Carrots: Just a Little Boy

CHAPTER V.

CARROTS IN TROUBLE

"Now Carrots," said Mott, when he had eaten what he considered might possibly support him for the next two hours, "now Carrots, let's have the paint-box. You needn't disturb yourself," he continued, for Carrots was preparing to descend from his high chair, "I know where you keep it; it's in your drawer, isn't it. Which is his drawer, nurse? It'll be a good opportunity for me to see if he keeps it tidy."

"No, no, let me get it myself," cried Carrots, tumbling himself off his chair anyhow in his eagerness. "Nurse, nurse, don't tell him which is mine; don't let him take my paint-box, let me get it my own self."

Nurse looked at him with some surprise; it was seldom the little boy so excited himself.

"Master Mott won't hurt your drawer, my dear," she said; "you don't mind his having your paint-box, I'm sure. But do let him get it out himself, if he wants, Master Maurice, there's a dear boy," she continued, for Maurice was by this time ferreting in Floss's drawer with great gusto, and in another moment would have been at Carrots'! But Carrots was at it before him. He pulled it open as far as he could, for in consequence of Mott's investigations in the upper storey, he could not easily penetrate to his own quarters. But he knew exactly where the paint-box lay, and managed to slip it out, without Maurice's noticing what he was doing. His triumph was short-lived, however; before he could open the box, Mott was after him.

"Hi, you young sneak!" he cried, "what are you after now? Give me the box; I believe you want to take the best paints out before you lend it to me," and he wrenched the paint-box out of his little brother's hands.

"I don't, I don't," sobbed Carrots, sitting down on the floor and crying bitterly; "you may have all the paints, Mott, but it's my secret, oh, my secret!"

"What are you talking about?" said Mott roughly, pulling out the lid as he spoke. The box had been all tumbled about in the struggle, and the paints came rattling out, the paints and the brushes, and the little saucers, and with them came rolling down on to the floor, children, you know what – the "fairies' sixpenny," the little bright shining yellow half-sovereign!

A strange change came over Mott's face.

"Nurse," he cried, "do you see that? What does that mean?"

Nurse hastened up to where he was standing; she stared for a moment in puzzled astonishment at the spot on the carpet to which the toe of Maurice's boot was pointing, then she stooped down slowly and picked up the coin, still without speaking.

"Well, nurse," said Maurice, impatiently, "what do you think of that?"

"My half-sovereign," said nurse, as if hardly believing what she saw.

"Of course it's your half-sovereign," said Mott, "it's as plain as a pike-staff. But how did it come there, that's the question?"

Nurse looked at Carrots with puzzled perplexity. "He couldn't have known," she said in a low voice, too low for Carrots to hear. He was still sitting on the floor sobbing, and through his sobs was to be heard now and then the melancholy cry, "My secret, oh, my poor secret."

"You hear what he says," said Maurice; "what does his 'secret' mean but that he sneaked into your drawer and took the half-sovereign, and now doesn't like being found out. I'm ashamed to have him for my brother, that I am, the little cad!"

"But he couldn't have understood," said nurse, at a loss how otherwise to defend her little boy. "I'm not even sure that he rightly knew of my losing it, and he might have taken it, meaning no harm, not knowing what it was, indeed, very likely."

"Rubbish," said Maurice. "A child that is going without sugar to get money instead, must be old enough to understand something about what money is."

"But that was my plan; it wasn't Carrots that thought of it at all," said Floss, who all this time had stood by, frightened and distressed, not knowing what to say.

"Hold your tongue, Floss," said Maurice, roughly; and Floss subsided. "Carrots," he continued, turning to his brother, "leave off crying this minute, and listen to me. Who put this piece of money into your paint-box?"

"I did my own self," said Carrots.

"What for?"

"To keep it a secret for Floss," sobbed Carrots.

Maurice turned triumphantly to nurse.

"There," he said, "you see! And," he continued to Carrots again, "you took it out of nurse's drawer – out of a little paper packet?"

"No," said Carrots, "I didn't. I didn't know it was nurse's."

"You didn't know nurse had lost a half-sovereign!" exclaimed Mott, "Carrots, how dare you say so?"

"Yes," said Carrots, looking so puzzled, that for a moment or two he forgot to sob, "I did know, Floss told me."

"Then how can you say you didn't know this was nurse's?" said Mott.

"Oh, I don't know – I didn't know – I can't under'tand," cried Carrots, relapsing into fresh sobs.

"I wish your mamma were in, that I do," said nurse, looking ready to cry too; by this time Floss's tears were flowing freely.

"She isn't in, so it's no good wishing she were," said Maurice; "but papa is," he went on importantly, "and I'll just take Carrots to him and see what he'll say to all this."

