Chapter VII: Bo-Peep Finds Out How a Dutch Uncle Talks

Mr. Bo-Peep came home to dinner one hot July day to find his daughter not there.

“Little Bo-Peep has lost her sheep and doesn’t know where to find them,” explained his wife.

“Oh, leave them alone and they’ll come home and bring their tails behind them,” answered Mr. Bo-Peep, sitting down to his dinner.

“That’s what I told her,” said Mrs. Bo-Peep, “but you know how she is.”

“Yes, I know how she is,” sighed Mr. Bo-Peep.

And indeed he did, as did everybody else in Pudding Lane, for hardly a week went by in that village that Little Bo-Peep did not lose her sheep. It was really a wonder that she bothered with sheep at all, for certainly she had more trouble with her flock than any other shepherdess did in the whole world. And to-day they were lost again, and, as usual, Little Bo-Peep was hunting for them.

She walked along Pinafore Pike and passed the Blues’ house, where she saw Little Boy Blue taking his customary nap under the haystack. She came to the pickled pepper field where Peter Piper was industriously picking his peck. She met Old Mother Hubbard’s dog sniffing around a tree trunk.

But although Little Bo-Peep saw these familiar Pudding Lane scenes, not a woolly strand did she see of her sheep until, just as she was about to give up in despair, she turned a corner and plump! she bumped into the whole flock of them running down the road toward Pudding Lane as fast as they could run.

But who was that driving them and scolding them? A strange-looking creature with great billowing trousers and a little blue jacket and the rosiest--though the crossest--face you ever saw.

“Hey!” called Bo-Peep.

The rosy-faced man looked up, scowling.

“Hey!” he replied. “Stop!” he commanded the sheep. “Stop this minute, you abominable wretches, you stupid beasts, you--”

“My goodness!” gasped Bo-Peep. “How dare you talk to my sheep like that? How--”

“Look here,” interrupted the rosy-faced man. “You be still. You don’t know who I am.”

“Well, you’re not very polite, whoever you are,” replied Bo-Peep indignantly. “You’re certainly not a gentleman.”

“I am a gentleman!” shouted the man. “And if you were a lady, you’d know a gentleman when you saw one. Haven’t I got on a gentleman’s clothes? Haven’t I got a gentleman’s haircut?” He bent down his head and swept off his hat to show her. “Well, then, I am a gentleman. But don’t you wish you knew me?”

“I’m afraid I don’t,” replied Little Bo-Peep more softly. For after all, she thought to herself, she need not lose her temper just because he did. “No, sir, I don’t like you very much, really, and I’m going home now with my sheep.” Then she added, “But I do thank you, sir, for bringing my sheep back. How did you do it? They’re usually very disobedient.”

“How did I do it?” repeated the rosy-cheeked man. “Why, just by talking to them like a Dutch Uncle. For that’s who I am, my fine young lady. I am the Dutch Uncle, you know.”

So he was the Dutch Uncle of whom Little Bo-Peep and all the other children of Pudding Lane had heard so much, the cross old fellow who scolded everybody he knew, even those people whom he loved the best. Bo-Peep had never seen him before, for the Dutch Uncle had not been to Pudding Lane since many years ago, before Mr. and Mrs. Bo-Peep had been married, ’way back there when the Queen of Hearts was a bride and Humpty Dumpty was a baby. But the people of Pudding Lane, often, oh, very often, referred to the Dutch Uncle; and now here he was, and it was no wonder Bo-Peep stared.

“Whose uncle are you, sir?” she asked in her gentlest tones.

Questions are supposed to be rude, but if you ask them gently, they somehow don’t sound rude, Bo-Peep had found out.

“Everybody’s, of course!” replied the Dutch Uncle. “My goodness, you are an ignorant girl. Now if your parents would only put you in my charge--”

Oh, dear, he was off again! But he finally stopped, so Bo-Peep tried another question.

“And where is the Dutch Aunt?”

“Dutch Aunt!” exclaimed the Dutch Uncle scornfully. “She asks me where the Dutch Aunt is! There isn’t any Dutch Aunt. Didn’t you know that?”

“No, sir, I didn’t,” replied Little Bo-Peep. “There ought to be one, you know. Uncles always do have aunts.”

She didn’t mean that exactly, but you know and the Dutch Uncle knew what she meant. And now, strangely enough, the Dutch Uncle stopped frowning at her and smiled.

