And when we got as far as that we all began to talk at once. Dora wanted
it called the Society for Humane Improvement; Denny said the Society for
Reformed Outcast Children; but Dicky said, "No, we really were not so
bad as all that." Then H. O. said, "Call it the Good Society."
"Or the Society for Being Good In," said Daisy.
"Or the Society of Goods," said Noel.
"That's priggish," said Oswald; "besides, we don't know whether we shall
be so very."
"You see," Alice explained, "we only said if we _could_ we would be
good."
"Well, then," Dicky said, getting up and beginning to dust the chopped
hay off himself, "call it the Society of the Wouldbegoods and have done
with it."
Oswald thinks Dicky was getting sick of it and wanted to make himself a
little disagreeable. If so, he was doomed to disappointment. For every
one else clapped hands and called out, "That's the very thing!" Then the
girls went off to write out the rules, and took H. O. with them, and
Noel went to write some poetry to put in the minute book. That's what
you call the book that a society's secretary writes what it does in.
Denny went with him to help. He knows a lot of poetry. I think he went
to a lady's school where they taught nothing but that. He was rather shy
of us, but he took to Noel. I can't think why. Dicky and Oswald walked
round the garden and told each other what they thought of the new
society.
"I'm not sure we oughtn't to have put our foot down at the beginning,"
Dicky said. "I don't see much in it, anyhow."
"It pleases the girls," Oswald said, for he is a kind brother.
"But we're not going to stand jaw, and 'words in season,' and 'loving
sisterly warnings.' I tell you what it is, Oswald, we'll have to run
this thing our way, or it'll be jolly beastly for everybody."
Oswald saw this plainly.
"We must do something," Dicky said; "it's very hard, though. Still,
there must be _some_ interesting things that are not wrong."
"I suppose so," Oswald said, "but being good is so much like being a
muff, generally. Anyhow I'm not going to smooth the pillows of the sick,
or read to the aged poor, or any rot out of _Ministering Children_."
"No more am I," Dicky said. He was chewing a straw like the head had in
its mouth, "but I suppose we must play the game fair. Let's begin by
looking out for something useful to do--something like mending things or
cleaning them, not just showing off."
"The boys in books chop kindling wood and save their pennies to buy tea
and tracts."
"Little beasts!" said Dick. "I say, let's talk about something else."
And Oswald was glad to, for he was beginning to feel jolly
uncomfortable.
We were all rather quiet at tea, and afterwards Oswald played draughts
with Daisy and the others yawned. I don't know when we've had such a
gloomy evening. And every one was horribly polite, and said "Please" and
"Thank you," far more than requisite.
Albert's uncle came home after tea. He was jolly, and told us stories,
but he noticed us being a little dull, and asked what blight had fallen
on our young lives. Oswald could have answered and said, "It is the
Society of the Wouldbegoods that is the blight," but of course he
didn't; and Albert's uncle said no more, but he went up and kissed the
girls when they were in bed, and asked them if there was anything wrong.
And they told him no, on their honor.
[Illustration: "'LITTLE BEASTS,' SAID DICK"]
The next morning Oswald awoke early. The refreshing beams of the morning
sun shone on his narrow, white bed and on the sleeping forms of his dear
little brothers, and Denny, who had got the pillow on top of his head
and was snoring like a kettle when it sings. Oswald could not remember
at first what was the matter with him, and then he remembered the
Wouldbegoods, and wished he hadn't. He felt at first as if there was
nothing you could do, and even hesitated to buzz a pillow at Denny's
head. But he soon saw that this could not be. So he chucked his boot and
caught Denny right in the waistcoat part, and thus the day began more
brightly than he had expected.
Oswald had not done anything out of the way good the night before,
except that when no one was looking he polished the brass candlestick in
the girls' bedroom with one of his socks. And he might just as well have
let it alone, for the servants cleaned it again with the other things in
the morning, and he could never find the sock afterwards. There were two
servants. One of them had to be called Mrs. Pettigrew instead of Jane
and Eliza like others. She was cook and managed things.
After breakfast Albert's uncle said:
"I now seek the retirement of my study. At your peril violate my privacy
before 1.30 sharp. Nothing short of bloodshed will warrant the
intrusion, and nothing short of man--or rather boy--slaughter shall
avenge it."
