"Yes," said Fritz, "he really does, mother. He cries when Lisa says she must put away his old shoes, and his old woolly lamb is dreadful – really dreadful, but he won't give it away."

"It has such a sweet face," said Baby.

"Well I don't care; I wish it was burnt up. He mustn't take it in the railway with us when we go away; must he, mother?"

"Couldn't it be washed?" said mother.

"I don't think so, and I don't believe Baby would like it as much if it was. Would you, Baby?" said Fritz.

Baby would not answer directly. He seemed rather in a hurry to change the subject.

"Mother," he said, "when we go away in the 'normous boat, won't we p'raps go to the country where the shiny jugs is made? And if him takes all the money in him's money-box, couldn't him buy some for you?"

"They wouldn't be the same ones," said Fritz.

Baby's face fell. Mother tried to comfort him.

"Never mind about the jugs any more just now," she said. "Some day, perhaps, when you are a big man you will get me some others quite as pretty, that I shall like for your sake. What will please me more than new jugs just now, Baby, is for you to promise me not to try to do things like that without telling any one. Just think how very badly hurt you might have been. If only you had waited to ask me about the little box all would have been right, and my pretty jugs would not have been broken."

"And mother told us that last night, you know, dear," said Fritz, in his proper big brother tone. "Don't you remember in the story about her when she was little? It all came of her not waiting for her big sister to see about the trunk."

Baby gave a deep sigh.

"If God hadn't put so much 'sinking into him's head, it would have been much better," he said. "Him 'sinks and 'sinks, and zen him can't help wanting to do 'sings zat moment minute."

"Then 'him' must learn what patience means," said mother with a little smile. "But I'll tell you what I've been thinking – that if we don't take care somebody else may be hurting themselves with the broken glass on the pantry floor."

"P'raps the cat," said Baby, starting up, "oh poor pussy, if her was to cut her dear little foots. Shall him go downstairs again, mother, to shut the door? Why, him's foot's still zather bleedy," he added, drawing out the wounded foot, which had a handkerchief wrapped round it above the plaster.

"No," said his mother, "it will be better for me to tell the servants myself," so she rang the bell, and as it was now about the time that Denny had thought it when Baby first woke up, in a few minutes her maid appeared, looking rather astonished. She looked still more astonished, and a little afraid too, when she caught sight of the two curly heads, one dark and one light, on mother's pillow.

"Is there anything wrong with the young gentlemen?" she said. "Shall I call Lisa, my lady?"

"No, not quite yet," said mother. "I rang to tell you to warn James and the others that there is some broken glass on the pantry floor, and they must be careful not to tread on it, and it must be swept up."

"Broken glass, ma'am," repeated the maid, who was rather what Denny called "'quisitive." "Was it the cat? I did think I heard a noise early this morning."

"No, it wasn't the cat," said mother. "It was an accident. James will see what is broken."

The light curly head had disappeared by this time under the clothes, for Baby had ducked out of sight, feeling ashamed of its being known that he had been the cat. But as soon as the maid had left the room he came up again to the surface like a little fish, and a warm feeling of thanks to his mother went through his heart.

"You won't tell the servants it were him, will you?" he whispered, stretching up for another kiss.

"No, not if 'him' promises never to try to do things like reaching down boxes for himself. Herr Baby must ask mother about things like that, mustn't he?" she said.

Mother often called him "Herr Baby" for fun. The name had taken her fancy when he was a very tiny child, and Lisa had first come to be his nurse. For Lisa was very polite; she would not have thought it at all proper to call him "Baby" all by itself.

Herr Baby kissed mother a third time, which, as he was not a very kissing person, was a great deal in one morning.

"Ses," he said, "him will always aks mother. Mother is so sweet," he added coaxingly.

"He calls everything he likes 'sweet,'" said Fritz. "Mother and the cat and the tiny trunk – they're all sweet.'"

But mother smiled, so Baby didn't mind.

