Children by the "Sad Sea-Wave."
There is nothing sad about the sea from a child"s point of view. On many a long voyage I have known children be the light and the life of a ship fore and aft.
Coming from the Cape once I remember we had just one child pa.s.senger, a fair-haired, blue-eyed, curly-polled little rascal whom the sailors had baptised Tommy Tadpole. He was a saloon pa.s.senger, but was quite as often forward among the men on deck or down below. Not more than seven years of age, I often wondered he did not have his neck broken, for even in half a gale of wind he would be rushing about like a mad thing, or up and down the steep iron ladder that led to the engine room. He had a mother on board, and a nurse as well, but he was too slippery for either, and for the matter of that everyone on board was Tommy"s nurse or playmate.
Catch-me-who-catch-can was the boy"s favourite game, and at this he would keep three sailors busy for half-an-hour, and still manage to elude their grasp. How he doubled and bolted and dived, to be sure, round the binnacle, round the capstan, over the winch, under the spare anchor, down one ladder and up another--it was marvellous! One day I remember he was fairly caught; he got up into the main-rigging, and actually through the lubber hole into the main-top. Ah! but Tommy couldn"t get back, and there he sat for some time, for all the world like that sweet little cherub who sits up aloft to look after the life of poor Jack, till a st.u.r.dy seaman ran up, and Tommy rode down on his shoulder.
And the waves were never high enough, nor the wind stormy enough, to frighten Tommy Tadpole.
But country children on a visit to the seash.o.r.e find fun and joy and something to laugh at in every breaker or tumbling wave.
A storm was raging at Brighton the day after my arrival there in the Wanderer. Great seas were thundering in upon the shingly beach and leaping madly over pier and wall.
"Look, look!" cried my little daughter Inez delightedly, "how the waves are smoking!"
"Surely," she added, "great whales must be in the water to make it wobble so."
But it was great fun to her to watch them "wobbling," all the same.
She crowed with joy at the scene.
"Oh! they do make me laugh so," she cried, clapping her tiny hands, "they are such fun!" Yes, and for weeks afterwards, whenever she thought of that storm-tossed ocean she would laugh.
But really you can find everlasting amus.e.m.e.nt at the seaside in summer or in autumn--supposing you are a child, I mean. Shingle is not very nice to dig among, perhaps, with a wooden spade, but then you find such quant.i.ties of pretty stones and sh.e.l.ls among it, and morsels of coloured gla.s.s worn round by the action of the waves. You cannot build a very satisfactory house or fortification with the smaller kinds of shingle, but you can throw spadefuls of it in all directions--over your companions or over your nurse, and if a shower of it does fall on that old gentleman"s long hat, what matters it whether he be angry or not? it was fun to hear it rattle, and you would do it again and again if you only dared.
If you are permitted to take off shoes and stockings and tuck up your dress, what a glorious treat to wade on the soft sand, and feel the merry wee waves playing soft and warm about your legs! If you cannot have shoes and stockings off, then you can chase each receding wave, and let the advancing ones chase you. This will make you laugh, and if one should overtake you and go swilling round your ankles, why, what matters it? to listen to the water jerking in your boots at every step is in itself good fun.
There is endless amus.e.m.e.nt to be got out of seaweed, too, and if you have a big dog the fun will be fast and furious.
Perhaps he is a large Newfoundland, like our Hurricane Bob. By the seaside Bob is always on the best of terms with himself and every other living creature. You can bury him in the sand all but the nose; you can clothe him from head to tail with broad bands of wet seaweed, he enjoys it all, takes everything in good part. He will go splashing and dashing into the sea after a stick or a stone, and if you were to fall plump into the sea yourself he would jump after you, carry you out, and lay you on the beach in the most businesslike fashion imaginable; then shake himself, the water that flies from his great jacket of jet making rainbows all round him in the sunshine.
No; there is no sadness about the sea-wave in the happy, merry days of childhood.