So we knew he wanted to be quiet, and the girls decided that we ought to
play out of doors so as not to disturb him; we should have played out of
doors anyhow on a jolly fine day like that.
But as we were going out Dicky said to Oswald:
"I say, come along here a minute, will you?"
So Oswald came along, and Dicky took him into the other parlor and shut
the door, and Oswald said:
"Well, spit it out: what is it?" He knows that is vulgar, and he would
not have said it to any one but his own brother.
Dicky said:
"It's a pretty fair nuisance. I told you how it would be."
And Oswald was patient with him, and said:
"What is? Don't be all day about it."
Dicky fidgeted about a bit, and then he said:
"Well, I did as I said. I looked about for something useful to do. And
you know that dairy window that wouldn't open--only a little bit like
that? Well, I mended the catch with wire and whipcord and it opened
wide."
"And I suppose they didn't want it mended," said Oswald. He knows but
too well that grown-up people sometimes like to keep things far
different from what we would, and you catch it if you try to do
otherwise.
"I shouldn't have minded _that_," Dicky said, "because I could easily
have taken it all off again if they'd only said so. But the sillies went
and propped up a milk-pan against the window. They never took the
trouble to notice I had mended it. So the wretched thing pushed the
window open all by itself directly they propped it up, and it's tumbled
through into the moat, and they are most awfully waxy. All the men are
out in the fields, and they haven't any spare milk-pans. If I were a
farmer, I must say I wouldn't stick at an extra milk-pan or two.
Accidents must happen sometimes. I call it mean."
Dicky spoke in savage tones. But Oswald was not so unhappy, first
because it wasn't his fault, and next because he is a far-seeing boy.
"Never mind," he said, kindly. "Keep your tail up. We'll get the beastly
milk-pan out all right. Come on."
He rushed hastily to the garden and gave a low signifying whistle, which
the others know well enough to mean something extra being up.
And when they were all gathered round him he spoke.
"Fellow-countrymen," he said, "we're going to have a rousing good time."
"It's nothing naughty, is it," Daisy asked, "like the last time you had
that was rousingly good?"
Alice said "Shish," and Oswald pretended not to hear.
"A precious treasure," he said, "has inadvertently been laid low in the
moat by one of us."
"The rotten thing tumbled in by itself," Dicky said.
Oswald waved his hand and said, "Anyhow, it's there. It's our duty to
restore it to its sorrowing owners. I say, look here--we're going to
drag the moat."
Every one brightened up at this. It was our duty and it was interesting
too. This is very uncommon.
So we went out to where the orchard is, at the other side of the moat.
There were gooseberries and things on the bushes, but we did not take
any till we had asked if we might. Alice went and asked. Mrs. Pettigrew
said, "Law! I suppose so; you'd eat 'em anyhow, leave or no leave."
She little knows the honorable nature of the house of Bastable. But she
has much to learn.
The orchard slopes gently down to the dark waters of the moat. We sat
there in the sun and talked about dragging the moat, till Denny said,
"How _do_ you drag moats?"
And we were speechless, because, though we had read many times about a
moat being dragged for missing heirs and lost wills, we really had never
thought about exactly how it was done.
"Grappling-irons are right, I believe," Denny said, "but I don't suppose
they'd have any at the farm."
And we asked, and found they had never even heard of them. I think
myself he meant some other word, but he was quite positive.
So then we got a sheet off Oswald's bed, and we all took our shoes and
stockings off, and we tried to see if the sheet would drag the bottom of
the moat, which is shallow at that end. But it would keep floating on
the top of the water, and when we tried sewing stones into one end of
it, it stuck on something in the bottom, and when we got it up it was
torn. We were very sorry, and the sheet was in an awful mess; but the
girls said they were sure they could wash it in the basin in their room,
and we thought as we had torn it any way, we might as well go on. That
washing never came off.
"No human being," Noel said, "knows half the treasures hidden in this
dark tarn."
And we decided we would drag a bit more at that end, and work gradually
round to under the dairy window where the milk-pan was. We could not see
that part very well, because of the bushes that grow between the cracks
of the stones where the house goes down into the moat. And opposite the
dairy window the barn goes straight down into the moat too. It is like
pictures of Venice; but you cannot get opposite the dairy window anyhow.
