The children ran hither and thither, highly delighted, except Franky and Austin Thomas, who were made to suffer a good deal, the latter being put into a stiff white piqué frock, braided with black braid, which looked exactly as if some one had mistaken him for a sheet of letter-paper and begun to write upon him; while Franky, dressed in his Sunday’s best, with his hair combed and face clean, was in an aggravating position for his ordinary week-day amusements. He consoled himself by running in and out among the servants, finally sticking himself in the centre of the group, and being depicted there, as natural as life.
A very grand picture it was, the men-servants being in front,—Highland men always seem to consider themselves superior beings, and are seen lounging about and talking, while the women are shearing, or digging, or hoeing potatoes. The maids stood in a row behind, bolt upright, smiling as hard as they could, and little Franky occupied the foreground, placed between the gardener’s knees. A very successful photograph, and worthy of going down to posterity, as doubtless it will.
Now for the children. The baby, passive in an embroidered muslin frock, came out, of course, as a white mass with something resembling a face at the top; but Austin Thomas was a difficult subject. He wouldn’t sit still, no, not for a minute, but kept wriggling about on the kitchen chair that was brought for him, and looked so miserable in his stiff frock, that his expression was just as if he were going to be whipped, and didn’t like it at all.
In vain Franky, who always patronised and protected his next youngest brother in the tenderest way, began consoling him: “Never mind, sonnie,”—that was Franky’s pet name for Austin,—“they sha’n’t hurt you. I’ll take care they don’t hurt you.”
Still the great black thing, with the round glass eye fixed upon him, was too much for Austin’s feelings. He wriggled, and wriggled, and never would this likeness have been taken at all,—at least that morning,—if somebody had not suggested “a piece.” Off flew Mary, the cook, and brought back the largest “piece”—bread with lots of jam upon it—that ever little Scotchman revelled in. Austin took it, and being with great difficulty made to understand that he must pause in eating now and then, the photographer seized the happy moment, and took him between his mouthfuls, with Franky keeping guard over him the while, lest anybody did him any harm. And a very good picture it is, though neither boy is quite handsome enough, of course. No photographs ever are.
Little Sunshine, meanwhile, had been deeply interested in the whole matter. She was quite an old hand at it, having herself sat for her photograph several times.
“Would you like to see my likenesses?” she kept asking anybody or everybody; and brought down the whole string of them, describing them one by one: “Sunny in her mamma’s arms, when she was a little baby, very cross;” “Sunny just going to cry;” “Sunny in a boat;” “Sunny sitting on a chair;” “Sunny with her shoes and stockings off, kicking over a basket;” and lastly (the little show-woman always came to this with a scream of delight), “That’s my papa and mamma, Sunny’s own papa and mamma, both together!”
Though then she had not been in the least afraid of the camera, but, when the great glass eye looked at her, looked steadily at it back, still she did not seem to like it now. She crept beside her mamma and her Lizzie, looking on with curiosity, but keeping a long way off, till the groups were done.
There were a few more taken, in one of which Sunny stood in the doorway in her Lizzie’s arms.
And her papa and mamma, who meanwhile had taken a good long walk up the hill-road, came back in time to figure in two rows of black dots on either side of a shady road, which were supposed to be portraits of the whole party. The mountains opposite also sat for their likenesses,—which must have been a comfort to the photographer, as they at least could not “move.” But, on the whole, the honest man made a good morning’s work, and benefited considerably thereby.