CHAPTER I

THE DANCING CLASS

Ever since she had been a baby--a good long while, for she was more than eight years old--it had always troubled the heart of Baby Jane to hear, and later on to read, how rough and rude and wretched the wild beasts and niggers of the African desert were.

The black children _always_ came down to breakfast without their pinafores on, and ate with their fingers, and never washed--though, perhaps, that did not matter, as they had to be black anyhow--and were altogether naughty and, therefore, very miserable.

And the wild beasts did nothing but kill and eat until the sand was strewn with poor white bones that had once belonged to little bounding gazelles, and missionaries, and gentle, spotted giraffes, and monkeys. At night the big ones had no cosy stables, and the little ones no basket with a rug in it; so they wandered about in the cold woods and roared and went on eating things.

And all this unhappiness was because there was no one to teach them and look after them. Poor creatures! If only they knew of all the fun there was to be had--dancing and games and the rest--they would no longer spend their time so miserably.

And this was why Baby Jane came to Africa.

Stories of mere travels are often very dull, so I will not bother you with the long account of how she got there.

Now, dancing was the amusement that Baby Jane thought pleasantest; so upon the stem of a shady palm beside a gurgling stream that ran through the middle of the wide, white desert, she stuck up a notice:

_Dancing Lessons Given. Nobody need Pay Anything._

And then sat down to wait for pupils.

By and bye a big brown Bear, holding a green-lined umbrella over him and smoking a great drooping German pipe, came strolling along. He saw the notice board and stared at it a long time as if he were reading, then he turned towards Baby Jane and stood there smiling in a friendly, but rather silly way.

She thought he was considering how he should ask about the dancing lessons, but he only said, with an air of joyful pride--

'What do you think of my pipe and my umbrella?'

'Where did you get them?' asked Baby Jane, fixing her round grey eyes severely upon him.

The Bear looked up at the sky and began whistling, pretending not to hear, but his ears grew very red.

'Where did you get them?' asked Baby Jane again.

Then the Bear gave up his pretence of deafness and blurted out his excuses.

'Well, he _would_ talk German, and you cannot believe how fat he was!'

'But even then you should not have eaten him,' said Baby Jane, guessing the part of the story that he had left untold.

The Bear looked very crestfallen, and tender-hearted Baby Jane felt so sorry to have had to spoil his pleasure, that she changed the subject altogether.

'Shall I teach you how to dance?' she said sweetly. 'It's great fun.'

The Bear was quite delighted with the idea, and wanted to begin at once, but Baby Jane said she would collect a little class before she began.

'Come along!' said the Bear excitedly; 'I know some more. Jump on my back!'

And off he set. Every now and then he would give a funny little clumsy hop and ask her, 'Is that how you dance?' as if he were thinking of the coming pleasure all the time.

During one of these quaint little capers he stumbled heavily.

'Drat that Rabbit!' he said. 'He's always digging his nasty holes all over the place.'

From another hole a yard or two away, up popped a little fluffy head, and a squeaky voice said--

'Drat that Bear! He's always dropping his clumsy paws down my area.'

By a swift dart, the Bear knocked the Rabbit out of his hole and fixed him on the sand under his great paw.

'Looks as if I was going to be eaten,' said the Rabbit, trying to speak cheerfully, though his pretty black eyes were very moist. 'It's rather a bad day for being eaten--so sunny and fresh, and all the young shoots are just sprouting now, and I was just going out with Fluffie'; and he buried his little nose in the sand.

'If you did happen to want to let me go this once,' he said, in a muffled, jerky voice, 'I wouldn't be saucy any more. But it doesn't matter.'

'Eaten?' cried Baby Jane, choking with tears; and she slid over the Bear's shoulder into a heap upon the ground beside the imprisoned Rabbit, and struggled to force her little slim fingers between it and the great paw, and she succeeded. Perhaps the Bear was ashamed, and allowed it.

Then she hugged the rescued one close in her arms, with his fluffy head between her little motherly shoulder and neck, and, sobbing, rocked to and fro, making his drab fur quite draggled with her tear-drops.

'And he shall learn to dance--so he shall, the dear,' said Baby Jane when her sobs had died away into an occasional sniff, and her mind had turned to more cheerful ideas.

'Such a fuss about a Rabbit,' said the Bear under his breath. 'Why, I eat rabbits spread on my bread-and-butter like shrimps.'

Then, in a louder voice, he said sulkily--'Here comes the Lion: he looks as if he wanted to learn to dance.'

As a matter of fact, the Lion looked very cross.

'Mornin'!' said the Bear genially as he approached. 'We were just coming to teach you which hand to use when you say, "Howdy-doo," and how to play "Here we go Round the Mulberry Bush," and how to dance "Sir Roger de Coverley."'

The Lion could not speak for rage, but sharpened his claws once or twice on the sand and then charged.

It was a terrible struggle. The great beasts clutched one another round the waist and wrestled furiously. The Lion made frantic attempts to twist his leg between the Bear's two and so overthrow him, but the Bear was as firm as a rock.

Then the Lion let go, and, retreating for about thirty yards, flung himself from that distance at his enemy.

