Country life -- Fiction; Dorset (England) -- Fiction; Short stories
Johnny was at first disposed to lament, but was somewhat consoled on
being invited to try his luck with the cocoanuts; the sticks thrown by
his small arm, however, fell wide of the mark, and presently his lip
began to droop again and his eyes to roam wistfully,
“Why, you haven’t spent your money yet,” cried Rosie, catching him up.
“Come, we’ll go to the stalls and find summat to buy.”
After Johnny was perambulated up and down the stuffy arcade between the
rows of shouting, excited vendors of toys, sweet-stuff, and crockery,
after he had paused irresolutely in front of several booths, and screwed
and unscrewed his precious little squeaking box any number of times, he
found himself unable to part with his threepenny-bit, and finally agreed,
with a sigh of satisfaction, to follow Rosie’s advice and keep it for
another day.
They went to a shooting-gallery next, and the noise made Johnny’s head
ache; and then to a peep-show, which he didn’t understand; and then to
watch an acrobatic performance, which failed to interest him.
The day was wearing on now, and he was becoming very tired. He dragged
at his sister’s skirts as he walked beside her, and his head was ever
turned backwards over his shoulder in the hope of descrying “Dada”. Big
folk going past tumbled over him or pushed him to one side with curt
admonitory remarks. “Now, then, my man!” “Out of the way, youngster!”
“Look where you are going, can’t you, child?” Even Maggie and Rosie, who
were themselves probably a little weary, began to lose patience with him,
and when, under his despairing clutch, the gathers of the elder sister’s
dress gave way, she shook him, not roughly, but irritably, and said
sharply:—
“Bless me, Johnny, hold up a bit, can’t ’ee? Jist see what ye’ve a-done
to my new dress.”
Thereupon all Johnny’s stoicism gave way, and he began to cry piteously.
“I want Dada, I want Dada!”
“Why, he’s over there—see!” cried Jim Fry, who had found Johnny by no
means a welcome addition to the party. “Look, Johnny, there’s Dada
standin’ jist by that tent. He’ll be comin’ to fetch ’ee in a minute.”
Sure enough the stalwart form of the elder John was plainly discernible
some fifty yards or so away.
“Let me go to him!” wailed the child. “I want to go to Dada—I _will_ go
to Dada!”
And thrusting aside Maggie’s hand, he broke from the little group and ran
at full speed towards the spot where his father was standing.
“Best let him go,” advised Jim, catching hold of Maggie as she was about
to start in pursuit. “He’ll be twice so happy wi’ he, and you know your
father did say he was a-comin’ back to fetch en.”
“That’s true,” assented she.
As they stood watching the little figure making its way among the groups
of people, Tom Davis came up in great excitement, with Rosie on his arm.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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