Helens Babies | Page 8

unspoken appeal of its own perfection--its unvarying radiance.
"Ah--h--h--h--ee--ee--ee--ee--ee--oo--oo--oo--oo" came from the
window over my head. Then came a shout of--"Uncle Harry!" in a
voice I recognized as that of Budge. I made no reply: there are
moments when the soul is full of utterances unfit to be heard by
childish ears. "Uncle Har-RAY!" repeated Budge. Then I heard a
window-blind open, and Budge exclaiming:--
"Uncle Harry, we want you to come and tell us stories."
I turned my eyes upward quickly, and was about to send a savage
negative in the same direction, when I saw in the window a face
unknown and yet remembered. Could those great, wistful eyes, that
angelic mouth, that spiritual expression, belong to my nephew Budge?
Yes, it must be--certainly that super-celestial nose and those enormous
ears never belonged to any one else. I turned abruptly, and entered the
house, and was received at the head of the stairway by two little figures
in white, the larger of which remarked:--
"We want you tell us stories--papa always does nights."
"Very well, jump into bed--what kind of stories do you like?"
"Oh, 'bout Jonah," said Budge.
"'Bout Jonah," echoed Toddie.
"Well, Jonah was out in the sun one day and a gourd-vine grew up all
of a sudden, and made it nice and shady for him, and then it all faded as
quick as it came."
A dead silence prevailed for a moment, and then Budge indignantly
remarked:--
"That ain't Jonah a bit--I know 'bout Jonah."

"Oh, you do, do you?" said I. "Then maybe you'll be so good as to
enlighten me?"
"Huh?"
"If you know about Jonah, tell me the story; I'd really enjoy listening to
it."
"Well," said Budge, "once upon a time the Lord told Jonah to go to
Nineveh and tell the people they was all bad. But Jonah didn't want to
go, so he went on a boat that was going to Joppa. And then there was a
big storm, an' it rained an' blowed and the big waves went as high as a
house. An' the sailors thought there must be somebody on the boat that
the Lord didn't like. An' Jonah said he guessed HE was the man. So
they picked him up and froed him in the ocean, an' I don't think it was
well for 'em to do that after Jonah told the troof. An' a big whale was
comin' along, and he was awful hungry, cos the little fishes what he
likes to eat all went down to the bottom of the ocean when it began to
storm, and whales can't go to the bottom of the ocean, cos they have to
come up to breeve, an' little fishes don't. An' Jonah found 'twas all dark
inside the whale, and there wasn't any fire there, an' it was all wet, and
he couldn't take off his clothes to dry, cos there wasn't no place to hang
'em, an' there wasn't no windows to look out of, nor nothin' to eat, nor
nothin' nor nothin' nor nothin.' So he asked the Lord to let Mm out, an'
the Lord was sorry for him, an' he made the whale go up close to the
land, an' Jonah jumped right out of his mouth, an' WASN'T he glad?
An' then he went to Nineveh, an' done what the Lord told him to, and
he ought to have done it in the first place if he had known what was
good for him."
"Done first payshe, know what's dood for him," asserted Toddie, in
support of his brother's assertion. "Tell us 'nudder story."
"Oh, no, sing us a song," suggested Budge.
"Shing us shong," echoed Toddie.
I searched my mind for a song, but the only one which came promptly

was "M'Appari," several bars of which I gave my juvenile audience,
when Budge interrupted me, saying:--
"I don't think that's a very good song."
"Why not, Budge?"
"Cos I don't. I don't know a word what you're talking 'bout."
"Shing 'bout 'Glory, glory, hallelulyah,'" suggested Toddie, and I
meekly obeyed. The old air has a wonderful influence over me. I heard
it in western camp-meetings and negro-cabins when I was a boy; I saw
the 22d Massachusetts march down Broadway, singing the same air
during the rush to the front during the early days of the war; I have
heard it sung by warrior tongues in nearly every Southern State; I heard
it roared by three hundred good old Hunker Democrats as they escorted
New York's first colored regiment to their place of embarkation; my
old brigade sang it softly, but with a swing that was terrible in its
earnestness, as they lay behind their stacks of arms just before going to
action; I have heard it played over the