Aunt Judy’s Tales.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XL, Issue 8, 22 February 1908, Page 69

Aunt Judy’s Tales.

TOBY’S FRIENDS.

(By

Agnes Gibbs.)

“Please, mother, may I have some bread?” “What, again, Toby,” said his mother, in some surprise. “It’s not an hour since I gave you a large sliee.” “Oh!” answered Teby. “It seems ages.” “And there’s barely another hour to dinner-time,” continued Mrs. Kersley. However, she thought to herself, he must be hungry as it’s only bread he wants. It isn’t as if he asked for sugar or sweet stuff. So she eut him another sliee and Toby marehed off looking supremely content. But he did not eat the bread. Instead he carried it out of doors, through the garden, and into a yard beyond which was attached to some disused farm buildings. Here was a large cobbled yard, with grass growing between the cobblestones. At one end was the muddy bed of what had once been a drinking pond for cattle. On two sides of the yards were sheds and stables with the windows boarded up and the doors padlocked. The whole place looked grass-grown and deserted. The bottom of one of the doors was very rotten, and to one side of it there was a large hole which had partly rotted and partly been gnawed away by mice or rats perhaps. Holding the slice, of bread his mother had given him very tightly in his two chubby hands, Toby crept very softly on tip-toe to this door. When he was quite close to it he knelt down and peeped through the hole and made a peculiar’low whistling noise, as if calling someone. There was a slight moving sound inside the door, and with a contented little sigh Toby retired a few paces and sat him down to wait. Presently a little brown head peeped out of the hole, a little brown head with two very bright eyes, and long whiskers. The eyes looked around with an inquiring look which seemed to say: “Are you sure it is quite safe?” and which, on seeing Toby, were followed by a long brown body and a much longer brown tail. It was a large brown rat. Toby still held the bread tightly in his hands and waited until four other equally large rats had come through the hole in the door, one of them with a very short, stumpy tail which had evidently been cut short by some accident. When the five rats had all assembled Toby broke his slice of bread into five pieces all about the same size and placed them on the ground. The rats nibbled them up whilst Toby watched them. When they had finished their meal the five rats did not immediately disappear, but cleaned their paws and their whiskers in a leisurely way. This is what Toby liked best, to see them sit on their haunehes and lick their front paws and wash their faces like an old cat in front of a kitchen fire. Two or three times every day Toby managed to'procure bread for his little friends. In time they grew so used 1 to him that they played and gambolled as if he were not there. Toby’s mother wondered very often why he wanted so much bread, and began to doubt that he ate it, for she never saw him do so; and no matter how much bread she gave him he always took it with him out of doors. She asked him one or two questions which he managed to evade answering, and as she was very busy with Toby’s little brother, aged only a few months, she did not press the question. So Toby went on feeding his little friends. One day to his great astonishment and still greater joy, their number was increased, for eight tiny rats were brought by their mother to take their share of the meal provided so generously for them. Toby turned to see his father and mother watching and smiling at him. He ran towards them. “I may keep my rats, I may,” he repeated eagerly. “Yes, I see I may.” “On condition you never feed them outside the yard,” answered the father, •‘yes.” Toby fairly jumped for joy. He did not hear his father say to his mother: “It won't be for long, for 1 hear the old farmhouse is let at last.” But it meant more bread, and Toby was put to all sorts of straits and strategies to procure it for his little friends. He hid slices under his jersey from mealtimes, and asked for so much that his mother could not but express her aston-

ishment. Still, for some reason, Toby was afraid to tell her the truth. One morning—it was on a Monday and washing day—Mrs. Kersley called to her little son shortly after breakfast. “ Come here, Toby, for a minute; 1 want you.” Toby went obediently enough. “ Yes, mother; here 1 am.” “ Just take off that dirty old jersey, sonnie, and put on this overall. I want to wash it.” Tobyii face fell, and he flushed all over. “ Well,” said his mother seeing his hesitation. “ What’s the matter? ” Toby looked as if he were going to cry. “ I—l don’t want to,” he stammered, and turning his baek to her he burst into tears. “ Come, now,” said Mrs. Kersley, a little impatiently, for she was busy. “ Don’t be so silly! ” But still Toby cried and refused, until at last his mother took the jersey off herself. Great was her surprise to find three slices of bread tucked comfortably away underneath. “Gracious!” she exclaimed. “What’s this for? ” “My rats,” said Toby. “ Don’t take them away,” he begged, seeing his mother put the bread on a shelf beyond his reach. “Rats!” said Mrs. Kersley. “What do you mean ? ” And little by little she dragged the whole truth from Toby. She was horrified, having a great fear of rats. “ Well, you’ll not go near them again,” she said decidedly, when Toby had told her everything. “Rats, indeed! Why, they might gnaw you up in no time. Rats are very dangerous,” and she told stories of little boys and girls who had been bitten by rats. It was useless for Toby to cry or to beg and implore to be allowed to go and see his rats once more. “ Only once more —they’ll be so hungry,” he urged. His mother turned a deaf ear to all his pleadings, and Toby was kept a prisoner indoors. He cried bitterly as he thought of all the rats both big and little waiting expectantly for the lunch he had been giving them now every morning for so many weeks past. Toby’s eyes were very red and swollen with weeping when this father came in to his mid-day dinner. “Hulloa, what’s up? Been naughty?” he asked, taking the little chap on his knee. Toby and his father were great friends. “Naughty!” said Mrs. Kersley. ”1 should think so indeed.” And she proceeded to give the whole story at some length. “ Well, I never,” said Mr. Kersley, when she had finished. “ You don’t say so, well I never.” “ How many rats did you say ? ” he asked presently. “ Only five big ones and eight little ones,” interposed Toby eagerly, catching a glimmer of hope from his father’s voice. “ Only! ” and Mr. Kersley laughed. I’d like io see them,” he added quite seriously. “ Just come now and let me see you feed them, Toby.” Toby jumped down excitedly from his father’s knee. “ You’re never going to let the child go near those spiteful creatures,” said Mrs. Kersley, taken aback by her husband’s proposal. “ It’s downright dangerous, I call it.” “Nonsense,” he answered. “What harm will they do him so long as they’re fed? It is only hungry rats that ever do any harm.” Provided with plenty of bread, Toby and his father made their way to the old farmyard. Mr. Kersley stayed beyond the gate where he could watch quietly without being noticed by the rats, who all came running eagerly to Toby’s call, so hungry were they after their long wait. They had learnt to feed from his hand, and as they grouped themselves with their bright beady eyes, glossy coats and long tails around the little boy in his old blue overall, Mr. Kersley went and fetched his wife, and told her to look at the curious sight. “ I don’t half like it,” she said. “ The little chap is quite fearless,” he answered, “ and I like to see him so. What’s the good of frightening him without cause.” Just then the baby in Mrs. Kersley’s arms erowed and stretched out its arms delightedly to the rats, which it had caught sight of. In an instant they all scampered away.