"Oh, no, Master Mott, don't do that, I beg and pray of you," said nurse, all but wringing her hands in entreaty. "Your papa doesn't understand about the little ones; do wait till your mamma comes in."

"No, indeed, nurse; it's a thing papa should be told," said Mott, in his innermost heart half inclined to yield, but working himself up to imagine he was acting very heroically. And notwithstanding nurse's distress, and Floss's tears, off he marched his unfortunate little brother to the study.

"Papa," he said, knocking at the door, "may I come in? There's something I must speak to you about immediately."

"Come in, then," was the reply. "Well, and what's the matter now? Has Carrots hurt himself?" asked his father, naturally enough, for his red-haired little son looked pitiable in the extreme as he crept into the room after Maurice, frightened, bewildered, and, so far as his gentle disposition was capable of such a feeling, indignant also, all at once.

"No," replied Maurice, pushing Carrots forward, "he's not hurt himself; it's worse than that. Papa," he continued excitedly, "you whipped me once, when I was a little fellow, for telling a story. I am very sorry to trouble you, but I think it's right you should know; I am afraid you will have to punish Carrots more severely than you punished me, for he's done worse than tell a story." Maurice stopped to take breath, and looked at his father to see the effect of his words. Carrots had stopped crying to listen to what Maurice was saying, and there he stood, staring up with his large brown eyes, two or three tears still struggling down his cheeks, his face smeared and red and looking very miserable. Yet he did not seem to be in the least ashamed of himself, and this somehow provoked Mott and hardened him against him.

"What's he been doing?" said their father, looking at the two boys with more amusement than anxiety, and then glancing regretfully at the newspaper which he had been comfortably reading when Mott's knock came to the door.

"He's done much worse than tell a story," repeated Maurice, "though for that matter he's told two or three stories too. But, papa, you know about nurse losing a half-sovereign? Well, Carrots had got it all the time; he took it out of nurse's purse, and hid it away in his paint-box, without telling anybody. He can't deny it, though he tried to."

"Carrots," said his father sternly, "is this true?"

Carrots looked up in his father's face; that face, generally so kind and merry, was now all gloom and displeasure – why? – Carrots could not understand, and he was too frightened and miserable to collect his little wits together to try to do so. He just gave a sort of little tremble and began to cry again.

"Carrots," repeated his father, "is this true?"

"I don't know," sobbed Carrots.

Now Captain Desart, Carrots' father, was, as I think I have told you, a sailor. If any of you children have a sailor for your father, you must not think I mean to teach you to be disrespectful when I say that sailors are, there is no doubt, inclined to be hot-tempered and hasty. And I do not think on the whole that they understand much about children, though they are often very fond of them and very kind. All this was the case with Carrots' father. He had been so much away from his children while they were little, that he really hardly knew how they had been brought up or trained or anything about their childish ways – he had left them entirely to his wife, and scarcely considered them as in any way "his business," till they were quite big boys and girls.

But once he did begin to notice them, though very kind, he was very strict. He had most decided opinions about the only way of checking their faults whenever these were serious enough to attract his attention, and he could not and would not be troubled with arguing, or what he called "splitting hairs," about such matters. A fault was a fault; telling a falsehood was telling a falsehood; and he made no allowance for the excuses or "palliating circumstances" there might be to consider. One child, according to his ideas, was to be treated exactly like another; why the same offence should deserve severer punishment with a self-willed, self-confident, bold, matter-of-fact lad, such as Maurice, than with a timid, fanciful, baby-like creature as was his little Fabian, he could not have understood had he tried.

Nurse knew all this by long experience; no wonder, kind though she knew her master to be, that she trembled when Mott announced his intention of laying the whole affair before his father.

But poor Carrots did not know anything about it. "Papa" had never been "cross" to him before, and he was far from clearly understanding why he was "cross" to him now. So he just sobbed and said "I don't know," which was about the worst thing he could possibly have said in his own defence, though literally the truth.

"No or yes, sir," said Captain Desart, his voice growing louder and sterner – I think he really forgot that it was a poor little shrimp of six years old he was speaking to – "no nonsense of 'don't knows.' Did you or did you not take nurse's half-sovereign out of her drawer and keep it for your own?"

"No," said Carrots, "I never took nucken out of nurse's drawer. I never did, papa, and I didn't know nurse had any sovereigns."

"Didn't you know nurse had lost a half-sovereign? Carrots, how can you say so?" interrupted Mott.

"Yes, Floss told me," said Carrots.

"And Floss hid it away in your paint-box, I suppose?" said Mott, sarcastically.

"No, Floss didn't. I hided the sixpenny my own self," said Carrots, looking more and more puzzled.

"Hold your tongue, Maurice," said his father, angrily. "Go and fetch the money and the tomfool paint-box thing that you say he had it in."

