[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
Ixion embrace.
He spoke to several people about them, and said they were marvellous! and he related to at
least seven different persons the well-known story of the flagstone that was lifted from the
cellar floor by a growth of fungi beneath. He looked up his Sowerby to see if it was Lycoperdon
coelatum or giganteum like all his kind since Gilbert White became famous, he Gilbert
Whited. He cherished a theory that giganteum is unfairly named.
One does not know if he observed that those white spheres lay in the very track that old
woman of yesterday had followed, or if he noted that the last of the series swelled not a score
of yards from the gate of the Caddles cottage. If he observed these things, he made no
attempt to place his observation on record. His observation in matters botanical was what the
inferior sort of scientific people call a trained observation you look for certain definite things
and neglect everything else. And he did nothing to link this phenomenon with the remarkable
expansion of the Caddles baby that had been going on now for some weeks, indeed ever
since Caddles walked over one Sunday afternoon a month or more ago to see his mother-in-
law and hear Mr. Skinner (since defunct) brag about his management of hens.
IV.
The growth of the puff-balls following on the expansion of the Caddles baby really ought to
have opened the Vicar s eyes. The latter fact had already come right into his arms at the
christening almost over-poweringly....
The youngster bawled with deafening violence when the cold water that sealed its divine
inheritance and its right to the name of Albert Edward Caddles fell upon its brow. It was
already beyond maternal porterage, and Caddles, staggering indeed, but grinning triumphantly
at quantitatively inferior parents, bore it back to the free-sitting occupied by his party.
I never saw such a child! said the Vicar. This was the first public intimation that the Caddles
baby, which had begun its earthly career a little under seven pounds, did after all intend to be a
credit to its parents. Very soon it was clear it meant to be not only a credit but a glory. And
within a month their glory shone so brightly as to be, in connection with people in the Caddles
position, improper.
The butcher weighed the infant eleven times. He was a man of few words, and he soon got
through with them. The first time he said, E s a good un; the next time he said, My word! the
third time he said, Well , mum, and after that he simply blew enormously each time,
scratched his head, and looked at his scales with an unprecedented mistrust. Every one came
to see the Big Baby so it was called by universal consent and most of them said, E s a
Bouncer, and almost all remarked to him, Did they? Miss Fletcher came and said she never
did , which was perfectly true.
Lady Wondershoot, the village tyrant, arrived the day after the third weighing, and inspected
the phenomenon narrowly through glasses that filled it with howling terror. It s an unusually
Big child, she told its mother, in a loud instructive voice. You ought to take unusual care of it,
Caddles. Of course it won t go on like this, being bottle fed, but we must do what we can for it.
I ll send you down some more flannel.
The doctor came and measured the child with a tape, and put the figures in a notebook, and
old Mr. Drift-hassock, who fanned by Up Marden, brought a manure traveller two miles out of
their way to look at it. The traveller asked the child s age three times over, and said finally that
he was blowed. He left it to be inferred how and why he was blowed; apparently it was the
child s size blowed him. He also said it ought to be put into a baby show. And all day long, out
of school hours, little children kept coming and saying, Please, Mrs. Caddles, mum, may we
have a look at your baby, please, mum? until Mrs. Caddles had to put a stop to it. And amidst
all these scenes of amazement came Mrs. Skinner, and stood and smiled, standing somewhat
in the background, with each sharp elbow in a lank gnarled hand, and smiling, smiling under
and about her nose, with a smile of infinite profundity.
It makes even that old wretch of a grandmother look quite pleasant, said Lady Wondershoot.
Though I m sorry she s come back to the village.
Of course, as with almost all cottagers babies, the eleemosynary element had already come in,
but the child soon made it clear by colossal bawling, that so far as the filling of its bottle went, it
hadn t come in yet nearly enough.
The baby was entitled to a nine days wonder, and every one wondered happily over its
amazing growth for twice that time and more. And then you know, instead of its dropping into
the background and giving place to other marvels, it went on growing more than ever!
Lady Wondershoot heard Mrs. Greenfield, her housekeeper, with infinite amazement.
Caddles downstairs again. No food for the child! My dear Greenfield, it s impossible. The
creature eats like a hippopotamus! I m sure it can t be true.
I m sure I hope you re not being imposed upon, my lady, said Mrs. Greenfield. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
zanotowane.pl doc.pisz.pl pdf.pisz.pl fopke.keep.pl
Ixion embrace.
