Never was there such an all-absorbing salmon. As Mary had said, the whole household was out watching him and his proceedings. The baby, Austin Thomas, Sunny, and Sunny’s mamma were left alone, to take care of one another.
These settled down again in front of the fire, and Sunny, who had been a little bewildered by the confusion, recovered herself, and, not at all alive to the importance of salmon-fishing, resumed her entreating whisper:
“’Bout German pictures, mamma; tell me ’bout German pictures.”
And she seemed quite glad to go back to her old ways; for this little girl likes nothing better than snuggling into her mamma’s lap, on the hearth-rug, and being told about German pictures.
They came to her all the way from Germany as a present from a kind German friend, and some of them are very funny. They make regular stories, a story on each page. One is about a little greedy boy, so like a pig, that at last, being caught with a sweetmeat by an old witch, she turns him into a pig in reality. He is put into a sty, and just about to be killed, when his sister comes in to save him with a fairy rose in her hand; the witch falls back, stuck through with her own carving-knife, and poor piggy-wiggy, touched by the magic rose, turns into a little boy again. Then there is another page, “’bout effelants,” as Sunny calls them,—a papa elephant and a baby elephant taking a walk together. They come across the first Indian railway, and the papa elephant, who has never seen a telegraph wire before, is very angry at it and pulls it down with his trunk. Then there comes whizzing past a railway-train, which makes him still more indignant, as he does not understand it at all. He talks very seriously on the subject to his little son, who listens with a respectful air. Then, determined to put an end to such nuisances, this wise papa elephant marches right in front of the next train that passes. He does not stop it, of course, but it stops him, cutting him up into little pieces, and throwing him on either side the line. At which the little elephant is so frightened that you see him taking to his heels, very solid heels too, and running right away.
Sunny heard this story for the hundredth time, delighted as ever, and then tried to point out to Austin Thomas which was the papa “effelant,” and which the baby “effelant.” But Austin Thomas’s more infantile capacity did not take it in; he only “scrumpled” the pages with his fat hands, and laughed. There might soon have been an open war if mamma had not soothed her little girl’s wounded feelings by the great felicity of taking off her shoes and stockings, and letting her warm her little feet by the fire, while she lay back on her mamma’s lap, sucking her Maymie’s apron.
The whole group were in this state of perfect peace, outside it had grown dark, and mamma had stirred the fire and promised to begin a quite new story, when the door again opened and Eddie rushed in. Maurice and Franky followed, wet, of course, to the skin,—for each left a little pool of water behind him wherever he stood,—but speechless with excitement. Shortly after, up came the three gentlemen, likewise silent, but not from excitement at all.
“But where’s the salmon?” asked Sunny’s mamma. “Pray let us see the salmon.”
Maurice’s papa looked as solemn as—what shall I say?—the renowned Buff, when he
“Strokes his face with a sorrowful grace,