CHAPTER IV.
GOING AWAY

"She did not say to the sun good-night,
As she watched him there like a ball of light,
For she knew he had God's time to keep
All over the world, and never could sleep."

How, I can't tell, but, after all, somehow the packing got done, and everything was ready. They left a few things behind that Herr Baby would certainly have taken had he had the settling of it. They didn't take the horses, nor the fireplaces, and, of course, as the horses weren't to go, Thomas and Jones had to be left behind too to take care of them, which troubled Baby a good deal. And no doubt Thomas and Jones would have been very unhappy if it hadn't been for the nice way Baby spoke to them about coming back soon, and the letters he would send them on their birthdays, and that he would never like any other Thomases and Joneses as much as them. It was really quite nice to hear him, and Jones had to turn his head away a little – Baby was afraid it was to hide that he was crying.

It was a very busy time, and Baby was the busiest of any. There was so much to think of. The rabbits too had to be left behind, which was very sad, for one couldn't write letters to them on their birthdays; neither Denny, whom he asked about it, nor Baby himself, could tell when the rabbits' birthdays were, and besides, as Baby said, "what would be the good of writing them letters if they couldn't read them?" The only thing to do was to get the little girl at the lodge to promise to take them fresh cabbages every morning – that was one of the things Herr Baby had to see about, himself. Lisa lost him one morning, and found him at the lodge, after a great hunt, talking very gravely to the little girl about it.

"Zou will p'omise, Betsy, p'omise certain sure, nebber to forget," he was saying, and poor Betsy looked quite frightened, Herr Baby was so very solemn. Fritz wanted to make her kiss her mother's old Testament, the way he had seen men do sometimes in his grandfather's study when they came to tell about things, and to promise they would speak the truth; but Betsy, though she was ready enough to promise, didn't like the other idea at all. She might be had up to the court for such like doings, she said, and as neither Fritz nor Baby had any idea what sort of place the court was, though they fancied it was some kind of prison for people who didn't keep their word, they thought it better to leave it.

The "calanies" and the "Bully" were to go, that was a comfort, and Peepy-Snoozle and Tim, the two dormice, also, another comfort. Baby's own packing was a serious matter, but, on the whole, I think mother and Lisa and everybody were rather glad he had it to do, as it gave other people a chance of getting theirs done without the little feet pattering along the passage or up the stairs, and the little shrill voice asking what was going to be put into this trunk or into that carpet-bag. He gave up thinking so much about the other packing after a while, for he found his own took all his time and attention. Mother had found him a box after all. Not the box of course – that was left empty, by Baby's wish, till some day when he was a big man, he should go to the country of the fairy glass and buy mother some new jugs – but a very nice little box, and she gave him cotton wool and crushy paper too, and everything was as neat as possible, and the box quite packed and ready, the first evening. But it was very queer that every day after that Herr Baby found something or other he had forgotten, or something that Denny and he decided in their early morning talks, that it would be silly to take. Or else it came into his head in the night that his best Bible would be better in the other corner, and the scenty purse on the top of it instead of at one side. Any way it always happened that the box had to be unpacked and packed again, and the very last evening there was Herr Baby on his knees before it on the floor, giving the finishing touches, long after he should have been in bed.

"And we have to be up so early to-morrow morning," said mother, "my dear little boy, you really should have been fast asleep by this time."

"And he wakes me so early in the morning," said Denny, who was standing before the fire giving herself little cross shakes every time poor Lisa, who was combing out her long fair hair, came to a tuggy bit. "Lisa, you're hurting me; Lisa, do take care," she added snappishly.

"My dear Denny, how very impatient you are!" said her mother. "I don't know how you will bear all the little discomforts of a long journey if you can't bear to have your hair combed."

On this, Denny, as Fritz would have said, "shut up." She could not bear it to be thought that she was babyish or "silly." Her great, great wish was to be considered quite a big girl. You could get her to do anything by telling her it would be babyish not to do it, or that doing it would be like big people, which, of course, showed that she was rather babyish in reality, as sensible children understand that they cannot be like big people in everything, and that they wouldn't be at all nice if they were.

