"Now you, just mind what you're about," said Fritz, gallantly. "You'll make him cry just when mother's been comforting him up. Such stupids girls are!" he added in a lower voice.
"I really must go now," said mother, getting up from her chair. "Auntie will not know what has become of me. I have been up here, why a whole half hour, instead of five minutes!"
"Auntie will think mother's got shut up in a trunk again," said Denny, whose tongue never could be still for long, and at this piece of wit they all burst out laughing.
All but Herr Baby. He couldn't see that it was any laughing matter. Mother's story had sunk deep into his mind. Trunks were things to be careful of. Baby saw this clearly.
CHAPTER III.
UP IN THE MORNING EARLY
| "Sweet, eager promises bind him to this, |
| Never to do so again." |
He woke early next morning. He had so much to think of, you see. So much that even his dreams were full of all he had heard yesterday.
"Him's been d'eaming him was in the big, big, 'normous boat, and zen him d'eamed of being shuttened up in a t'unk like poor little mother," he confided to Denny.
He was forced to tell Denny a good many things, because they slept in the same room, and, of course, everybody knows that whatever mammas and nurses say, going-to-sleep-in-bed time is the time for talking. Waking-up-in-the-morning time is rather tempting, too, particularly in summer, when the sun comes in at the windows so brightly and the birds are so lively, chattering away to each other, and all the world is up and about, except "us," who have to stay in bed till seven o'clock! Ah, it is a trial! On the whole, I don't think chattering in the mornings is so much to be found fault with as chattering at night. It is only children who are so silly as to keep themselves awake when the time for going to sleep has come. The birds and the bees, and the little lambs even, all know when that time has come, and go to sleep without any worry to themselves or other people. But children are not always so sensible. I could tell you a story—only I am afraid if she were to read it in this little book it would make her feel so ashamed that I should really be sorry for her, so I will not tell you her name nor where she lives—of a little girl who was promised two pounds, two whole gold pounds—fancy! if for one month she would go quietly to sleep at night when she was put to bed, and let her sister do the same; and she was to lose two shillings every night she forgot or disobeyed. Well, what do you think? at the end of two weeks the two pounds had come down already to nineteen shillings! She had forgotten already ten times, or ten and a half times—I don't quite understand how it had come to nineteen, but so it had; and at the end of the month—no I don't think I will tell you what it had come down to. Only this will show you how much more difficult it is to get out of a bad habit than to get into a good one, for this little girl is very sweet and good in many ways, and I love her dearly—only she had got into this bad habit, and it was stronger, as bad habits so often are, than her real true wish to do what her mother told her.