Mott did as he was told. He ran to the nursery and back as fast as he could; but, unobserved by him, Floss managed to run after him and crept into the study so quietly that her father never noticed her.

Maurice laid the old paint-box and the half-sovereign down on the table in front of his father; Captain Desart held up the little coin between his finger and thumb.

"Now," he said, "Carrots, look at this. Did you or did you not take this piece of money out of nurse's drawer and hide it away in your paint-box?"

Carrots stared hard at the half-sovereign.

"I did put it in my paint-box," he said, and then he stopped.

"What for?" said his father.

"I wanted to keep it for a secret," he replied. "I wanted to – to – "

"What?" thundered Captain Desart.

"To buy something at the toy-shop with it," sobbed Carrots.

Captain Desart sat down and looked at Mott for sympathy.

"Upon my soul," he said, "one could hardly believe it. A child that one would think scarcely knew the value of money! Where can he have learnt such cunning; you say you are sure he was told of nurse's having lost a half-sovereign?"

"Oh, yes," said Mott; "he confesses to that much himself."

"Floss told me," said Carrots.

"Then how can you pretend you didn't know this was nurse's – taking it out of her drawer, too," said his father.

"I don't know. I didn't take it out of her drawer; it was 'aside Floss's doll," said Carrots.

"He's trying to equivocate," said his father. Then he turned to the child again, looking more determined than ever.

"Carrots," he said, "I must whip you for this. Do you know that I am ashamed to think you are my son? If you were a poor boy you might be put in prison for this."

Carrots looked too bewildered to understand. "In prison," he repeated. "Would the prison-man take me?"

"What does he mean?" said Captain Desart.

Floss, who had been waiting unobserved in her corner all this time, thought this a good opportunity for coming forward.

"He means the policeman," she said. "Oh, papa," she went on, running up to her little brother and throwing her arms round him, the tears streaming down her face, "oh, papa, poor little Carrots! he doesn't understand."

"Where did you come from?" said her father, gruffly but not unkindly, for Floss was rather a favourite of his. "What do you mean about his not understanding? Did you know about this business, Floss?"

"Oh no, papa," said Floss, her face flushing; "I'm too big not to understand."

"Of course you are," said Captain Desart; "and Carrots is big enough, too, to understand the very plain rule that he is not to touch what does not belong to him. He was told, too, that nurse had lost a half-sovereign, and he might then have owned to having taken it and given it back, and then things would not have looked so bad. Take him up to my dressing-room, Maurice, and leave him there till I come."

"May I go with him, papa?" said Floss very timidly.

"No," said her father, "you may not."

So Mott led off poor weeping Carrots, and all the way upstairs he kept sobbing to himself, "I never touched nurse's sovereigns. I never did. I didn't know she had any sovereigns."

"Hold your tongue," said Mott; "what is the use of telling more stories about it?"

"I didn't tell stories. I said I hided the sixpenny my own self, but I never touched nurse's sovereigns; I never did."

"I believe you're more than half an idiot," said Mott, angry and yet sorry – angry with himself, too, somehow.

Floss, left alone with her father, ventured on another appeal.

"You won't whip Carrots till mamma comes in, will you, papa?" she said softly.

"Why not? Do you think I want her to help me to whip him?" said Captain Desart.

"Oh no – but – I think perhaps mamma would understand better how it was, for, oh papa, dear, Carrots isn't a naughty boy; he never, never tells stories."

"Well, we'll see," replied her father; "and in the meantime it will do him no harm to think things over by himself in my dressing-room for a little."

"Oh, poor Carrots!" murmured Floss to herself; "it'll be getting dark, and he's all alone. I wish mamma would come in!"

CHAPTER VI.

CARROTS "ALL RIGHT" AGAIN

Floss crept upstairs to the dressing-room door. It was locked. Though the key was in the lock, she knew she must not turn it; and even had it been open she would not have dared to go in, after her father's forbidding it. But she thought she might venture to speak to Carrots, to comfort him a little, through the door. She was dreadfully afraid that he might feel frightened in there alone if it got dark before he was released, for sometimes he was afraid of the dark – he was such a little boy, remember.

Floss tapped at the door.

"Carrots," she said, "are you there?"

"Yes," said Carrots; "but you can't come in, Floss. Mott has locked me in."

"I know," said Floss; "what are you doing, Carrots? Are you very unhappy?"

"Not so very. I'm crying – I'm crying a great lot, Floss, but I don't think I'm so very unhappy – not now you've come to the door."

"Poor Carrots," said Floss, "I'll stay by the door, if you like. I'll just run down to the front door now and then, to see if mamma is coming, and then I'll come straight back to you."

"All right," said Carrots. Whenever he wanted to seem very brave, and rather a big boy, he used to say "all right," and just now he was trying very hard to be like a big boy.