Littlehampton is altogether a children"s watering-place. There they were by the dozen and score, sailing yachts in little pools, flying kites and building castles, playing at horses, riding on donkeys, gathering sh.e.l.ls and seaweed, dancing, singing, laughing, screaming, racing, chasing, paddling and puddling, and all as happy as happy could be.
I was always pleased enough to have interesting children come and see me; whether they brought little bouquets of flowers with them--which they often did--or not, they always brought sunshine.
Let me give just one or two specimens of my juvenile visitors. I _could_, give a hundred.
Sweet Maudie Brewer.
I could not help qualifying her name with a pretty adjective from the first moment I saw her. Not that Maudie is a very beautiful child, but so winning and engaging, and exceedingly old-fashioned. I made her acquaintance at the inn where my horses were stabled. She is an orphan--virtually, at all events--but the landlord of the hotel is exceedingly good to her, and very proud also of his wee six-year-old Maudie.
It is as a conversationalist that Maudie shines. She has no shyness, but talks like an old, old world-wise mite of a woman.
"Now," she said, after we had talked on a variety of topics, "come into the parlour and I shall play and sing to you?"
As she took me by the hand I had to go, but had I known the little treat I was to have I should have gone more willingly. For not only can Maudie sing well, but she plays airs and waltzes in a way that quite surprised me; and I found myself standing by the piano turning over the leaves for this child of six summers as seriously as if she had been seventeen. That was Maudie Brewer.
Wee d.i.c.kie Ellis.
d.i.c.kie is another old-fashioned child, a handsome, healthful country boy, who lives in Yorkshire. Very chatty and very free was d.i.c.kie, but by no means impertinent. Age about seven. But his age does not cost d.i.c.kie a thought, for when I asked him how old he was, he said it was either six or sixteen, but he wasn"t sure which. He admired the caravan, and admired Hurricane Bob, but it was my talking c.o.c.katoo that specially took his fancy.
He had not been gone half-an-hour till I found him on the steps again.
"I"ve just coome," he said, "to have another look at t"ould Poll parrot."
Polly took to him, danced to him and sang to him, and finally make a great grab at his nose.
d.i.c.kie was back in an hour.
"Coome again," he explained, "to have a look at t"ould Poll parrot."
I thought I was rid of him now for the day; but after sunset, lo!
d.i.c.kie appeared once more.
"I"m gangin" to bed noo," he said, "and I want to say "good-night" to t"ould Poll parrot."
And next morning, before I started, up came d.i.c.kie sure enough.
"Just coome," he sadly remarked, "to have t"last look at t"ould Poll parrot."
The Miner"s Sprite.
The Wanderer was lying in a quiet meadow in a mining district. It was a lovely summer"s evening; tall trees and a church tower not far off stood out dark against a crimson sky, for the sun had but just gone down. I was seated reading on the back steps, and all alone.
"Peas, sir," said a voice close to me; "peas, sir."
"I don"t buy peas," I replied, looking up in some surprise, for I"d heard no footstep.
"Peas, sir," persisted the child--"I mean, if oo peas, sir, I"ve come to see your talavan."
What a sprite she looked! What a gnome! Her little face and hands and bare legs and feet were black with coal dust, only her lips were pink.
When she smiled she showed two rows of little pearly teeth, and her eyes were very large and l.u.s.trous. I took all this in at a glance, and could not help noticing the smallness of her feet and hands and ears.
"Take my hand and help me up the stails. Be twick." I did as I was told, and everything inside was duly criticised and admired. She sat on a footstool, and told me a deal about herself. She spent all the day in the mine, she said, playing and singing, and everybody loved her, and was so "dood" to her.
She lived with her pa and ma in a cottage she pointed to.
"But," she added, "my pa isn"t my real faddel (father), and ma isn"t my real muddel (mother)." Here was a mystery.
"And where is your real father and mother?"
"Oh!" she replied, "I never had a real faddel and muddel."
As she was going away she said,--
"You may tiss me, and tome and see me."