The aunt is a very rude lady, and it made us sorry for Daisy and Denny
when she said to them:
"_Are_ these the children? Do you remember them?"
We weren't very tidy, perhaps, because we'd been playing brigands in the
shrubbery; and we knew we should have to wash for dinner as soon as we
got back, anyhow. But still--
Denny said he thought he remembered us. But Daisy said, "Of course they
are," and then looked as if she was going to cry.
So then the aunt called a cab, and told the man where to drive, and put
Daisy and Denny in, and then she said:
"You two little girls may go too, if you like, but you little boys must
walk."
So the cab went off, and we were left. The aunt turned to us to say a
few last words. We knew it would have been about brushing your hair and
wearing gloves, so Oswald said, "Good-bye," and turned haughtily away,
before she could begin, and so did the others. No one but that kind of
black, beady, tight lady would say "little boys." She is like Miss
Murdstone in _David Copperfield_. I should like to tell her so; but she
would not understand. I don't suppose she has ever read anything but
_Markham's History_ and _Mangnall's Questions_--improving books like
that.
When we got home we found all four of those who had ridden in the cab
sitting in our sitting-room--we don't call it nursery now--looking very
thoroughly washed, and our girls were asking polite questions and the
others were saying "Yes" and "No" and "I don't know." We boys did not
say anything. We stood at the window and looked out till the gong went
for our dinner. We felt it was going to be awful--and it was. The
new-comers would never have done for knight-errants, or to carry the
cardinal's sealed message through the heart of France on a horse; they
would never have thought of anything to say to throw the enemy off the
scent when they got into a tight place.
They said, "Yes, please," and "No, thank you"; and they ate very neatly,
and always wiped their mouths before they drank, as well as after, and
never spoke with them full.
And after dinner it got worse and worse.
We got out all our books, and they said, "Thank you," and didn't look at
them properly. And we got out all our toys, and they said, "Thank you,
it's very nice," to everything. And it got less and less pleasant, and
towards tea-time it came to nobody saying anything except Noel and H.
O.--and they talked to each other about cricket.
After tea father came in, and he played "Letters" with them and the
girls, and it was a little better; but while late dinner was going on--I
shall never forget it. Oswald felt like the hero of a book--"almost at
the end of his resources." I don't think I was ever glad of bedtime
before, but that time I was.
When they had gone to bed (Daisy had to have all her strings and buttons
undone for her, Dora told me, though she is nearly ten, and Denny said
he couldn't sleep without the gas being left a little bit on) we held a
council in the girls' room. We all sat on the bed--it is a mahogany
four-poster with green curtains very good for tents, only the
housekeeper doesn't allow it, and Oswald said:
"This is jolly nice, isn't it?"
"They'll be better to-morrow," Alice said; "they're only shy."
Dicky said shy was all very well, but you needn't behave like a perfect
idiot.
"They're frightened. You see, we're all strange to them," Dora said.
"We're not wild beasts or Indians; we sha'n't eat them. What have they
got to be frightened of?" Dicky said this.
Noel told us he thought they were an enchanted prince and princess who'd
been turned into white rabbits, and their bodies had got changed back,
but not their insides.
But Oswald told him to dry up.
"It's no use making things up about them," he said. "The thing is: what
are we going to _do_? We can't have our holidays spoiled by these
snivelling kids."
"No," Alice said, "but they can't possibly go on snivelling forever.
Perhaps they've got into the habit of it with that Murdstone aunt. She's
enough to make any one snivel."
"All the same," said Oswald, "we jolly well aren't going to have another
day like to-day. We must do something to rouse them from their
snivelling leth--what's its name?--something sudden and--what is
it?--decisive."
"A booby trap," said H. O., "the first thing when they get up, and an
apple-pie bed at night."
But Dora would not hear of it, and I own she was right.
"Suppose," she said, "we could get up a good play--like we did when we
were Treasure Seekers."
We said, "Well, what?" But she did not say.
"It ought to be a good long thing--to last all day," Dicky said; "and if
they like they can play, and if they don't--"
"If they don't, I'll read to them," Alice said.
But we all said: "No, you don't; if you begin that way you'll have to go
on."
And Dicky added: "I wasn't going to say that at all. I was going to say
if they didn't like it they could jolly well do the other thing."
We all agreed that we must think of something, but we none of us could,
and at last the council broke up in confusion because Mrs. Blake--she is
the housekeeper--came up and turned off the gas.
But next morning when we were having breakfast, and the two strangers
were sitting there so pink and clean, Oswald suddenly said:
"I know; we'll have a jungle in the garden."
And the others agreed, and we talked about it till brek was over. The
little strangers only said "I don't know" whenever we said anything to
them.
After brekker Oswald beckoned his brothers and sisters mysteriously
apart and said:
"Do you agree to let me be captain to-day, because I thought of it?"
And they said they would.
Then he said: "We'll play jungle-book, and I shall be Mowgli. The rest
of you can be what you like--Mowgli's father and mother, or any of the
beasts."
"I don't suppose they know the book," said Noel. "They don't look as if
they read anything, except at lesson times."
"Then they can go on being beasts all the time," Oswald said. "Any one
can be a beast."
So it was settled.
And now Oswald--Albert's uncle has sometimes said he is clever at
arranging things--began to lay his plans for the jungle. The day was
indeed well chosen. Our Indian uncle was away; father was away; Mrs.
Blake was going away, and the housemaid had an afternoon off. Oswald's
first conscious act was to get rid of the white mice--I mean the little
good visitors. He explained to them that there would be a play in the
afternoon, and they could be what they liked, and gave them the
jungle-book to read the stories he told them to--all the ones about
Mowgli. He led the strangers to a secluded spot among the sea-kale pots
in the kitchen garden and left them. Then he went back to the others,
and we had a jolly morning under the cedar talking about what we would
do when Blakie was gone. She went just after our dinner.
When we asked Denny what he would like to be in the play, it turned out
he had not read the stories Oswald told him at all, but only the "White
Seal" and "Rikki Tikki."
We then agreed to make the jungle first and dress up for our parts
afterwards. Oswald was a little uncomfortable about leaving the
strangers alone all the morning, so he said Denny should be his
aide-de-camp, and he was really quite useful. He is rather handy with
his fingers, and things that he does up do not come untied. Daisy might
have come too, but she wanted to go on reading, so we let her, which is
the truest manners to a visitor. Of course the shrubbery was to be the
jungle, and the lawn under the cedar a forest glade, and then we began
to collect the things. The cedar lawn is just nicely out of the way of
the windows. It was a jolly hot day--the kind of day when the sunshine
is white and the shadows are dark gray, not black like they are in the
evening.
We all thought of different things. Of course first we dressed up
pillows in the skins of beasts and set them about on the grass to look
as natural as we could. And then we got Pincher, and rubbed him all over
with powdered slate-pencil, to make him the right color for Gray
Brother. But he shook it all off, and it had taken an awful time to do.
Then Alice said:
"Oh, I know!" and she ran off to father's dressing-room, and came back
with the tube of _creme d'amande pour la barbe et les mains_, and we
squeezed it on Pincher and rubbed it in, and then the slate-pencil stuff
stuck all right, and he rolled in the dust-bin of his own accord, which
made him just the right color. He is a very clever dog, but soon after
he went off and we did not find him till quite late in the afternoon.
Denny helped with Pincher, and with the wild-beast skins, and when
Pincher was finished he said:
"Please, may I make some paper birds to put in the trees? I know how."
And of course we said "Yes," and he only had red ink and newspapers, and
quickly he made quite a lot of large paper birds with red tails. They
didn't look half bad on the edge of the shrubbery.