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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 77065 ***
+
+
+
+
+
+THE BARBAROUS BABES
+
+
+
+
+  THE BARBAROUS BABES
+
+  BEING THE MEMOIRS OF MOLLY
+
+  BY
+  EDITH AYRTON
+  (MRS. ISRAEL ZANGWILL)
+
+  [Illustration]
+
+  LONDON AND EDINBURGH
+  R. BRIMLEY JOHNSON
+  MCMIV
+
+
+
+
+  To
+  THE MEMORY
+  OF
+  MY MOTHER
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+                                   PAGE
+
+    I. THE MARTYRDOM OF HUMPHREY      9
+
+   II. SAMSON AND DELILAH            24
+
+  III. VIOLET’S VISIT                34
+
+   IV. THE WHIPPING OF TEDDY         55
+
+    V. THE RAGE OF THE HEATHEN       76
+
+   VI. A FIRST NIGHT                 96
+
+  VII. MOTHER                       110
+
+
+
+
+I
+
+THE MARTYRDOM OF HUMPHREY
+
+(Reprinted from _Little Folks_ by kind permission)
+
+
+It all started because Humphrey and me generally play together, and we
+generally play at torturing games. Sometimes we let the little ones,
+Violet and Ted, come in too, but they spoil things rather, because
+Teddy is so tiny and Violet doesn’t properly enjoy even the loveliest
+tortures. We have promised Mother, though, that we will try not to be
+selfish, so we pretend we don’t mind their playing with us--much.
+
+I generally make up the tortures because I’m the eldest. My name is
+Molly, and I’m the only one that has to use two figures for their age;
+I’m ten. Even Humphrey is a good lot younger than me; he’s only nine,
+and people don’t think he’s as old as that, because he’s very backward.
+It isn’t so much that he can’t think of clever things, but he had an
+illness when he was a baby and that makes lessons harder for him than
+for other people, ’specially long division. He simply can’t do that; if
+they try and make him, he sits and cries, and he has the most peculiar
+way of crying of any one I ever saw. He doesn’t make any noise nor
+wrinkle up his face, but the tears come dripping down slowly with a
+plop. Sometimes he catches them in his mouth, but if he doesn’t, he
+always licks them up afterwards, because he says they are good for the
+digestion. He is going to be a doctor, so that makes him have ideas
+like that. Once he invented a most beautiful red ink, only it made
+holes right through his copy-book, and you couldn’t use the same pen
+twice, so he had to turn it into a medicine instead.
+
+Though Humphrey can write, he can’t read yet, and that’s another
+peculiar thing, because with most people it’s the other way. That’s
+partly why it’s always me that invents the games. I read a nice tortury
+book, and then tell him about it, and we pretend it through. We did
+enjoy _The Tower of London_, but the _Pirates of Algiers_ was almost
+better.
+
+One day we were having a lovely time over this; Humphrey had worked
+rusty screws into my chest, and had clamped an iron band with spikes
+round my head, and then he was lashing me with a waxed thong, when all
+of a sudden he stopped.
+
+“It isn’t any fun,” he said, “because by now you must be dead.”
+
+I told him I wasn’t, and that in the book they lashed the slaves for
+hours, and he must go on.
+
+He said, “Well, if I’m the torturer, I ought to be allowed to choose
+the tortures, and I’m a very enervating torturer.” I don’t know exactly
+what he meant, because he’s fond of using long words that make grown-up
+people laugh, and then getting sulky. But I _was_ surprised when he
+went on solemnly, “Slave, go and put your head in the meal-barrel.”
+
+Of course he meant that I was really to do it, because if one is able
+to do a thing there’s no use in just pretending it; but a nice rage
+Fräulein would have been in. She’s our governess and I expect she’d
+have given me extra practising for a week. If there’s one thing I
+loathe it’s the piano, especially now that Fräulein comes and sits
+beside me. She used to be in the other room, which is warmer, and just
+shout out every now and then, “Zu schnell, ein, zwei, drei, vier,” so I
+could read the book on my lap quite comfortably. The music sounded just
+the same, and you could shut up your knees quickly if you heard any one
+coming, but somehow Fräulein discovered it. Well, thinking of the extra
+practising I should have to do, I said to Humphrey rather crossly,
+“You’re really too stupid to play with.” Then I walked to the other end
+of the room.
+
+I forget if I said that all this happened one Sunday when Mother and
+Father had gone up to town for a lunch party. (Mother hates being
+away from us like that, especially on a Sunday, but they had to go.)
+Fräulein had been getting the little ones ready for church, but now
+they came down and we started almost directly. It was such a lovely day
+that we took the short cut through the woods; I found some wild roses,
+quite pink ones, and the paths were all mossy and quiet. I stopped
+wanting to be cross; woods always do make one feel gooder somehow. It
+is all so silent and lovely.
+
+In church it was very nice too. We had a most splendid sounding psalm,
+and “Onward Christian Soldiers,” which is my favourite hymn, and we
+didn’t stay for the sermon. By the time we got out I was perfectly
+aching with goodness; I wanted to go away at once and bind up wounded
+soldiers and things like that.
+
+I was going along planning it all, and how nobly I’d catch fever from
+a poor drummer-boy and lie beautiful in death with wreaths all around
+me, when suddenly I remembered what Mother once said about people
+thinking they’d do great deeds and passing by the duties that are on
+their path. So, as Humphrey was dawdling behind, because he was cross,
+I waited for him and asked him if I should tell him some story. This
+doesn’t sound much but really it was awfully hard, because you don’t
+know how horrid Humphrey looks when he is sulky. Besides, the little
+ones are always bothering me to tell them stories, so I get rather sick
+of it, and Mother said that they must give me a holiday and not even
+ask me to on Sundays.
+
+Well, Humphrey was certainly very nice; he caught hold of my hand.
+“Molly,” he said very slowly, and wagging his head like he always
+does; “Molly, it would be a gweat welief onto my mind to know if Lady
+Flowence Gwendoline escaped fwom the wobber’s cave, but I’m going to
+wait till to-mowow.” It’s horrid for him not being able to say his
+“r’s” properly, when he’s nearly nine and a quarter, and Ted who is
+only five can talk as if he were grown up. Humph minds so much though,
+that we pretend not to notice it. Any way I don’t believe it’s a bit of
+good his putting rubber bands round his tongue, to curl it to the right
+shape, like we found him in bed one night. He’s been happier, though,
+since Mother told him we all had our bundles of affliction to carry,
+and that not being able to say his “r’s” was in his bundle. And if it
+were heavy, Mother said, he mustn’t grumble, but just step out more
+bravely. I’m sure, though, it isn’t a bit heavier than having hair that
+will get untidy, and to stand still and not get impatient while it’s
+being brushed, is a very difficult sort of stepping out.
+
+All this time Humphrey had been squeezing my hand harder and harder,
+and now he said, “I’ve thought of a lovely new torture that I know
+you’ll like. I thought of it all myself in church. It’s cutting off
+your head and tying it onto a wampant horse and then dancing.”
+
+I didn’t know what to say, because of course he was thinking of Salome,
+whom we’d had the second lesson about, and Mother doesn’t like us
+acting things out of the Bible, but just then we saw a bush of burs.
+We always like to have burs, because they’re so convenient to put in
+one another’s hair and down people’s backs and nice tortury things of
+that sort; these, though, grew right in the middle of a bed of nettles.
+“Disagweable things,” said Humphrey.
+
+But when I saw the nettles I remembered more than ever about the duties
+on one’s path, and how I’d promised Mother to try and be unselfish,
+and I thought perhaps this would make up for some of the times I
+hadn’t been. Besides, I thought how astonished Humphrey would be at
+my bravery. So I just pretended that I was the Black Prince scaling
+the walls of Calais, and I dashed into the stinging-nettles. I forgot,
+though, that the Prince had got his armour on, and we’d gone into
+summer stockings that day, at least the other three wear socks, but,
+of course, I’m too old. But by thinking I was Joan of Arc as well,
+I got the burs, and when I came out Humphrey was so astonished, he
+couldn’t say anything at all, particularly when I gave them all to him.
+I didn’t keep a single one.
+
+My legs were hurting dreadfully, so I pulled down my stockings to
+look, and there were a lot of great white lumps; that was rather nice,
+because sometimes things are horrid, like earache, with nothing to show
+for it and all waste. So I sent Humphrey for some dock leaves, but he
+couldn’t find any, though when you aren’t wanting them, you are always
+seeing them. He said that if you rubbed on the milk of dandelions with
+a dead mole’s paw, it would do just as well, but then we hadn’t got a
+mole, except the one we are trying to tame on the tennis lawn, and he
+isn’t dead.
+
+Poor Humphrey looked quite unhappy when I told him this. He was quiet
+for a long time, and then he said, “I’ll go on lashing you with waxed
+thongs if you like.” I did think that nice of him. Generally if we
+quarrel, you might cut him up into little bits before he’d say he was
+wrong.
+
+So I thanked him but I said it didn’t matter, because we must hurry
+home. On Sundays we have tart for dinner, and if Mother’s at home there
+is generally cream, and even if Fräulein is stingy about that, I didn’t
+want to miss the tart, particularly as I knew that it was raspberry.
+I forgot to explain that if we are late for meals, we don’t have any
+pudding, at least at breakfast or tea it’s jam, unless there is a very
+good reason why we couldn’t help it. I dare say if I’d shown Fräulein
+my lumps on my legs she’d have excused me, but, of course, I wasn’t
+going to do that; I should have liked the little ones to have seen them
+though before they went down. They were very large lumps.
+
+It was when we were going along that I had the Great Idea. I was
+thinking about the tortures, because I knew Humphrey would want to do
+Salome, unless I could tell him of something else. “We’ll be Christian
+martyrs,” I said suddenly. “You shall be burnt.”
+
+Humphrey stood still in the middle of the road with his mouth open,
+like he does when he’s pleased. “When?” he asked at last.
+
+“After dinner,” I said. “Being Sunday makes it all the better. You
+shall be Latimer-Ridley-and-Hooper and tied to a stake and burnt.”
+
+It really is a convenient thing that Fräulein likes a nap on Sunday;
+we got rid of the little ones too because it was such a very great
+secret that we thought Mother wouldn’t mind. Then Humphrey and I
+crept silently up to the orchard; we are allowed there always, but it
+seemed to make it nicer to creep. Humphrey brought his dark lantern,
+but you can’t light it because it drops to pieces, and I believe
+he was thinking of Guy Fawkes, but he said I couldn’t be sure that
+Latimer-Ridley-and-Hooper didn’t have a lantern too.
+
+Our orchard is a very nice place; generally the washing is hung there,
+but, of course, there isn’t any out on Sundays. So we collected a lot
+of twigs and things and piled them round a clothes-prop, and I stuck in
+all the burs to prick the martyr’s feet. Then I poured paraffin over it
+all. I forgot to say that I had brought the can up out of the scullery.
+When it was all ready I tied Humphrey to the post with some of the
+clothes-line.
+
+He looked lovely, he really did, just like Latimer-Ridley-and-Hooper.
+I took off the sailor hat and told him to shut his eyes and say his
+prayers, while I hit him with things--not hard, of course, that would
+be horribly mean when he was all tied up, but just pretence. And I kept
+asking him if he would abjure his faith, because I was Bloody Mary, but
+he wouldn’t, and then I hit him again. Only in the middle he sneezed
+and I had to get out his pocket-handkerchief, which spoilt it rather. I
+don’t know what Latimer-Ridley-and-Hooper did if he wanted to blow his
+nose.
+
+Well, after some time Humphrey said that he was uncomfortable and must
+be burnt quick. So I asked him once more if he’d abjure, and then I
+said in awful tones, “Minion, fire the faggots.”
+
+Of course, I had to be the minion myself, because Humphrey’s hands were
+tied. We’d brought up a box of matches and I struck one; and now comes
+the dreadful part. I don’t know how it happened, for I threw the match
+down quite a long way off; it must have been the paraffin or something,
+for suddenly the flame ran along the grass and it all began really to
+blaze.
+
+For the first second we were both so frightened, we didn’t do anything;
+then Humphrey screamed. I rushed forward and tried to pull him out, but
+I couldn’t, and I tried to push away the twigs and things, but they
+only seemed to burn more than ever. All this time I was screaming too
+in the most curious way and shaking all over though it was so hot. I
+was just going to run and fetch Mother, because I’d forgotten she was
+out to lunch, when suddenly the clothes-prop came out of the ground,
+and Humphrey stumbled forward. When he’d got out of the fire he fell
+down on his face and wouldn’t speak, so I was more frightened than ever.
+
+They carried Humphrey down to the house, for, of course, I went and
+fetched Fräulein. He wasn’t crying, he was quite still, which seemed
+worse. I wanted to go for the doctor, but Fräulein told me I’d done
+quite enough harm and I’d better keep out of the way. So I went up to
+the box-room and cried. My only comfort was that my hands were hurting
+a lot, because they were burnt too, though I hadn’t felt it before.
+Still I couldn’t pretend to be Casabianca like Humphrey might have, I
+could only think I was a murderer and going to be hanged, and there
+wasn’t much comfort even in that.
+
+I don’t know how long I stopped there, but I didn’t have any tea nor
+supper either, and I cried so that my face felt quite stiff. At last,
+as it was getting dark, Mother came in. She didn’t see me, but she said
+my name softly; that made me feel dreadful. So I just sobbed out, “Is
+he dead like Latimer-Ridley-and-Hooper?”
+
+But suddenly Mother took me up in her arms. “Oh, no, no, my poor little
+girl,” she said. “He isn’t very badly burnt, he only fainted.” Then she
+carried me downstairs, just as if I were one of the little ones, and
+when she saw my hands she quite cried out. She put oil and cotton-wool
+on to them, and it was lovely, and she brought me some soup and helped
+me to undress. I felt much happier.
+
+First of all, though, I went in to see Humphrey. He was in bed, and
+he didn’t look very different. Directly he saw me, he called out, “Do
+you know that you’ve got seven skins? The doctor told me so; and I’m
+playing that I’m a wounded fireman in the hospital, but it’s no fun
+without you.”
+
+I don’t think Latimer-Ridley-and-Hooper could have said anything nicer.
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+SAMSON AND DELILAH
+
+(Reprinted from _Little Folks_ by kind permission)
+
+
+Boys with long hair are always silly, and Lionel was one of the
+silliest. I don’t know whether it was having the curls that had done
+it, or if he had been born stupid, but any way he used to make a most
+awful fuss if he knocked himself or cut his finger, and he liked to
+have his hands clean, and cried if you didn’t always play just what he
+wanted. Another peculiar thing about him was that he seemed to enjoy
+it, if visitors noticed him or admired his hair, instead of escaping as
+any of us would have done. Fortunately they don’t pay much attention to
+us, because our hair is short. At least mine and Humphrey’s is, and
+though Violet’s has been allowed to grow, it is quite straight, and an
+ugly sort of lighty brown in colour. As for Teddy, he is only four, so
+his hair doesn’t count.
+
+Though I’ve spoken of Lionel here by his proper name, we didn’t call
+him that. It was much too long, and so we christened him “Macassar
+Oil,” because I discovered that the first part of Lionel written
+backwards spells oil, and Cousin Florence does put stuff on his hair.
+She didn’t seem a bit pleased though, when I explained it to her,
+though I don’t believe she’d have ever thought of it for herself.
+Cousin Florence is Lionel’s mother, and they’ve always lived in India,
+so we children had never seen them until they came to stay with us.