There was silence for a minute or two… Then Carrots called out again.

"Floss," he said, "are you there?"

"Yes, dear," replied faithful Floss.

"I want just to tell you one thing," he said. "Floss, I never did touch nurse's sovereigns. I never knowed she had any."

"It wasn't a sovereign; it was a half-sovereign," corrected Floss.

"I don't under'tand how it could be a half-sovereign," said Carrots. "But I never touched nurse's drawer, nor nucken in it."

"Then where did you find the half-sovereign?" began Floss, "and why – oh, Carrots," she broke off, "I do believe that's the front door bell. It'll be mamma coming. I must run down."

"All right," called out Carrots again. "Don't be long, Floss; but please tell mamma all about it. I don't under'tand."

He gave a little sigh of perplexity, and lay down on the floor near the window, where the room was lightest, for the darkness was now beginning to creep in, and he felt very lonely.

Poor Mrs. Desart hardly knew what to think or say, when, almost before she had got into the house, she was seized upon by Maurice and Floss, each eager to tell their own story. Carrots naughty, Carrots in disgrace, was such an extraordinary idea!

"Nurse," she exclaimed, perceiving her at the end of the passage, whence she had been watching as anxiously as the children for her mistress's return, "nurse, what is the meaning of it all?"

"Indeed, ma'am," nurse was beginning, but she was interrupted. "Come in here, Lucy," said Captain Desart to his wife, opening the study door, "come in here before you go upstairs."

And Mrs. Desart did as he asked, but Floss again managed to creep in too, almost hidden in the folds of her mother's dress.

"I can't believe that Carrots is greedy, or cunning, or obstinate," said his mother, when she had heard all. "I cannot think that he understood what he was doing when he took the half-sovereign."

"But the hiding it," said Captain Desart, "the hiding it, and yet to my face persisting that he had never touched nurse's half-sovereign. I can't make the child out."

"He says he didn't know nurse had any sovereigns," put in Floss.

"Are you there again, you ubiquitous child?" said her father.

Floss looked rather frightened – such a long word as ubiquitous must surely mean something very naughty; but her father's voice was not angry, so she took courage.

"Does he know what a sovereign means?" said Mrs. Desart. "Perhaps there is some confusion in his mind which makes him seem obstinate when he isn't so really."

"He said he knew I had sovereigns," said Floss, "and I couldn't think what he meant. Oh, mamma," she went on suddenly, "I do believe I know what he was thinking of. It was my kings and queens."

And before her father or mother could stop her, she had darted off to the nursery. In two minutes she was back again, holding out to her mother a round wooden box – the sort of box one often used to see with picture alphabets for little children, but instead of an alphabet, Floss's box contained a set of round cards, each about the size of the top of a wine-glass, with the heads of all the English kings and queens, from William the Conqueror down to Victoria!

"'Sovereigns of England,' mamma, you see," she exclaimed, pointing to the words on the lid, and quite out of breath with hurry and excitement, "and I very often call them my sovereigns; and of course Carrots didn't understand how there could be a half one of them, nor how nurse could have any."

"It must be so," said Mrs. Desart to her husband; "the poor child really did not understand."

"But still the taking the money at all, and hiding it?" said Captain Desart. "I don't see that it would be right not to punish him."

"He has been punished already – pretty severely for him, I fancy," said Floss's mother, with a rather sad smile. "You will leave him to me now, won't you, Frank?" she asked her husband. "I will go up and see him, and try to make him thoroughly understand. Give me the sovereigns, Floss dear, I'll take them with me."

Somewhat slowly, Carrots' mother made her way upstairs. She was tired and rather troubled. She did not believe that her poor little boy had really done wrong wilfully, but it seemed difficult to manage well among so many children; she was grieved also, at Maurice's hastiness and want of tender feeling, and she saw, too, how little fitted Carrots was to make his way in this rough-and-ready world.

"How would it be without me! My poor children," she thought with a sigh.

But a little hand was slipped into hers.

"Mamma, dear, I'm so glad you thought of the sovereigns. I'm sure Carrots didn't mean to be naughty. Mamma dear, though he is so little, Carrots always means to be good; I don't think he could even be frightened into doing anything that he understood was naughty, though he is so easily frightened other ways."

"My good little Floss, my comforter," said her mother, patting Floss's hand, and then they together made their way to the dressing-room.

It was almost dark. The key was in the lock, and Mrs. Desart felt for it and turned it. But when she opened the door it was too dark in the room to distinguish anything.

"Carrots," she said, but there was no answer. "Where can he be?" she said rather anxiously. "Floss, run and get a light."

Floss ran off: she was back again in a minute, for she had met nurse on the stairs with a candle in her hand. But even with the light they could not all at once find Carrots, and though they called to him there was no answer.