MY FIRST MAMMACHAPTER IIMY FIRST MAMMA
MY FIRST MAMMA
I arrivedsafe at the doll-shop, and Mrs. Sprat took me out of the basket with her finger and thumb, keeping all her other fingers spread out, for fear of soiling my silver paper.
‘Place all these dolls on the shelf in the back parlor,’ said the master of the shop. ‘I have no room yet for them in the window.’ As I was carried to the shelf, I caught a glimpse of the shop-window!What a bright and confused sensation it gave me! Everything seemed so light and merry and numerous! And then, through all this crowd of many shapes and colors, packed and piled and hanging up in the window, I saw the crowds of large walking people passing outside in the world, which was as yet perfectly unknown to me! Oh, how I longed to be placed in the shop-window! I felt I should learn things so fast, if I could only see them. But I was placed in a dark box, among a number of other dolls, for a long time, and when I was taken out I was laid upon my back upon a high shelf, with my rosy cheeks and blue eyes turned towards the ceiling.
Yet I cannot say that the time I passed on this shelf was by any means lost or wasted. I thought of all I had seen in Mr. Sprat’s room, and all I had heard them talk about, which gave me many very strange and serious thoughts about the people who lived in the world onlyfor the purpose, as I supposed, of buying dolls. The conversation of Mr. Sprat with his family made me very naturally think this; and in truth I have never since been quite able to fancy but that the principal business of mankind was that of buying and selling dolls and toys. What I heard the master of the shop in Holborn often say helped to fix this early impression on my mind.
But the means by which I learned very much of other things and other thoughts was by hearing the master’s little girl Emmy read aloud to her elder sister. Emmy read all sorts of pretty books, every word of which I eagerly listened to, and felt so much interested, and so delighted, and so anxious and curious to hear more. She read pretty stories of little boys and girls, and affectionate mammas and aunts, and kind old nurses, and birds in the fields and woods, and flowers in the gardens and hedges; and then such beautiful fairy tales; and also pretty stories in verse; allof which gave me great pleasure, and were indeed my earliest education. There was the lovely book called ‘Birds and Flowers,’ by Mary Howitt; the nice stories about ‘Willie,’ by Mrs. Marcett; the delightful little books of Mrs. Harriet Myrtle,—in which I did so like to hear about old Mr. Dove, the village carpenter, and little Mary, and the account of May Day, and the Day in the Woods,—and besides other books, there was oh! such a story-book called ‘The Good-natured Bear!’ But I never heard any stories about dolls, and what they thought, or what happened to them! This rather disappointed me. Living at a doll-shop, and hearing the daughter of the master of such a wonderful shop reading so often, I naturally expected to have heard more about dolls than any other creatures! However, on the whole, I was very well contented, and should have been perfectly happy if they would only have hung me up in the shop-window! What I wanted was to be placed in thebright window, and to look into the astonishing street!
Soon after this, however, by a fortunate accident, I was moved to an upright position with my back against a doll’s cradle, so that I could look down into the room below, and see what was going on there.
How long I remained upon the shelf I do not know, but it seemed like years to me, and I learned a great deal.
One afternoon Emmy had been reading to her sister as usual, but this time the story had been about a great Emperor in France, who, once upon a time, had a great many soldiers to play with, and whose name was Napoleon Bonaparte. The master himself listened to this, and as he walked thoughtfully up and down from the back room to the shop in front, he made himself a cocked hat of brown paper, and put it upon his head, with the corners pointing to each shoulder. Emmy continued to read, and the master continuedthoughtfully walking up and down with his hands behind him, one hand holding the other.
But presently, and when his walk had led him into the front shop, where I could not see him, the shop-bell rang and Emmy ceased reading. A boy had come in, and the following dialogue took place.
‘If you please, sir,’ said the voice of the boy, ‘do you want a nice Twelfth-cake?’
‘Not particularly,’ answered the master, ‘but I have no objection to one.’
‘What will you give for it, sir?’ said the boy.
‘That is quite another question,’ answered the master; ‘go about your business. I am extremely engaged.’
‘I do not want any money for it, sir,’ said the boy.
‘What do you mean by that, my little captain?’ said the master.
‘Why, sir,’ said the boy, ‘if you please, I want a nice doll for my sister, and I willgive you this large Twelfth-cake that I have in paper here for a good doll.’
