Fantasy fiction; Ghost stories; Horror tales; Manners and customs -- Fiction
"They will frighten the bird," thought Toby; but they were kind to
Uncle John because he had a pension. Toby slept in a corner on the
ground beside the baby, and when father and Mr. Hearn fought at
nights he would wake up and watch and shiver; but when this happened
it seemed to him that the baby was laughing at him, and he would
pinch her to make her stop. One night, when the men were fighting
very fiercely and mother had fallen asleep on the table, Uncle John
rose from his bed and began singing in a great voice. It was a song
Toby knew very well about Trafalgar's Bay, but it frightened the two
men a great deal because they thought Uncle John would be too mad to
fetch the pension any more. Next day he was quite well, however, and
he and Toby found a large green caterpillar in the garden among the
plants.
"This is a fact of great importance," said Uncle John, stroking it
with a little stick. "It is a sign!"
Toby used to lie awake at nights after that and listen for the bird,
but he only heard the clatter of feet on the pavement and the
screaming of engines far away.
Later there came a new young woman to live in the cellar--not a dark
person, but a person you could see and speak to. She patted Toby on
the head; but when she saw the baby she caught it to her breast and
cried over it, calling it pretty names.
At first father and Mr. Hearn were both very kind to her, and mother
used to sit all day in the corner with burning eyes, but after a time
the three used to laugh together at nights as before, and the woman
would sit with her wet face and wait for the coming of the bird, with
Toby and the baby and Uncle John, who was a queer one.
"All we have to do," Uncle John would say, "is to keep the garden
clean and tidy, and to water the plants every morning so that they
may be very green." And Toby would go and whisper this to the baby,
and she would stare at the ceiling with large, stupid eyes.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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