Baby always felt sorry for Denny or any of them when mother found fault with them. He jumped up from the floor – at least he got up, his legs were too short for him to spring either up or down very actively – and trotted across to his sister.

"Poor Denny," he said, reaching up to kiss her, "him won't wake her up so early to-mollow morning."

"But we'll have to wake early to-morrow," said Denny, rather crossly still, "it's no use you beginning good ways about not waking me now, just when everything's changed."

Baby looked rather sad.

"Is your box quite ready now, dear?" said his mother. "Well then, let Lisa get you ready for bed as quick as she can, and you and Denny must go to sleep without any talking, and wake fresh in the morning."

But Baby still looked sad; his face began working and twisting, and at last he ran to mother and hid it in her lap, bursting into tears.

"Denny makes him so unhappy," he said. "Him doesn't like everysing to be changed like Denny says. Him is so sorry to go away and to leave him's house and Thomas and Jones, and oh! him is so sorry to leave the labbits!"

"And him's a tired little boy. I think it's because he's so tired that he's so sad about going away," said mother. "Think, dear, how nice it is that we're all going together, not Celia or Fritz or anybody left behind. For you know Thomas has his old mother he wouldn't like to leave, and Jones has his wife and children. And if the rabbits could talk, I'm quite sure they would tell you that they'd far rather stay here in their own nice little house, with plenty of cabbages, than be bundled into a box and taken away in the railway ever so far, without being able to run about for ever so many days."

Baby's face cleared a little.

"Betsy has p'omised," he said to himself. Then he added, "Him won't like the railway neither if it's like that."

"But him's not going to be put in a box or a basket," said mother, laughing. "Him will have a nice little corner all to himself in a cushioned railway carriage, only just now he really must go to bed."

So she kissed him for good-night, and Denny too, who, by this time, had recovered her good-humour in the interest of listening to the conversation between her mother and Herr Baby, and soon both little sister and brother were fast asleep in their cots, dreaming about the journey before them I daresay, or perhaps forgetting all about it in the much queerer and stranger journeys that small people are apt to fly away upon at night, when their tired little bodies seem to be lying quite still and motionless in bed.

It was strange enough —almost as strange as a dream – the next morning when, long before it was light, they had all to get up and be dressed at once in their going-out things – that is to say their thick boots and gaiters, and woollen under-jackets (for it was very cold, though not yet far on in November), while their ulsters and comforters and caps, and the girls' sealskin coats and muffs and hats, were all laid out in four little heaps by Lisa, so that they should be ready to put on the moment breakfast was over.

What a funny breakfast! Candles on the table, for it was not, of course, worth while to light the lamp, and everything looking more like a sort of "muddley tea," Fritz said, than their usual trim nursery breakfast.

"I can't eat," said Fritz, throwing down his bread and butter; "it's no use."

"And there's eggs!" said Denny, who was comfortably at work at hers, looking across at Fritz as if it wouldn't be very difficult to eat up his egg too. "I think it's very kind of cook to have got up so early and made us eggs 'cos we were going away, and – "

"'Twasn't cook, 'twas Abigail," said Fritz. "I saw her coming up with the eggs all in a pan with hot water, so that they shouldn't get cold, she said to Lisa."

"Well then it was very kind of Abigail, and – " said Denny.

"'Twasn't Abigail that made the eggs," said Baby, "'twas the hens zat laid them. Denny should say the hens was werry kind."

"Oh bother," said Denny, "I wish you'd not interrupt me. I don't care who it was. I only want to say it's very stupid of Fritz not to eat his egg, when somebody made them for us, extra you know, because we're going away, and I think Fritz is very stupid."

"Come, Herr Fritz," said Lisa, encouragingly, "try and eat. You will be so hungry."

"I can't," said Fritz, "I've got a horrid feeling just like when mother took me to have that big tooth out. I feel all shaky and cruddley."