We got the sheet down again when we had tied the torn parts together in
a bunch with string, and Oswald was just saying:
"Now then, my hearties, pull together, pull with a will! One, two,
three," when suddenly Dora dropped her bit of the sheet with a piercing
shriek and cried out:
"Oh! it's all wormy at the bottom. I felt them wriggle." And she was out
of the water almost before the words were out of her mouth. The other
girls all scuttled out too, and they let the sheet go in such a hurry
that we had no time to steady ourselves, and one of us went right in,
and the rest got wet up to our waistbands. The one who went right in was
only H. O.; but Dora made an awful fuss and said it was our fault. We
told her what we thought, and it ended in the girls going in with H. O.
to change his things. We had some more gooseberries while they were
gone. Dora was in an awful wax when she went away, but she is not of a
sullen disposition though some times hasty, and when they all came back
we saw it was all right, so we said:
"What shall we do now?"
Alice said, "I don't think we need drag any more. It _is_ wormy. I felt
it when Dora did. And besides, the milk-pan is sticking a bit of itself
out of the water. I saw it through the dairy window."
"Couldn't we get it up with fish-hooks?" Noel said. But Alice explained
that the dairy was now locked up and the key taken out.
So then Oswald said:
"Look here, we'll make a raft. We should have to do it some time, and we
might as well do it now. I saw an old door in that corner stable that
they don't use. You know. The one where they chop the wood."
We got the door.
We had never made a raft, any of us, but the way to make rafts is better
described in books, so we knew what to do.
We found some nice little tubs stuck up on the fence of the farm garden,
and nobody seemed to want them for anything just then, so we took them.
Denny had a box of tools some one had given him for his last birthday;
they were rather rotten little things, but the gimlet worked all right,
so we managed to make holes in the edges of the tubs and fasten them
with string under the four corners of the old door. This took us a long
time. Albert's uncle asked us at dinner what we had been playing at, and
we said it was a secret, and it was nothing wrong. You see we wished to
atone for Dicky's mistake before anything more was said. The house has
no windows in the side that faces the orchard.
The rays of the afternoon sun were beaming along the orchard grass when
at last we launched the raft. She floated out beyond reach with the last
shove of the launching. But Oswald waded out and towed her back; he is
not afraid of worms. Yet if he had known of the other things that were
in the bottom of that moat he would have kept his boots on. So would the
others, especially Dora, as you will see.
At last the gallant craft rode upon the waves. We manned her, though not
up to our full strength, because if more than four got on the water came
up too near our knees, and we feared she might founder if over-manned.
Daisy and Denny did not want to go on the raft, white mice that they
were, so that was all right. And as H. O. had been wet through once he
was not very keen. Alice promised Noel her best paint-brush if he'd give
up and not go, because we knew well that the voyage was fraught with
deep dangers, though the exact danger that lay in wait for us under the
dairy window we never even thought of.
So we four elder ones got on the raft very carefully; and even then,
every time we moved the water swished up over the raft and hid our feet.
But I must say it was a jolly decent raft.
Dicky was captain, because it was his adventure. We had hop-poles from
the hop-garden beyond the orchard to punt with. We made the girls stand
together in the middle and hold on to each other to keep steady. Then we
christened our gallant vessel. We called it the _Richard_, after Dicky,
and also after the splendid admiral who used to eat wine-glasses and
died after the Battle of the _Revenge_ in Tennyson's poetry.
Then those on shore waved a fond adieu as well as they could with the
dampness of their handkerchiefs, which we had had to use to dry our legs
and feet when we put on our stockings for dinner, and slowly and stately
the good ship moved away from shore, riding on the waves as though they
were her native element.
We kept her going with the hop-poles, and we kept her steady in the same
way, but we could not always keep her steady enough, and we could not
always keep her in the wind's eye. That is to say, she went where we did
not want, and once she bumped her corner against the barn wall, and all
the crew had to sit down suddenly to avoid falling overboard into a
watery grave. Of course then the waves swept her decks, and when we got
up again we said that we should have to change completely before tea.
