The Old Tobacco Shop Part 3

He grasped Freddie's hand again, and pulled him to the back door, and through into the back room where Aunt Amanda was sitting by the table with the wax flowers, sewing.

"Quick! quick! Tell Aunt Amanda your name now, quick! What's your name?"

cried Mr. Toby.

"Freddie!" said the Little Boy, very distinctly, but looking down at the carpet, for fear he should seem proud.

"We're grown up today," cried Mr. Toby, "and we've got to celebrate!"

Aunt Amanda raised her eyebrows in astonishment, and said:

"Esheeraybysart!"

She put her hand to her mouth and somehow got out into her hand a good mouthful of pins. She laid them down on the table at her elbow, and said:

"Bless the dear baby's heart! And are you grown up now?"

"Yes'm," said Freddie, looking up and then down again, for he did not wish to seem too proud.

Aunt Amanda looked at him for a moment, and took out her handkerchief and blew her nose very loud.

"Toby," she said, "what did you mean by a celebration?"

"Tomorrow's Sat.u.r.day," said he.

"Well, what of it?"

Freddie could not understand very well what they were saying after that, except that he was concerned in it somehow, until he heard Aunt Amanda say:

"You'd better ask his mother, then."

"Young man," said Mr. Toby, "if I write a letter to your ma, will you give it to her?"

"Yes, sir," said Freddie, whereupon Mr. Toby sat down at the other side of the table, with pen and paper and ink, and commenced to write.

"First," said Aunt Amanda, "there's some of that fruit-cake from last Christmas still in the--"

"Right you are!" cried Toby, jumping up and going out into the kitchen.

Freddie ate the fruit-cake, sitting on a ha.s.sock at Aunt Amanda's feet, while Toby went on with his letter, but in the midst of it Toby went out again, and finally came back with a tall gla.s.s of ice-cold lemonade.

"Don't you go and spill it on the carpet," said he, as he sat down to his writing.

"No, sir," said Freddie.

Aunt Amanda looked at him, as he sat so seriously on his ha.s.sock at her feet, munching his fruit-cake and sipping his lemonade; and she pulled out her pocket-handkerchief and blew her nose again, very loud. She appeared to have a cold. Toby paid no attention to her; his head was lying sidewise on his left arm on the table, and he was squinting at the sheet of paper, and every time his pen came down he closed his mouth tight, and every time his pen went up he opened his mouth wide. Freddie and Aunt Amanda had plenty of time to talk. Under the softening influence of fruit-cake and lemonade Freddie found his tongue.

"What's a Churchwarden?" he said suddenly into the lemonade-gla.s.s, which was just under his nose.

"Bless the baby!" said Aunt Amanda.

"It's a long clay pipe, young man," said Toby, chewing the end of his pen-holder, "like you've seen in the case out there in the shop."

"That ain't what he means," said Aunt Amanda. "You mean a man, don't you, Freddie?"

"Yes'm," said Freddie, looking at the cake just going into his mouth.

"It's a man," said Aunt Amanda, "it's a man that belongs to a church, and he stands guard over the church property, and sees to the repairs, and beats little boys with a cane when they make a noise during service, and takes care n.o.body don't run away with the collection money, and----"

"How do you spell 'respectfully'?" said Toby, scratching his head with the pen. "Yours respectfully."

"R-e--" began Aunt Amanda, "s-p-e-c-k--no, that ain't right,--r-e-s--"

"There's one over at that church," said Freddie, pointing towards the window, "and he smokes one, too."

"One what, Freddie?" said Aunt Amanda.

"A Churchwarden. There's a Churchwarden sits out on the pavement and he smokes a Churchwarden, he does." Freddie was rather proud that he had mastered that difficult word, and he liked to hear himself say it.

"Oh," said Toby, "I reckon he means the s.e.xtant over there. Well, 'Yours respectfully.' I don't give a--hum!--how you spell it. There she goes.

Done. 'Yours respectfully, Toby Littleback.' It's blotted up some, by crackey, that's a fact; but I ain't a-goin' to write all that over again, not by a jugful." And he took out his handkerchief and wiped the perspiration from his forehead.

"He's a Churchwarden," insisted Freddie, swallowing the last of the lemonade after the last of the cake.

"All right," said Toby, "have it your own way. But a s.e.xtant's as good as a Churchwarden, in _my_ opinion, any day of the week,--except Sunday, of course."

Aunt Amanda inspected the letter, and declared herself horrified by the blots; but Toby positively refused to go through that exhausting labor again, so she pa.s.sed it grudgingly, and handed it to Freddie in an envelope, and told him to give it to his mother as soon as he got home.

"Do you want some more cake and lemonade?" said she.

"Yes'm," said he.

"Well, you won't get it, so trot along home."

In the shop Mr. Toby showed him the churchwarden pipes in the show-case.

Freddie wondered how it would taste to smoke some of that magic tobacco in the Chinaman's head in a churchwarden pipe.

As he pa.s.sed the church on his way home, he looked for the fat old man who usually sat in his chair tilted back against the wall, but he was not there. Freddie wished to ask him about those noises up in the tower when Mr. Punch and his father were having their high jinks; he had never been able to screw up his courage to the point of asking about this, but now that he was grown up he thought he might be able.

He gave the letter to his mother, and she read it; but she said nothing to him about it. When his father came home in the evening, she showed the letter to him, and they talked about it, and Freddie could not understand very well what they were saying. Finally his father said:

"Well, I don't think there would be any harm in it."

"I suppose not," said his mother. "I'll see them in the morning. He had better wear his Sunday suit and his new shoes."

This was bad, because it sounded like Sunday-school, and the shoes squeaked. Freddie thought he had better change the subject, so he said:

"I'm grown up. I can say Freddie. Mr. Toby says so."

His father laughed, but his mother took him up in her arms and hugged him close to her breast.