And after that May and June came.
And there were tad-poles in the ponds, and lilacs with purple plumes, and chestnuts with white ones, and cuckoos calling and little flop-birds that tried to fly, and tumbled on the lawn instead. And everything was jolly all around.
And Tiny played cricket in the Fort in the Hole, while Baby sat on the wall with the Fellows, and watched him, and afterwards wrote round,
Tiny played four balls, and hit one. The next bowled him, and the Junior Subaltern umpired him out. So that wasn't so bad—for us, was it!
And every day when the Regiment went out to War, after the first pellet, the Colonel fell out, because he said he'd be a casualty now, and let the other Fellows have a go, which Tiny always took to mean him.
And the Colonel ran away bent up double behind the wild cherry-hedge till he came where Baby was waiting him under the laburnum at the little gate into her garden.
And when she had let him in, they ran hand in hand to the elm, where there was a great bowl of milk and a cabbage-leaf of strawberries ready.
Then the dear old Colonel took off his shako, and was quite quite bald. And he sat on a little stool among the elm-roots, and drank the milk, and ate the strawberries, while Baby leaned up against the elm with her feet straight before her, and read him a story of a naughty pussy-kitten out of a great picture-book.
And that pleased the Colonel so that he lifted himself on his hands and swung to and fro, chuckling.
And after that Baby had a grey kitten of her own, which the Colonel gave her; and she played with it all the time.