"Yes, I know," said Denny, going on with her breakfast all the same, "but eating's the best thing to make it go away. I felt just that way the day I broke grandfather's hotness measure, and mother said I must tell him myself. I couldn't eat a bit of dinner, and I sat on the stair all screwged up, waiting for him to go to the study."

"How dedful!" said Baby, with great feeling. But neither Fritz nor Celia seemed to think much of Denny's sufferings. No one had ever seen her nerves disturbed, and they did not therefore much believe in her having any.

"Grandfather's what did you say?" asked Celia.

"His hotness measure – the little glass pipe thing with a blob that goes up and down. He's got another now, you know."

"You mean his thermometer; you really should learn the proper names of things," said Celia, "you're quite big enough."

Denny would probably not have taken this in good part, though the "quite big enough" at the end was very much to her taste, but there was no time this morning for squabbling.

"Quick, quick, mine children," said Lisa, "the cart with the luggage is 'way, and the Herr Grandpapa is buttoning his coat."

"And Fritz hasn't eaten his egg!" said Denny, eyeing it dolefully, as Lisa was fastening her jacket.

"I couldn't," said Fritz. "There'll be sandwiches or something in the train – sure to be. Now come on; let's see what have I got to look after. Only Tim and Peepy-Snoozle. I couldn't lose my satchel, you see, for its strapped on me. Much more sensible than girls, who have to carry their bags over their arms."

And Fritz, in a new ulster, very long and rather stiff, and feeling, to tell the truth, a little uncomfortable at first, as new things generally do, stalked off – I don't think he could have run! – with the air of a very big man indeed.

Celia and Denny had a slight dispute as to which was which of the bird's cages. For it had been settled that, for the journey at least, the canaries were to be Celia's charge and the "Bully" Denny's, though, hitherto, these three little birds had belonged to all the children together.

"You've got my cage, Denny," said Celia, sharply.

"I haven't," said Denny, holding hers the more tightly. It was not very easy to see, for both were covered up with dark blue stuff wrappers, to keep the birds warm, "and to make them think it's night all the way," said Baby.

"I haven't," repeated Denny, "there, don't you see two yellow tails in yours? Peep through."

And Denny proved to be right, so Celia had to give in.

And at last they were off! The drive to the station safely over without any misadventures, the luggage all locked up in the van, the children and the dormice and the birds – far more important things, of course, than the big people! – all comfortably settled at one end of the nice big saloon carriage, which grandfather had had sent down on purpose from London.

"Dear me," said Denny, jigging up and down on her seat, "so we're really off! How nice and springy these cushions are! And this carriage is as big as a little house. I could never be tired of travelling in a carriage like this."

"Him zought we'd nebber get away," said Baby, with his usual solemnity. "Dear, dear, what dedful lots of boxes there is! Him's box is 'aside the 'normous big straw one; did zou know, Denny?"

"Poor grandfather," said Celia, "what a lot of times he said over, 'three black portmanteaux, four, no five canvas-covered, four carpet bags, one – fourteen in all. Is that right, Helen? Grandfather's something like Baby, he thinks no one can do anything right but himself; and there's Peters come on purpose to bother about these things." (Peters was grandfather's own servant.) "I wish grandfather wouldn't fuss so. I hate people to think he's a fussy old man, something like Mr. Briggs in Punch. As if he had never travelled before!"

As may be imagined, these remarks of Celia's were made in a low voice, for, of course, they were intended for the nursery party alone. Fritz flew up in grandfather's defence.

"Very fine, Miss Celia," he said. "You may laugh at grandfather for fussing, but suppose he didn't, and suppose that when we get to – oh, bother, I can't say those French names – wherever it is we're going to, suppose that Madamazelle Celia's trunk was lost, and Madamazelle Celia hadn't any best frocks or flounces, or Sunday hats, how would Madamazelle Celia look then? Perhaps she'd wish then that grandfather had fussed a little."

Celia turned to look for her bag, and having found it, she took out the book which she had brought with her to read on the way.

