"Carrots:" Just a Little Boy

"But even that would be a _sort_ of killing," persisted Floss, though feeling by no means sure that she was not getting beyond her depth, "if we didn't eat eggs they would grow into chickens, and so eating stops them; and potatoes have roots, and when they're pulled up they don't grow; and cake has eggs in, and--oh I don't know, let's talk of something else."

"What?" said Carrots, "Fairies?"

"If you like, or supposing we talk about when auntie comes and brings 'Sybil.'"

"Yes," said Carrots, "I like that best."

"Well, then," began Floss, "supposing it is late in the evening when they come. _You_ would be in bed, Carrots, dear, but I would have begged to sit up a little longer and----"

"No, Floss, that isn't nice. I won't talk about Sybil, if you make it like that," interrupted Carrots, his voice sounding as if he were going to cry. "Sybil isn't not any bigger than me. I wouldn't be in bed, Floss."

"Very well, dear. Never mind, darling. I won't make it like that. It was very stupid of me. No, Sybil and auntie will come just about our tea-time, and we shall be peeping along the road to see if the carriage from the station is coming, and when we hear it we'll run in, and perhaps mamma will say we may stay in the drawing-room to see them. You will have one of your new sailor suits on, Carrots, and I shall have my white piqué and blue sash, and nurse will have made the nursery tea-table look so nice--with a clean table-cloth, you know, and quite thin bread and butter, and jam, and, perhaps, eggs."

"I won't eat one," interrupted Carrots; "I won't never eat eggs. I'll keep all mine that I get to eat, in a box, till they've growed into chickens."

"But they're boiled when you get them," said Floss; "they wouldn't grow into chickens when they're boiled."

Carrots sighed. "Well, never mind," he said, "go on, Floss."

"Well, then," started Floss again, "you see the nursery tea would look so nice that Sybil would be _sure_ to ask her mamma to let her have tea with us, even though it was the first evening. Perhaps, you know, she would be rather _shy_, just at first, till she got to know us. So we would be very, very kind to her, and after tea we would show her all our things--the dolls, only--Carrots, I'm afraid the dolls are getting rather old."

"Are they?" said Carrots, sympathisingly. "When I'm a man I'll buy you such a _lot_ of new dolls, Floss, and Sybil, too, if she likes dolls--does she, Floss?"

"I don't know. I should think so," said Floss. "When papa and mamma went to see auntie, they said Sybil was like a doll herself. I suppose she has beautiful blue eyes and long gold curls. That was a year ago; she must be bigger now, Carrots."

"What?"

"We must get up and run about a little now. It's too cold to sit still so long, and if we get cold, nurse won't let us come out alone again."

Up jumped Carrots on to his sturdy little legs. "I'll run, Floss," he said.

"Floss," he began, when they stopped to take breath again, "once I saw a little boy with a hoop. It went so nice on the sands. I wish I had a hoop, Floss."

"I wish you had, dear," said Floss. "I'd buy you one, if I had any money. But I haven't, and we couldn't ask mamma, because I know," and Floss shook her head mysteriously, "I know poor mamma _hasn't any money to spare_. I must think of a plan to get some."

Carrots kept silence for about three quarters of a minute. "Have you thinkened, Floss?" he asked, eagerly.

"Thought," gravely said Floss, "not thinkened, what about?"

"About a plan," replied Carrots. He called it "a pan," but Floss understood him.

"Oh, dear, no," said Floss, "not yet. Plans take a great lot of thinking. They're real things, you see, Carrots, not like fancies about fairies and Sybil coming."

"But when Sybil does come, that'll be real then," said Carrots.

"Of course," agreed Floss, "but fancying about it before, isn't real."

It took Carrots a little while to get this into his head. Then he began again.

"When will you have thinkened enough, Floss? By tea-time?"

"I don't know. No, I think you had better wait till to-morrow morning, and then perhaps the plan will be ready."

"Very well," said Carrots, adding, with a little sigh, "to-morrow morning is a long time, Floss."

"Not very," said Floss, consolingly. "Now, Carrots, let's have one more race, and then we must go in."

CHAPTER III.

PLANS.

"'Have you invented a plan for it?' Alice inquired. 'Not yet,' said the knight."

