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Many a night the old man had tried to no purpose, for Tom Tot would stare him stolidly in the eye, however preposterous the tale to be told. The twins and I had waited in vain ready to explode at the right moment: but never having the opportunity. The last assault on Tom Tot's composure had been disastrous to the skipper.
At last, on the road running beside the river, they had found the fragment of dotted cambric, held fast by a detaining splinter; and then Tot's mamma had run ahead and led them across the meadow, right in the track of Tot's little feet, straight to the river.
But the fellows had such a habit, as they floated down the stream, of eating up the oars, we had to give it up " "Will," said Tot's mamma, at the open door, "are you ready? Run away to Ellen, Tot, and be a good little girl."
And how, coming home last evening from business and learning of several fresh cases, he had become alarmed for his darling and consulted mamma, and had succeeded in frightening her so thoroughly, that she had sat up all night to get Tot's things ready so that she might start the very next morning, on the very first early morning train, to where grandmamma lived.
On, till the maples stopped and could go no further, and so she left them behind. Out into the open sun-light she came, and only the long, hot, and dazzling road stretched on before. Tot's small feet trudged on, steadily.
Looking out of the coach window, the bereaved mother saw a little tot, just the size of their own "Maritzka", playing in the snow below the window, and yearning for her departed baby she had climbed from the train and petted the little child, who instead of being frightened by the strange woman, permitted her to kiss its rosy cheeks, and while she felt the tot's chubby hands and soft limbs, the mother love which she used to lavish upon her own Maritzka got the upper hand of her, and noting that no one was guarding this smiling baby girl, and that no homes were near, she could not resist the temptation to have this child replace the one God had taken from her.
"Well, Totchen," said Tot's boy-uncle Will, looking up from his book as something pierced his knee, as only Tot's small elbow could pierce. "Well, Totchen; what is it? Stories? Then jump!" O, what happy state to sit enthroned upon a big boy-uncle's knee, and listen, listen, listen, with eyes like the dog's in the fairy story "as big as the great round tower at Copenhagen" more or less!
Tot descended from her throne, slowly and unwillingly, and, going obediently away, never knew about the beautiful river fairy just then springing to life, like Minerva in the brain of Jove, in Will's fancy, purposely to make Tot's acquaintance.
How could it be anything else than a dream, to be taken up by gaslight and dressed all in her little street coat and hat before breakfast, to be made to drink milk and eat when she wasn't hungry, to be petted and cried over and half crushed in mamma's arms, to be taken by papa out into the cool, clear dawning, with the sky just beginning to flush like a sea shell and a waking bird or two to twitter about getting up, to be put into a coach that rolled and rumbled, to be put into something else that rolled and rumbled a thousand times worse; nothing had ever happened anything like this in any of Tot's waking hours before.
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