"You're too silly to speak to, Fritz," she said; "I'm going to read."

"So am I," said Denny, who had likewise armed herself with a book, though she was rather a dunce for her age, and couldn't read "runningly" as French people say. But big people always had books to read in the railway – that was enough for Denny, of course, to try to do so too.

"I'm going to take a nap, then," said Fritz, who was really looking rather white and tired. He had been wakened out of a very sound sleep this morning, and had not been able to eat any breakfast. Lisa thought that taking a nap was the best thing he could do, so she got down a bundle of the rugs to make him a pillow, and helped him to tuck up his legs comfortably, and Fritz settled himself for his little sleep, making Lisa promise to waken him when they came to a big station.

So everybody seemed inclined to be quiet. Herr Baby's corner was by the window. He looked about him. Celia and Denny were buried in their books, Fritz seemed asleep already; of the big people at the other end, grandfather's face was quite hidden in his newspaper, which he had kept over from last night on purpose to have something to read in the train, knowing that they would start before the postman came in the morning, and mother and auntie were talking together, softly, not to disturb him.

"Should you like the window more open?" said grandfather, suddenly looking up.

"No, thank you," said auntie. "I think that little chink is enough. It is really very cold this morning."

"How good the children are!" said mother. She spoke in a lower voice than auntie; but Baby heard her, for he had quick ears. "One could almost fancy they were all asleep."

"Yes," said auntie, "if it would last all the way to Santino, or even to Paris!"

"Or even to London!" said mother. "But they'll all be jumping about like grasshoppers before long."

Then they went on talking softly again about other things; and Baby didn't hear, and didn't care to hear. Besides, he had already been taught a lesson that boys and girls cannot learn too young, which is, that to listen to things you are not meant to hear is a sort of cheating, for it is like taking something not meant for you. Of course, while auntie and mother were talking in a louder voice he could not help hearing, and it was no harm to listen, as if they had minded his hearing they would have spoken more in a whisper.

Baby turned to his window to amuse himself by looking out. First he tried to count the telegraph wires, but he could never be sure if there were eight or nine – he had not yet learnt to count higher than ten – for the top ones were so tiresome, they danced away out of sight, and all of a sudden danced down again, and sometimes they seemed to join together, so that he could not tell if they were one or two. He wondered what made them wave up and down so; whether there were men down in the ground that pulled them, and what they did it for; he had heard of "sending telegrams," and Denny had told him it meant sending messages on wires, but he did not know that these were the wires used for that. He fancied these wires must have something to do with the railway; perhaps they were to show the people living in the fields that the trains were coming, so that they shouldn't get in the way and be "runned over." This made Baby begin to think of the people living in the fields; they were just then passing a little cottage standing all by itself. It looked a nice cottage, and it had a sort of little garden round it, and some cocks and hens were picking about. Baby looked back at the little cottage as long as he could see it; he wondered who lived in it, if there were any little boys and girls, and what they did all day. He wondered if they went to school, or if perhaps they sometimes went messages for their mother, and if they weren't frightened if they had to pass through the wood, which by this time the train was running along the edge of. Could this be Red Riding Hood's wood, perhaps? Baby shuddered as this idea came into his mind. Or it might be the wood that Hop-o'-my-thumb and his six brothers had to make their way through, where the birds would pick the crumbs they dropped to show the path. It would be very "dedful" for seven little boys to be lost in a wood like that, and still worse for one little boy all alone. Baby was very glad that when little boys had to go through woods now it was in nice railway carriages with mothers and aunties and everybodies with them. But even in this way the wood made him feel a very little frightened; just then it got so much darker. He looked up to see if they were all still reading or asleep; he almost thought he would ask Lisa to take him on her knee a little, when, all of a sudden, the "railway," as he called it, screamed out something very sharp and loud, the rattle and the noise got "bummier" and yet sharper; Baby could see no trees, no fields, "no nothing." What could it be? It was worse than the wood.