+
+It was funny, but though we’d never wanted people to do anything before
+but leave us alone, we found that we didn’t a bit like it always being
+Lionel and his curls that every one made such a fuss over. I don’t
+mean, of course, that Mother was any different, but she was so busy
+that she couldn’t attend to us much, for there was a dinner party
+and lots of other things to amuse Cousin Florence, and cook’s temper
+is always awful. Why, some evenings she couldn’t even come to say
+good-night to us and tuck us up, (I mean Mother, not cook), and that
+makes everything seem horrid.
+
+It wasn’t only Lionel that was such a trial, but Cousin Florence was
+always there too. She said she liked to watch us play, as if we could
+do anything with a grown-up person looking on, and just at that time
+we were in the middle of a most exciting game, where Humphrey was my
+grandfather and very strict and nearly starved and beat me to death.
+One day we couldn’t stand it any longer, so Humph and I ran off and
+left Cousin Florence and Lionel. We hid all the afternoon in the cave
+we’ve discovered, where you have to sit quite doubled up because it’s
+so small and secret, and it was lovely. But Mother made us promise
+not to do it again. She said Bayard wouldn’t have done it nor any
+one like that, because they considered the laws of hospitality to be
+most sacred, and that they showed politeness to a visitor even if
+he’d insulted them. So after that we always played with Lionel, but
+underneath Humph and I had another game all the time, and that helped
+us. We pretended that we were Knights of the Round Table, and that
+Lionel was the Unwelcome Guest, who had to be courteously entreated; we
+said “please” and “thank you” to him in almost every sentence. Really
+that was the only game at which Lionel was much good, for he didn’t
+seem to understand pretending at all, so he always had to act a passing
+gentleman or some silly thing of that sort. He couldn’t even be a
+regiment of soldiers properly.
+
+Any one would think that things were bad enough like this, but it was
+much worse when Macassar Oil’s grandmother came to stay too. She wasn’t
+any relation of ours really, but she told us to call her Aunt Arabella,
+and so we did, although we didn’t want to. I didn’t like her from the
+first, though I never guessed that she’d take to watching us as well
+as Cousin Florence. But the most insulting part was that we found out
+they did it because they didn’t like to leave Lionel alone with us.
+They said that we were so rough and would hurt him or something, just
+because Humphrey once knocked him down, and as Lionel is eleven months
+older, I’m sure he ought to have been ashamed not to be able to take
+care of himself. Besides that was before Mother told us about Bayard.
+Another horrid thing that Cousin Florence and Aunt Arabella did, was
+always to make out that Lionel had won in races, and if Fräulein, our
+governess, was there, she was just as bad, and they didn’t seem to
+think it dreadful when Lionel cheated or anything, but only said to one
+another, in French, how sweet he looked with his golden hair and things
+like that.
+
+Well, we tried to bear it and be good--we really did. It was most
+unlucky that just the day when I was feeling particularly cross with
+Lionel, because he’d gone in to lunch with the grown-ups, and Humph
+and I were too untidy, that I happened to see the picture of Samson in
+the old scrap-book. I won’t tell you more about it now, because you’ll
+understand better further on, but it was that picture that put the
+whole thing into my head.
+
+I’d better say at once that of course we knew that what we meant to
+do was naughty, though we pretended to ourselves that it wasn’t;
+but we really didn’t know _how_ naughty it was until Mother told us
+afterwards. Besides, we didn’t wait to let ourselves think, which
+Mother says is always a mistake, for it was directly after lunch that
+it all happened.
+
+I don’t think I’ve said that in the afternoon Lionel always went to
+sleep; he really does just as if he were a baby, only on hot days
+Cousin Florence sometimes puts a rug and cushions and things for him in
+the garden. Then every one used to leave him, for we children were only
+too glad to get away, and so they didn’t think they need watch over him
+any more.
+
+That afternoon it was very warm, and it all went most conveniently.
+Instead of going up to the orchard though, as we generally did when
+Lionel rested, we hid in the laurel bushes. Then as soon as Cousin
+Florence had gone into the house I crept out. Lionel was still awake,
+and I made him put his head on my knees. I felt rather mean at that
+part, but it couldn’t be helped, for that’s what Delilah really did,
+and Lionel didn’t mind, because he likes any one to cuddle him, instead
+of only his mother like most people. Then I sat quite still though I
+got the most awful pins and needles in my left foot.
+
+At last he went to sleep and I called “Man, Man,” softly, and Humphrey
+came wriggling along the grass, like we’d planned.
+
+“Shave off the seven locks of Samson’s head,” I whispered, but then I
+saw that Humph had brought father’s razor because it said “shave,” so I
+told him not to be so silly, but to run and fetch a pair of scissors.
+
+Humphrey was very quick, I will say that, and Lionel didn’t stir, so
+the exciting part could begin. Humph was the lords of the Philistines
+now, of course, and I took the scissors. And then--it was dreadful I
+know--I really cut off Lionel’s curls!
+
+Lionel never woke, and the scissors went snip, snip, most beautifully.
+I did enjoy it, because I thought so hard about its being Samson and
+Delilah that I couldn’t remember it was naughty. At last the curls were
+all off, and though the hair wasn’t very even, not like the barber does
+it, because it was most difficult, still it was beautifully short in
+places. Humph had been looking on almost too astonished to speak, but
+when I jumped up and cried, “The Philistines be upon thee, Samson,” he
+rushed at Lionel like I’d told him to.
+
+Lionel, though, spoilt it all. He always does. He wouldn’t do anything
+that was proper, nor have his eyes put out, but just began to howl.
+He howled and howled, and Cousin Florence and Mother and Father and
+everybody came tearing out of the house. They all spoke at once, and
+cried out that Lionel’s appearance was spoilt, and all sorts of things,
+and certainly, now that I saw him properly, he did look rather bad, and
+quite ugly. The astonishing part was that they seemed almost as cross
+with Lionel as with us, though I kept explaining that he’d been asleep
+all the time, for that was only fair. Finally Father sent Humph and me
+to our rooms very angrily.
+
+But I didn’t mind that, like I did Mother’s coming up that evening and
+talking to me. It was dreadful. She said that she was disappointed in
+me and not only had I been rude to guests myself, but I’d made her
+and Father seem rude; and she told me that Cousin Florence and Lionel
+were going away early in the morning, so what I’d done had practically
+driven them out of the house. But the worst was when she said that she
+had trusted me to look after the others, because I was the eldest, and
+to be a help to her, but now she found that she couldn’t, and that she
+must ask Fräulein to always stop with us. I began to wish that I could
+be dead.
+
+At last, though, Mother forgave me. And she said that if I was very
+good for a long time, then her confidence in me would come back again,
+and so I’m going to be. And I’m never going to be Delilah again, never,
+because I see now how wicked she was to cut off any one’s hair without
+first asking her mother.
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+VIOLET’S VISIT
+
+
+The most astonishing part was its being Violet who was naughty and not
+me. I forget if I’ve said anything about Violet, but the little ones
+don’t count very much, for Ted is almost a baby, and Violet sits all
+day making doll’s clothes. Violet is seven, her birthday was in July,
+and she has straight, lighty-brown hair; I think her eyes are brown
+too, but she isn’t particularly dark like me, nor fair like Ted. She
+isn’t particularly anything, except good-tempered, and that she is
+tremendously. I expect it’s because she’s rather fat, because all the
+rest of us are “lean kine,” and we certainly aren’t very good-tempered,
+although we don’t all have it in the same way. Humphrey gets sulky and
+doesn’t speak at all, and Ted runs round and round the room slapping
+the chairs and saying, “Beast, beast, beast, beast,” as quickly as ever
+he can. As for me, when I get cross, I want to go away alone, and if I
+can’t, I’d like to slap the others, which is worse than chairs, only
+I don’t do it because it makes Mother unhappy; I believe it hurts her
+more than them.
+
+The curiousest part of Violet is that the things she is told to do
+are always the things she likes, so she must be an “_Engel Kind_,” as
+Fräulein says. And when once she is told a thing, she remembers it for
+ever; she’d make a simply splendid Casabianca. Humphrey and I always
+think that, however much we’d been told to sit still and not wriggle,
+when we saw the fire coming, we’d have forgotten all about it, and we’d
+have jumped up and tried to put it out. It doesn’t seem as if it ought
+to have been very difficult with all that water around, and I dare say
+the Father would have been just as pleased really as if we’d all been
+burnt.
+
+So you can understand now how astonished we were at Violet’s being
+naughty, though perhaps what she did wasn’t naughtiness exactly, but
+too much goodness, which seems to be nearly as bad. I’ve been wondering
+since if goodness isn’t Violet’s besetting sin, but I suppose it can’t
+be really. It’s something like being too punctual, I think. Father
+used to tell us that the Duke of Wellington owed his success in life
+to always being half an hour too early, but all I can say is, it’s
+lucky he didn’t have our Fräulein. One day we tried it, because there’d
+been such a lot of fuss about my being late for breakfast, so I got up
+exactly half an hour before we were called, and of course I made the
+others get up too. Well, when Fräulein came in, she simply stormed and
+said I was a “_Dummkopf_,” and did I want to give Teddy croup playing
+in a room without a fire? She set me half an hour’s extra practising
+too; so that just shows.
+
+This all hasn’t anything to do with Violet’s scrape; that wasn’t my
+fault in the least, no one said it was, not even Fräulein. If it was
+anybody’s fault, it was Mother’s, because she hates paying calls.
+I should feel just the same if I were her, because it’s perfectly
+horrid having on your best clothes; you can’t climb trees, nor hang by
+your legs nor do anything interesting, but Humphrey says he shall go
+calling all day when he’s grown up, so as to get scones and things for
+tea. Humphrey has got an awfully sweet tooth, and he is rather greedy
+besides. Another thing he says is that he doesn’t mind whom he marries,
+but he has settled to have a most enormous wedding-cake, and to cut it
+himself. I like wedding-cake too, but I don’t care about it as much as
+all that, and I’d sooner be a widow, of course.
+
+Well, to go on about Violet. How it all started was that one evening
+Father said to Mother, “You’ve never called on those Crespignys who’ve
+come to live at Boscombe Park. You really must, you know, dear.”
+
+“I don’t feel very attracted by them,” Mother said, and she laughed.
+
+But Father said it was no good being rude to people, and that the
+Crespignys were new comers, so Mother ought to leave cards this week.
+
+“Very well,” Mother said, “only I shall be glad when Molly and Violet
+are able to pay my calls for me.”
+
+“Well, it’s to be hoped Molly will discontinue her practice of smashing
+people’s best crockery and spilling tea over their plush sofas,” but,
+of course, I rushed at Father for saying that. It is a shame. I only
+once dropped a plate when I was out calling, and once I upset my cup,
+but the people happened to be awfully fussy, and Mother said I mustn’t
+pay visits any more. I’m sure it wasn’t my fault that they had velvet
+chairs, and no one seems to remember that it isn’t pleasant sitting
+there with scalding tea trickling down your legs, and never say a word,
+like the Spartan boy.
+
+In the middle of the commotion, because Father started tickling me
+when I punched him, Violet said suddenly, “Can’t I go and call on the
+Crespignys now?” We were most astonished because Violet is so shy she
+generally cries if she has to see strangers, so I thought it was just
+to show she’d be allowed to, because she doesn’t upset things like me,
+and I said very crossly--
+
+“Oh, we all know you are a saint without your telling us.”
+
+I felt sorry directly afterwards, because Violet got quite red and I
+ought to have remembered that she’s very little and doesn’t understand
+much besides dolls, so I got out Aytoun’s Lays and stuffed my fingers
+into my ears to show I didn’t care at all. All the same I could hear
+them talking, and Mother said to Violet--
+
+“Never mind, dear, I know it wasn’t that. You shall go to call on the
+Crespignys if your new dress comes home this week, my good little girl.”
+
+Mother was pleased, because she is always telling Violet she must
+conquer her shyness, and she thought she was trying to. As for me, I
+felt horrid.
+
+It was the very next day that Mother got ill, and that made us forget
+about the Crespignys and everything. Mother isn’t very strong, and
+she often has to stay in bed, but this was much worse than usual and
+we weren’t allowed to see her for days. The one nice thing was that
+Fräulein was in with Mother nearly all the time, so there was nobody to
+bother us and we could do lots of nice things. We children used even to
+have tea alone; we did like it. I used to pour out, and there were no
+fines or anything if we spilt things on the cloth. Certainly it did get
+into rather a mess, but that was mostly because Humphrey would drink
+his milk up a bit of macaroni like the gentlemen do at Father’s club,
+only they use a straw. Cook was so nice too, she used to send us up hot
+buttered toast, and it was all most lovely, except, of course, Mother’s
+being ill, which spoilt everything. That was almost too horrid to bear,
+especially when one went to bed.
+
+It was the night that cook was kindest of all and gave us real tea,
+that Violet wasn’t there. I remember it quite well, because we were
+so astonished to see cook bringing up the teapot instead of our just
+having a jug of milk, but she said a drop would liven us up in a house
+of trouble. It is a pity cook can’t always live in houses of trouble,
+it makes her so much nicer. Humphrey was particularly pleased, because
+he said he’d always been wanting to try an experiment of putting the
+milk and sugar into the pot and drinking out of the spout in turns. I
+couldn’t let him do it though until after we’d had first cups, else
+there wouldn’t have been any honour in my being Pourer Out at all.
+
+We’d been wondering where Violet was ever since tea came, for generally
+she’s the only one of us who is punctual except Teddy, and Fräulein
+washes his hands so he can’t help it. I thought she couldn’t know, so
+at last I sent Humph to tell her, though he was rather cross and would
+only go after we’d said three times “Certain true, black and blue,
+lay me down and cut me in two,” that we wouldn’t touch his toast. We
+didn’t like to shout for Violet, you see, because of Mother.
+
+Well, Humph was gone a long time, because he always takes longer over
+everything than you’d think a person possibly could, and when he came
+back he said he couldn’t find Violet. I wasn’t surprised at that and I
+went myself expecting that I’d see her directly, but I didn’t. I hunted
+everywhere, but I couldn’t find any sign of her, until at last when I
+went into our bedroom again, I noticed that the string had been taken
+off the box in which her new dress had come from the dressmaker’s. I
+opened it, and her new dress had gone, so had her best hat and coat! We
+remembered then that we hadn’t seen her all the afternoon. It was most
+astonishing.
+
+I didn’t know what to do; I really didn’t. It was quite dark outside by
+now so I thought Violet must have gone out and got lost, and I began
+to plan about their bringing her home dead, but I didn’t want to tell
+people and get her into a scrape, besides, Fräulein was in Mother’s
+room. It didn’t seem either as if Violet could have done anything so
+dreadfully naughty as to go out alone and get killed, besides wearing
+her best clothes on a week-day.
+
+We’d finished tea by now, and we put crumbs and things in Violet’s
+place to pretend she’d been there, but I wouldn’t let Humph upset her
+cup, because Violet is so tidy it wouldn’t have looked more real at
+all, and he only wanted to because he thought it would be so lovely to
+spill things on purpose. About six o’clock Father came in and I was
+just going to tell him, but the first thing he said was, “Why, where’s
+little Mrs. Roundabout?” He calls Violet that because she is so fat.