_Through the Looking-glass._

The next morning Carrots woke very early, and the first thing he thought of was the plan. Floss and he slept in the night nursery, in two little beds, and nurse slept in a small room that had a door opening into the nursery. She used to sleep there herself, but now that Carrots was so big, Floss and he were quite safe by themselves, and poor old nurse enjoyed having her own little room.

Floss was still asleep, so Carrots only climbed out of his own cot into hers, and crouched himself down at the foot, watching for her to wake. Floss looked very nice asleep; her "fuzzy" hair was tumbling over the pillow, and her cheeks looked pinker than when she was awake.

"I wonder what being asleep is," thought the little boy as he looked at her. "I always go away, such a long way, when I am asleep. I wonder if Floss does."

She couldn't have been very far away just then, for somehow, though Carrots sat so still, she seemed to know he was there. She turned round and half opened her eyes, and then shut them as if she were trying to go to sleep again, then opened them once more, quite wide this time, and caught sight of the funny little figure beside her.

"Carrots," she said, in a sleepy voice, "Carrots, dear, what are you doing there? You'll catch cold."

"No, I won't. May I come in 'aside you, Floss? I was only watching for you to wake; I didn't wake you, did I?" said Carrots, as Floss made room for him, and he poked his cold little toes down into a nice warm place, "I did so want to know if it was ready, for it's to-morrow morning now."

"If what's ready?" said Floss, for she was rather sleepy still.

"The plan for getting money."

"Oh!" said Floss. "Yes," she went on after thinking for a minute, "yes, it's nearly ready; at least I'm almost sure it is. But it's not quite ready for telling _you_, yet, Carrots."

Carrots looked terribly disappointed.

"I think," went on Floss, "I think it will be ready for telling you after breakfast. And if you like, you may listen to something I am going to ask nurse at breakfast, and, perhaps, that will help you to guess what the plan is."

At breakfast time Carrots was all ears. All ears and no tongue, so that nurse began to wonder if he was ill.

"I shouldn't like you to be ill the very day after Master Jack has gone," she said anxiously (Jack had gone up to town by the night train with his father), "one trouble at a time is quite enough for your poor mamma."

"Is Jack's going to the big school a trouble?" asked Floss, opening her eyes very wide, "I thought they were all very glad."

"My dear," said nurse solemnly, "one may be glad of a thing and sorry too. And changes mostly are good and bad together."

Floss did not say any more, but she seemed to be thinking about what nurse had said. Carrots was thinking too.

"When I'm a man," he said at last, "I won't go to a big school if Floss doesn't want me to."

Nurse smiled. "There's time enough to see about that," she said, "get on with your breakfast, Master Carrots; you'll never grow a big boy if you don't eat plenty."

"Nurse," said Floss, suddenly, "what's the dearest thing we eat? what costs most?"

"Meat, now-a-days, Miss Flossie," said nurse.

"Could we do without it?" asked Floss. Nurse shook her head.

"What could we do without?" continued the child. "We couldn't do without bread or milk, I suppose. What could we do without that costs money?"

"Most things do that," said nurse, who began to have a glimmering of what Floss was driving at, "but the money's well spent in good food to make you strong and well."

"Then isn't there anything we could do without--without it hurting us, I mean?" said Floss, in a tone of disappointment.

"Oh yes," said nurse, "I daresay there is. Once a little boy and girl I knew went without sugar in their tea for a month, and their grandmother gave them sixpence each instead."

"Sixpence!" exclaimed Floss, her eyes gleaming.

"Sixpence each," corrected nurse.

"Two sixpences, that would be a shilling. Carrots, do you hear?"

Carrots had been listening with might and main, but was rather puzzled.

"Would two sixpennies pay for two hoops?" he whispered to Floss, pulling her pinafore till she bent her head down to listen.

"Of course they would. At least I'm almost sure. I'll ask nurse. Nurse, dear," she went on in a louder voice, "do you think we might do that way--Carrots and I--about sugar, I mean?"

"I don't see that it would do you any harm," said nurse. "You must ask your mamma."

But Floss hesitated.

"I shouldn't much like to ask mamma," she said, and Carrots, who was listening so intently that he had forgotten all about his bread and milk, noticed that Floss's face grew red. "I shouldn't much like to ask mamma, because, nursie, dear, it is only that we want to get money for something for ourselves, and if we told mamma, it would be like asking her to _give_ us the money. It wouldn't be any harm for us not to eat any sugar in our tea for a month, and you could keep the sugar in a packet all together, nurse, and _then_ you might tell mamma that we had saved it, and she would give us a shilling for it. It would be quite worth a shilling, wouldn't it, nurse?"

