"Why don"t you say what you mean? Well, Freddie, there"s plenty of tobacco left in this shop, so you can come in whenever the old tobacco box at home runs out. And don"t forget to come in to see Aunt Amanda.
Plenty of goods left in the shop whenever--you see all that?" He pointed up towards the shelves. "I"ll tell you something I ain"t told to but mighty few people before. There"s a jar of smoking tobacco up there that"s just plain magic. Magic! You know what that means?"
Freddie started, and looked up at the shelves in alarm. He nodded.
"It"s that one, on the middle shelf; the Chinaman"s head. Do you see it?"
He pointed to a white porcelain jar, shaped like a human head. Freddie could see that it was the head of some foreign kind of man, with a little round blue cap on top, which was probably the lid.
"That tobacco in that Chinaman"s head is magic, as sure as you"re alive.
I wouldn"t smoke it if you"d give me all the plum puddings in this city next Christmas; no, sir; and I wouldn"t allow n.o.body else to smoke it, neither: I just naturally wouldn"t dare to. Do you know where that tobacco come from? A sailor off of one them ships down there in the harbor, that come all the way from China--yes, sir, _China!_--give it to me once for a quid of plug-cut; what you might call broke, he was, and it wasn"t any use to him because he didn"t smoke, but he did chew; and he told me all about it; he stole it from an old sorcerer in China, where he"d just come from. Don"t you never touch it! I wouldn"t want to be in your boots if you ever smoked that tobacco in that there Chinaman"s head! You can steal anything else in this shop, and it wouldn"t do much harm to anybody; but you keep your hands off of that Chinaman"s tobacco, mind what I"m telling you!"
"Yes, sir," said Freddie. He had never thought about smoking before, in connection with himself, but now for the first time he began to wish that he knew how to smoke. It would be worth risking something to take a whiff or two of the magic tobacco in that Chinaman"s head, just to see what would happen.
"Do you think you"d better go home now?" said Mr. Littleback.
"Yes, sir," said Freddie. "My farver told me to hurry."
"Oh, he did! Indeed!"
The hunchback followed Freddie to the door, and they looked up together at the clock in the church-tower.
"Ah!" said Toby. "You"re safe. Just six o"clock. Mr. Punch"s father can"t come out for about half an hour yet."
Freddie looked back as he crossed the street, and saw the live hunchback leaning against the wooden hunchback, with one foot crossed over the other; he could hardly tell which was which, except for the coat and breeches. He went on up the street with his package of tobacco in one hand and his package of gingerbread in the other. As he pa.s.sed the church, he lingered a moment to stare at the great fat man with spectacles, who was sitting on the pavement in a chair tilted back against the church-wall, smoking a long pipe and reading a newspaper; could this be the "s.e.xtant" of the church, whom Mr. Toby had mentioned, and who had heard the queer noises from the top of the tower when Mr.
Punch and his father were up there having their high jinks? He tried to get up his courage to ask the fat man about it, but he could not get the words out. He stared so long that the fat man finally put down his paper and took the pipe from his mouth and looked over his spectacles and said:
"If you"re considerin" making a bid for the property, young man, I"ll see what the senior Churchwarden has to say about it. How much do you offer?"
"No, sir," said Freddie, blushing in confusion, and went on up the street. He understood nothing of what the fat man had said, but he caught the word "churchwarden," and remembered it.
He did not walk very fast, for he had a good deal to think about; so many things had never happened to him in one day before. He dwelt especially, in his mind, on the two old codgers who were friends of Mr.
Toby, and he supposed that his own father never saved up his pennies, otherwise his old tobacco box would not be empty every now and then.
However, he was glad that his father was a spendthrift, because it would give him a chance to go to the Old Tobacco Shop sometimes for more tobacco for the box; and apart from Aunt Amanda and her gingerbread, he was very anxious to look again at the Chinaman"s head in which lay the magic tobacco which he must not touch. One thing was sure; he would never go without looking carefully first at the hands of the clock. He wished he knew how to smoke; only not cigarettes; he shivered when he thought of the terrible consequences.
When he came to the street-car track, the horse-car was going past; at least, it was coming down the street, and he did not want to be run over by that horse; he had better wait, for the horse was trotting; his mother had warned him about it; he sat down on the curb. He had quite a moment or two to wait, and there would be time to give a hasty glance at the gingerbread. He laid the tobacco-sack beside him on the curb, and opened the other package; the car-horse had dropped into a walk and his bell was hardly jingling; there was no hurry after all; it would never do to cross in front of that horse even though he was walking. He looked at the gingerbread; it was fresh and soft, and its smell, when held close to the nose, was nothing less than heavenly; it was a pity it had to be hidden away again in the sack, but the horse was going by and the danger would soon be past. He held the gingerbread under his nose, merely to smell it; the edge of it touched his upper lip by chance, and there was something peculiar about the feel of it, he couldn"t tell exactly what; it was very interesting; he touched it with the tip of his tongue, to see if it felt the same to his tongue as to his lip; it was just the same; perhaps teeth would be different; his teeth sank into it, just for a trial. The horse was going by now, and the driver was looking at him. He forgot what he was about, in watching the horse and his driver, as they went on past him; the gingerbread completely slipped his mind, and when he turned his head back from the horse-car and came to himself he found, to his amazement, that his mouth was full of gingerbread. He wondered at first how it got there, but there was no use in wondering; there it was, and it had to be swallowed; his mother would never approve of his spitting it out; and so, to please his mother, he swallowed it. The horse-car was nearly a square away; he could cross the track at any time now; there was no hurry.