+
+Father was as surprised as any of us when he heard she was lost, but
+he didn’t think she could have gone out. “Nonsense,” he said, “she
+must have gone to sleep in some corner,” as if anybody except babies
+and grown-ups would go to sleep in the daytime. However, we searched
+the house all over again. It was rather nice at first, only then I
+thought of the Princes in the Tower and I was afraid I’d find her
+body mouldering in the boot cupboard or somewhere, but we didn’t see
+anything at all. Then Father and Stubbins (he is the gardener) searched
+all over the garden with lanterns like in a book, but they didn’t find
+anything there either. After that, they came in again and Father told
+Stubbins to go to the village and make inquiries at every cottage, and
+he was just getting ready himself to bicycle round to all the people we
+know, when suddenly the front door opened--and there was Violet.
+
+She didn’t look a bit naughty, that was what surprised me most. She was
+just smiling to herself like she does sometimes in church, and she’d
+got on her best things, like I thought, and Mother’s black _moiré_
+parasol in one hand and her ivory card case in the other and the plush
+case with the opera glasses over her arm. I think Father was all the
+crosser because she looked so pleased. Anyway he almost shouted out,
+“Where on earth have you been, turning the whole house upside down?
+Upon my word it’s perfectly intolerable!”
+
+Well, after that it wasn’t any good talking any more, for Violet began
+to cry, and when she once starts she goes on and on for hours and can’t
+understand anything. Father asked her where she’d been about a hundred
+times but she wouldn’t answer, so at last he marched off, telling her
+to go upstairs and that she wasn’t to come down until she’d apologised.
+
+I did wish Mother was there; she’d have made it all nice at once. I
+remembered though about being the eldest, and I tried to think of the
+kind of things Mother would have done, so I took Violet’s hand and we
+went upstairs together. When we got to the schoolroom I sat down in
+the big armchair and I managed to drag Violet on to my lap, and I took
+off her boots and hugged her and told Humph to try and get some bread
+and jam out of cook because that makes you feel a lot less miserable.
+Violet was still crying, but I sat there, though my arms began to
+feel as if they’d drop off, when at last she sobbed out, “I thought
+everybody would be so pleased, and Mother said I was to.” She wouldn’t
+say anything else but just that over and over again, crying all the
+time, so, of course, I couldn’t understand, but I just went on kissing
+her and didn’t talk, like Mother does. It had never been so easy to be
+nice to Violet before.
+
+It seemed a long time before Humph brought the bread and jam, but when
+he did it was strawberry jam, which was particularly lucky because it’s
+Violet’s favourite. I told Humph he’d better go away again, and then
+at last Violet stopped crying, and so I said to her, “But what was it
+Mother said you were to do?”
+
+Violet looked quite surprised, “Why go and call on the Crespignys, of
+course. She partic’ly said I was to, if my new dress came home.”
+
+I nearly let her roll off my lap. She’d almost been doing it the whole
+time because she’s so fat, but now she nearly went quite because I was
+so astonished. I’d have thought she was making it up, if it had been
+one of the others, but Violet never pretends. “How ever did you get
+there?” I said.
+
+I could hardly believe it when she said she’d walked; it’s more than
+three miles each way, and I don’t think even I have ever walked as far
+as that. “Weren’t you very frightened?” I asked.
+
+I don’t know if I ought to put the next bit, but it truthfully isn’t
+bragging because it is what Violet answered: “I thought I’d try and be
+brave like you,” she said.
+
+Of course, after that I hugged her again and she went on telling me
+more.
+
+“I _was_ dreadfully frightened when I got to the house and went up the
+big steps. So I shut my eyes and said, ‘Gentle Jesus, meek and mild,’
+and at the Amen I jumped and pulled the bell. It made a dreadfully loud
+ring and almost at once the door opened and there were two gentlemen
+with white hair but quite young-looking faces and such pretty clothes.
+Oh Molly, I shall dress Rhoderigo William Wallace like that with
+beautiful red plush knickerbockers and----”
+
+“Go on,” I said, because I was most interested; it seemed just like in
+a story.
+
+“Well, I said to one of the gentlemen, ‘Please is Mrs. Crespigny
+indoors because I’ve come to pay a call on her?’ So he said, ‘Yes, her
+ladyship is at home, but who might you be, Miss?’ I told him my name
+was Violet, and that my Mother didn’t want to come, besides being ill,
+and then I handed him Mother’s card case that I’d filled with visiting
+cards of my own, like those you wrote for the guinea-pig. He took one
+out and gave it to the other gentleman, saying, ‘John, go and ask her
+ladyship.’ That is what they called Mrs. Crespigny, so I knew she must
+be really a princess and that that was why she had such beautiful
+servants.
+
+“There was a lot of laughing somewhere, but presently Mr. John came
+back and said, ‘Walk this way, Miss,’ so I followed him into a big
+room, where there were lots of people, but, oh Molly, they didn’t
+have crowns on or satin dresses, or anything, they had partic’ly ugly
+clothes, and all the ladies wore things just like gentlemen, only not
+trousers; Mr. John was the only beautiful one there.
+
+“I was just looking round because there seemed to be such lots and lots
+of people, when a lady came up, I think it was Mrs. Crespigny, and she
+said in rather a cross way, ‘So you’ve come to call on me because your
+Mother doesn’t care to,’ and so I said ‘Yes,’ and every one laughed,
+I don’t know why. I stood there and I didn’t know what to do until I
+remembered Mother telling some one that at calls the ladies talked
+about the weather and babies from the time she went into the room to
+the time she came out, so I said ‘Good morning, your ladyship. It is a
+lovely day. Have you got any babies?’
+
+“Well, I don’t see how I could help it, because I couldn’t talk about
+her babies without knowing if she’d got any, but everybody looked as
+if I’d said something naughty, and Mrs. Crespigny went right away very
+angrily, and just at that minute Mother’s parasol dropped with a great
+clatter, so I thought Mrs. Crespigny would be really cross, and when
+I picked it up, the opera glasses dropped too. It was dreadful. One
+gentleman said, ‘Allow me,’ and he put them over my arm again just as
+if I’d been grown up, and I began to feel a little better, only then he
+said, ‘Won’t you give me a kiss?’ I said, ‘No, thank you,’ and they all
+laughed again.
+
+“There’d been a lady standing near, a very funny lady with a whip in
+her hand, and quite a short skirt, and short hair too, and gaiters like
+Father’s; and she said all at once, ‘Dash it all! leave the kid alone
+and give it some grub.’ She truthfully did, and she was quite grown up;
+but perhaps her mother had never told her she oughtn’t to use bad words
+like that.
+
+“This lady was kind, though she was so funny. She got me some milk,
+because Mother never said I might have tea when I went calling, though
+I did want it, ’specially as lots of people were having it so funnily
+in teeny-weeny little glasses without any milk or sugar; and the lady
+got me a nice little pink cake too. Then she sat down beside me and
+asked me why I’d come, and she hardly seemed to believe it when I told
+her Mother had said I could go and pay calls instead of her now. She
+asked me about the opera glasses too, so I said I knew people took them
+when they went out, but I hadn’t been sure about calls, only I thought
+it was a good thing always to be on the safe side, like Jane says. The
+funny lady asked me who Jane was, and I said, ‘Our housemaid,’ and the
+funny lady said it was a wise rule, although perhaps opera glasses were
+not very customary when calling.
+
+“Just at this minute I looked up, and I saw a most ’stonishing thing.
+A lady was holding a cigarette, and a gentleman was striking a match
+to light it. The gentleman saw me looking and he began to laugh, and
+he called out, ‘Take care, or that little girl’s eyes will drop out of
+her head with fright.’ Then he said, ‘Haven’t you ever seen a lady
+smoke before?’ and I said, ‘No ladies ever do smoke,’ and they all
+laughed again, I don’t know why. They seemed to be always laughing.
+
+“The clock struck then, and that made me think of the time, so I asked
+them if I’d been there twenty minutes yet, because I’d forgotten to
+look when I came in. I’d asked Father yesterday how long people ought
+to stay at calls, and he told me he believed twenty minutes was the
+correct time. One gentleman said I’d been in the room twenty-one
+minutes, fifteen seconds and three-quarters, so I went out quickly.
+I didn’t know if I ought to shake hands with Mr. John and the other
+beautiful one at the door, but I had such a lot of things to carry I
+thought they’d excuse me, so I just said goodbye. That’s all. It was
+such a long way home I thought it would never come. It was such a very
+long way.”
+
+Wasn’t that astonishing? I hadn’t interrupted Violet, because I wanted
+to hear it all, though of course I knew that she’d made a mistake,
+and that Mother had never meant that she should go and call on the
+Crespignys alone. It was no good saying anything when she’d finished
+because she was nearly asleep, so I just went and helped her to go to
+bed.
+
+Then I went down and told Father. I tried to tell him exactly what
+Violet had said, and he simply roared with laughter. I didn’t think it
+was funny myself, but just like a story; and I do think Violet was very
+brave. Father went up at once to forgive her and say good-night, but
+she was too sleepy to understand anything except that it was all right.
+
+Violet didn’t go calling any more, but the very next Christmas a most
+lovely mother-of-pearl card case came for her, with her initials on,
+which just shows that if you really try to be good it is nice in the
+end. When Mother saw it, she said she thought the funny lady must have
+sent it, the one who talked bad words, but Violet always believes it
+was a present from Mr. John. She has made Rhoderigo William Wallace
+a pair of red velvet knickerbockers out of a bit from Fräulein’s old
+bonnet, and they are most beautiful, except that he can’t sit down.
+Perhaps that is why Mr. John never did either.
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+THE WHIPPING OF TEDDY
+
+
+We were all sitting so happily one evening when Mother told us. She had
+been reading aloud to us, as she always does on Sundays after tea, and
+it was the _Water-Babies_. It is a most lovely story, and makes you
+want to drown dreadfully, but we had just got to the end. “That’s all,”
+Mother said, and shut the book. Then she stopped a minute. “Chicks,
+Mother has got to go a long journey too, to the Other-end-of-Nowhere,
+like little Tom.”
+
+Well, we all thought Mother was joking, and we laughed. Teddy was
+sitting on her lap, because he is the littlest, and we all snuggle down
+on the rug around. The Dustman had come to him rather, because it was
+past his bedtime, only he stays up later on Sundays. “Teddy going to
+the Other-end-of-Nowhere,” he said, in a very sleepy way.
+
+We all laughed again at that. “Yes, and Mother is Mrs.
+Doasyouwouldbedoneby,” Humphrey said. Mother didn’t answer.
+
+“Are we really going away, Mother?” I asked.
+
+I looked up then, and I was most astonished. Mother’s eyes were full of
+tears. “Little Tom had to go alone,” she said, “and poor Mother must go
+alone too, without her Water-babies.”
+
+All at once I got frightened. I clutched Mother’s hand hard and sat
+still. I didn’t seem able to speak at all. “But how long for, Mother?”
+Humph asked. “Fwee days?” Because Mother does sometimes go away from
+Friday to Monday with Father, although we all grumble very much.
+
+We couldn’t see Mother’s face at all, for she was kissing Teddy’s head.
+He was quite asleep by now. “No, for a much longer time than that,”
+she said; “for more than three months--for the whole winter.”
+
+“Oh no, no, no!” Humph and Violet called out; but I still couldn’t
+speak. I seemed to have expected it somehow. “But why, Mother, why?”
+Humphrey said. “We haven’t been very naughty.”
+
+Then Mother told us. She said that when she was so ill last month (the
+time that Violet went calling all alone) our doctor had said that he
+thought she mustn’t be in England for the cold weather. And yesterday,
+when she went up to London with Father, she had been to see a very
+great doctor, and he had said just the same, and that she must start
+off almost directly.
+
+“But take us, take us too, Mother,” Humph begged. Still I couldn’t say
+anything.
+
+“I can’t, my little son, I can’t. We aren’t rich enough. It is
+difficult for Father even to find the money for Mother to go alone.”
+
+“Think how nice it will be when I come back again,” Mother said
+presently. “It will be getting summer, and we’ll go for lovely picnics
+in the woods. And there will be surprises in my box, such surprises for
+each one of you!”
+
+“Mother going away for two, five, six, a million years!” Teddy shouted
+suddenly. He clapped his hands and laughed as if it were something nice.
+
+Well, I couldn’t help it; it seemed more than one could bear. “Be
+quiet, you hateful, horrid idiot!” I said. “If you are glad Mother is
+going, every one isn’t.”
+
+“Hush, hush, Molly!” Mother said. “Teddy is so little, he doesn’t
+understand.” She laid her hand on my head. Then no one said anything
+for a long time. Violet had started off to cry, and Humph was crying
+too, though he pretended he wasn’t, so he wouldn’t blow his nose, but
+kept on kind of snorting. It couldn’t have been that his handkerchief
+was dirty, because it was Sunday. As for me, I was behind Mother’s
+chair, and no one could see me. Teddy was the only happy one; he’d
+gone to sleep again.
+
+“Oh, children, children!” all at once Mother said. “Don’t make it
+harder for me. Mother hates to go.”
+
+Well, I hadn’t thought about it that way before. There was Mother going
+all alone, and at least I’d got the Count of Aulon, (he’s my rat),
+besides the others.
+
+“You’ll--you’ll get quite strong there, Mother, won’t you? and be able
+to run races and--and all sorts of things, when you come back?” My
+voice was hardly funny at all.
+
+But suddenly Mother began to cry; she really did. “My little ones! oh,
+my ‘preshun cats!’” she whispered. That’s what we like her to call us
+when we are very cuddly. And for a minute we all sort of cried together.
+
+“Why, this will never do; Mother is the biggest baby of you all,”
+Mother said, and she smiled. “Soon there will be a big pond on the
+carpet, and you will be really water-babies. Wouldn’t Teddy be
+surprised to wake up and find himself swimming about the drawing-room.
+Come, we must put the wee man to bed.” As Mother laughed, of course we
+all laughed too.
+
+Well, in the next few days we got more used to the idea of Mother’s
+going away, and it didn’t seem quite so dreadful. She told us that she
+was going to a place called Algiers, where there were black people,
+real live ones walking about the streets in funny clothes, and that
+she’d draw pictures of them for us, and of course that was very
+interesting. But still we were pretty miserable--all except Teddy. It
+seemed as if I couldn’t forgive him. He didn’t mind a bit more than he
+had done the first evening, even when he was quite awake. I began to
+think he hadn’t got any heart, like Nero. Now Humph, though at times
+you’d think he cared about nothing but what sort of pudding there was
+going to be for dinner, yet when big sort of things come, you just
+find out he does. And he is most awfully brave too, Humph is. Once he
+chopped a piece off his finger and the blood was simply pouring out,
+and all he said was, “Tie on the bit, quick; it must kneel by first
+attention.” I don’t know what he meant, but there’d been a gentleman
+staying who talked a lot of doctoring stuff with Father, so I expect it
+was some of that. Anyway, it was very brave.
+
+The days before Mother went seemed each about as long as five ordinary
+days, and yet very short too. It was a funny thing. At last the
+morning came for her to start. We had to get up very early, because
+she and Father were going by the 7.45 train, and so the lamp was lit
+at breakfast, and that always makes you feel queer and choky. Mother
+couldn’t eat anything, and Father was sort of scolding her all the time
+to get her to; and we were sitting as close to her as we could squeeze,
+all dressed anyhow, and not having had time to brush our teeth--at
+least, Humph and I hadn’t. As for Ted, Fräulein hadn’t dressed him at
+all, but had just brought him down to say goodbye in his little scarlet
+dressing-gown, which is made out of my old winter jacket; he sat on
+Mother’s lap and tried to hold a fork with his toes, and he still
+seemed quite happy. I’d have liked to shake him if I hadn’t been so
+miserable myself.