He spoke to several people about them, and said they were marvellous! and he related to at
least seven different persons the well-known story of the flagstone that was lifted from the
cellar floor by a growth of fungi beneath. He looked up his Sowerby to see if it was Lycoperdon
coelatum or giganteum like all his kind since Gilbert White became famous, he Gilbert
Whited. He cherished a theory that giganteum is unfairly named.
One does not know if he observed that those white spheres lay in the very track that old
woman of yesterday had followed, or if he noted that the last of the series swelled not a score
of yards from the gate of the Caddles cottage. If he observed these things, he made no
attempt to place his observation on record. His observation in matters botanical was what the
inferior sort of scientific people call a trained observation you look for certain definite things
and neglect everything else. And he did nothing to link this phenomenon with the remarkable
expansion of the Caddles baby that had been going on now for some weeks, indeed ever
since Caddles walked over one Sunday afternoon a month or more ago to see his mother-in-
law and hear Mr. Skinner (since defunct) brag about his management of hens.
IV.
The growth of the puff-balls following on the expansion of the Caddles baby really ought to
have opened the Vicar s eyes. The latter fact had already come right into his arms at the
christening almost over-poweringly....
The youngster bawled with deafening violence when the cold water that sealed its divine
inheritance and its right to the name of Albert Edward Caddles fell upon its brow. It was
already beyond maternal porterage, and Caddles, staggering indeed, but grinning triumphantly
at quantitatively inferior parents, bore it back to the free-sitting occupied by his party.
I never saw such a child! said the Vicar. This was the first public intimation that the Caddles
baby, which had begun its earthly career a little under seven pounds, did after all intend to be a
credit to its parents. Very soon it was clear it meant to be not only a credit but a glory. And
within a month their glory shone so brightly as to be, in connection with people in the Caddles
position, improper.
The butcher weighed the infant eleven times. He was a man of few words, and he soon got
through with them. The first time he said, E s a good un; the next time he said, My word! the
third time he said, Well , mum, and after that he simply blew enormously each time,
scratched his head, and looked at his scales with an unprecedented mistrust. Every one came
to see the Big Baby so it was called by universal consent and most of them said, E s a
Bouncer, and almost all remarked to him, Did they? Miss Fletcher came and said she never
did , which was perfectly true.
Lady Wondershoot, the village tyrant, arrived the day after the third weighing, and inspected
the phenomenon narrowly through glasses that filled it with howling terror. It s an unusually
Big child, she told its mother, in a loud instructive voice. You ought to take unusual care of it,
Caddles. Of course it won t go on like this, being bottle fed, but we must do what we can for it.
I ll send you down some more flannel.
The doctor came and measured the child with a tape, and put the figures in a notebook, and
old Mr. Drift-hassock, who fanned by Up Marden, brought a manure traveller two miles out of
their way to look at it. The traveller asked the child s age three times over, and said finally that
he was blowed. He left it to be inferred how and why he was blowed; apparently it was the
child s size blowed him. He also said it ought to be put into a baby show. And all day long, out
of school hours, little children kept coming and saying, Please, Mrs. Caddles, mum, may we
have a look at your baby, please, mum? until Mrs. Caddles had to put a stop to it. And amidst
all these scenes of amazement came Mrs. Skinner, and stood and smiled, standing somewhat
in the background, with each sharp elbow in a lank gnarled hand, and smiling, smiling under
and about her nose, with a smile of infinite profundity.
It makes even that old wretch of a grandmother look quite pleasant, said Lady Wondershoot.
Though I m sorry she s come back to the village.
Of course, as with almost all cottagers babies, the eleemosynary element had already come in,
but the child soon made it clear by colossal bawling, that so far as the filling of its bottle went, it
hadn t come in yet nearly enough.
The baby was entitled to a nine days wonder, and every one wondered happily over its
amazing growth for twice that time and more. And then you know, instead of its dropping into
the background and giving place to other marvels, it went on growing more than ever!
Lady Wondershoot heard Mrs. Greenfield, her housekeeper, with infinite amazement.
Caddles downstairs again. No food for the child! My dear Greenfield, it s impossible. The
creature eats like a hippopotamus! I m sure it can t be true.
I m sure I hope you re not being imposed upon, my lady, said Mrs. Greenfield. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]