And we looked, and it was a creature with great horns and a fur
rug--something like a bull and something like a minotaur--and I don't
wonder Denny was frightened. It was Alice, and it was first-class.
Up to now all was not yet lost beyond recall. It was the stuffed fox
that did the mischief--and I am sorry to own it was Oswald who thought
of it. He is not ashamed of having _thought_ of it. That was rather
clever of him. But he knows now that it is better not to take other
people's foxes and things without asking, even if you live in the same
house with them.
It was Oswald who undid the back of the glass case in the hall and got
out the fox with the green and gray duck in its mouth, and when the
others saw how awfully like life they looked on the lawn, they all
rushed off to fetch the other stuffed things. Uncle has a tremendous lot
of stuffed things. He shot most of them himself--but not the fox, of
course. There was another fox's mask, too, and we hung that in a bush to
look as if the fox was peeping out. And the stuffed birds we fastened on
to the trees with string. The duck-bill--what's its name?--looked very
well sitting on his tail with the otter snarling at him. Then Dicky had
an idea; and though not nearly so much was said about it afterwards as
there was about the stuffed things, I think myself it was just as bad,
though it was a good idea too. He just got the hose and put the end over
a branch of the cedar-tree. Then we got the steps they clean windows
with, and let the hose rest on the top of the steps and run. It was to
be a water-fall, but it ran between the steps and was only wet and
messy; so we got father's mackintosh and uncle's and covered the steps
with them, so that the water ran down all right and was glorious, and it
ran away in a stream across the grass where we had dug a little channel
for it--and the otter and the duck-bill thing were as if in their native
haunts. I hope all this is not very dull to read about. I know it was
jolly good fun to do. Taking one thing with another, I don't know that
we ever had a better time while it lasted.
We got all the rabbits out of the hutches and put pink paper tails on to
them, and hunted them with horns, made out of the _Times_. They got away
somehow, and before they were caught next day they had eaten a good many
lettuces and other things. Oswald is very sorry for this. He rather
likes the gardener.
Denny wanted to put paper tails on the guinea-pigs, and it was no use
our telling him there was nothing to tie the paper on to. He thought we
were kidding until we showed him, and then he said, "Well, never mind,"
and got the girls to give him bits of the blue stuff left over from
their dressing-gowns.
"I'll make them sashes to tie round their little middles," he said. And
he did, and the bows stuck up on the tops of their backs. One of the
guinea-pigs was never seen again, and the same with the tortoise when we
had done his shell with vermilion paint. He crawled away and returned no
more. Perhaps some one collected him and thought he was an expensive
kind, unknown in these cold latitudes.
The lawn under the cedar was transformed into a dream of beauty, what
with the stuffed creatures and the paper-tailed things and the
water-fall. And Alice said:
"I wish the tigers did not look so flat." For of course with pillows you
can only pretend it is a sleeping tiger getting ready to make a spring
out at you. It is difficult to prop up tiger-skins in a life-like manner
when there are no bones inside them, only pillows and sofa-cushions.
"What about the beer-stands?" I said. And we got two out of the cellar.
With bolsters and string we fastened insides to the tigers--and they
were really fine. The legs of the beer-stand did for tigers' legs. It
was indeed the finishing touch.
Then we boys put on just our bathing drawers and vests--so as to be able
to play with the water-fall without hurting our clothes. I think this
was thoughtful. The girls only tucked up their frocks and took their
shoes and stockings off. H. O. painted his legs and his hands with
Condy's fluid--to make him brown, so that he might be Mowgli, although
Oswald was captain and had plainly said he was going to be Mowgli
himself. Of course the others weren't going to stand that. So Oswald
said:
"Very well. Nobody asked you to brown yourself like that. But now you've
done it, you've simply got to go and be a beaver, and live in the dam
under the water-fall till it washes off."
He said he didn't want to be beavers. And Noel said:
"Don't make him. Let him be the bronze statue in the palace gardens
that the fountain plays out of."
So we let him have the hose and hold it up over his head. It made a
lovely fountain, only he remained brown. So then Dicky and Oswald did
ourselves brown too, and dried H. O. as well as we could with our
handkerchiefs, because he was just beginning to snivel. The brown did
not come off any of us for days.
Oswald was to be Mowgli, and we were just beginning to arrange the
different parts. The rest of the hose that was on the ground was Kaa,
the Rock Python, and Pincher was Gray Brother, only we couldn't find
him. And while most of us were talking, Dicky and Noel got messing about
with the beer-stand tigers.
