The Water-Babies | Page 7

most were, one a man in long
garments, with little children and their mothers round him, who was
laying his hand upon the children's heads. That was a very pretty
picture, Tom thought, to hang in a lady's room. For he could see that it
was a lady's room by the dresses which lay about.
The other picture was that of a man nailed to a cross, which surprised
Tom much. He fancied that he had seen something like it in a
shop-window. But why was it there? "Poor man," thought Tom, "and
he looks so kind and quiet. But why should the lady have such a sad
picture as that in her room? Perhaps it was some kinsman of hers, who
had been murdered by the savages in foreign parts, and she kept it there

for a remembrance." And Tom felt sad, and awed, and turned to look at
something else.
The next thing he saw, and that too puzzled him, was a washing- stand,
with ewers and basins, and soap and brushes, and towels, and a large
bath full of clean water--what a heap of things all for washing! "She
must be a very dirty lady," thought Tom, "by my master's rule, to want
as much scrubbing as all that. But she must be very cunning to put the
dirt out of the way so well afterwards, for I don't see a speck about the
room, not even on the very towels."
And then, looking toward the bed, he saw that dirty lady, and held his
breath with astonishment.
Under the snow-white coverlet, upon the snow-white pillow, lay the
most beautiful little girl that Tom had ever seen. Her cheeks were
almost as white as the pillow, and her hair was like threads of gold
spread all about over the bed. She might have been as old as Tom, or
maybe a year or two older; but Tom did not think of that. He thought
only of her delicate skin and golden hair, and wondered whether she
was a real live person, or one of the wax dolls he had seen in the shops.
But when he saw her breathe, he made up his mind that she was alive,
and stood staring at her, as if she had been an angel out of heaven.
No. She cannot be dirty. She never could have been dirty, thought Tom
to himself. And then he thought, "And are all people like that when
they are washed?" And he looked at his own wrist, and tried to rub the
soot off, and wondered whether it ever would come off. "Certainly I
should look much prettier then, if I grew at all like her."
And looking round, he suddenly saw, standing close to him, a little
ugly, black, ragged figure, with bleared eyes and grinning white teeth.
He turned on it angrily. What did such a little black ape want in that
sweet young lady's room? And behold, it was himself, reflected in a
great mirror, the like of which Tom had never seen before.
And Tom, for the first time in his life, found out that he was dirty; and
burst into tears with shame and anger; and turned to sneak up the

chimney again and hide; and upset the fender and threw the fire-irons
down, with a noise as of ten thousand tin kettles tied to ten thousand
mad dogs' tails.
Up jumped the little white lady in her bed, and, seeing Tom, screamed
as shrill as any peacock. In rushed a stout old nurse from the next room,
and seeing Tom likewise, made up her mind that he had come to rob,
plunder, destroy, and burn; and dashed at him, as he lay over the fender,
so fast that she caught him by the jacket.
But she did not hold him. Tom had been in a policeman's hands many a
time, and out of them too, what is more; and he would have been
ashamed to face his friends for ever if he had been stupid enough to be
caught by an old woman; so he doubled under the good lady's arm,
across the room, and out of the window in a moment.
He did not need to drop out, though he would have done so bravely
enough. Nor even to let himself down a spout, which would have been
an old game to him; for once he got up by a spout to the church roof, he
said to take jackdaws' eggs, but the policeman said to steal lead; and,
when he was seen on high, sat there till the sun got too hot, and came
down by another spout, leaving the policemen to go back to the
stationhouse and eat their dinners.
But all under the window spread a tree,