"And do you go out in the snow from one house to another at night; and
oh, don't you enjoy it?" cried Robin.
"We like it well enough," the lad admitted.
Robin bought a copy of "The Peace Egg." He was resolved to have a
nursery performance, and to take the chief part himself. The others
were willing for what he wished, but there were difficulties. In the
first place, there are eight characters in the play, and there were only
five children. They decided among themselves to leave out the "Fool,"
and Mamma said that another character was not to be acted by any of
them, or indeed mentioned; "the little one who comes in at the end,"
Robin explained. Mamma had her reasons, and these were always good. She
had not been altogether pleased that Robin had bought the play. It was a
very old thing, she said, and very queer; not adapted for a child's
play. If Mamma thought the parts not quite fit for the children to
learn, they found them much too long: so in the end she picked out some
bits for each, which they learned easily, and which, with a good deal of
fighting, made quite as good a story of it as if they had done the
whole. What may have been wanting otherwise was made up for by the
dresses, which were charming.
Robin was St. George, Nicholas the valiant Slasher, Dora the Doctor, and
the other two Hector and the King of Egypt. "And now we've no Black
Prince!" cried Robin in dismay.
"Let Darkie be the Black Prince," said Nicholas.
"When you wave your stick he'll jump for it, and then you can pretend to
fight with him."
"It's not a stick, it's a sword," said Robin.
"However, Darkie may be the Black Prince."
"And what's Pax to be?" asked Dora; "for you know he will come if Darkie
does, and he'll run in before everybody else too."
"Then he must be the Fool," said Robin, "and it will do very well, for
the Fool comes in before the rest, and Pax can have his red coat on, and
the collar with the little bells."