+
+At last there was a ring at the bell, and it was the fly. “Now do try
+to drink up your coffee, my dear,” Father said; but Mother said, “I
+can’t, I can’t.” “Well, we must start at once,” Father said. It was all
+very well for him, for he was going to London with Mother and down to
+the ship to see her off.
+
+Mother got up though, and put Teddy into the big chair by the fire,
+kissing him all the while. He had still got the fork in his toes.
+“Look, look, Teddy eat breakfast with his feet!” he called out,
+pointing to them. He didn’t seem able to think of anything else.
+
+Mother went out into the hall with the rest of us clinging to her, and
+down the garden path to the fly. Just as she was getting in, Father or
+some one asked if she’d got her keys, and Jane the housemaid had to go
+tearing indoors for them. While we were waiting, Fräulein looked round
+and gave a little cry. There was Teddy creeping down the garden, his
+little toes all curling up as they touched the ground, and no fork at
+all.
+
+“_Ach_, you naughty, naughty _Kindchen_! Go in out of the cold. You
+will have your death,” cried Fräulein, and she rushed back and carried
+him into the house and then came out again shutting the front door.
+
+It took two or three minutes for Mother to get settled in the fly and
+the luggage to be arranged, and then we all hugged her in a sort of a
+heap and they began to drive off, Mother kissing her hand out of the
+window. I didn’t see that though, Humph told me afterwards, because I
+was running indoors as hard as I could tear and as it was I could only
+just hold in the crying until I got to the bathroom. I’ve discovered
+that you can pull out a bit of the wood that’s round the bath and creep
+in sort of behind, so it’s a lovely place for times of trouble. At
+least, I didn’t exactly discover the place, but I saw it when the man
+came to mend the taps; he was a very nice man and gave me some putty.
+
+Well, when I got into the bathroom, I was very surprised to see that
+the bit of wood had been pulled out already and was lying on the floor,
+and then when I began to crawl in I was still more surprised because
+there was a funny noise coming from inside, like the guinea-pig makes
+when he is excited. I was so astonished that I stopped crying.
+
+I crawled quickly, though it’s very squeezy, but, of course, that’s
+really a great ’vantage because no grown-up could possibly come after.
+And when I got to the end, there was a large curled-up heap; I couldn’t
+see much because it’s almost dark, but I thought it must be a dear dog,
+so I put out my hand to feel. It was something soft, but not like a
+dog, more like a person; then I felt some curly hair. “Teddy!” I called
+out, most amazed, because I didn’t know any of them knew of this place
+but me. (I hadn’t meant to be mean in not telling, but one must keep
+somewhere for times of great trouble.)
+
+The funny noise was still going on, and then I remembered it’s what
+Teddy does, when he cries very hard; he hardly ever cries at all
+though, that’s how I’d forgotten. “What is the matter, Ted?” I said.
+I couldn’t cuddle him because there wasn’t room, but I stroked him as
+well as I could lying on my stomach.
+
+“Go in out of the cold,” he said. “Go in out of the cold. Mother gone
+away for a million years. Go in out of the cold.”
+
+I felt I loved him ever so much more to find he really did mind about
+Mother going away. “But, Teddy, you’d have only seen Mother for a
+minute more, if Fräulein hadn’t sent you in out of the cold,” I told
+him.
+
+Then he began to squeak with crying more than ever. “I was g--going
+to c--creep under the c--carriage-seat and be a st--stowboy on the
+ship. And c--come out at the place with b--black people. I’d g--got a
+c--crust of bread in my d--dressing-gown pocket all r--ready. Mother
+g--gone away for a m--million years.”
+
+Wasn’t that a good plan? I should never have thought Teddy could
+have invented anything so sensible. I said, “Did you make it all up
+yourself?” and he said, “Yes,” very pleased, because he saw that I
+admired it. What made me feel dreadful though, was that all these days
+I’d thought he didn’t care and was going to grow up like Nero.
+
+Just then we heard Fräulein calling, “Teddy, Teddy, where are you?” as
+if she were in a great state of mind. So I said we must come else she’d
+discover the secret place. We crawled out and I shut up the little door
+carefully. Then I shouted, “Teddy’s in here, Fräulein.”
+
+I thought that Fräulein would be cross, but she wasn’t; I suppose it
+was to sort of make up for Mother’s going, besides she’s nearly always
+nice to Teddy. She just laughed and said, “_Du böser Bube_; you have me
+so frightened.”
+
+She took hold of Ted’s hand and was taking him away to dress him, but
+he caught hold of me. “Molly get me up to-day,” he said.
+
+I _was_ pleased. You see it had often made me feel rather horrid
+Teddy’s being so much fonder of Fräulein than he is of me. Another
+thing I didn’t like was that when Teddy was a baby, a real baby I mean,
+I used to cuddle and nurse him heaps, but lately he’d said it was silly
+and that I didn’t do it to Humph. He wouldn’t even let me kiss him.
+
+It was when I was dressing Ted that I found out something. He was
+telling me more about his plan for going with Mother and how he had
+meant to wait hidden in the carriage until she got into the train, and
+then scramble under the seat of the train when she wasn’t looking. “You
+see I thinked I could do it, because everybody says I’m so small. You
+don’t call it a silly plan?”
+
+“No, it was a lovely plan,” I said.
+
+“I was ’fraid you call it silly. And if I think of lots and lots of
+lovely plans, will you soon, in three, eight, a million days let me
+play in the games with you and Humph?”
+
+“But you do sometimes.”
+
+“Yes, but you think I’m a bother.”
+
+I did feel horrid, because he is rather a bother, but we hadn’t meant
+him to find it out. “There’s nobody for me to play with,” he said,
+beginning to squeak again, “Violet’s always doing her dolls and
+Mother’s gone away for a million----”
+
+“We’ll have a new game, and there will be a real part for you, like
+Humph’s,” I said quickly.
+
+Teddy clapped his hands and jumped for joy. “And will you knock me
+about and tortoise me just like you do Humph?” He meant torture only he
+didn’t quite know the right word.
+
+I said “Yes,” and I began to think of a game that minute. “I’ve got
+a lovely one out of the book Mother has been reading to us,” I said.
+“I’ll be the Sweep Grimes, and you’ll be little Tom. I shall always
+shout at you with horrid words and beat you dreadfully and send you up
+the most difficult wiggly chimneys.”
+
+“And light straw under if I don’t go up quick enough.” Ted jigged up
+and down, so that I could hardly brush his hair; he hugged me all of
+himself.
+
+Humph and I get excited over our games sometimes, but I don’t think
+we ever were so excited as Ted got. I believe he never thought about
+anything else. He used to ask me to come up and say good-night to him,
+because of course he goes to bed earlier than us, and then he’d hug me
+and whisper, “Fräulein doesn’t know, but I haven’t really had my broth
+but just a mouldy crust, and I’m not really wearing my new pyjamas but
+just old rags, and this isn’t really a bed at all but just a heap of
+dirty straw;” and I’d say in an awful Grimesy voice, “Be quiet, else
+I’ll kick you out to sleep in the street.”
+
+All the same, it was through this game that Teddy got into such
+trouble. One afternoon it was very cold and there was a horrid wind,
+so Fräulein said that Teddy had better not come for a walk with the
+rest of us, because of getting croupy. “I will lend you my German
+picture-book, with the pictures that move, as a treat,” she said, “and
+you must be very good.” Then she asked Jane to give an eye to him every
+now and then.
+
+We hate going out for walks, it’s so dull, and this one was
+particularly horrid. We were very glad to get back, and we rushed to
+the schoolroom fire.
+
+“Why, where’s Teddy?” Fräulein said. “He must have gone to the
+dining-room.”
+
+He wasn’t in the dining-room either, nor in the kitchen. Jane’s sister
+had come to tea (the one who has got a beautiful tooth that unscrews),
+and they were all talking and laughing very loud.
+
+“Where’s Master Teddy?” Fräulein said.
+
+“Oh, he was looking at a book not a minute ago as good as gold, Miss,”
+Jane said, and went on talking. The servants do get rather different
+when Mother and Father are away, though Jane is most kind. Last Sunday
+she let me warm the sort of scissors thing for her that she curls her
+hair with, and she has promised to lend it to me one day. It will be
+lovely for tortures.
+
+Fräulein began calling, “Teddy, Teddy,” but he didn’t answer. She went
+and looked in all the bedrooms and seemed to get quite frightened.
+“_Ach Herzliebchen!_” she kept muttering, “if harm should have befallen
+thee and _die Mutter_ away.” I wondered if he could have started paying
+calls like Violet!
+
+At last I opened the drawing-room door. We hadn’t thought of looking
+there directly because we never use the room when Mother is away. And
+what I saw surprised me so that I stood quite still.
+
+There was a dust-sheet laid out on the floor very neatly, and it was
+all covered with soot. A lot of soot had got on the carpet, too,
+around. All the vases on the mantelpiece were covered with soot and
+standing quite deep in it, and the pictures near had a layer of soot on
+the tops. Even the chairs had a good lot of soot on them. And there in
+the middle, hanging down in the fireplace were a pair of bare and very
+sooty legs.
+
+“Teddy,” Fräulein called loud and angrily. She had come in behind me
+without my noticing her. There was a sort of scuffle, and Teddy came
+tumbling down the chimney into the fender, bringing a whole cloud of
+soot with him. He had only got his shirt on, and he had the hearthbrush
+in one hand and the poker in the other. He was dirtier than any one I
+ever saw; he did look beautifully real though.
+
+“It wanted sweeping awfully, couldn’t have been done for a million
+years,” he spluttered, very pleased.
+
+Well, Fräulein was furious. I don’t think I’ve ever seen her so angry,
+certainly not with Teddy. And now the awful part comes. She caught hold
+of Teddy and whipped him, really whipped him, not fun!
+
+Teddy was so astonished that for the first two slaps he never made a
+sound; then he simply howled. He sobbed with squeaks all the way into
+the bathroom, and all the time Fräulein bathed him and all the time she
+dried him, and when she carried him into the schoolroom and put him in
+front of the fire, he was still sobbing. Fräulein went to get him out
+some clean clothes and things but he stood there, wrapped in a big bath
+towel, sobbing and sobbing and squeaking until I couldn’t bear it.
+
+I went and put my arm round him. I’d thought it rather a shame all the
+time, because I don’t see that he’d been so very naughty. No one had
+ever told him he mustn’t climb up chimneys and sweep them. Of course
+it was very silly of him, and I knew Mother wouldn’t like the soot all
+over the drawing-room carpet, especially when it’s Persian and the best
+one in the house, not to mention the chairs and pictures and it’s being
+a trouble for the servants. Still I’m sure Mother wouldn’t have whipped
+Teddy. So I put my arms round him and whispered, “Never mind, Ted, it’s
+all right now. It’s all right.” Fräulein came into the room, but she
+didn’t say anything. She gave me his shirt and knickerbockers to put
+on, and went off to get his stockings. I believe she was rather sorry
+she’d done it herself.
+
+At last Teddy began to speak, though he was still sobbing. “Th--there’s
+one th--thing, though, she th--thinks she h--hurt me, but she
+d--didn’t; no, not a bit.”
+
+“Well, if I didn’t, why are you crying, then?” Fräulein said, who had
+come in suddenly.
+
+Teddy didn’t answer. He went on sobbing, but much less. Suddenly he
+whispered in my ear, “She didn’t h--hurt me h--half as much as you
+often do when we’re Grimesing,” and then he smiled a little bit.
+
+So I said, “Shall I be Grimes now?” and he nodded. Fräulein had gone
+away again by now.
+
+“And we’ll pretend you swept a chimney at a very grand house and made
+rather a mess.” Then I went on in the awful voice, “You scamp, I’ll
+thrash you within two inches of your life.”
+
+“With a rope end?” Teddy said. He began to look quite happy. “I saw
+a piece in the stable-yard yesterday, Molly,” he went on, sort of
+coaxingly.
+
+“Shall I go out and get it to knock you with?” I asked him.
+
+“Oh, Molly!”--he put both his arms round my neck and gave a little
+shriek for happiness--“Oh, Molly, I do love you!”
+
+
+
+
+V
+
+THE RAGE OF THE HEATHEN
+
+
+I advise you not ever to be a missionary. I don’t mean the proper sort
+that get eaten up by savages and cassowaries, because you can’t do
+that until you’re grown up; but don’t try and be a missionarying child
+at home. If you do, the most disagreeable things will happen, though
+perhaps that part wouldn’t have been so bad if Mother had been there.
+
+It was in November, very soon after Mother had gone away, that Humphrey
+and I went to the children’s service. I know it was then because the
+day before had been Guy Fawkes day, and so everything seemed dull and
+horrid, like it does when there’s just been something very nice, and
+that was why we went. Jane took us--she’s the housemaid and very fond
+of things like that, not only reading the Bible, which any one would
+enjoy, but she loves the most difficult books of sermons and prayers,
+and she doesn’t even think the litany a little bit too long.
+
+I don’t mean that it was Jane that made us think about being
+missionaries; it was the clergyman himself. He was a stranger, and his
+sermon wasn’t a bit like other sermons; it was most interesting, and
+it was all about setting a good example and being an influence unto
+righteousness in the lives of little brothers and sisters and lots of
+things like that. I began to think he must know I was the eldest.
+
+Well, I listened to every word he said, I truthfully did, and all the
+way coming home I talked to Humphrey about it, and planned how to be
+a home missionary. We settled that we must be very kind to the Poor
+Heathens--those were Violet and Ted--because they didn’t know any
+better, but that we’d have to be very firm. Of course, it was rather
+silly for Humph to be talking like that, because he was really a Poor
+Heathen too, but he didn’t seem to understand that part properly. I
+didn’t like to explain it to him then either, and that was the first
+great mistake, because afterwards he used to get awfully sulky and
+cross about it, which just showed that he really was a heathen like I
+said. Besides, how could he possibly be anything else?
+
+The clergyman had said one mustn’t put off doing good, so I started
+directly we got home. Fräulein had gone out to see a friend, and we
+were to have tea alone, which was a good thing, because it made it
+easier. I went and tidied myself very nicely, and then I came into the
+schoolroom. I said, “Violet and Ted, have you washed your hands for
+tea?”
+
+They both looked most astonished. Violet said, “Of course I have, I
+always do,” which is quite true, but I thought she might just have
+forgotten that once. That was the worst of Violet though, she was so
+good she made a perfectly horrid heathen. Teddy only laughed and said,
+“Fräulein forgot to wash mine and now she’s gone out. Hooray!”
+
+So then I began to talk quite properly. I said, “That doesn’t make
+the least difference; you should do your duty in life, if any one is
+there to make you or not.” I said lots more, too, just as nice. I said,
+“It’s a horrible habit to sit down to table with dirty hands, and any
+gentleman would scorn such a foul deed.” I made him come with me to
+wash them at once, though he didn’t like it, ’specially when I cut his
+nails, every one, and pushed them all down most beautifully.
+
+The other two had nearly finished tea by the time we came back. It
+_was_ naughty of them. Of course, I had to tell them of it, so I
+began to talk again, but really, it wasn’t a bit crossly. I spoke
+more in sorrow than in anger. I said that such disgraceful behaviour
+was excusable in Violet, as she was so little, but that I should have
+thought that Humphrey would have known better. I said that in any
+respectable society they always waited to begin meals for the Pourer
+Out. They both looked very cross, but they didn’t say anything. For one
+thing, Humph’s mouth was too full. Suddenly he got down from his chair
+without asking any permission, and walked across to the fireplace. Then
+he started toasting his bread and butter!
