"Don't forget to say 'Rabbits' to-morrow," said Angela. Angela is aged nine
and my younger sister; I am thirteen and my name is Anne.
We both looked inquiringly at Father, and, as he didn't seem to remember,
Angela in pained surprise began to explain. "If you say 'Rabbits' before
you say anything else on the first day of a month you get a present during
the month, but you mustn't say anything else first, or you won't."
It all came out in one breath and, though it looks clear enough now, Father
was very stupid.
"I dislike rabbits," he said, "and I am very busy; your Mother will
probably be glad of them for the servants."
The rebuke in Angela's eyes was severe. "We haven't got any rabbits," she
said; "we are only going to say 'Rabbits' to-morrow morning when we wake up
and we thought you might like to do the same."
"Oh, I should," said Father; "thank you very much, I won't forget." And he
wrote "Rabbits" down on his blotting-paper. "Now go and tell your Mother;
she would like to say 'Rabbits' too, I know."
That seemed to terminate the interview, so we left him; but altogether it
was not very satisfactory. You see, when we had "Bon-jour-Philippines,"
Father used to provide the presents; at least that was some time ago; we
haven't had any "Bon-jour-Philippines" lately. The last time we did, Jack,
that is my brother at Oxford, found one and split it with Father, and the
next morning he said, "Bon-jour-Philippine" first and then asked for a
present. Father asked him what he wanted, and he gave Father a letter that
he had had that morning. Father got very angry and said that it was a
disgrace the way tailors allowed credit to young wasters nowadays. He
didn't say it quite like that, it was rather worse, and Mother said, "Hush,
dear; remember the children," and Father said that they were all as bad and
in the conspiracy to ruin him, and he went out of the room and banged the
door.
Mother told Jack that he should have chosen a better moment, and Jack owned
he had made a mistake and said that he ought to have got it in before
Father had looked at the paper and seen the latest news of LLOYD GEORGE. I
don't quite know what he meant, but Father often talks about LLOYD GEORGE,
and he must be a beast.
I asked Jack later if he got his present, and he said that he had, but--and
here he copied Father's voice so well that I had to laugh--"It is the very
last time, my boy; when I was at Oxford I used to consider my Father, and I
would have worked in the fields and earned money sooner than have given him
bills to pay." Jack said that he knew one of the dons at Oxford who knew
Father, and from what he said he thought that Father must have spent as
long in the fields as NEBUCHADNEZZAR did.
I remembered all this as I went to find mother about "Rabbits," and I
wasn't quite sure that we should get our present even if we did say it, so
I told Angela, and she had a brilliant idea. "We will make Father say
'Rabbits' and give him a present ourselves, and he is sure to give us
something in return." Angela is younger than I am, but she often thinks
quite clever things like that, and they come in very useful sometimes.
We went to the summer-house in the garden to make plans. First we thought
what would be the best present to give Father. Last Christmas we gave him a
pipe, and he said that it was just what he wanted; it cost ninepence and
was made like a man's head, and you put the tobacco in a hole in his hat.
Father lit it at once after breakfast, but two days after I saw Jakes the
gardener smoking it. We thought at first that he had stolen it, and I went
to Father, but he said that Jakes had thirteen children, and when a man was
in trouble like that you ought to give up what you valued most to try to
make that man happy, and that Jakes was awfully pleased when he gave him
the pipe.
You see that made it very difficult, as we had to get something that Father
would like and Jakes too, as he still had thirteen children; and then I
remembered that Mrs. Jakes had once looked at a woollen jumper that I had
on, and said that it would be just the thing for her Mary Ann, who had a
delicate chest, and Jakes would be sure to like what Mrs. Jakes liked, or
else he wouldn't have married her. Of course a jumper wasn't really the
sort of thing that Father could wear, but I thought he might wrap his foot
up in it when he next had gout, and besides I shouldn't be wanting it much
more myself, as the summer was coming on.
Angela said that she thought that would do well, and she wouldn't mind
giving Father her jumper next month if he said "Rabbits," and it would do
for Mrs. Jakes' next little girl.
So that was decided, and then we had to arrange the plan. The most
important thing was for us to wake before Father, so that we could wake him
and remind him before he had time to say anything else, and Angela
remembered that Ellen, that's the housemaid, had an alarm clock, which she
used to set at a quarter to six each morning. We waited until Ellen had
gone downstairs and then took it and hid it in Angela's bed.
Next morning the clock went off. We were both rather frightened, and it was
very cold and the room looked funny, as the blinds hadn't been pulled up,
but we put our dressing-gowns on. Then Angela said that she had heard that
if you woke a person who was walking in their sleep they sometimes called
out, so I took a pair of stockings from the basket that had just come back
from the wash to hold over Father's mouth while we woke him. They were
waiting to be mended and had a hole in them, but that didn't matter much,
as I screwed them up tight, and then we went into Father's room. They were
both asleep, and Father had his mouth open all ready for the stockings,
which was very lucky, as I was wondering how I could get them in.
We crept up to the bed, and I know I shivered, and I think Angela did too,
as I was holding her hand. Then she called out "Boo" as loud as she could,
and I stuffed the stockings into Father's mouth, and then they both woke
up, and everything went wrong.
Mother thought the house was on fire and screamed, and it made Angela begin
to cry. I quite forgot to tell Father to say "Rabbits," and just pressed
the stockings further into his mouth.
Father struggled and made awful noises, and when he did get the stockings
out the things he said weren't a bit like "Rabbits," and the only thing
that he did say that I could write down here was that he thought he was
going to be sick. The rest was dreadful.
We were both sent back to bed, and that morning as a punishment we were not
allowed into the dining-room until Father and Mother had finished their
breakfast; and Angela, who often thinks quite clever things, said that we
had better not do "Rabbits" again for a good long time. But after all it
didn't matter much as the weather got a great deal colder, and I wore my
jumper a lot, and so did Angela.
* * * * *
[Illustration: "LOOK 'ERE--THIS ARF-CROWN WON'T DO. IT AIN'T GOT NO MILLING
ON ITS HEDGE."
"BLIMY! NOR IT 'AS! I _KNEW_ I'D FORGOTTEN SOMEFINK."]
* * * * *