When he came into the fine two-story brick house where he lived, with only one package in his hand, his mother threw up her hands and said:
"Why, Freddie! Where on earth have you been? Did you get lost? Are you hungry?"
"No"m. Yes"m," said Freddie.
"Frederick," said his father, looking at him with that look, "where have you been? Didn"t I tell you to hurry?"
"Yes, sir, to Mr. Punch"s, and I didn"t see his farver at all, but the hands come"d right over on top of each other and he didn"t get down off of his perch, he didn"t, so Mr. Toby took me in to see Aunt Namanda and she eats pins, and it"s cigarettes that gives you that hump on the back, only tobacco"s all right "cause you smoke it in a pipe and it doesn"t do you any harm at all, and that"s what Mr. Toby says and he ought to know "cause he"s got one on his back his own self, but you mustn"t touch that tobacco in the head "cause it"s magic and the sailor said so, and here"s the Cage-Roach Mitchner, and that"s all."
You will notice that he said nothing about the gingerbread.
CHAPTER III
INTRODUCING THE CHURCHWARDEN
Every time Freddie visited the Old Tobacco Shop after that--and it was pretty often, whether the tobacco box at home needed tobacco or not, for there were a good many things that drew him there, and he hardly knew which was the most fascinating: there was always a chance of gingerbread, and you could usually depend on seeing Aunt Amanda eat pins, and you could look through the two pieces of gla.s.s at the double picture and make it all one picture with the people in it standing out as if they were real, and Mr. Toby would often sing about his friends the two old Codgers and talk about their mean ways, and Mr. Punch was always waiting for his father outside the door, so that you had to keep your eyes on the time, or at least the clock (which is different), and sometimes Mr. Toby would let you in behind the counter and let you scoop tobacco into a paper sack, and when his back was turned you could stand under the Chinaman"s head with the magic tobacco in it, and look up at it and wonder what would happen if you took just one or two little teeny whiffs--But I forget what I started to tell you. Oh, yes. Every time Freddie visited the Old Tobacco Shop, Mr. Toby would ask him his name, in order to see if he was grown up yet.
"What"s your name today?" Mr. Toby would say.
"Fweddie," would be the Little Boy"s answer.
"Not yet," Mr. Toby would say, shaking his head sadly. "You ain"t grown up yet. I"m very sorry to have to tell you, son, but you"ve got to wait a while before you"re grown up. I"ll tell you what; I"ll give you six months more," said Mr. Toby on one occasion. "If you ain"t grown up by that time, there"s no hope for you; I hate to have to say it, but you might as well know it one time as another." And the very next time the Little Boy came he said his name was "Fweddie," and Mr. Toby said, "Well, never mind, you"ve got five months and twenty-eight days left, and there"s hope yet. I suppose you wouldn"t want to be a Little Boy _all_ the time, and never grow up at all, would you?" Freddie looked up at him in alarm and said, "No, sir." "Then," said Mr. Toby, "you"d better mind your P"s and Q"s."
Freddie wanted to ask about these P"s and Q"s, but you may have noticed that he was shy, and he could not make up his mind to do so. He knew all about P"s and Q"s in the Alphabet Book at home, but he did not know how to mind them; he knew how to mind his mother,--sometimes, but how could you mind letters in a book, that couldn"t ever say "Don"t do that," like mother? He was very anxious on this point, for he knew that his time was growing short, and the idea of never growing up was simply terrifying; he might as well smoke cigarettes and be done with it. In point of fact, he now had only about a week left, and he wasn"t grown up yet.
But one morning, when the hands of the church clock were wide apart, and all was safe, he pa.s.sed by Mr. Punch and opened the shop door. Mr. Toby was standing behind the counter, tying up a parcel. He went on tying it up, and said:
"All right, young feller, it"s your turn next. This here package is for the Sly Old Codger, and he"ll be back for it pretty soon, and if it ain"t ready,--whew! won"t we get blown up, though? Now then, what"ll you have? Pound o" Maiden"s Prayer?"
"No, sir," said the Little Boy. "I don"t want anything. I just came."
"Oh; you just came. By the way, young man, what is your name today?"
"Freddie!" said the Little Boy.
Mr. Toby dropped his package and leaned across the counter in amazement.
"What"s that you say?"
"Freddie!" cried the Little Boy, bursting with pride.
"Well! Bless my soul! If I ever in my life! As sure as the world! Strike me dead if he didn"t say it as plain as--! Young man," said Mr. Toby, solemnly, and he walked to the end of the counter, opened the swinging gate, came through, stood in front of Freddie, and shook him by the hand. "Young man, I congratulate you. It"s all right now. But you had an almighty close shave, I can tell you that. Allow me to congratulate you, and accept the best wishes of your kind friend, Toby Littleback."
"Please, sir," said Freddie, opening his eyes wide, "am I grown up now?"
Mr. Toby stared without speaking, and then threw out both his arms, and for a moment it looked as if he were going to hug the Little Boy, but he evidently thought better of it.
"Are you--? Why, of course you are! Ain"t I been telling you? But don"t you go and presume on it too much, young feller! You don"t think you can go and smoke cigarettes now, just because you"re grown up, do you?"
"Oh no, sir," said Freddie, earnestly.
"I should hope not. And that there Chinaman"s head up there--you don"t think you can go and smoke that magic tobacco now, do you? Because if you do!"
"No, sir," said Freddie; but he said this a little doubtfully, and he looked at the Chinaman"s head with more interest than ever. What was the use of being grown up if you couldn"t take a little risk now and then?
"All right, then!" cried Mr. Toby. "We"ve got to have a little celebration over this here event, and we"d better go in and see Aunt Amanda about it, right now!"