But we pressed on undaunted, and at last our saucy craft came into port
under the dairy window, and there was the milk-pan, for whose sake we
had endured such hardships and privations, standing up on its edge quite
quietly.
The girls did not wait for orders from the captain, as they ought to
have done; but they cried out, "Oh, here it is!" and then both reached
out to get it. Any one who has pursued a naval career will see that of
course the raft capsized. For a moment it felt like standing on the roof
of the house, and the next moment the ship stood up on end and shot the
whole crew into the dark waters.
We boys can swim all right. Oswald has swum three times across the
Ladywell Swimming Baths at the shallow end, and Dicky is nearly as good;
but just then we did not think of this; though, of course, if the water
had been deep we should have.
As soon as Oswald could get the muddy water out of his eyes he opened
them on a horrid scene.
Dicky was standing up to his shoulders in the inky waters; the raft had
righted itself, and was drifting gently away towards the front of the
house, where the bridge is, and Doar and Alice were rising from the
deep, with their hair all plastered over their faces--like Venus in the
Latin verses.
There was a great noise of splashing. And besides that a feminine voice,
looking out of the dairy window and screaming:
"Lord love the children!"
It was Mrs. Pettigrew. She disappeared at once, and we were sorry we
were in such a situation that she would be able to get at Albert's uncle
before we could. Afterwards we were not so sorry.
Before a word could be spoken about our desperate position, Dora
staggered a little in the water, and suddenly shrieked, "Oh, my foot!
oh, it's a shark! I know it is--or a crocodile!"
The others on the bank could hear her shrieking, but they could not see
us properly; they did not know what was happening. Noel told me
afterwards he never could care for that paint-brush.
Of course we knew it could not be a shark, but I thought of pike, which
are large and very angry always, and I caught hold of Dora. She screamed
without stopping. I shoved her along to where there was a ledge of
brickwork, and shoved her up, till she could sit on it, then she got her
foot out of the water, still screaming.
It was indeed terrible. The thing she thought was a shark came up with
her foot, and it was a horrid, jagged, old meat-tin, and she had put her
foot right into it. Oswald got it off, and directly he did so blood
began to pour from the wounds. The tin edges had cut it in several
spots. It was very pale blood, because her foot was wet, of course.
She stopped screaming, and turned green, and I thought she was going to
faint, like Daisy did on the jungle day.
Oswald held her up as well as he could, but it really was one of the
least agreeable moments in his life. For the raft was gone, and she
couldn't have waded back anyway, and we didn't know how deep the moat
might be in other places.
But Mrs. Pettigrew had not been idle. She is not a bad sort really.
Just as Oswald was wondering whether he could swim after the raft and
get it back, a boat's nose shot out from under a dark archway a little
further up under the house. It was the boathouse, and Albert's uncle had
got the punt and took us back in it. When we had regained the dark arch
where the boat lives we had to go up the cellar stairs. Dora had to be
carried.
There was but little said to us that day. We were sent to bed--those who
had not been on the raft the same as the others, for they owned up all
right, and Albert's uncle is the soul of justice.
Next day but one was Saturday. Father gave us a talking to--with other
things.
The worst, though, was when Dora couldn't get her shoe on, so they sent
for the doctor, and Dora had to lie down for ever so long. It was indeed
poor luck.
When the doctor had gone Alice said to me:
"It _is_ hard lines, but Dora's very jolly about it. Daisy's been
telling her about how we should all go to her with our little joys and
sorrows and things, and about the sweet influence from a sick bed that
can be felt all over the house, like in _What Katy Did_, and Dora said
she hoped she might prove a blessing to us all while she's laid up."
Oswald said he hoped so, but he was not pleased. Because this sort of
jaw was exactly the sort of thing he and Dicky didn't want to have
happen.
The thing we got it hottest for was those little tubs off the garden
railings. They turned out to be butter-tubs that had been put out there
"to sweeten."
But as Denny said, "After the mud in that moat not all the perfumes of
somewhere or other could make them fit to use for butter again."
I own this was rather a bad business. Yet we did not do it to please
ourselves, but because it was our duty. But that made no difference to
our punishment when father came down. I have known this mistake occur
before.