The world—the small round world! what a
vast mysterious place it must seem to baby eyes!
What a trackless continent the back garden appears!
What marvelous explorations they make in the cellar
under the stairs! With what awe they gaze down
the long street, wondering, like us bigger babies
when we gaze up at the stars, where it all ends!
And down that longest street of all—that
long, dim street of life that stretches out before
them—what grave, old-fashioned looks they
seem to cast! What pitiful, frightened looks
sometimes! I saw a little mite sitting on a
doorstep in a Soho slum one night, and I shall never
forget the look that the gas-lamp showed me on its
wizen face—a look of dull despair, as if
from the squalid court the vista of its own squalid
life had risen, ghostlike, and struck its heart dead
with horror.
Poor little feet, just commencing the stony journey!
We old travelers, far down the road, can only pause
to wave a hand to you. You come out of the dark
mist, and we, looking back, see you, so tiny in the
distance, standing on the brow of the hill, your arms
stretched out toward us. God speed you!
We would stay and take your little hands in ours,
but the murmur of the great sea is in our ears and
we may not linger. We must hasten down, for
the shadowy ships are waiting to spread their sable
sails.
I always was fond of eating and drinking, even as
a child—especially eating, in those early
days. I had an appetite then, also a digestion.
I remember a dull-eyed, livid-complexioned gentleman
coming to dine at our house once. He watched
me eating for about five minutes, quite fascinated
seemingly, and then he turned to my father with—
“Does your boy ever suffer from dyspepsia?”
“I never heard him complain of anything of that
kind,” replied my father. “Do you
ever suffer from dyspepsia, Colly wobbles?”
(They called me Colly wobbles, but it was not my real
name.)
“No, pa,” I answered. After which
I added:
“What is dyspepsia, pa?”
My livid-complexioned friend regarded me with a look
of mingled amazement and envy. Then in a tone
of infinite pity he slowly said:
“You will know—some day.”
My poor, dear mother used to say she liked to see
me eat, and it has always been a pleasant reflection
to me since that I must have given her much gratification
in that direction. A growing, healthy lad, taking
plenty of exercise and careful to restrain himself
from indulging in too much study, can generally satisfy
the most exacting expectations as regards his feeding
powers.
It is amusing to see boys eat when you have not got
to pay for it. Their idea of a square meal is
a pound and a half of roast beef with five or six
good-sized potatoes (soapy ones preferred as being
more substantial), plenty of greens, and four thick
slices of Yorkshire pudding, followed by a couple
of currant dumplings, a few green apples, a pen’orth
of nuts, half a dozen jumbles, and a bottle of ginger-beer.
After that they play at horses.