"Oh, Lisa," cried poor Herr Baby, "the railway horses must have runned the wrong way. We's going down into the cellars of the world."

Lisa caught him up in her arms and comforted him as well as she could. It was only a tunnel, she told him, and she explained to him what a tunnel was, just a sort of passage through a hill, and that there was nothing to be frightened at. And she persuaded him to look up and see what a nice little lamp there was at the top of the carriage, on purpose to light them up while they were in the dark. Baby was quite pleased when he saw the little lamp.

"Who put it 'zere?" he said. "Were it God?"

He was rather disappointed when Lisa told him that it was the railway men who put it up, but then he thought again that it was very kind of the railway men, and that it must have been God who taught them to be so kind, which Lisa quite agreed in. But even though the little lamp was very nice, Baby was very pleased to get out of the tunnel, and out of the rumbly, rattly noise, into the open daylight again, with the beautiful sun shining down at them out of the sky. For the day was growing brighter as it went on, and the air was a little frosty, which made everything look clear and fresh.

"Nice sun," said Baby, glancing up at his old friend in the sky, "that's the bestest lamp of all, isn't it? and it were God put it up there."

After that he must, I think, have taken a little nap in Lisa's arms almost without knowing it, for he didn't seem to hear anything more or to think where he was or anything, till all of a sudden he heard mother's voice speaking.

"Won't Baby have a sandwich, Lisa? And Denny, why, have you been asleep too, Denny?"

And sitting up on Lisa's knee, all rosy and dimpled with sleeping, his fair curls in a pretty tumble about his eyes, Baby saw Denny, looking very sleepy too, but trying hard to hide it.

"Oh," she said, smoothing down her hair and sitting up very straight, "I've been reading such a long time that my eyes got quite tired; that was why I shut them."

"Oh indeed!" said mother, but Baby could see that she was smiling at Denny, though she didn't laugh right out like Fritz and Celia.

They were all very happy, however, with their sandwiches and buns, and after they had eaten as much as they wanted, auntie taught them a sort of guessing game, which helped to pass the time, for already Denny and Fritz were beginning to think even the big saloon carriage rather a small room to spend a whole day in.

They passed two or three big stations, and then they were allowed to get out and walk up and down the platform a little, which was a nice change. But Baby was so dreadfully afraid of any of them being left behind that he could hardly be persuaded to get out at all, and once when he and Lisa were waiting alone in the carriage while the others walked about, and the train moved on a little way to another part, he screamed so loudly —

"Oh, mother, oh, auntie, oh, ganfather, and Celia, and Fritz, and Denny! All, all is left behind!" – that there was quite a commotion in the station, and when the train moved back again, and they all got in, he was obliged to kiss and hug each one separately, several times over, before he could feel quite sure he had them all safe and sound, and that "not nobody" was missing.

It seemed a long time after it got dark, even though the little lamp was still lighted. But it was not light enough to see to read, and "the big lamp up in the sky," as Baby said, "was kite goned away." It puzzled him very much how the sun could go away every night and come back every morning, and the queerest thing of all was what Celia had told him – that "away there," in the far-off country where they were going, there would still be the same sun, the very same sun, that they had seen every morning peeping up behind the kitchen-garden wall, and whose red face they had said good-night to on the winter evenings, as he slipped away to bed down below the old elms in the avenue, where the rooks had their nests. Somehow as Baby sat in his corner, staring out now and then at the darkness through which they were whizzing, blinking up sometimes at the little lamp shining faintly in the roof, there came before his mind the pictures of all they had left behind; he seemed to see the garden and the trees so plain, and he thought how very, very quiet and lonely it must seem there now, and Baby's little heart grew sad. He felt so sorry for all the things they had left – the rabbits and the pussy most of all, of course, but even for the dear old trees, and the sweet, "denkle" flowers in the garden; even for the tables and chairs in the house he felt sorry.

"Him's poor little bed will be so cold and lonely," he said to himself. "Him sinks going away is werry sad."