If he had been struck, the Bear must have been knocked headlong; but he stooped, and the Lion passed over him and fell upon his back some twenty yards farther on. Before he could get up, the Bear was upon him.

'Oh, you will suffocate him!' cried Baby Jane, and, indeed, it seemed likely, for all of the Lion that was not covered by the Bear was seen to be in violent motion.

But instead of showing any sympathy for his fallen foe, the Bear hit him a sounding thump on the ribs.

'He's trying to bite,' he explained. 'I'll let him up when he says he'll learn to dance.'

'Get off my head,' said the Lion in smothered tones.

'Oh, Lion, say you will!' pleaded Baby Jane. 'Get off my head,' said the Lion.

'Do as the young lady tells you,' said the Bear.

'Get off my head.'

'I will promise for him, Bear,' cried Baby Jane in despair.

'Oh, all right,' said the Bear, and he arose.

The Lion got up, looking very crushed and humble. He came crawling to Baby Jane, and said--

'You saved me from being smothered, for I could never have obeyed that Bear; but I _will_ learn to dance if _you_ wish it.'

'That's right,' said Baby Jane briskly. 'Now we only want two more to make a big enough class.'

'I know of another,' said the Bear, following Baby Jane's cheerful lead, and off he set for a distant bend of the little river.

Very soon, with an amiable-looking lady Crocodile on his arm, he came pacing back.

Although the lady Crocodile looked amiable, she seemed rather stupid, and would answer no questions, but only smiled. Baby Jane noticed that she seemed to have something on her mind--or in her mouth--and so it proved, for when the Bear whispered something funny in her ear and made her laugh out loud, a little nigger boy dropped out of her mouth.

Baby Jane was horrified, but still the little nigger was safe, now, and to make a fuss would break up the whole party; so she said calmly--

'That makes six; now we can begin.'

For a class-room she chose a smooth patch of sand with no stones on it.

'Sit down in a row,' she said; 'the Bear and I will first show you a few steps of the Gavotte.'

While she was doing up her hair into a knot--an arrangement that she considered indispensable for that dance--the Bear stood brushing his beautiful fur and preening himself like a clumsy canary, and then shambled up looking very nervous. The others sat down awkwardly beside one another, trying to be at their ease, but they were the oddest row of creatures that ever sat down together, and not very likely to be friendly. However, the Piccaninny and the Rabbit soon began a firm friendship by playfully jogging one another over.

'Now!' said Baby Jane to the Bear, rather sternly, to cover the uncertainty she herself felt in teaching the Gavotte. 'Take my hand. One--two--three!'

'Oh, please, please stop,' said the Bear, 'I have got my legs so mixed. Which is my right foot?'

And, indeed, you could hardly imagine how those short legs could have got in such a muddle.

'Please tread on those toes,' he asked Baby Jane. 'No--those over here, and then I shall know by the feel which is which.'

Baby Jane trod lightly.

'Left!' shouted the Bear. 'That is just as I thought!'

But, even having found out which was which, it took a little time and the use of a palm branch as a lever to unmix them.

After this the Bear did much better, and, indeed, put on quite a dainty powder-and-brocade air.

All this while the others were turning slowly from a state of wondering admiration to fidgetiness, and the Rabbit and the Piccaninny were beginning to grow rough; so Baby Jane thought of something that everybody would like.

'Now,' said she, 'I will teach you an easy Highland Schottische step.'

It was simply astounding--the way those creatures picked it up. As for the Lion, for whom she made a little kilt and sporran of palm leaves to make him more real, you could not believe how like a true Scot he looked, and how Scottishly he bounded in the air and snapped his fingers and yapped--you would hear no wilder yap in the Highlands.

Of course the Bear had a mishap. It was through treading on the Crocodile's tail that he came down on a poor little Porcupine who had crept out from a neighbouring cactus thicket and was dancing a little fling all by himself. However, the Porcupine was not really hurt except that he came out quite smooth--all his bristles having stuck in the Bear. But, apart from this, everybody enjoyed it immensely. To be sure, they had to sing the tune themselves, but that added to the fun.

'There's something else just as nice!' cried Baby Jane when they had stopped, breathless, but eager for more. Then, with the Lion, she led off in the Washington Post.

Speak not of dancing in a room. What room is large enough when the romping begins? What you want is a good large desert. That is what Baby Jane and her pupils had, and it was grand. The Lion bounced so high that Baby Jane was swung about like a leaf on a bough on a windy day, and had nothing to do but waggle her toes in the air.

Afterwards, all rather tired, the creatures came and Baby Jane arranged them round her, the Lion and the Bear on each side with her arms round their necks, the Piccaninny and the Rabbit at her feet with their little heads on her knees, and the Crocodile round the whole party like a rampart.

'Isn't that better than being cruel, dears, and going about roaring and fighting?' asked Baby Jane.

'Lots!' said the Lion, and the others all grunted approval.

And Baby Jane went to sleep in the midst of her pupils very proud and happy, for she knew now that her plan would really work, and had found what dears wild beasts were when you only knew them.