“I do indeed need a Dutch Aunt,” he agreed. “In fact, that’s just what I’ve come to Pudding Lane for, Bo-Peep, to find a Dutch Aunt.”

“To take her away from Pudding Lane and back to Dutchland?” asked Bo-Peep.

“Dutchland!” laughed the Dutch Uncle. “Oh, dear, Bo-Peep, you are an ignoramus.”

“Holland, I mean,” Little Bo-Peep corrected herself.

Only she did think to herself that Dutchland was a better name for it, after all, than Holland. And she was thinking, too, what an exceedingly pleasant fellow the Dutch Uncle was when he forgot to talk like a Dutch Uncle.

Which is exactly what the people of Pudding Lane had always said about him; that if only he hadn’t been such an old busybody, attending to everybody’s affairs, he would have been the nicest uncle in the world.

The Dutch Uncle got a tremendous ovation when he and Bo-Peep got back to Pudding Lane with the sheep a few minutes later. At least “ovation” is what the Town Crier called it. Anyway, they made a big fuss over the Dutch Uncle, for they loved the old fellow, even if they did call him names, and they were glad to see him after all these years.

As for the Dutch Uncle himself, he was overjoyed to see his old favorites, and he greeted and scolded them all in the most affectionate manner possible.

“As I live and breathe, Mrs. Dumpty!” he exclaimed, catching sight of that fat little lady. “How glad I am to see you. But you ought,” here he frowned in the midst of his rosy smile, “you ought to take Humpty to London, you know, to consult the great doctors there.”

“And there’s Mr. Claus! Baker, baker, why will you waste your talents in Pudding Lane when you might easily be Assistant Chief Currant Bun Maker to the Lord Mayor of London himself?”

(You would have thought he was the British Uncle the way he talked about London.)

“Ah, Mrs. Grundy!” He bowed low and kissed that lady’s hand. “How many moons has it been since I have had this privilege? But that long face of yours won’t do, my dear old friend. Really, you ought to cheer up, you know.”

He next spied a young girl.

“Mistress Mary, Quite Contrary!” he cried delightedly. “How does your garden grow? You were just a baby when I saw you last. But you must mend your ways, Mistress Mary. Contrary girls, you know--”

And so he went the rounds. He chided Simple Simon for not trying to improve his wits. He urged Little Miss Muffett to give up her diet and try green vegetables. He insisted that the Old Woman abandon her Shoe and go to live in a house like other respectable folk. And he even rebuked Old King Cole as being far too merry for the dignity of his position.

Yes, he was just the same. Queer, wasn’t it? But then everybody is queer in one way or another, and the Dutch Uncle really did have the softest heart in the world under his little blue jacket, as the people of Pudding Lane had always suspected and now found out that very day.

For suddenly the Dutch Uncle whirled around and demanded:

“And where is pretty Dolly Daffy-Dill?”

“Pretty Dolly Daffy-Dill?” repeated everybody, and then they all looked at each other.

Could it be possible that the Dutch Uncle believed that Dolly Daffy-Dill was still the same girl he had known so many years ago? Did he not know that she had grown older, just as everybody else had? Had he not heard how crabbed she had become, so crabbed, indeed, that she wasn’t even called Dolly any more, but Cross-Patch, which suited her much better?

It seemed impossible that the Dutch Uncle did not know all these things, but he didn’t, apparently, so Mr. Horner, the father of Jack, tried to explain.

“She’s older now, you understand,” he said. “And we call her--Cross-Patch.”

“Cross-Patch, draw the latch,
Sit by the fire and spin,”

quoted Mrs. Grundy.

Oh, dear, it was too bad that the Dutch Uncle had to find out all this about Dolly, and they all felt very sympathetic. But was the Dutch Uncle distressed? No, indeed.

“Of course, she’s older!” he exclaimed. “I had forgotten that, but it’s all the better. And you say she’s cross? Hurray, what a fine Dutch Aunt she’ll make!”

With which, to everybody’s astonishment, the Dutch Uncle hastened to old Cross-Patch’s house, the same little house where he used to call on her when she was a girl and he a dashing young blade.