+
+Well, I really didn’t want to make any more fusses, but what was I to
+do? Fräulein had particularly said we weren’t to toast our slices,
+because the butter will drip about, besides its being too nice to be
+good for you. So I just said very firmly, “Come and sit in your place
+this minute.” Well, he didn’t. Being a missionary is very difficult.
+
+Of course I started talking again, though I’d hardly had a bit of tea,
+and I was most hungry. I said that Humphrey was disobeying Fräulein,
+who had been set in authority over us, and that it was just as bad as
+breaking laws, and that he might as well commit murder or anything.
+I said very likely one day he would. He said he didn’t care, and that
+it didn’t say anything in the Bible about not making toast, and that
+Mother had never told us not to either. I said any way Mother had
+always told us to do what Fräulein said, but it all wasn’t the least
+use.
+
+I had to let him do it, for I couldn’t threaten to tell Fräulein--that
+seemed too mean. I couldn’t drag him away either, because he’d got
+the slice on his knife, and I thought he might get cut. Of course, I
+might have got hurt too, but that would have been quite right for a
+missionary, and rather nice. Any way, I determined that he shouldn’t do
+any more, so I took the plate with all the rest of the bread and butter
+on my lap and held it tight. Then I sat in silence and dignity.
+
+I shouldn’t have thought that even Humph could have taken so long
+over one bit of toast, but I expect he did it to pay me out; it was
+all frizzly and smelt most delicious. I sat there, though, and never
+moved except when I gave the little ones more. I couldn’t eat a single
+mouthful myself. Even that didn’t make me cross. I said in the nicest
+way at the end, “And now, children, we’ll have grace.”
+
+Well, you see, the worst of it was we don’t generally say grace except
+at dinner, so Humph answered directly, “Why should we? We never do,”
+and Teddy copies every one, so he shouted out, too, “Sha’n’t; we never
+do.” As for Violet, she just looked astonished.
+
+“My dear children,” I said most exactly like the clergyman, “we are
+certainly going to have grace, and I shall say it,” but before I could
+begin Humphrey roared out, “If we have gwace I shall say it, because
+I’m a man.” It was dreadfully silly; just as if he could, when besides
+being younger, he was only a heathen!
+
+I tried to explain this to him kindly, I really did, but he wouldn’t
+understand. So it ended in our both shouting out, “For what we
+have received the Lord make us truly thankful,” at the tops of our
+voices, with our hands over our ears, which didn’t seem quite right,
+and suddenly in the middle the bread-and-butter plate fell off my
+lap--crash! It was broken to little bits.
+
+That was the first disagreeable thing that happened, for not even
+missionaries like their pocket-money to be stopped for two weeks, but
+there were lots more to come. And it wasn’t only big things that were
+horrid, being a missionary seemed to make everybody cross the whole
+day long. Now there was Father. You see, I was trying hard to be good
+myself, besides improving the Poor Heathens, so I’d settled to count
+ten every time before I spoke, and then I’d not be led into evil and
+profane discourse. I got the idea out of a book I’d been reading. Well,
+instead of liking it, Father used to get dreadfully vexed; the trouble
+was that he generally asked me the question again before I got to
+ten, and then I had to start counting all over again, so it was quite
+a long time sometimes before I could answer. I did think it seemed
+rather silly myself, when he’d only asked me something like, “Have
+you been out to-day?” because it wasn’t likely that I should have
+replied anything very dreadful. But in the book it said that one can
+never tell, and that habit is everything. I did wish that Father hadn’t
+thought me muttering and sulky.
+
+What I minded most, though, was the way the others went on. They used
+to stop up their ears whenever they saw me coming and run away. It
+was dreadful. Some days I’d forget to talk to them about their sins,
+and then we’d be quite happy, but I always fined myself afterwards. I
+used to throw a farthing into the pig-sty each time, because I thought
+if I gave it to any one I’d get pleasure out of it, so that oughtn’t
+to count; I used to have fines for lots of other wrong things too.
+Besides this, I’d hit myself with whips and straps to try and make me
+gooder, but it’s very difficult to hurt oneself much. It was a better
+mortification when I wore Humphrey’s new jersey under all my clothes,
+because, though it wasn’t hairy, nor a shirt, it was very rough and
+tight, but Fräulein discovered it and was most cross.
+
+It was because I hated the others always running away from me that I
+took to writing about their wickedness instead. I pretended that I was
+a dumb missionary, and so it wasn’t my fault, and I used to push little
+notes into their pockets all in printing, so as to be easy to read, but
+after the first they threw them away without looking at them, so it was
+no use at all. That’s what made me take to writing things on the walls,
+where they couldn’t help seeing them, like in our room I put, “Don’t
+have the cat in bed,” for Violet to read, because Fräulein doesn’t
+like us to. In the dining-room I put, “It’s horrible to drink with
+your mouth full,” opposite to where Humphrey sits. Instead of being
+pleased, though, Fräulein got in a rage again, and said I was spoiling
+the wall-paper, and made me rub it all out. It did seem difficult to do
+good.
+
+It was after this that I thought of writing placards. It was all my own
+idea, and didn’t hurt anything, and was just as good as putting it on
+the wall. I forgot to say that I hadn’t invented that plan myself. I
+took it out of _Belshazzar’s Feast_, and I do think they must have made
+much worse marks than I did, because in the piece of poetry we learnt
+it says:
+
+  “In that same hour and hall,
+     The fingers of a hand
+   Came forth against the wall,
+     And wrote as if on sand.”
+
+So it must have made great holes. I suppose the plaster was wet. At any
+rate, I thought that with the placards no one could possibly grumble.
+
+I couldn’t have done the placards, of course, if I hadn’t known just
+the sort of naughty things that the Heathens would do. So I wrote
+very big on large sheets of paper, “DON’T,” and then a whole heap of
+different wrong things. I kept them all stuffed up the front of my
+dress (it was rather loose, because of my growing so fast, and that
+was the only helping part I had). Then when the others were naughty I
+got out the right placard, for they were all put like the alphabet,
+most beautifully, and I waved it in front of them. They used to get
+dreadfully cross, and Humph tore a good many trying to snatch them
+away, but I always wrote them again. It _was_ a good idea!
+
+It was out of the placards, though, that all the trouble came; at
+least, it was partly that and partly our not hearing that Father had
+come home unexpectedly. You see, it was after we’d gone to bed, so we
+couldn’t possibly guess it of ourselves. So the next morning, when I
+heard the water running in the bathroom, which is next door to the room
+where Violet and I sleep, I thought of course it must be Humphrey. Ted
+doesn’t have baths in the morning because of being croupy, and, as I
+said, I didn’t know that Father was at home; besides, he always gets up
+much later. I’d been wanting to be awake when Humph had his bath for a
+long while, so I jumped up quickly, though it was very cold, and put on
+my dressing-gown and tore round to the bathroom door. Then I pushed
+a new placard under the crack, a very big one all done in red ink. It
+said, “Dirty Pig, scrub your toe-nails.”
+
+Well, I thought Humphrey might be cross, but I didn’t expect what
+really happened. There was a roar like a lion, and the door was pulled
+back, and there stood a perfectly strange gentleman. He was in his
+shirt and trousers; he was rather fat, and his face was scarlet; he
+could hardly speak, he was in such a rage.
+
+I was so astonished I couldn’t say anything either. At last he did.
+He shouted out, “_Unverschämtes Fraunzimmer_.” He said a lot more too
+that I didn’t quite understand, though it was only in German. Then he
+suddenly slammed the door in my face.
+
+Well, of course after that I didn’t feel very comfortable. I went back
+to my room and dressed myself, but my legs were all going wiggle-waggle
+most horridly, and I had a pain inside. I did want Mother. I wanted her
+so that I felt I must burst or something. I tried the plan of thinking
+that when I was an old, old woman I should have stopped being unhappy
+about this horrid time, but there wasn’t any comfort in that like there
+generally is.
+
+We children had breakfast in the schoolroom, because we always do when
+there are visitors, but I felt so sick that I could hardly eat any.
+And in the middle it happened. Father dashed in, just as I expected.
+He was dreadfully angry. I don’t think I have ever seen him so angry.
+He said that the German gentleman was a most celebrated musician, and
+even if I had heard any idiotic chatter of the maids about his not
+attending to his personal appearance, how dared I take it on myself to
+give him moral maxims worded in the most insulting language? I didn’t
+exactly know what Father meant by that, but it sounded horrid. Also, he
+said that I stuck myself up as being better than any one, and that my
+conceit was perfectly insufferable. After a lot more besides, he ended
+up by telling me that I should be sent to boarding school at once.
+Then he rushed out of the room again.
+
+I hadn’t said anything all the time Father was speaking, and I hadn’t
+cried at all, because I wouldn’t let myself. As soon as he’d gone I
+ran away to our bedroom. I couldn’t hide in my secret trouble place,
+because I didn’t feel that I could ever bear to go into the bathroom
+again. The worst of it was our door doesn’t lock, for Humphrey
+lost the key once when we were wicked gaolers of the Tower, but I
+barricaded it with chairs. Then, of course, I did cry. I cried awfully
+until everything got quite dizzy. I was still crying when Humphrey
+climbed in at the window, but I seemed too miserable to mind. He was
+most nice though. He didn’t talk, but he stroked my hand and shoved
+his big peppermint into it, just as if there hadn’t been any horrid
+missionarying. Then, when I didn’t move, he said, “Father won’t go on
+being cwoss;” and I said, “I wish I were dead.” So I did. It’s a horrid
+feeling to have.
+
+All of a sudden Humph said, “Why don’t you ’splain it was _my_ dirty
+toe-nails?” I just sobbed out, “I don’t know.” It was very sensible,
+really, what Humph said, but I was too unhappy to see that; besides, I
+was thinking more about the other things Father had scolded me about. I
+said, “I don’t think I’m better than other people, I don’t, I don’t! I
+think I’m a beast, and horrible.” Humph said, “No, you’re not.” Then he
+wagged his head, and went away.
+
+The part that comes next I didn’t know at the time, of course, but
+Humph told me about it afterwards. He _was_ nice; he can be most
+’straordinarily sensible sometimes, though you’d never think it. He
+went straight to the study where the German gentleman was sitting, and
+said, “It was _my_ toe-nails.”
+
+The German gentleman jumped up very quickly, but Humph went on telling
+him. He said, “You see, I don’t scrub mine very much because it
+tickles. My sister didn’t even know about yours.” He talked in German,
+because that’s one of the funny things about Humph, he likes it. It was
+lucky though, because we found out afterwards it always pleased the
+German gentleman to hear his own language. Then Humph pulled off his
+shoes and stockings to show his feet. It sounds a naughty thing to do
+in the drawing-room, but I don’t think it really was.
+
+The German gentleman looked very astonished, but he didn’t look cross,
+Humphrey told me. At last he said, “_So_; but why was it written out
+and pushed under the door like that?”
+
+“Because I stop up my ears and won’t listen when she speaks to me,”
+Humph explained. He went on and told the German gentleman all about
+the missionarying, and the gentleman seemed very interested. Then at
+the end Humph said, “But my sister is starving; she didn’t eat hardly
+nothing for bweakfast, and no biscuits at eleven, and she won’t even
+suck my peppermint. I think she’ll soon be dead and it’ll be you that’s
+done it.”
+
+When the German gentleman heard that he was very nice, Humph said. Of
+course he must have known that people can live longer than that without
+food on desert islands and places, though Humph was really frightened
+about it. He took hold of Humph’s hand and said, “_Ach!_ then we must
+go quickly and ask that the little sister may be forgiven.” I believe
+he liked boys better than girls anyway, which does seem funny.
+
+The first thing I knew of all this, though, was Father coming up to my
+room. He said in quite a different way, “Cheer up, Molly, I hear it was
+only a mistake. You must be more discreet in your sisterly admonitions
+though.” It made me feel much better. I went down and told the German
+gentleman that I was sorry I’d seemed rude. He was all right, but
+things weren’t really comfortable until he and Father went away again
+the next day.
+
+I didn’t do any more missionarying after that though; it seemed to be
+too dangerous. It was a comfort to stop. Besides, the next week I
+got a letter from Mother, explaining that the clergyman couldn’t have
+meant it like that at all, because the chief thing if you want to have
+a good influence over people is that they should be fond of you, so a
+plan that prevents that must be a mistake. She said, too, that people
+didn’t generally have a good influence unless it was unconscious, so my
+best way was just to leave the others alone and try and be good myself.
+But she said I needn’t worry too much even over that (she seemed to
+guess all about my finings and hittings though I’d never told her).
+She said if I just loved people and tried to make them happy, I’d find
+in the end that I had been good. At the bottom of the letter, just
+before the kisses, there was a bit that surprised me very much. It was
+lovely; I don’t much like to say it. Mother said that I’d always been
+a good influence and a help to her, even though I hadn’t tried to be a
+missionary. She said that once when she was speaking to Teddy about
+telling stories (he does sometimes, you see, because he’s so little),
+she said to him that heroes never told untruths, and he answered at
+once and very proudly, “Nor does Molly, either.”
+
+It did make me feel funny inside.
+
+
+
+
+VI
+
+A FIRST NIGHT
+
+(Reprinted from _Little Folks_ by kind permission)
+
+
+I’ll never do any more plays, never. It would be all very well if one
+could act all the parts oneself, but making the others learn theirs was
+awful. Besides, you wouldn’t believe that the Corpse could give so much
+trouble.
+
+We got it up while Mother was still away in Algiers, and that was the
+first mistake. But we’d often had acting games before, and I never
+thought that this would be so much harder. The idea of doing it came
+into my head one day at lesson time, and it seemed perfectly splendid,
+so I pinched Humphrey directly, and whispered, “We are going to act a
+real play with refreshments and a curtain. I shall write it.”
+
+I was rather disappointed that Humphrey didn’t answer, but after a long
+time he suddenly said quite loud, “Like Shakespeare.” Fortunately,
+Fräulein didn’t understand. It was rather silly of him too, because of
+course I didn’t mean to make it long like that. Why, Humph has taken
+six months to learn “The Charge of the Light Brigade,” and he still
+says, “Half a leg, half a leg, half a leg onwards”; besides, I knew
+that Violet and Ted would like to come in too.
+
+That afternoon I began to write the play. I tried at first to make
+it all up out of my own head, only when I sat down nothing seemed
+to come. So I thought I’d adapt it out of a book, like Father says
+all the best plays are done nowadays. I took Aytoun’s “_Lays of the
+Scottish Cavaliers_.” I’m very fond of them, you see, and I know them
+nearly all by heart, but I don’t believe it was me that loosened the
+frontispiece as Fräulein says, just because I took the book to bed one
+evening. Not that we read in bed, because Mother’s very particular
+about that, but I like to feel that Dundee and the Young Pretender are
+near me all the night. It was the “_Burial March of Dundee_” that I
+thought would be the best for the play, but it didn’t seem to need much
+adapting, because we could just have a bier with Ted as Dundee (he’s
+the lightest, and his hair is curly). We three would march on bearing
+it, and I’d recite the lay; then we’d march off again of course.
+
+So, as this was easy, I thought we’d have another play as well, and I
+settled on “_Young Lochinvar_.” Humphrey would be Lochinvar; I should
+have liked to be the bride, who is the heroine, of course, but then
+I settled it would be better if Violet was, partly because I thought
+Mother would have been pleased at my not being selfish, and partly
+because it looks so silly to see the lady taller than the gentleman,
+like when Cousin Sophy was married. Then I and Ted would be the
+wicked mother and father. Of course, he’s heaps smaller than me, but
+that didn’t matter because we’d both be old, and he might have shrunk
+quicker. Our old nurse told us once that she’d got to the time of life
+when she was growing downwards like a cow’s tail; and certainly, when
+she came to see us the other day, she did seem a lot shorter than she
+used to be when we were little and she lived with us.
