mother a kiss, dear." As W. V. approached the pillow, the clothes 222 W. V. were gently folded back, and there on mother's arm — oh, the wonder and de- light of it !— lay the Man. W. V. gazed, reddened, looked at mother, looked at me, laughed softly, and gave expression to her feelings in a prolonged " Well ! " " You kiss him first, dear, and we'll let the little man get to sleep. He's come a long way, and is very tired." A darling, a little gem, a dear wee man ! She " wanted a boy " ! How shockingly ecstatic it all was ! For days her thoughts were constantly playing round him. She even forgot to give Tan his biscuits. " Even when I am an old lady I shall always be six and a half years older than Guy ; and when Guy is a little old man he will be six and a half years younger than me." The very fire revealed itself in the guise of mother- hood : " It has its arms about its baby." Her Violets 223 Cross-questioned by deponent : " Why, the log is the baby, father. And the fire has yellowy arms." This was the chance, I thought, of helping her to realise Bethlehem. " The donkey and the cow would be kind to Guy, wouldn't they.? They would let no one touch him." " Was Jesus very tiny and pink, too ? " " And was God quite pink and tiny .? " When I ex- plained that God was not born, had never been a baby at all — " Oh, poor little boy ! " Out of the ox and the ass and Gelert and Guy she speedily made herself a wonderful drama. Watching her round the corner of my book, I saw the fol- lowing puppet-play enacted, with some subdued mimetic sounds, but without a spoken word. 2 24 W. V. Dramatis Persons. A doll^ a cardboard dog^ a horse ditto. Scene i. The doll gets a ride on the dog's back ; the horse runs whinnying round the meadow. Scene ii. The doll asleep ; the dog and horse watching. Enter the serpent (a string of beads) ; crawls stealthily to the doll. The dog barks and bites. The horse jumps on the serpent. The doll wakes. Saved ! To stand and gaze at the Man is bliss ; to hold him on her lap for a moment is very heaven. " Tell me what you saw when you came down," she prayed him ; but the Man never blinked an eyelid (babes and alligators Her Violets 225 share this weird faculty). Mother sug- gested : "I saw a snow-cloud, so I made haste before the snow came." "W. V. " guesses " that when she came she saw many lovely things, but unhappily she has forgotten them. My daughter's admiration of my great gifts has always been exhilarating to me. Time was when I cudgelled the loud wind for clattering her win- dows, and saw that malignant stones and obdurate wood and iron were con- dignly chastised for hurting her. No one has such mechanical genius for the mending of her dolls and slain soldiers ; no one can tell her such good stories as I ; no one make up such funny poems. Now she contrasted her voice with mine — alas ! she cannot sing Guy to sleep. Well, let us make a new song and try together : p 226 W. V. The creatures are all at rest, The lark in his grassy furrow, The crow in his faggoty nest, And Bunny's asleep in his burrow; But this little boy He is no longer his mother's joy, For he will not, will not, will not, will not, will not go to sleep ! Oh yes, if we sing with gentle patience and a sweet diminuendo, he always does go to sleep — in the long run. I do not think there is anything she would not do for the Man. " Father, you will always be a staunch friend to Guy } " Why, naturally, and so must she ; she must love him, and help him, and guide him, and be good to him all her life, for there is only one Guy and one W. V. in all the world. She has now caught hold of the notion of the little mother, of considerateness, thought- Her Violets 227 fulness, helpfulness, self-denial, self- sacrifice. Yesterday the little Man noticed a bird painted on a plate and put out his hand. " Fly out, little bird, to Guy ! " cried W. V. It was a pretty fancy, and I wrote : ]N CHINA With wings green and black and a daffodil breast, He flies day and night; without song, without rest; Through summer, through winter — the cloudy, the clear — Encircling the sun in the round of the year. But now that it's April and shiny ; oh, now That nests are a-building, and bloom's on the bough, Alight, pretty rover, and get you a mate — Our almond's in blossom — fly out of the plate ! But this was not at all successful. There were no almonds in blossom, and 228 W. V. it should have been, " Fly out to Guy ! " No almonds in blossom ! I know the oaks are "in feathers," as W. V. says, and the Forest is full of snow ; yet 1 feel that the almond is in blossom too. The Man is sleeping peacefully in his furs, but it is time we were turning for home. " Then we shan't get any violets this time ? " says W. V. with a sly gleam in her eyes. Oh, little woman, yes ; the woods and the world are full of the smell of violets. Envoy Envoy " Crying Abba, Father " A BBA, in Thine eternal years ■**■ Bethink Thee of our fleeting day ; We are but clay ; Bear with our foolish joys, our foolish tears, And all the wilfulness with which we pray ! I have a little maid who, when she leaves Her father and her father's threshold, grieves, But being gone, and life all holiday. Forgets my love and me straightway ; 232 W. V. Yet, when I write, Kisses my letters, dancing with delight, Cries " Dearest father ! " and in all her glee For one brief live-long hour remembers mc. Shall I in anger punish or reprove ? Nay, this is natural ; she cannot guess How one forgotten feels forgetfulness ; And I am glad thinking of her glad face, And send her little tokens of my love. And Thou — wouldst Thou be wroth in such a case ? And crying Abba, I am fain To think no human father's heart Can be so tender as Thou art. So quick to feel our love, to feel our pain. When she is froward, querulous or wild. Thou knowest, Abba, how in each offence J stint not patience lest I wrong the child Mistaking for revolt defect of sense. For wilfulness mere spriteliness of mind ; Thou know'st how often, seeing, I am blind ; How when I turn her face against the wall Envoy 233 And leave her in disgrace, And will not look at her or speak at all, I long to speak and long to see her face ; And how, when twice, for something grievous done, I could but smite, and though I lightly smote, I felt my heart rise strangling in my throat ; And when she wept I kissed the poor red hands All these things. Father, a father understands ; And am not I Thy son ? Abba, in Thine eternal years Bethink Thee of our fleeting day ; From all the rapture of our eyes and ears How shall we tear ourselves away ? At night my little one says nay, With prayers implores, entreats with tears For ten more flying minutes' play ; How shall we tear ourselves away ? Yet call, and I'll surrender The flower of soul and sense, Life's passion and its splendour, In quick obedience. 234 W. V. If not without the blameless human tears By eyes which slowly glaze and darken shed, Yet without questionings or fears For those I leave behind when I am dead. Thou, Abba, know'st how dear My little child's poor playthings are to her ; What love and joy She has in every darling doll and precious toy ; Yet when she stands between my knees To kiss good-night, she does not sob in sorrow, " Oh, father, do not break or injure these ! " She knows that I shall fondly lay them by For happiness to-morrow ; So leaves them trustfully. And shall not I ? Whatever darkness gather O'er coverlet or pall, Since Thou art Abba, Father, Why should I fear at all ? Thou'st seen how closely, Abba, when at rest. My child's head nestles to my breast ; And how my arm her little form enfolds Envoy 235 Lest in the darkness she should feel alone ; And how she holds My hands, my hands, my two hands in her own ? A little easeful sighing And restful turning round, And I too, on Thy love relying, Shall slumber sound. 6 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY Los Angeles This book is DUE on the last date stamped below. Form L9-50»j-4.'61(B8994s4)444 PR UIil^ Canton - C2i Invisible 1897 playmate PR UUl^ C2i 1897 UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY AA 000 367 000 7