CHAPTER II

NUTS IN MAY

Baby Jane was slowly waking up, with the gentle morning sun shining on her face.

'What is this silky, furry thing under my head?' she murmured to herself. And then it all came back to her.

'Oh yes, of course,' said she. 'I've come out to the African Desert to teach the poor dear creatures nice things to do, instead of fighting and howling and killing one another. And I've been asleep with my head upon my dear, naughty old Bear, with all my animals and the Piccaninny round me. And yesterday I gave them a dancing lesson.

'There now, dears,' she said, sitting up and nodding wisely at the gently snoring circle, 'wasn't it nicer to sleep properly through the night by me, after being tired out with playing, than to wander and howl and be wicked in the dreadful woods and the lonely desert?'

Her little speech waked them, and they sat up and rubbed their eyes and smiled sleepily at her.

'Now,' said Baby Jane briskly, 'we'll go and wash our faces in the river.'

Her pupils, except the Crocodile, who tried to look as if she were very brave in obeying, all made excuses, but Baby Jane was firm, and there was soon a great spluttering and screwing up of eyes, and they became very lank and dank and shiny.

Then came breakfast under a spreading palm--a fine breakfast. There was bread-fruit--which always grows ready toasted in this part of the world because of the heat of the sun--and butter-nuts and cocoa-nuts with fresh milk in them; and any one who knew more of these wonderful African plants would probably tell you of the shrimp shrubs, and of the whiting-fried-in-egg-and-breadcrumbs-with-their-tails-in-their-mouths bushes.

'Do you know,' said Baby Jane confidentially when they had finished, 'it _is_ nice that I'm going to teach you something that is great fun this sunshiny morning, instead of being taught myself in a stuffy school-room--and perhaps put in the corner.'

At this point she grew red, and looked round to see if they looked shocked, but they were all grinning affectionately. A great reformer loses nothing by little admissions like this.

'Come along, now,' said she; 'I'll teach you some games on this smooth patch.'

The animals and the Piccaninny all frisked around in high excitement.

'First we'll play blindfold "Cat and Mouse,"' said Baby Jane, after a moment's thought. 'Lion, you are "mouse," and, Rabbit, you are "cat." Now I want two handkerchiefs.'

The Bear retired and came back with a large spotted handkerchief. This time Baby Jane did not ask how he got it--she only sighed.

It was old, so they tore it in half, and, having blindfolded the Lion and the Rabbit, they spun them round three times and then kept very quiet to watch the fun.

The Lion was dreadfully nervous at first and crept about on tiptoe, and listened quaking to the sound of the Rabbit as he scuffled around snorting fiercely and making savage grabs at the air. Once they bumped their heads together, but, with an ear-splitting yell of terror, the Lion bounded away before the Rabbit could grip him.

By-and-bye the Rabbit, having run up against Baby Jane, whispered to her, 'I reckon he's gone up a tree; I'll go after him.'

Then he felt about till he came to the stem of a palm, and up he went, hand-over-hand.

In a little while the Lion, who was still tiptoeing about on the ground, also ran up against Baby Jane, and said in a quavering whisper, 'I reckon it's not safe down here; I'm going up a tree.' And he felt about till he came to the very tree up which the Rabbit, or, I should say, the 'cat,' had just climbed, and up he went.

The Rabbit had reached the top, and was meditating on the ease with which we deceive ourselves, when he heard a scratching sound below him, and pricked up his ears. Nearer and nearer came the sound.

'Sure enough,' said he, 'it's that "mouse" coming up after me,' and with a triumphant squeak--'Caught!'--he let go with his four little paws, and down he dropped plump on the Lion's head.

The Lion shrieked aloud with terror and dismay, and fell heavily to the ground; and there he lay with the Rabbit sitting smiling on top of him.

Then the others tried their hands at being 'cat' and 'mouse,' until the whole party was weak with laughing.

'Now we'll have a three-legged race,' said Baby Jane when they had at last subsided into giggles. 'It is rather a boys' game, but I'm only going to do it to teach you.'

There were three couples--the Lion and the Rabbit, the Bear and the Crocodile, and Baby Jane and the Piccaninny.

The Bear and the Crocodile made a splendid race with Baby Jane's couple. The Bear took tiny steps to suit the shortness of the Crocodile's legs, and their feet pattered as fast as a fly flaps its wings; but the children won by two yards.

As for the Lion and the Rabbit, they sat down to quarrel half-way, the Rabbit recommending big kangaroo-like bounds, while the Lion was for hopping on the joint leg.

After this came a game of 'Gathering Nuts in May,' and the creatures nearly went wild with excitement.

It is to be feared that they were so anxious for their side to win that they did things that were not quite honest.

Now, Baby Jane had decided that the Rabbit and the Piccaninny might always pull together, being each so small.

On a certain occasion her side had declared in song that they would

'Have Miss Crocodile for Nuts in May, Nuts in May, Nuts in May';

and also that they would

'Send Bunny and the Piccaninny to fetch her away, Fetch her away, fetch her away.'

Then that little couple went out, and the Rabbit, having caught the Crocodile's hand, and the Piccaninny having gripped the Rabbit's little tail, they tugged and they tugged for the honour of their side to pull Miss Crocodile over the line, until their little hearts nearly burst and the Rabbit's tail nearly came off.