+
+The others were all very pleased with their parts, and it was settled
+that the acting should be on April the 10th, which is Ted’s birthday,
+and Fräulein asked some children to come to tea. It didn’t leave us
+very much time, but I thought it would do, because I never guessed how
+slow Humphrey would be. At each rehearsal he seemed to get worse, and
+the dress one was awful.
+
+To begin with, we left it to the very afternoon of the birthday because
+the others said that when the children came, we could go straight on
+and needn’t dress up twice. Only it made me feel nervous, and then,
+just as we were starting, cook sent up word that she was bothered
+enough with extra to tea and couldn’t let us have anything for the
+banquet in “_Young Lochinvar_.” It was really because there’d been a
+fuss about the butcher’s bill; as if we could help that!
+
+The others were very good, I must say, and Humphrey said that he’d give
+us a Brazil nut that he’d got, and lend us his peppermint. It’s a most
+enormous one, that goes different colours as you suck, and he keeps it
+for when he’s put in the corner. And Violet said she’d put some of her
+doll’s sham dishes on the table; still, that wasn’t very much for a
+wedding feast. So I said perhaps we’d better pretend that they had had
+the feast before the curtain drew up, and there could be just a goblet
+of water for Young Lochinvar to quaff.
+
+“He couldn’t have been very thirsty when he had just ‘swum the Esk
+river,’ and he would enjoy the peppermint because----” Humphrey began,
+but I told him quickly that we wouldn’t have any eating or drinking
+at all, for when he once begins explaining anything he never stops.
+Besides, it was only because he remembered that he was to be Young
+Lochinvar himself.
+
+So we began to dress up, and when they were all ready, they looked so
+nice and real that I began to feel happier. Humphrey had on my white
+flannel pyjamas with a red sash, like we always have for the hero;
+they’re rather big for him, but he wears nightshirts himself, for
+though he isn’t very strong, he never catches cold, and of course you
+couldn’t be a hero in a nightshirt. The worst of it was that it looked
+rather bare at the back, because the hero always has Mother’s fur-lined
+cape, inside out, across his shoulders and we hadn’t got that, nor
+Mother either, so we began to feel rather miserable. Even Father was
+not there. He had gone out to Mother for the Easter Holidays.
+
+Violet had on the lace window-curtains and Mother’s old blue silk dress
+that she has given us for dressing-up, and Teddy wore his pyjamas with
+a green sash, of course, because he was the villain; at least, he
+wasn’t exactly a villain, but he was a very disagreeable and horrid
+sort of father for any one to have. He had on a tow beard, too, that
+I made out of some that was over when Fräulein did the grates, and
+I’m sure Mother won’t like them, though Fräulein does think them so
+beautiful, but the beard wasn’t a great success because it would come
+off in the middle.
+
+As for me, we didn’t know what to do, because I’d tied on so many
+pillows to be fat, that I knew I couldn’t get on any one’s dress but
+cook’s. So we sent Teddy down to ask her if she would be so very kind
+as to lend us one. We always make Teddy ask for things, because he’s
+pretty, and we’ve found out that helps. I think cook thought he wanted
+the dress for himself, for he said she laughed a lot, but anyway she
+fetched him her best one--green stuff, it was, with red plush trimming.
+
+Then we began. It was awful. Ted gabbled so that no one could hear
+him, and Humphrey had never known his part properly, though I used to
+run into his room every night after Fräulein had put out the lights
+and make him go through it. He couldn’t escape me then, but often he
+was asleep, which was just as bad, because even if you woke him up it
+was no use--he’d be so stupid. Well, Humphrey seemed to have forgotten
+everything he’d ever known, and the more I went on the more he forgot
+until he began to say the “Charge of the Light Brigade” by mistake; at
+last he turned sulky and wouldn’t speak at all.
+
+Violet knew her part beautifully--I will say that--and she spoke it
+very clearly and slowly, but without the least bit of expression. When
+she came to--
+
+  “With thee I will wander the wide world far,
+   For I love thee, dear Mr. Young Lochinvar,”
+
+which was a piece that I’d made up myself, you might have thought she
+was saying the multiplication table.
+
+“Can’t you speak it like you really would to any one?” I said.
+
+“I’d never say such a silly thing,” she answered, “because trains
+always make me sick and you know Mother says I’d be a dreadful sailor.”
+
+Well, I told her at any rate she ought to take Young Lochinvar into
+a corner and throw her arms round his neck and kiss him, so that the
+people could tell she was pleased to see him; and she did it, because
+she’s very obedient, but it was just as if she were hugging a signpost.
+
+So I said she was a perfect idiot, which I oughtn’t to have done,
+however silly she was, and she began to cry.
+
+Well, I thought we’d better get on to “Dundee.” It begins--
+
+  “Sound the fife and cry the slogan,
+     Let the pibroch shake the air
+   With its wild, triumphal music,
+     Worthy of the freight we bear.”
+
+We didn’t know exactly what pibrochs and all those things were, but we
+thought some Burmese gongs and bells of Father’s would do as well, and
+we’d brought them up out of the case in the drawing-room.
+
+But when I came to look on the mantelpiece, where I’d put them all
+ready, they were gone.
+
+Then Violet, who was still crying, of course, because she’d been
+started off, sobbed out that Fräulein had taken the things back and had
+locked up the case and was very angry. They don’t belong to Fräulein
+anyway, so I don’t see what business it was of hers. But there we were
+in a nice fix.
+
+Humphrey said at last that he would blow his penny whistle. He hasn’t
+got any ear at all, and the noise he makes is more like a railway
+engine than anything else; however, I had to say Yes. Then Teddy
+suggested that if we covered up his face he could do “Nearer, my God,
+to Thee” on the comb. Teddy’s the most musical of us all, but I didn’t
+think it would do, because even if the audience didn’t notice that he
+was playing his own funeral march, the comb doesn’t seem to be quite
+right somehow. I said we’d better tie the dinner-bell round Violet’s
+waist instead, and she could shake herself now and then. Of course
+she had to hold up the bier with both her hands, so she couldn’t do
+anything else.
+
+We made the bier out of stilts with a long cushion tied between them,
+and then I thought we were ready. So we lifted it up and Teddy climbed
+on to the window-sill and got on to the bier from there. He lay down
+and immediately the strings broke and he went on to the floor--crash!
+He shrieked and roared and he wouldn’t stop, though I tried to put my
+arms round him, because he had come a horrid bang, and I promised him
+my old penknife with half a blade. He thought we’d done it on purpose,
+so he’d only scream out, “Go away! I won’t act--I won’t! You beast,
+beast, beast!”
+
+At this moment the door opened and we saw--Mother! We all gave one
+shout and rushed at her. Ted began to squeal with joy instead of
+screaming, and Violet stopped whimpering, and Humphrey started off
+talking quite fast. As for me--well, it was dreadfully silly and
+babyish--but now they’d all stopped I began to cry. I was so happy it
+seemed as if I couldn’t bear it.
+
+Mother understood, like she always does. She didn’t say anything,
+but put her arm round me tight and let me hide my face in her cape.
+The others all started talking at once, and she kissed the lump on
+Teddy’s head and made it well and said she’d do the bier herself, so
+it would be quite safe. She sent Humphrey down for her fur cape for
+Young Lochinvar, and she told us Fräulein was quite right about our
+not taking the musical instruments without leave, but she was sure
+Father would let us have them. And she said--but this was when I was
+all right again--that it wouldn’t matter if Violet couldn’t quite get
+the expression, because brides were always shy and that when she was
+married to Father her voice sounded like some one else talking and
+without any expression at all. And then she admired all our dresses
+very much and went downstairs to ask cook to let us have things for the
+feast and a bottle of red currant wine, which was more grandeur than
+we’d ever thought of.
+
+After that everything was different, like it always is when Mother’s at
+home. Oh, I forgot to explain that why we didn’t expect Mother was that
+Fräulein had never got the last letter. Besides, Mother rather wanted
+to surprise us.
+
+By this time the other children were arriving downstairs, and so we
+started the acting as soon as we were ready. Well, you wouldn’t have
+thought it after all this fuss, but the plays went beautifully; every
+one said so. Certainly once Teddy opened his eyes as dead Dundee, and
+when he saw that Mother was really sitting there he began to laugh, but
+he’s got such a nice laugh one couldn’t mind much. Mother shook her
+head, though she couldn’t help smiling, so Ted shut up his eyes tight
+and screwed up his face all the rest of the time as though he were
+going to sneeze. Humphrey, too, in the wedding feast stuffed his mouth
+so full that he couldn’t speak, but Mother began to clap, so the people
+didn’t notice that.
+
+At the end everybody clapped lots and we all came forward and bowed--at
+least Teddy curtseyed by mistake--and then Mother called out, “Author.
+Author and Stage-manager!” and the others pushed me on alone. I did
+feel proud.
+
+All the same, I don’t think I’ll ever do any more plays--at any rate
+not unless Mother is at home all the time, and of that I’m quite
+certain.
+
+
+
+
+VII
+
+MOTHER
+
+
+It really did seem silly of Humphrey not to have measles with the rest
+of us and then to go and catch them all to himself directly Mother came
+home from Algiers. It’s just the sort of inconvenient thing that Humph
+would do--not that he can help it, of course. I’m sure it wasn’t any
+fun for him having it alone.
+
+I must say our measly month last year was most lovely; Violet and
+Ted liked it just as much as me. Besides having Mother all the time,
+there was beef-tea nearly whenever you wanted it and the most exciting
+counting every morning to see who had got the most spots. The spottiest
+one was king or queen for the day, of course, and the others had to
+say “your Majesty” and bow whenever they spoke. It did seem grand.
+
+This must have been the most aggravating thing for Humphrey to think
+of afterwards, because when he did go and catch it, he was so very bad
+that if he’d only had it at the same time as us he’d have easily been
+king every day. He was so ill that Mother sent the little ones away
+into lodgings with Jane, for they make too much noise; and as Mrs.
+Charlton happened to ask me to stay with her just then, Mother thought
+I might as well go away too. I expect I ought to say honestly that
+Mother had spoken to _me_ about making a noise as well as to the little
+ones. It seemed as if I couldn’t remember about not stumping upstairs.
+Once I did think of it, and I took off my stockings as well as my
+shoes, so as to be very quiet, and went most ’straordinarily slowly,
+but then the horrid shoes went and spoilt it all; they dropped down
+right from the very top.
+
+Mrs. Charlton is a sort of aunt of Father’s and she lives up in
+Lincolnshire. I didn’t know her at all, though Mother said I had
+seen her once when I was a baby, which is never a very nice sort of
+friendship. People like that always tell you how they held you in their
+arms, which makes you feel silly; or else, if you were too big to
+nurse, they say how naughty you used to be. It’s most uncomfortable.
+Anyway Mother said that Mrs. Charlton was a very kind old lady, though
+not cuddly; she said, too, that as I was going on a visit all alone
+like a grown-up young lady I must try and be very good. So I promised,
+and even though it mayn’t sound like it afterwards, I really did try.
+
+There was some talk of Father’s taking me all the way, but he was too
+busy, and it ended in my going to London with him and then travelling
+the rest of the way quite alone! At least Father did put me in the care
+of the guard; I do wish he hadn’t, though the guard was a very nice
+man. He poked in his head at nearly every station and said, “Getting
+on all right, missy?” and I said, “Yes, thank you; I hope you are too.”
+Then he waved his flag and we went on again.
+
+It had been directly after lunch when we left London, but it was
+getting quite dark before we got to Corby. I was most dreadfully
+starved too, because I’d eaten all my sandwiches very early. I thought
+I’d waited quite a long time before I began them, but it wasn’t really.
+That’s a funny thing about sandwiches, something seems to make you eat
+them almost directly you start, even if you’ve only just had dinner,
+and aren’t very hungry at all.
+
+It was the guard who came and helped me out with my things at Corby
+station, but almost directly a manservant came up and touched his hat
+and said, “Miss Lawrence?” I did feel beautifully grown up. There was
+a carriage waiting outside with a very fat coachman and two very fat
+horses; the man took me to this and held the door open for me to get
+in. If only the others had been with me to see me driving all alone in
+a grand carriage like that!
+
+Though it was very nice for the first minute or two, I was so
+dreadfully hungry that I couldn’t really enjoy it; I could only think
+of roast chickens and things like that. I did try not to; I looked
+out of the window to see the country and I tied my sash very tight
+like the Red Indians, but it wasn’t any use. It isn’t true either,
+what they say in books, that starving people suffer most from thirst,
+because I hardly wanted to drink at all. At last, though, we did get
+to the house, and the servant showed me into the drawing-room, where
+Mrs. Charlton was sitting in a very stiff chair. She got up and kissed
+me, and asked me how my Mother and Father were, but she didn’t seem to
+make me feel at all nice. I sat down in another stiff chair and seemed
+to get miserabler and miserabler, I don’t know why, because they had
+brought me my supper, though I’d have liked more. I was quite glad when
+Mrs. Charlton asked me at what hour I went to bed, which was very
+funny, because I’d never wanted people to talk about bedtime before.
+
+Upstairs, though, it was more miserable than ever. I never thought
+paying visits would feel like that. If even our cook at home could
+have come to tuck me up in her crossest temper, I’d have been glad.
+It seemed so dreadful, I really didn’t know what I should do, till
+I thought of Mother’s little penwiper, that she’d lent me because
+I haven’t got one in my writing-case; so I took that into bed, and
+cuddled it, and then I felt better.
+
+The next morning I woke up very early and the sun was shining and it
+was all much nicer. I began to read a book I’d brought from home that
+was called “_Vanity Fair_”; it is an interesting book, but rather
+muddly, and the girl in it, Amelia, is a gump. That’s what Humphrey and
+I call people who are silly like that. I’d read quite a lot by the time
+the breakfast bell rang and I took it down to go on with afterwards.
+
+Mrs. Charlton was sitting in an armchair at the head of the table, and
+all the servants were there for prayers. They seemed to be all waiting
+for me. Just as if this wasn’t bad enough, the minute I got in Mrs.
+Charlton called out, “What is that book that you have got in your hand?”
+
+Well, when I showed it to her she seemed quite cross. She said, “Has
+your Mother given you permission to read this?” in the most severe way.
+I said “Yes,” because Mother had never told us we mayn’t read anything.
+Then I thought that as Mother hadn’t mentioned this particular book,
+perhaps that wasn’t true, so I said “No.” Then I remembered Mother had
+said once that we might always take magazines, and this was on that
+shelf, so I said “Yes,” again. I said, “It’s got paper covers, you see.”
+
+“Don’t prevaricate, child,” Mrs. Charlton said, “I’m sorry to see you
+are not more straightforward.” She went and locked up my book, which I
+did think a shame, and the prayers began. It was horrid her thinking
+I told stories, and very silly, just when I was trying to be so
+partic’larly truthful.
+
+After breakfast we went for a walk in the village; and that wasn’t bad,
+only another unpleasant thing happened first. I don’t think I said that
+when I got up, I tied Mother’s penwiper round my neck with a bootlace,
+because that made me feel nice. Well, when we were starting to go out
+Mrs. Charlton suddenly said, “What is that untidy piece of black tape
+showing above your dress?”
