TIMOTHY'S QUEST (Children's Book). Kate Douglas Wiggin
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and in this humble conveyance the Princess would have to be transported from the Ogre’s castle; for she was scarcely old enough to accompany the Prince on foot, even if he had dared to risk detection by waking her: so the clothes-basket must be her chariot, and Timothy her charioteer, as on many a less fateful expedition.
After he had changed his ragged night-gown for a shabby suit of clothes, he took Gay’s one clean apron out of a rickety bureau drawer (“for I can never find a mother for her if she’s too dirty,” he thought), her Sunday hat from the same receptacle, and last of all a comb, and a faded Japanese parasol that stood in a corner. These he deposited under the old shawl that decorated the floor of the chariot. He next groped his way in the dim light toward a mantelshelf, and took down a savings-bank,—a florid little structure with “Bank of England” stamped over the miniature door, into which the jovial gentleman who frequented the house often slipped pieces of silver for the children, and into which Flossy dipped only when she was in a state of temporary financial embarrassment. Timothy did not dare to jingle it; he could only hope that as Flossy had not been in her usual health of late (though in more than her usual “spirits”), she had not felt obliged to break the bank.
Now for provisions. There were plenty of “funeral baked meats” in the kitchen; and he hastily gathered a dozen cookies into a towel, and stowed them in the coach with the other sinews of war.
So far, well and good; but the worst was to come. With his heart beating in his bosom like a trip-hammer, and his eyes dilated with fear, he stepped to the door between the two rooms, and opened it softly. Two thundering snores, pitched in such different keys that they must have proceeded from two separate sets of nasal organs, reassured the boy. He looked out into the alley. “Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse.” The Minerva Courtiers couldn’t be owls and hawks too, and there was not even the ghost of a sound to be heard. Satisfied that all was well, Timothy went back to the bedroom, and lifted the battered clothes-basket, trucks and all, in his slender arms, carried it up the alley and down the street a little distance, and deposited it on the pavement beside a vacant lot. This done, he sped back to the house. “How beautifully they snore!” he thought, as he stood again on the threshold. “Shall I leave ‘em a letter?… P’raps I better … and then they won’t follow us and bring us back.” So he scribbled a line on a bit of torn paper bag, and pinned it on the enemies’ door.
“A kind Lady is goin to Adopt us it is a Grate ways off so do not
Hunt good by. Tim.”
Now all was ready. No; one thing more. Timothy had been met in the street by a pretty young girl a few weeks before. The love of God was smiling in her heart, the love of children shining in her eyes; and she led him, a willing captive, into a mission Sunday-school near by. And so much in earnest was the sweet little teacher, and so hungry for any sort of good tidings was the starved little pupil, that Timothy “got religion” then and there, as simply and naturally as a child takes its mother’s milk. He was probably in a state of crass ignorance regarding the Thirty-nine Articles; but it was the “engrafted word,” of which the Bible speaks, that had blossomed in Timothy’s heart; the living seed had always been there, waiting for some beneficent fostering influence; for he was what dear Charles Lamb would have called a natural “kingdom-of-heavenite.” Thinking, therefore, of Miss Dora’s injunction to pray over all the extra-ordinary affairs of life and as many of the ordinary ones as possible, he hung his tattered straw hat on the bedpost, and knelt beside Gay’s crib with this whispered prayer:—
“Our Father who art in heaven, please help me to find a mother for Gay, one that she can call Mamma, and another one for me, if there’s enough, but not unless. Please excuse me for taking away the clothes-basket, which does not exactly belong to us; but if I do not take it, dear heavenly Father, how will I get Gay to the railroad? And if I don’t take the Japanese umbrella she will get freckled, and nobody will adopt her. No more at present, as I am in a great hurry. Amen.”
He put on his hat, stooped over the sleeping baby, and took her in his faithful arms,—arms that had never failed her yet. She half opened her eyes, and seeing that she was safe on her beloved Timothy’s shoulder, clasped her dimpled arms tight about his neck, and with a long sigh drifted off again into the land of dreams. Bending beneath her weight, he stepped for the last time across the threshold, not even daring to close the door behind him.
Up the alley and round the corner he sped, as fast as his trembling legs could carry him. Just as he was within sight of the goal of his ambition, that is, the chariot aforesaid, he fancied he heard the sound of hurrying feet behind him. To his fevered imagination the tread was like that of an avenging army on the track of the foe. He did not dare to look behind. On! for the clothes-basket and liberty! He would relinquish the Japanese umbrella, the cookies, the comb, and the apron,—all the booty, in fact,—as an inducement for the enemy to retreat, but he would never give up the prisoner.
On the feet hurried, faster and faster. He stooped to put Gay in the basket, and turned in despair to meet his pursuers, when a little, grimy, rough-coated, lop-eared, split-tailed thing, like an animated rag-bag, leaped upon his knees; whimpering with joy, and imploring, with every grace that his simple doggish heart could suggest, to be one of the eloping party.
Rags had followed them!
Timothy was so glad to find it no worse that he wasted a moment in embracing the dog, whose delirious joy at the prospect of this probably dinnerless and supperless expedition was ludicrously exaggerated. Then he took up the rope and trundled the chariot gently down a side street leading to the station.
Everything worked to a charm. They met only an occasional milk (and water) man, starting on his matutinal rounds, for it was now after four o’clock, and one or two cavaliers of uncertain gait, just returning to their homes, several hours too late for their own good; but these gentlemen were in no condition of mind to be over-interested, and the little fugitives were troubled with no questions as to their intentions.
And so they went out into the world together, these three: Timothy Jessup (if it was Jessup), brave little knight, nameless nobleman, tracing his descent back to God, the Father of us all, and bearing the Divine likeness more than most of us; the little Lady Gay,—somebody—nobody—anybody,—from nobody knows where,—destination equally uncertain; and Rags, of pedigree most doubtful, scutcheon quite obscured by blots, but a perfect gentleman, true-hearted and loyal to the core,—in fact, an angel in fur. These three, with the clothes-basket as personal property and the Bank of England as security, went out to seek their fortune; and, unlike Lot’s wife, without daring to look behind, shook the dust of Minerva Court from off their feet forever and forever.
Scene III.
The Railway Station
TIMOTHY PLANS A CAMPAIGN, AND PROVIDENCE ASSISTS MATERIALLY IN CARRYING IT OUT, OR VICE VERSA.
By dint of skillful generalship, Timothy gathered his forces on a green bank just behind the railway depot, cleared away a sufficient number of tin cans and oyster-shells to make a flat space for the chariot of war, which had now become simply a cradle, and sat down, with Rags curled up at his feet, to plan the campaign.
He pushed back the ragged hat from his waving hair, and, clasping his knees with his hands, gazed thoughtfully at the towering chimneys in the foreground and the white-winged ships in the distant harbor. There was a glimpse of something like a man’s purpose in the sober eyes; and as the morning sunlight fell upon his earnest face, the angel in him came to the surface, and crowded the “boy part” quite out of sight, as it has a way of doing sometimes with children.
How some father-heart would have throbbed with pride to own him, and how gladly lifted the too heavy burden from his childish shoulders!
Timothy Jessup, aged ten or eleven, or thereabouts (the records had not been kept with absolute exactness)—Timothy Jessup, somewhat ragged, all forlorn, and none too clean at the present moment, was a poet, philosopher, and lover of the beautiful. The dwellers in Minerva