And so his courtship commenced, the strangest courtship that Pudding Lane had ever seen. Isn’t it queer that a cranky old woman like Cross-Patch should have inspired the tender passion in the hearts of such hosts of men? First there was the candlestick-maker and now here was the Dutch Uncle. Well, that’s love, you know, and there’s no doing anything about it.

But something else happened in Pudding Lane that quickly drove the Dutch Uncle’s love affair out of everybody’s thoughts. It was really something so terrible and so sad that nobody would have ever dreamed it _could_ happen. And this is what it was: Bo-Peep’s sheep came home one day, after a long absence, and they didn’t have their tails behind them!

Oh, so sad! So sad!

And how Bo-Peep cried, how the lambs bleated, how Mr. Bo-Peep hunted for the tails, how doleful Old King Cole looked, how frightened everybody was. But although Little Bo-Peep wept and Mr. Bo-Peep hunted and Old King Cole worried himself sick, the missing tails were not returned to their owners and King Cole finally said that everybody, every single person, would have to go out on a hunt for them. He even made a speech about it.

“What is a sheep without a tail?” he asked the assemblage.

“Nothing!” he answered himself triumphantly, which wasn’t strictly true, although it made a profound impression on his hearers.

“Well, then, what is a whole flock of sheep without a tail?” he finished up in grand climax.

And so, spurred on by Old King Cole’s oratory, all of Pudding Lane started on the hunt. It did seem as if they were always searching for something in that town. Once it was Santa Claus, once it was the Pied Piper, ganders, cats, and now it was tails.

I said all of Pudding Lane went on the hunt, but I forgot the Dutch Uncle, who was sitting with Cross-Patch in her back garden, sipping a cup of tea. And he must have been talking awfully loud and drinking tea awfully hard, for he didn’t seem to hear a bit of the commotion when the whole town departed on its quest.

But Cross-Patch had sharp ears and she knew what was up, and she said to her gallant caller:

“Why don’t you help a body who’s in trouble instead of fiddling with a teacup?”

The Dutch Uncle looked at her amazed, for he had just been telling her what a sweet creature she was and her remark sounded rather abrupt.

“What is it, my love?” he asked.

“I said why don’t you go out and help a body? Why don’t you join in the search for the tails of the sheep?”

The Dutch Uncle jumped up, ashamed.

“Oh, I ought to help, I know. I am very fond of Little Bo-Beep and feel so sorry for her in her trouble.”

“Then go out and show your sympathy,” replied the Dutch Uncle’s lady love grimly. “I’d go myself if I weren’t so old and crippled.”

“Old, love!” repeated the Dutch Uncle playfully. “Crippled!”

“Go on to your tails,” replied Cross-Patch stolidly.

The Dutch Uncle, looking crestfallen, ceased his gestures, picked up his hat and started for the gate. Indeed, he looked so wretched that Cross-Patch relented a bit.

“Look here,” she called after him. “If you find the tails, Dutch Uncle, I might--in fact I will--consider becoming the Dutch Aunt.”

The Dutch Uncle looked at her beaming, yet almost unbelieving.

“Wonderful woman!” he exclaimed rapturously. “Glorious--”

“Will you get on to those tails?” cried Cross-Patch, exasperated.

She hated foolishness, did Cross-Patch, and the Dutch Uncle was so full of it. She often wished that he would scold her as he did everybody else. Being cross herself, she would have enjoyed it.

When the Dutch Uncle got into the street, he found that every single person was gone. All the houses and shops were closed. Even the palace at the top of the hill looked deserted.

But the Dutch Uncle could hear a little noise from somewhere or other, and as he listened intently, he decided that it must be the bleating of those poor little sheep down in Bo-Peep’s meadow. He then went down to the meadow and there they were, bleating pitifully, and there was Bo-Peep too, under a tree and crying as if her heart would break.

She raised herself up when she heard the Dutch Uncle’s step and wiped her eyes.

“Do you hear them bleating?” she asked him.

“Yes,” replied the Dutch Uncle, “I do.”

The Dutch Uncle then made a discovery; the black sheep of the flock was not bleating at all, but was frisking around as merrily as could be, watching the others with wicked glee out of the corner of his eye. The Dutch Uncle watched him a moment and then, without a word to Little Bo-Peep, he marched straight up to that black sheep, took hold of his pink ribbon collar and looked him sternly in the eye. The sheep squirmed a little and tried to brave it out, but the Dutch Uncle was too much for him, so he squirmed a great deal more and dropped his eyes in the most ashamed way.