"Oh, yes," said nurse, "I am sure your mamma would say it was." Then she considered a little. She was one of those truly trustworthy nurses whose notions are strong on the point of everything being told to "mamma." But she perfectly understood Floss's hesitation, and though she might not have been able to put her feeling into words, she felt that it might do the child harm to thwart her delicate instinct.

"Well, nurse?" said Floss, at last.

"Well, Miss Flossie, I don't think for once I shall be doing wrong in letting you have a secret. When will you begin? This is Thursday; on Saturday your mamma will give me the week's sugar--suppose you begin on Sunday? But does Master Carrots quite understand?"

"Oh, yes," said Floss, confidently, "he understands, don't you dear?"

"Oh, yes," said Carrots, "we won't eat not any sugar, Floss and me, for a great long time, and nurse will tie it up in a parcel with a string round, and mamma will buy it and give us a great lot of pennies, and then, and then"--he began to jump about with delight--"Floss and me will go to the toy-shop and buy our hoops, won't we Floss? Oh I wish it was time to go now, don't you Floss?"

"Yes, dear, a month's a good while to wait," said Floss sympathisingly. "May we go out on the shore again by ourselves this afternoon, nurse?"

"If it doesn't rain," said nurse; and Floss, who had half an hour to wait before it was time for her to join her sisters in the school-room, went to the window to have a look at the weather. She had not stood there for more than a minute when Carrots climbed up on to a chair beside her.

"It's going to rain, Floss," he said, "there are the little curly clouds in the sky that Matthew says come when it rains."

Floss looked up at the sky and down at the sea.

"The sea looks cross to-day," she said.

There were no pretty ripples this morning; the water looked dull and leaden.

"Floss," said Carrots, with a sigh, "I do get so tired when you are at lessons all the morning and I have _nucken_ to do. Can't you think of a plan for me to have something to do?" Carrots' head was running on "plans."

Floss considered.

"Would you like to tidy my drawer for me?" she said. "This isn't the regular day for tidying it, but it is in a mess, because I turned all the things upside down when I was looking for our race horses' reins yesterday. Will you put it _quite_ tidy, Carrots?"

"Oh, yes, _quite_, dear Floss," said Carrots, "I'll put all the dolls neat, and all the pieces, and all the sewing things. Oh, dear Floss, what nice plans you make."

So when Floss had gone to her lessons, and nurse was busy with her morning duties, in and out of the room, so as not to lose sight of Carrots, but still too busy to amuse him, he, with great delight, set to work at the drawer. It certainly was much in need of "tidying," and after trying several ways, Carrots found that the best plan was to take everything out, and then put the different things back again in order. It took him a good while, and his face got rather red with stooping down to the floor to pick up all the things he had deposited there, for the drawer itself was too heavy for him to lift out bodily, if, indeed, such an idea had occurred to him. It was the middle drawer of the cupboard, the top part of which was divided into shelves where the nursery cups and saucers and those sort of things stood. The drawer above Floss's was nurse's, where she kept her work, and a few books, and a little note-paper and so on; and the drawer at the bottom, so that he could easily reach it, was Carrots' own.

One end of Floss's drawer was given up to her dolls. She still had a good many, for though she did not care for them now as much as she used, she never could be persuaded to throw any of them away. But they were not very pretty; even Carrots could see that, and Carrots, to tell the truth, was very fond of dolls.

"If I had some money," he said to himself, "I would buy Floss such a most beautiful doll. I wish I had some money."

For the moment he forgot about the hoops and the "plan" and sat down on a little stool with one of the unhappiest looking of the dolls in his arms.

[Illustration: "A yellow sixpenny, oh, how nice!" _To face page_ 36.]

"I wish I could buy you a new face, poor dolly," he said. "I wish I had some money."

He got up again to put poor dolly back into her corner. As he was smoothing down the paper which lined the drawer, he felt something hard close to dolly's foot; he pushed away the dolls to see--there, almost hidden by a crumple in the paper lay a tiny little piece of money--a little shining piece, about the size of a sixpence, only a different colour.