+
+I pretended not to hear. I didn’t know what else to do, because of
+course I couldn’t tell her about private things like that. She asked
+me again, but I still didn’t say anything. Then she shook her head
+and said, “Sullen, sullen,” to herself, though I was just going away
+to take the penwiper off so as to please her. At least I didn’t take
+it right off, I tied it round my waist instead, where the bootlace
+couldn’t show, only it was very prickly. It wasn’t my fault keeping
+Mrs. Charlton waiting either, for I had to quite undress to do it.
+I forgot to say that it was a very nice penwiper, that I’d made for
+Mother as a birthday present, when I was quite little. It had “Mother”
+worked on it in beads, and the date and how old she was; at least
+I’d made a mistake about the last and put seventy-eight. You see,
+Father used to tell us that was Mother’s age for a joke, and we really
+believed it. Of course I was only a little girl then.
+
+The village wasn’t far away, and when we came back, I played in the
+garden. There wasn’t much to do and so I climbed a tree. Almost
+directly Mrs. Charlton came tearing out in a great fuss and said that
+it was most dangerous and unladylike and that I was never to do such a
+thing again. I felt very cross, because really it was a silly little
+tree that a baby could climb, but I remembered what I promised Mother,
+so I just walked about in a stupid, grown-up way and wondered if
+lunch-time was ever coming.
+
+In the afternoon it was worse, because it began to rain. Mrs. Charlton
+and I sat in the drawing-room and did nothing. There was a Persian
+cat, who you would think would have been some comfort, but he was the
+stupidest cat I ever saw. He just slept the whole time. Mrs. Charlton
+asked me then if I hadn’t got any needlework, so I went and fetched
+the mat that I’m working for Cousin Sophy’s wedding present. (It will
+be rather late, because Cousin Sophy went and got married about a year
+ago, before I could get it done; I do think she needn’t have been in
+such a hurry.) I sat there and sewed for ages and ages until I thought
+my head would drop off; at last I found I’d forgotten to bring the
+skein of the silk, and I couldn’t do any more. That was nice.
+
+Tea came just then, real afternoon tea, with thin bread and butter and
+two very nice little scone things on a separate plate and a little
+jug of cream, that I’m partic’larly fond of. Well, I tried not to be
+greedy, but I couldn’t help being rather pleased, when suddenly Mrs.
+Charlton said, “Pussy is so fond of cream, I know you won’t mind his
+having it,” and she crumbled up both the little scones and poured all
+the cream over them, every drop. Then she asked me to put it down on
+the floor in the corner.
+
+After tea Mrs. Charlton asked me if I’d like to read a little, because
+she said she’d look out a nice suitable book for me. I was very
+pleased, even though I found it was a book with a shiny red cover and
+green leaves on it, which sort generally aren’t interesting. It was
+called “_How Little Susan Saved the Home_,” and it was all about poor
+people.
+
+It wasn’t a bad sort of book, though it was written rather as if you
+had got no sense at all. It was about a little girl who used to wait
+outside the public-house every night to come home with her father. I
+don’t see that that was so horrid for her. When we were in London, the
+Punch and Judy shows were almost always at public-house corners, and
+once we saw a dear fat dog in a patchwork coat and the darlingest white
+mice on his back, but Cousin Sophy would never let us stop. Of course
+on wet nights it can’t have been such fun for Little Susan, but I dare
+say they’d have let her wait inside, only she seemed to be too silly
+to ask. In the middle of the book there was a very horrible bit, about
+the father getting tipsy and kind of mad, but he got all right at the
+end. It was in such big print I soon finished it, because I read very
+quickly.
+
+Mrs. Charlton had gone off to sleep, so I didn’t know what to do. I
+looked at the bookcase, but it was locked, so I walked round the room,
+and there in the back drawing-room, rather high up, was a shelf with
+some old-looking books on it. I went up to Mrs. Charlton to ask her if
+I might take one, but she was still asleep. Well, I didn’t really think
+she’d mind, because they were so shabby, so I climbed up on a chair
+and chose one called “_Peregrine Pickle_”; I thought from the name it
+might be about a boy who got into scrapes. It was rather disappointing
+inside, and the s’s were funny and difficult to read, but bits were
+interesting. It was written in a nice way too, not sillily like
+“_Little Susan_,” and there weren’t any horrid parts in it either.
+
+Suddenly, as I was reading, the book was snatched out of my hand. Mrs.
+Charlton was standing there looking furious. “How dare you take that
+book, you wicked girl!” she said; “go to your room and pray for a
+better nature.” I told her that I only took it because I’d finished the
+one that she gave me, and I didn’t know what to do till she woke, but
+she didn’t seem to believe me; it did seem curious and horrid.
+
+I went upstairs as she told me, and it was so dull that I said the
+multiplication table three times forwards and once backwards, and
+before that I’d repeated nearly all the poetry I knew, besides trying
+to reckon out how much the horse’s shoe would cost if you paid a
+farthing for the first nail and doubled it for each one. Of course I
+pretended I was in the Bastille all the time, but there weren’t any
+rats or toads or anything nice, and I was quite glad even to see the
+housemaid. It wasn’t the real housemaid either, because she was old,
+and disagreeable; this was one I hadn’t seen before. She brought me
+some bread and milk for my supper.
+
+“I dare say you’re missing your little brothers and sisters,” she said.
+
+I hadn’t thought of it before, but directly she said it, I knew that
+that was why I was so miserable. I seemed suddenly to want Mother and
+them all so dreadfully, that I could hardly help crying. Lizzie (the
+servant told me that was her name, and that she was the hupandowngirl,
+not the housemaid), well, she was most nice; she seemed the nicest
+person in the house. She said she used to cry herself to sleep every
+night when she first went out to service. She told me about her home
+too, and that there were twelve of them, and that they used to sleep
+four in one bed, and lovely things like that. She was just telling me
+about her pigs, when the bell rang rather angrily.
+
+“Lor, I must be off, the Missus will be in a fine taking,” Lizzie said,
+and she ran away.
+
+When Lizzie had gone, I was just going to be miserable, but suddenly
+she rushed in again, and threw a lot of newspaper things on to the bed.
+“I thought maybe they’d amuse you, but don’t let the Missus see ’em,”
+she said, and she tore out, because the bell was ringing more crossly
+than ever.
+
+I certainly did know that I oughtn’t to read books when I’d been sent
+upstairs in disgrace, and I’d better confess that at once. But then it
+didn’t feel to me that I’d done anything to be punished for, and it did
+seem so tempting. First I thought I’d just look at the pictures--for
+there was one on each cover--of gentlemen shooting each other and
+ladies in their dressing-gowns, with their hair down, and things like
+that, all most exciting. So I began just to turn over the leaves to see
+the names of the people in the pictures, but before I knew what I was
+doing I was reading one story straight through. I truthfully forgot
+then about it’s being naughty.
+
+It was a very interesting story, all about lords and dukes; I had never
+read one like it before. They were most funny people, and always
+getting fond of quite strangers and wanting to fly with them. I was
+just in the middle, when suddenly I heard the door open. Before I could
+think, I’d pushed all the papers under the eiderdown. That was the part
+Mother minded most when I told her, because it seemed mean. I’ve tried
+to think since that I did it because Lizzie had asked me not to let any
+one see the papers, but it wasn’t that really, at least not mostly.
+Besides, what Mother said was that if I had put away the novelettes at
+the beginning without looking at them, and then have given them back to
+Lizzie at the first opportunity, that would have saved her getting into
+trouble just the same, and I should not have been mean.
+
+Well, I suppose when Mrs. Charlton came in I looked rather
+uncomfortable; also there may have been a bit of one of the papers
+sticking out. Anyway, the first thing she did was to lift up the
+eiderdown. Then of course she saw them all. I felt awful.
+
+No one said anything for what seemed a long time, and then Mrs.
+Charlton made a horrid noise in her throat and began: “You are so
+utterly deceitful,” she said, “that it is not of very much use to put
+questions to you, but I should be glad if you would kindly inform me
+where you procured this degrading form of literature.”
+
+I didn’t answer. That wasn’t naughtiness, but because of Lizzie. Mrs.
+Charlton asked me again, and she asked me other questions of the same
+sort, but of course I couldn’t answer them either. She got angrier and
+angrier. At last she said, “I shall send you home immediately. I cannot
+have my household corrupted by your low tastes and deceitfulness.”
+
+That was the first nice thing she had said since I had been there. Of
+course I didn’t altogether like it, because it seemed horrid to be sent
+home in disgrace; besides, my coming back would be a worry for them,
+when Humph was so ill. But I was so happy at the idea of seeing Mother
+again that I couldn’t really think of anything else. I could hardly
+help jumping, I was so happy. I said, “Please, shall I put on my coat
+and hat at once?”
+
+I’m sure I said it most politely, but Mrs. Charlton replied “No” most
+angrily. She said, “You may certainly rest assured that I do not wish
+to keep you a moment longer than I am compelled, but I am afraid that
+it would be impossible for me to arrange for your return to-night.”
+Then she went away.
+
+After she had gone I thought a lot. First of all I packed my box, so as
+to be ready the first thing in the morning. Then I suddenly thought,
+Why couldn’t I arrange my journey home all alone, so as not to bother
+Mrs. Charlton? Then I could start off directly? I rushed to the window
+to see if it had stopped raining, and it had.
+
+When I began to plan it out it seemed to get easier and easier. It was
+only three and a half miles to the station, and along the big road with
+milestones and telegraph posts all the way. I knew, because, besides
+driving up the day before, we’d gone along a bit of the road to the
+village that morning. I’d got my return ticket to King’s Cross in my
+purse, and once that I got there I’d just take a cab to Waterloo, and
+then I could get home quite well. I know all about the trains from
+there, you see, because I’ve been lots of times. I’d got plenty of
+money, because there was the half-crown that Mother gave me before
+I came away (I had sewed it into my clothes, of course, like people
+do for travelling). Then I’d got a shilling and a farthing from my
+pocket-money, and a sixpence with a hole in it; I knew that with all
+that I could manage quite well. The only bother was about my box: I
+couldn’t carry it, of course; it _was_ puzzling. I thought, though, I
+might tell them at the station to call for it the next day, and let it
+go by itself, like we sometimes do at home. I wrote the address on the
+label in printing very neatly.
+
+I thought then that I’d start off, though I did feel a little
+uncomfortable as to whether Mother would mind. She certainly doesn’t
+like me to go out alone, but sometimes I have been sent on a message.
+Of course it was getting rather late, but I thought if I ran I could
+get to Corby, where the station is, before it got quite dark. Besides,
+I knew Mother wouldn’t wish me to stop when Mrs. Charlton didn’t want
+me; I heard her say once herself that visitors should never outstay
+their welcome. The chiefest thing, though, was that I felt I just
+couldn’t go a whole night more without seeing Mother.
+
+The worst part to think of was the going downstairs. My heart was
+thumping dreadfully by the time I had got on my coat and hat. Oh, first
+I pinned a little note on to the pincushion to say that I’d gone. It
+was most useful that I’d read Lizzie’s book, because that is what Lady
+Vera did before she flew with the Duke; I mightn’t ever have thought of
+it by myself. I forgot to say that I’d tied up all the magazines in a
+piece of brown paper and addressed them to “Miss Lizzie Hupandowngirl,
+thankyou.” I had to put just that because I didn’t know her other name.
+
+It was perfectly awful--the going down I mean. The stairs seemed to
+creak just as if they were doing it on purpose. Every minute I thought
+some one would come. No one did, though. I expect Mrs. Charlton was
+having her late dinner; anyway, there was nobody about. I crept across
+the hall and opened the front door. The squeak it made was dreadful. I
+stood there for a minute feeling quite sick and funny, but still no one
+came. So I went out and shut the door behind me as softly as I could.
+Then I ran and ran.
+
+Of course I couldn’t run all the way to Corby; I had to go slower
+pretty soon. I kept running little bits now and then, but it seemed a
+dreadfully long way. I was so afraid that some one Mrs. Charlton knew
+would see me and perhaps send me back, but though the people I met
+looked at me in rather a surprised way, they didn’t speak. I hid behind
+the hedge, too, until they’d passed, when I heard them coming in time.
+
+It was getting quite dark for the last part of the way, and the lamps
+were all lit at Corby. I couldn’t remember the turning to the station,
+but I asked a little boy. They speak so funnily up there that I didn’t
+understand what he said, but he pointed out the way all right.
+
+There was only one porter person at the station, and I was rather glad
+of that. He seemed rather stupid, but when I’d asked him two or three
+times, he said there was a train to King’s Cross at 8.52. That was very
+lucky, because it was already a quarter past eight. The porter asked
+me if I had got any luggage, but I said, “No, you are to fetch that
+to-morrow.” I didn’t think until afterwards that I hadn’t told him the
+address.
+
+When the train came it was very full, because there had been an
+excursion or something. I found one compartment that wasn’t quite so
+full, and I got in. A gentleman said, “Come on, there’s room for a
+little ’un,” and another said, “The more the merrier.” They certainly
+were very merry, for they were singing songs the whole time, and
+fighting, but all in fun. I didn’t know grown-up people played like
+that.
+
+There was a very fat lady sitting opposite me, and she began to talk.
+She said suddenly in rather a strict way, “Where’s your Ma, my dear?”
+and I said, “At home.”
+
+After a minute or two she started again. She said, “Ain’t your Ma well?”
+
+I said, “Yes, it’s Humph who is ill.” Then she asked me some more about
+him, and I told her.
+
+I thought she’d stopped, and I quite jumped when she said very crossly,
+“I suppose your Pa won’t leave ’is smoke. Puff an’ pull the whole day
+long, that’s the way with all these men. Pigs, I calls ’em!”
+
+I didn’t exactly understand. I said, “Father doesn’t smoke the whole
+day, but he is very fond of it. He likes to have his pipe if he can.”
+I found out afterwards that she thought I meant that Father was in
+a smoking compartment of the same train; I’m sure I don’t know why.
+I’d got so sleepy, though, that I didn’t seem to be able to explain
+anything or think properly at all.
+
+There was a funny little thin man sitting next to the fat lady, who
+looked as if he’d got there by mistake. He was like a white rabbit
+with a cold in its head. Suddenly the fat lady said, “Jeremiah, change
+places this minute with the young lady,” and he jumped up in quite a
+frightened way. Then she said to me much more nicely, “You come an’
+set ’ere, my dear, then you’ll be able to lean up aginst me an’ rest
+yourself more comfortable like.”
+
+I was so sleepy that I could hardly stand. It was most peculiar. So the
+fat lady pulled me up and put my head on her lap, just as if I were a
+baby; I didn’t seem to mind at all. I was rather ashamed when I thought
+about it afterwards, but Mother says it didn’t matter, and that the fat
+lady was most kind. I think so, too, though her lap was rather steep
+to be very comfortable. All the same, I must have gone off to sleep
+almost directly.
+
+The next thing I remember was being lifted up. The fat lady and the
+little white-rabbit gentleman were bustling about getting down their
+things, and the train was stopping. “No, this ain’t King’s Cross, my
+dear,” she said, “but we ain’t far off, so you jist pop on your ’at.
+We gets out ’ere, but I suppose your Pa will come for you at the next
+station. I’d like to give my fine gentleman a piece of my mind,” she
+went on to the little rabbit man, “leaving that pore child in ’ere an’
+never so much as taking the trouble to clap ’is eyes upon ’er the ’ole
+blessed way.”
+
+I was so astonished altogether, I could hardly speak. You see, for the
+first minute or two I couldn’t remember where I was. So I just said,
+“Thank you very much, thank you,” a good many times over. The fat lady
+bent down and kissed me, and said, “There’s a good little girl.” And,
+do you know, when her face was close, it looked for a minute like
+Mother’s. It was most astonishing, because she was so red and funny.