And all the while Miss Crocodile calmly sat and smiled, and never budged.

Why? Because she had anchored the end of her tail to a stout young palm tree, and it would have needed a steam-engine to 'gather' her.

Even after this, the creatures were eager for more, and Baby Jane thought of 'Hide-and-Seek.'

She would go and hide, and they would sit in a row with their eyes tight shut while they counted sixty.

She ran off as fast as she could over a little hillock, so that the animals could no longer see her, even if they were unfair enough to open their eyes, and towards a clump of trees that looked like a capital hiding-place.

She little thought into what terrible danger she was running.

On she went till she had reached the corner of the little wood. There, behind it, she saw with startled eyes a horde of mounted Cannibals lying in wait.

For the first moment she thought she could dart back behind the trees, but no, they had caught sight of her, and with a horrible sound of smacking of lips the cloud of Light-Horsemen swept towards her. She noticed that they had only one Horse, but he was densely crowded with a villainous crew of blacks, and then, as they rushed upon her brandishing their spear, she clasped her hand over her eyes.

The next moment she was seized roughly and swung high into the air and on to the shoulder of a Cannibal, and then she felt the Horse turn and gallop madly--as madly as could be expected of an animal so overcrowded--across the desert, and away from her dear creatures still sitting in a row with their eyes tight shut behind the hillock. Oh, it was dreadful! Her plan had just begun to succeed, and her animals were growing more and more kind and happy, and now it was all over.

Poor Crocodile and Lion, they would miss her dreadfully and have nothing to do but go back to the old, bad, miserable ways. Poor dear old Bear, he would cry. And here Baby Jane herself began to cry loudly, hopelessly.

After a while she tried to stifle her sobs and to speak coaxingly to the Nigger who carried her, but he took no notice.

There was evidently no hope, and she began to think whether she would rather be a cutlet dressed in egg and bread-crumbs with little paper frills round her ankles and wrists--or soup.

Suddenly she heard a faint sound more beautiful to her than the silver music of fairy bells. It was the roar of a Lion.

Ah, there they were! Over a sandy wave they came flying in pursuit. The Lion, ridden by the Piccaninny, sped across the desert with huge bounds, and dust and stones shot up wherever his flying feet struck the sand; away to the right, with his head and tail up, the Crocodile was bouncing bravely along, the Rabbit, who rode her, bumping sky-high; and close behind the Lion strode the Bear, leaping bushes and bamboos as if he were running a hurdle-race.

The Light-Horsemen heard the sound of galloping feet behind them, and the rear-guard, turning his head, gave a howl of horror. The tables were turned; instead of lunching on Baby Jane, they themselves would now adorn the festive board. Wildly they thrashed the Light-Horse, but it was of no use, the galloping Lion was close upon their heels.

Then, as the sledge traveller throws out his companions one by one to the pursuing wolves, the Light-Horsemen began by throwing out Baby Jane.

In a moment she felt herself whisked into the furry arms of the Bear, and nursed and petted as gently as if it had been by Nurse herself.

When she felt better and looked round, the Cannibal Light-Horsemen had disappeared, and the Light-Horse was sitting on a stone fanning herself with a palm-leaf. As the Crocodile and the Lion, both looking quiet and sleepy, came up to inquire if Baby Jane was unhurt, the Bear, who was rocking her to and fro, whispered bitterly to them, 'Well, you _are_ pigs. You might have left me a _little_ one.'

It was a long time before Baby Jane had any heart to play again. It was so nice to shut her eyes and sniff away the last trace of tears, lying contentedly against the silky coat of the old Bear.

But after a while she began to brighten up and to make friends with the Light-Horse, who was a nice animal, though she wore such a dreary expression.

'I daresay you are tired,' she said kindly; 'so I will tell you what we will do next. We will make a "Tableau Vivant." We shall only have to stay still in that.'

The creatures all were delighted with the idea, and the Bear retired once more to his treasure-store for odds and ends of clothes to dress up in.

'The Execution of Mary, Queen of Scots' was the subject chosen, and it was a dreadfully real and touching picture that they made.

The Bear was Queen Mary; his sweet, sad, resigned air, and his little lace handkerchief, wet with tears, would have moved any heart less stony than Queen Elizabeth's, but she sat in the background and smiled triumphantly.

The Crocodile was Queen Elizabeth--chosen for the part because her mouth was best for smiling.

The Rabbit, with his head tucked in and his legs out stiff, was the block, and the Piccaninny the executioner, with a horrid scowl and a large axe. Behind the Queen came her weeping ladies, the 'Queen's Maries.' Baby Jane, the Lion, and the Light-Horse were all 'Queen's Maries.' The Lion looked especially well with his mane done up in a chignon. He said he was Mary Beaton, and the Light-Horse was Mary Carmichael.

It was not till they had posed stiffly for a quarter of an hour that they remembered that there was no audience to tell them by the clapping of hands when it had had enough.

'Next time,' said the sharp Rabbit, 'we'll get a lot of tortoises and turn them on their backs so that they can't run away, and make them look on and clap.'

'But they will see everything upside down,' said the Lion.

'And we'll have to act on our heads to make it right,' said the Light-Horse gloomily.

'Oh, we won't bother about that,' said the inventor of the plan. 'They will be there just to clap, and they won't be turned right side up until they do clap.'

And this was the end of Baby Jane's lessons for that day.