Baby Jane's Mission.

by Reginald Parnell.

INTRODUCTION

ADDRESSED SOLELY TO GROWN-UPS

Baby Jane is eight years old. She has grave grey eyes and straight, heavy, dull gold hair. She is very reserved, but those who have the honour of her friendship know her for a very fine lady with a tender heart and a loyal conscience. Because her conscience is sometimes obvious, and because she looks at you as if she were thinking of you rather gravely, some mean grown-up has said she was a prig. Perhaps she is--I have always honoured a prig.

She cannot see clever jokes--mine for instance--but laughs beautifully, so that all who hear laugh too, when perhaps Pat, the puppy, pretends to eat his big chum, Radical, the cat.

She is a friend of mine, and sometimes invites me to tea with her. On one such occasion, for lack of other talk, I told her of some of my adventures in Patagonia (where I have never been). She was deeply interested, but at some more than usually strange incident she grew red, and with much hesitation said, 'I'm sorry--it's rude to interrupt--but----'

She said nothing more, but I understood that she did not believe me. Now I did not answer in words, and expressed myself only in a deep and subtle look; but, after a long and serious gaze, a light shone in her intelligent eyes and she gave one of her lovely little laughs.

'We understand one another?' I asked.

She nodded smiling, pleased with herself and me for understanding one another so cleverly.

Soon afterwards she invited me to tea again, and greeted me eagerly over the bannisters when I arrived in her dominions, but she said nothing except in the way of courteous hospitality until tea was well begun.

Then with a very rosy face she said:

'Shall I tell you some of my adventures this time?' I was charmed with the idea, and privately proud, for it proved what real friends we were that she should so confide in me.

What follows is my free version of her account, which I can only hope is not quite spoiled in the re-telling.

CHAPTER I

THE DANCING CLa.s.s

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 n.i.g.g.e.rs 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 amus.e.m.e.nt 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.

n.o.body 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: The Bear looked up at the sky and began whistling.]

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 cla.s.s 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.'

[Ill.u.s.tration: Up popped a little fluffy head.]

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.