Whereupon the Dutch Uncle _did_ give him a dose of his best Dutch Uncle talk--such a dose!

“Look here,” he said to the black sheep. “You’re responsible for all this. You know exactly where those tails are, and you’ve known all along, and now right this minute you’re going to take Little Bo-Peep and me and show us where they are. You are a wicked, wicked sheep, you are, but we’ve got you this time, you wretch, you--” Well, he couldn’t think of anything worse than a wretch, so he stopped with that, and waited for the black sheep to do something.

And the black sheep did something, right enough. He turned around and walked off, the Dutch Uncle and Little Bo-Peep behind him, and he kept on walking until at last they came to a wood on the very edge of which stood a tree. And there the black sheep stopped.

“What’s this?” asked the Dutch Uncle.

“I don’t know,” answered Little Bo-Peep.

Then the sheep raised his eyes, the Dutch Uncle and Bo-Peep raised theirs, and there on a branch what should they see but ten little white tails all in a row, hanging like white flowers among the green leaves, with one little black one in the middle!

“Oh!” shrieked Little Bo-Peep joyfully.

“Ah-ha!” exclaimed the Dutch Uncle.

And the next thing the tails knew, they were being carried back to the sheep in the meadow at Pudding Lane.

Everybody was overjoyed when it was known that Little Bo-Peep had found her sheep’s tails, but of course, the next problem was to get them back on the sheep. The carpenter was all for tacking them on, though he quickly took back his suggestion when he remembered that it was sheep they were talking about, not houses or boards. Jack-of-All-Trades offered to glue them neatly back in their places, and the cobbler said that if sewing were necessary, he would gladly render his services.

The cobbler’s idea was considered a good one, for the great London doctors were sewing people now, and if it were good for people, it would certainly do for sheep. So they called Doctor Foster, who had just got back from Gloucester, and asked his advice about the sewing.

“No, no, _no_!” said Doctor Foster. “Doctors don’t sew things on, they just sew things up. But if you just tie these tails to the sheep, they’ll grow back as nicely as you please.”

So that’s what they did, and the tails did grow back, just as he had said, as nicely as you please. Only one looked a little different from its old self, and that was the black sheep’s, which was rather to one side and at a rakish angle. But then the black sheep deserved it, for all the trouble he had caused. Because the Dutch Uncle thought that the black sheep not only knew where the tails were all the time, but that he himself made the sheep lose their tails. I don’t see how he could have, really. I think the tails just dropped off. Still, the Dutch Uncle may be right. We’ll never know, for sheep can’t talk, and the black sheep wouldn’t tell if he could. Anyway, it all came out all right.

All but one thing and that concerns the poor Dutch Uncle, who didn’t get his Cross-Patch, after all. For when he went back to her in high glee, told her about the tails, and began calling her high-sounding names, Cross-Patch suddenly became fifty times crosser than she had ever been before, told him she couldn’t stand his sugarish nonsense and left the room.

And that was the end of the Dutch Uncle’s romance. All might have been different if he had only talked to Cross-Patch like a Dutch Uncle, but that’s so often the way with gentlemen in love; they become such different creatures. However, he did turn on Cross-Patch just as she was leaving the room, and then he certainly did talk to her like a Dutch Uncle, for he was very angry and disappointed.

Too late, though. Cross-Patch drew the latch, sat down to spin and never for a second regretted her action. She was even glad the old bother was gone.

Poor Dutch Uncle, having to go back to Holland without the Dutch Aunt of his dreams. Everybody felt sorry for him, and especially did Little Bo-Peep, who had come to love him so much.

It was Little Bo-Peep who walked with him down the road when he set out that day for Banbury Cross. They said good-by and shook hands. The Dutch Uncle had tears in his eyes and Bo-Peep was sniffling right out.

But the Dutch Uncle soon came to himself.

“Look here, you shouldn’t have come so far with me. The sheep will get lost and your mother will be worried. Go straight home, you naughty child.”

But Bo-Peep only smiled at him.

“You’re an old fraud,” she told the Dutch Uncle.

And then it was that the Dutch Uncle knew that she had found him out, this Little Bo-Peep of Pudding Lane. Yet he wouldn’t give in, even then.

“Go straight home, I tell you!”

But he kissed her, and then was gone.