"A yellow sixpenny, oh, how nice!" thought Carrots, as he seized it. "I wonder if Floss knowed it was there. It would just do to buy a new doll. I _wish_ I could go to the toy-shop to buy one to surprise Floss. I won't tell Floss I've found it. I'll keep it for a secret, and some day I'll buy Floss a new doll. I'm sure Floss doesn't know--I think the fairies must have put it there."

He wrapped the piece of money up carefully in a bit of paper, and after considering where he could best hide it, so that Floss should not know till it was time to surprise her, he fixed on a beautiful place--he hid it under one of the little round saucers in his paint-box--a very old paint-box it was, which had descended from Jack, first to Mott and then to Carrots, but which, all the same, Carrots considered one of his greatest treasures.

When nurse came into the room, she found the tidying of the drawer completed, and Carrots sitting quietly by the window. He did not tell her about the money he had found, it never entered into his little head that he should speak of it. He had got into the way of not telling all the little things that happened to him to any one but Floss, for he was naturally a very quiet child, and nurse was getting too old to care about all the tiny interests of her children as she once had done. Besides, he had determined to keep it a secret, even from Floss, till he could buy a new doll with it--but very likely he would have told her of it after all, had not something else put it out of his head.

The something else was that that afternoon nurse took Floss and him a long walk, and a walk they were very fond of.

It was to the cottage of the old woman, who, ever since they had come to Sandyshore, had washed for them. She was a very nice old woman, and her cottage was beautifully clean, and now and then Floss and Carrots had gone with nurse to have tea with her, which was a great treat. But to-day they were not going to tea; they were only going because nurse had to pay Mrs. White some money for washing up Jack's things quickly, and nurse knew the old woman would be glad to have it, as it was close to the day on which she had to pay her rent.

Floss and Carrots were delighted to go, for even when they did not stay to tea, Mrs. White always gave them a glass of milk, and, generally, a piece of home-made cake.

Before they started, nurse went to her drawer and took out of it a very small packet done up in white paper, and this little packet she put into her purse.

It was, after all, a nice fine day. Floss and Carrots talked quietly beside nurse for a little, and then she gave them leave to run races, which made the way seem very short, till they got to Mrs. White's.

"How nice it will be when we have our hoops, won't it, Carrots?" said Floss.

Carrots had almost forgotten about the hoops, but now that Floss mentioned them, it put him in mind of something else.

"Wouldn't you like a new doll, Floss?" he said mysteriously, "a most beautifullest new doll, with hair like--like the angels' hairs in the big window at church, and eyes like the little blue stones in mamma's ring?"

"Of course I would," said Floss, "and we'd call her Angelina, wouldn't we Carrots? But it's no good thinking about it--I shall never have one like that, unless the fairies send it me!"

"If the fairies sended you money to buy one, wouldn't that do?" said Carrots, staring up in her face with a funny look in his eyes.

But before Floss had time to answer, nurse called to them--they were at the corner of the lane which led to Mrs. White's.

Mrs. White was very kind. She had baked a cake only a day or two before, and cut off a beautiful big piece for each of the children, then she gave them a drink of milk, and they ran out into her little garden to eat their cake and look at the flowers, till nurse had finished her business with the old washerwoman, and was ready to go home.

Floss and Carrots thought a great deal of Mrs. White's garden. Small as it was, it had far more flowers in it than their own garden at the back of the Cove House, for it was a mile or two farther from the sea, and the soil was richer, and it was more sheltered from the wind.

In summer there was what Floss called quite a "buzzy" sound in this little garden--she meant that sweet, lazy-busy hum of bees and butterflies and all sorts of living creatures, that you never hear except in a real old-fashioned garden where there are lots of clove pinks and sweet williams and roses, roses especially, great, big cabbage roses, and dear little pink climbing roses, the kind that peep in at a cottage window to bid you "good morning." Oh, how very sweet those old-fashioned flowers are--though "rose fanciers" and all the clever gardeners we have now-a-days wouldn't give anything for them! _I_ think them the sweetest of all. Don't you, children? Or is it only when one begins to grow old-fashioned oneself and to care more for things that used to be than things that are now, that one gets to prize these old friends so?

I am wandering away from Floss and Carrots waiting for nurse in the cottage garden; you must forgive me, boys and girls--when people begin to grow old they get in the habit of telling stories in a rambling way, but I don't find children so hard upon this tiresome habit as big people sometimes are. And it all comes back to me so--even the old washerwoman's cottage I can see so plainly, and the dear straggly little garden!