And then a really sad event instantly occurred, which was not really our
fault, and we did not mean to.
That Daisy girl had been mooning indoors all the afternoon with the
jungle books, and now she came suddenly out, just as Dicky and Noel had
got under the tigers and were shoving them along to fright each other.
Of course, this is not in the Mowgli book at all: but they did look
jolly like real tigers, and I am very far from wishing to blame the
girl, though she little knew what would be the awful consequence of her
rash act. But for her we might have got out of it all much better than
we did.
What happened was truly horrid.
[Illustration: "WE LET THE HOSE PLAY PERSEVERINGLY"]
As soon as Daisy saw the tigers she stopped short, and uttering a shriek
like a railway whistle, she fell flat on the ground.
"Fear not, gentle Indian maiden," Oswald cried, thinking with surprise
that perhaps after all she did know how to play, "I myself will protect
thee." And he sprang forward with the native bow and arrows out of
uncle's study.
The gentle Indian maiden did not move.
"Come hither," Dora said, "let us take refuge in yonder covert while
this good knight does battle for us."
Dora might have remembered that we were savages, but she did not. And
that is Dora all over. And still the Daisy girl did not move.
Then we were truly frightened. Dora and Alice lifted her up, and her
mouth was a horrid violet color and her eyes half shut. She looked
horrid. Not at all like fair fainting damsels, who are always of an
interesting pallor. She was green, like a cheap oyster on a stall.
We did what we could, a prey to alarm as we were. We rubbed her hands
and let the hose play gently but perseveringly on her unconscious brow.
The girls loosened her dress, though it was only the kind that comes
down straight without a waist. And we were all doing what we could as
hard as we could, when we heard the click of the front gate. There was
no mistake about it.
"I hope whoever it is will go straight to the front door," said Alice.
But whoever it was did not. There were feet on the gravel, and there was
the uncle's voice, saying, in his hearty manner:
"This way. This way. On such a day as this we shall find our young
barbarians all at play somewhere about the grounds."
And then, without further warning, the uncle, three other gentlemen, and
two ladies burst upon the scene.
We had no clothes on to speak of--I mean us boys. We were all wet
through. Daisy was in a faint or a fit, or dead, none of us then knew
which. And all the stuffed animals were there staring the uncle in the
face. Most of them had got a sprinkling, and the otter and the duck-bill
brute were simply soaked. And three of us were dark brown. Concealment,
as so often happens, was impossible.
The quick brain of Oswald saw, in a flash, exactly how it would strike
the uncle, and his brave young blood ran cold in his veins. His heart
stood still.
"What's all this--eh, what?" said the tones of the wronged uncle.
Oswald spoke up and said it was jungles we were playing, and he didn't
know what was up with Daisy. He explained as well as any one could, but
words were now in vain.
The uncle had a Malacca cane in his hand, and we were but ill prepared
to meet the sudden attack. Oswald and H. O. caught it worst. The other
boys were under the tigers--and, of course, my uncle would not strike a
girl. Denny was a visitor and so got off. But it was bread and water for
us for the next three days, and our own rooms. I will not tell you how
we sought to vary the monotonousness of imprisonment. Oswald thought of
taming a mouse, but he could not find one. The reason of the wretched
captives might have given way but for the gutter that you can crawl
along from our room to the girls'. But I will not dwell on this because
you might try it yourselves, and it really is dangerous. When my father
came home we got the talking to, and we said we were sorry--and we
really were--especially about Daisy, though she had behaved with
muffishness, and then it was settled that we were to go into the country
and stay till we had grown into better children.
Albert's uncle was writing a book in the country; we were to go to his
house. We were glad of this--Daisy and Denny too. This we bore nobly. We
knew we had deserved it. We were all very sorry for everything, and we
resolved that for the future we _would_ be good.
I am not sure whether we kept this resolution or not. Oswald thinks now
that perhaps we made a mistake in trying so very hard to be good all at
once. You should do everything by degrees.
* * * * *
_P.S._--It turned out Daisy was not really dead at all. It was only
fainting--so like a girl.
* * * * *
_N.B._--Pincher was found on the drawing-room sofa.
* * * * *
_Appendix._--I have not told you half the things we did for the
jungle--for instance, about the elephants' tusks and the horse-hair
sofa-cushions and uncle's fishing-boots.