‘Let me see the cake,’ said the master. ‘So, how did you get this cake?’
‘My grandfather is a pastry-cook, sir,’ answered the boy, ‘and my sister and I live with him. I went to-day to take home seven Twelfth-cakes. But the family at one house had all gone away out of the country, and locked up the house, and forgotten to send for the cake; and grandfather told me that I and my sister might have it.’
‘What is your name?’
‘Thomas Plummy, sir; and I live in Bishopsgate street, near the Flower Pot.’
‘Very well, Thomas Plummy; you may choose any doll you fancy out of that case.’
Here some time elapsed; and while the boy was choosing, the master continued his slow walk to and fro from one room to the other, with the brown paper cocked hat, which he had forgotten to take off, still upon his head. It was so very lightthat he did not feel it, and did not know it was there. At last the boy declared he did not like any of the dolls in the case, and so went from one case to another, always refusing those the master offered him; and when he did choose one himself, the master said it was too expensive. Presently the master said he had another box full of good dolls in the back room, and in he came, looking so grave in his cocked hat, and beginning to open a long wooden box. But the boy had followed him to the door, and peeping in, suddenly called out, ‘There, sir! that one! that is the doll for my cake!’ and he pointed his little brown finger up at me.
‘Aha!’ said the master, ‘that one is also too expensive; I cannot let you have that.’
However, he took me down, and while the boy was looking at me with evident satisfaction, as if his mind was quite made up, the master got a knife and pushed the point of it into the side of the cake, just to see if it was as good inside as it seemedto be on the outside. During all this time he never once recollected that he had got on the brown paper cocked hat.
‘Now,’ said the master, taking me out of the boy’s hand, and holding me at arm’s length, ‘you must give me the cake and two shillings besides for this doll. This is a young lady of a very superior make, is this doll. Made by one of the first makers. The celebrated Sprat, the only maker, I may say, of this kind of jointed dolls. See! all the joints move—all work in the proper way; up and down, backwards and forwards, any way you please. See what lovely blue eyes; what rosy cheeks and lips; and what a complexion on the neck, face, hands, and arms! The hair is also of the most beautiful kind of delicate light-brown curl that can possibly be found. You never before saw such a doll, nor any of your relations. It is something, I can tell you, to have such a doll in a family; and if you were to buy her, she would cost you a matter of twelve shillings!’
‘Sir,’ said he, ‘this is a Twelfth-cake of very superior make. If the young lady who sits reading there was only to taste it, she would say so too. It was made by my grandfather himself, who is known to be one of the first makers in all Bishopsgate street; I may say the very first. There is no better in all the world. You see how heavy it is; what a quantity of plums, currants, butter, sugar, and orange and lemon-peel there is in it, besides brandy and caraway comfits. See! what a beautiful frost-work of white sugar there is all over the top and sides! See, too, what characters there are, and made in sugar of all colors! Kings and queens in their robes, and lions and dogs, and Jem Crow, and Swiss cottages in winter, and railway carriages, and girls with tambourines, and a village steeple with a cow looking in at the porch; and all these standing or walking, or dancing upon white sugar, surrounded with curling twists and true lover’s knots in pink andgreen citron, with damson cheese and black currant paste between. You never saw such a cake before, sir, and I’m sure none of your family ever smelt any cake at all like it. It’s quite a nosegay for Queen Victoria herself; and if you were to buy it at grandfather’s shop, you would have to pay fifteen shillings and more for it.’
‘Thomas Plummy!’ said the master, looking very earnestly at the boy; ‘Thomas Plummy! take the doll, and give me the cake. I only hope it may prove half as good as you say. And it is my opinion that, if you, Thomas Plummy, should not happen to be sent to New South Wales to bake brown bread, you may some day or other come to be Lord Mayor of London.’
‘Thank you, sir,’ said the boy. ‘How many Abernethy biscuits will you take for your cocked hat?’
The master instantly put his hand up to his head, looking so confused and vexed, and the boy ran laughing out of the shop.At the door he was met by his sister, who had been waiting to receive me in her arms: and they both ran home, the little girl hugging me close to her bosom, and the boy laughing so much at the affair of the cocked hat that he could hardly speak a word all the way.