+
+I got quite awake getting my hat down from the rack, and almost
+directly after we arrived at King’s Cross. There was a great rush and
+bustle, and only one or two cabs, so it’s lucky the other excursion
+people didn’t all want them; every one seemed to be walking. I thought
+I’d better make haste, though, so I said to one cabman, “Are you
+engaged?” and when he said “No,” I jumped in quickly.
+
+Well, I expected that he’d start at once, but he didn’t. I waited a
+minute or two, then I poked open the little hole, which is rather
+difficult to do because it’s so high. I said, “Will you tell your horse
+to go, please?”
+
+He looked most astonished. He said, “You ain’t all alone?” I said
+“Yes.” Then he was very cross. He said “Come, now, get out of this.” I
+remembered then that I hadn’t told him where to go to, and I thought
+that might be making him so disagreeable. I said, “I beg your pardon
+for not telling you that I want to go to Waterloo Station, and I want
+to start at once, please.”
+
+The man seemed to get more surprised still. He said (I can’t help it,
+it’s sounding dreadful, but it’s what he really did say)--he said,
+“Well, I’m blessed!” Then he called out to a porter, but the porter was
+too busy to hear him.
+
+I didn’t know what to do because he didn’t seem to be even beginning to
+start. Then I remembered that when we were at Cousin Sophy’s the cabman
+wouldn’t drive us back from the pantomime because he said Chiswick was
+too far. So I poked open the little hole again, and I said, “You are
+on the rank plying for hire, and unless you start immediately I shall
+summons you.” That was what Cousin Sophy said; Humph and I have often
+acted it since, because the cabman was so angry and there was such an
+exciting fuss.
+
+This cabman wasn’t angry, though; he just seemed to get more and more
+astonished. He began to laugh, and he said again, “Well, I’m blessed!”
+Then he said, “You ain’t running away, are you, Missy?”
+
+I said “No.” I think that was true, because it isn’t exactly running
+away when you have been told that you are to go the next day in any
+case. I said, “I am just travelling home to my Mother.”
+
+That seemed to decide him more. He was going to start, when he thought
+of something else to worry over. He called down, “But ’ow about my
+fare, Missy?”
+
+I had been rather troubled about that myself. I’d got the half-crown
+for him, of course, and the ticket home from Waterloo is only
+one-and-five-pence-halfpenny, so he could have another halfpenny out
+of the sixpence with the hole in it, as well as my bright farthing.
+But I wasn’t sure if even all that was enough. Cabs are so dreadfully
+expensive, Mother always says; and Father says one oughtn’t to be
+stingy. So I just explained it to the cabman. I said, “I’ve got
+half-a-crown for you, and a halfpenny out of the sixpence with a hole
+in it, and a bright farthing; and if you’ll drive me as far as you can
+for that without me being stingy, I’ll walk the rest.” I knew there
+couldn’t be very much further to go, anyway.
+
+The cabman, though, was most nice. He said, “The ’alf-crown will do
+nicely for me, Missy. You can keep the rest.” Then we really did drive
+off.
+
+I did like it in the cab, and the streets were all bright with the
+lights. A clock we passed said it was ten minutes to twelve; wasn’t
+that an astonishing time? When we got to Waterloo I jumped out and gave
+the cabman his money. He said, “Shall you find the lady all right?” I
+said “Yes.” I think he would have said more, only just at that minute
+some one waved to him from the opposite side of the road.
+
+There weren’t very many people in the station, but they all stared very
+rudely, and some looked as if they were going to speak. So I hurried
+on as fast as I could to the place where you get the tickets. I knew
+there was a train in the middle of the night, you see, because Father
+comes down by it sometimes after parties. The little window for buying
+the tickets was open. (I can reach up to it quite easily on tiptoe;
+Humphrey can’t, he’d have to take a footstool if he travelled alone.) I
+said, “One half-third single to Farncombe.”
+
+Well, the gentleman there looked as surprised as the cabman. He said
+“What?” quite crossly. I thought it was because I hadn’t said “please,”
+but he wasn’t a bit nicer when I did. Then some other people came
+near, and that seemed to make the gentleman in the little hole less
+surprised. He punched my ticket and gave it to me, and he said, “I
+suppose your Mother has a season ticket?” I said, “No, Father has.” I
+didn’t know why he asked, but I think now he thought that I belonged to
+the people who were standing there. It was very silly of him, for the
+lady wasn’t the least bit like Mother; she looked horrid.
+
+I know the platform from which our trains mostly start, besides a good
+many other people were going along as well. I heard one lady say, “Who
+does that little girl belong to?” And the gentleman said, “Oh, to that
+lot, I think.” It made me very cross that everybody should mistake the
+horrid lady for Mother, but I didn’t like to explain. Somebody else,
+too, asked me if I were lost, but I said, very hard, “No.”
+
+It was so uncomfortable, people talking to me like this, that I got
+into the first empty carriage that I saw. I got under the seat, too, so
+that they’d be less likely to bother me with questions. It isn’t nice
+when every one is so astonished and cross at you.
+
+I liked it under the seat, but I was so afraid that it was naughty. I
+did hope that Mother wouldn’t mind. You see, she always says that I
+am so careless about my clothes, and that it is unkind to Violet, who
+has to wear them when I have grown out of them. It does seem hard on
+Violet, certainly, because she never spoils anything herself. I think
+she’d look neat on a desert island. She really ought to have been born
+an eldest. It made it worse, too, because I was wearing my titums. I
+suppose every one knows that a titums is your middle-best dress; the
+others are hitums and scrub.
+
+Of course, I didn’t stop under the seat all the time, or else I might
+have passed the station. I thought afterwards that it was lucky no
+one got into the carriage, because grown-up people are so easily
+astonished, and they might have thought it funny when I came crawling
+out. We only stopped twice before we got to Farncombe, which made it
+easier, and I had lots of time to plan what I’d do when we got there.
+First of all, though, I tried if both doors of the compartment were
+unlocked, because that was part of the plan. They were. I began to feel
+like the Young Pretender after Culloden.
+
+Well, it all went beautifully. As the train slowed down to go into
+Farncombe Station I jumped out of the door on the other side to our
+platform. Then I ran across the line and crouched down by the hedge
+until the train had gone off again and everything was quiet. I did
+this because the station-master and all the people at Farncombe know
+us, and I thought there’d be more fuss. Besides, the station-master is
+a most disagreeable man.
+
+I knew there was a hole in the hedge just there, because Humph and
+I discovered it one day when Fräulein took us to meet Mother; she’d
+missed her train, and so we had to wait a long time. It wasn’t true,
+though, that Humph and I first made that hole, like the station-master
+said; it was there all the time, though it may have got a teeny bit
+larger, but then holes are things that grow fast, like in sheets, but
+’specially with woollen gloves. Anyway it was a good thing now that it
+had got big, because I was able to find it quite easily and to scramble
+through into the field. Nobody saw me, so after waiting a few minutes
+more I walked across and got over the stile into the road.
+
+I had quite forgotten that it would be dark for this walk, when I
+planned to come home at Mrs. Charlton’s. If I had remembered, I might
+not have started, because of thinking that Mother would not like it,
+but I should never have guessed that it would be so horrid in itself.
+It wasn’t pitch black either, like it sometimes is. I’m not sure it
+wasn’t worse, because it was light enough to see all sorts of dreadful
+black things all round, and once you get quite outside Farncombe there
+aren’t any more lights or houses at all. It was so quiet, too, there
+wasn’t a sound. All at once I began to think of mad dogs and St. Denis.
+I thought, suppose there was some one coming after me, holding his head
+in his hands and looking down at it with his bleeding neck, like in the
+picture. I wanted to run dreadfully, but I wouldn’t let myself, because
+if you once start, something seems to come after you that will clutch
+you with long, clawy fingers if you stop. I thought of Mother instead,
+as hard as ever I could, and I’d got the penwiper on still, so I held
+that through my clothes. That made it rather better.
+
+Suddenly I saw something in the road moving. I could hardly breathe.
+It was awful. But then it came nearer, and I saw it was just an
+ordinary man. He had on his head quite all right. He said “Hullo!” and
+I said “Good-evening.”
+
+I didn’t think he was a very nice man, though; for he came up quite
+close in rather a rude way. He caught hold of me and said, “That’s a
+nice brooch you’ve got on,” and I said, “Yes; Father gave it to me last
+birthday. It’s real gold.”
+
+The man didn’t answer because just then we heard wheels coming. He
+listened for a minute and then he dashed away into the bushes. The
+carriage was really on the upper road, so he needn’t have minded. I
+didn’t tell that to him, because I didn’t like him much. It was kind of
+him, though, to admire my brooch. He was only a common sort of man, so
+I dare say he’d never been taught manners and things.
+
+I felt much better and more comfortable after meeting the man. I got
+almost directly to where our short cut through the copse begins, and
+that made it seem more like home. I thought that I could let myself
+begin to run there, because it’s such a little way, but all the same I
+did feel frightened before I got to the house. I rushed up to the front
+door and tugged at the handle. It was locked!
+
+Well, of course, I might have known that it would be, but at the time
+it seemed the worst thing of all. I began screaming out “Mother,
+Mother!” and I was all shaking and crying, I don’t know why. Almost
+before you’d have thought there was time, the door was pulled back and
+Mother had hold of me.
+
+After that it was all right, of course, and almost too nice to
+tell. Mother had come running down just as she was, though she said
+afterwards that she hadn’t really believed that it could be me, and had
+thought that she was dreaming it all. She carried me up and undressed
+me and put me into her own bed. I was still rather silly, for I didn’t
+seem to be able to say anything, only a line I’d read kept going on
+inside my head about “Port after stormy seas.”
+
+Presently, though, Mother began to ask me questions. She kept asking me
+if I had really come all the way alone, as if she could hardly believe
+it. Each time I said “Yes” she cuddled me again. Then she asked me if
+Mrs. Charlton knew; so I ’splained about it. Mother didn’t say anything
+hardly then, but she wrote a telegram for Mrs. Charlton to say that
+I’d arrived safely, and she put it for the gardener to take to the
+post-office the first thing in the morning. Mother got me some milk,
+and some cake, which I ate while she went in for a minute to see Humph.
+I forgot to say that of course I’d asked about him at the beginning,
+and Mother said that he had got much better the last day. Fräulein was
+with him, so Mother didn’t have to stay. She came back to me, and I was
+so happy it seemed to make me sleepy all at once. It was almost too
+lovely to feel that Mother was quite close to me.
+
+The next day it wasn’t so nice, though. Mother talked to me a long
+time, and she said a thing that made me feel dreadfully bad; she said
+I’d been selfish; I’d thought of my own feelings but not of other
+people’s. She said that fortunately Mrs. Charlton had not discovered my
+absence until the next morning, but if she had done so she would have
+been extremely worried, and, at her age, it might have made her quite
+ill. Also she’d have telegraphed home, and Mother says had she known
+that I was wandering about the country by myself all night, she could
+hardly have borne it, especially when Humphrey was so ill and Father
+away. I minded that part much more than about Mrs. Charlton. Mother
+looked so unhappy, it was dreadful. I promised and promised I’d never
+do such a thing again.
+
+That wasn’t all the disagreeables either. The next day a letter came
+from Cousin Sophy in London, asking me and the little ones to stay with
+her. She’d been abroad before, and so had only just heard of Humph’s
+having measles. Well, Mother wrote to Jane, who was away in lodgings
+with the little ones, to tell her to take them to Cousin Sophy’s at the
+end of the week, because Mother knew that they’d like it better. But
+with regard to me, Mother said she hardly liked to trust me away from
+home again.
+
+I minded the not being trusted part, but I didn’t mind the not going
+so much when Mother told me, because it seemed so nice to stop at home
+with her. But it wasn’t really; it was a great deal horrider than I
+could have ’magined. I hardly saw Mother at all because she was looking
+after Humphrey all the time, and I wasn’t allowed to go in to him.
+As for Fräulein, she was most strict and disagreeable. And then when
+Violet wrote she said that Cousin Sophy had taken them to the Zoo and
+the Chamber of Horrors, and lots of other lovely places. I did feel
+cross.
+
+They are back now, though, and Humph is well, and everything is nice.
+I’ve quite settled not to go visiting strangers alone again--no, not as
+long as I live. The others are so interested in my adventures, though,
+that it almost makes one forget how horrid they really were. Perhaps
+the lovely things you read in books are really like that, and even
+being a cowboy mayn’t be always nice. And I do think a journey like
+mine would be too dreadful for any one if Mother weren’t waiting for
+them at the end of it.
+
+
+UNWIN BROTHERS, LIMITED, PRINTERS, WOKING AND LONDON.
+
+
+
+
+SOME DAINTY GIFT BOOKS.
+
+
+TUFFY AND THE MERBOO
+
+BY PHYLLIS M. GOTCH,
+
+Author of “The Romance of a Boo-Bird Chic.”
+
+Seventeen Full-page Coloured Pictures.
+
+                             _Large 4to_, =6s.=
+
+
+THE CINEMATOGRAPH TRAIN
+
+BY G. E. FARROW,
+
+Author of the “Wallypug of Why.”
+
+Thirty Drawings by ALAN WRIGHT.
+
+                       _Large Crown 8vo_, =5s.=
+
+
+THE GIANT CRAB
+
+BY W. H. D. ROUSE.
+
+Profusely Illustrated by CHARLES ROBINSON.
+
+                  _Square Crown 8vo_, =3s. 6d.=
+
+
+  R. BRIMLEY JOHNSON,
+         4, ADAM STREET, STRAND, LONDON;
+         and 3, FREDERICK STREET, EDINBURGH.
+
+
+
+
+FROM THE AUTUMN LIST.
+
+
+LESSONS
+
+BY EVELYN SHARP,
+
+Author of “Wynips,” etc., etc.
+
+Sketches of Child Life and Character.
+
+                  _Crown 8vo_, =2s. 6d.= _net_.
+
+
+ENGLAND: A NATION
+
+BEING
+
+The Papers of the Patriots’ Club
+
+  EDITED BY
+  LUCIAN OLDERSHAW.
+
+                  _Crown 8vo_, =3s. 6d.= _net_.
+
+
+Contributors:
+
+  G. K. CHESTERTON,         Rev. CONRAD NOEL,
+  H. W. NEVINSON,           REGINALD BRAY,
+  J. L. HAMMOND,            C. F. G. MASTERMAN,
+             and R. C. K. ENSOR.
+
+
+YOUNG ENGLAND
+
+BEING
+
+Vivian Grey, Coningsby, Sybil, Tancred
+
+BY BENJAMIN DISRAELI.
+
+  4 Vols.  _Large Crown 8vo, each_ =5s.= _net_.
+
+Edited by B. LANGDON DAVIES.
+
+Illustrated by BYAM SHAW.
+
+
+J. T. NETTLESHIP
+
+In Memoriam
+
+EDITED BY W. ROTHENSTEIN.
+
+Twenty-four beautiful reproductions of his early symbolic and late
+animal work.
+
+Appreciations by W. B. YEATS, Professor ANDREW BRADLEY, A. E. JOHN, and
+H. MCILVAINE.
+
+
+R. BRIMLEY JOHNSON.
+
+
+
+
+TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:
+
+
+  Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_.
+
+  Emboldened text is surrounded by equals signs: =bold=.
+
+  Perceived typographical errors have been corrected.
+
+  Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized.
+
+  Archaic or variant spelling has been retained.
+
+
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 77065 ***