BEING WANTED
The morning after the children had been the possessors of boundless
wealth, and had been unable to buy anything really useful or
enjoyable with it, except two pairs of cotton gloves, twelve penny
buns, an imitation crocodile-skin purse, and a ride in a pony-cart,
they awoke without any of the enthusiastic happiness which they had
felt on the previous day when they remembered how they had had the
luck to find a Psammead, or Sand-fairy; and to receive its promise
to grant them a new wish every day. For now they had had two
wishes, Beauty and Wealth, and neither had exactly made them happy.
But the happening of strange things, even if they are not
completely pleasant things, is more amusing than those times when
nothing happens but meals, and they are not always completely
pleasant, especially on the days when it is cold mutton or hash.
There was no chance of talking things over before breakfast,
because everyone overslept itself, as it happened, and it needed a
vigorous and determined struggle to get dressed so as to be only
ten minutes late for breakfast. During this meal some efforts were
made to deal with the question of the Psammead in an impartial
spirit, but it is very difficult to discuss anything thoroughly and
at the same time to attend faithfully to your baby brother's
breakfast needs. The Baby was particularly lively that morning.
He not only wriggled his body through the bar of his high chair,
and hung by his head, choking and purple, but he collared a
tablespoon with desperate suddenness, hit Cyril heavily on the head
with it, and then cried because it was taken away from him. He put
his fat fist in his bread-and-milk, and demanded 'nam', which was
only allowed for tea. He sang, he put his feet on the table - he
clamoured to 'go walky'. The conversation was something like this:
'Look here - about that Sand-fairy - Look out! - he'll have the
milk over.'
Milk removed to a safe distance.
'Yes - about that Fairy - No, Lamb dear, give Panther the narky
poon.'
Then Cyril tried. 'Nothing we've had yet has turned out - He
nearly had the mustard that time!'
'I wonder whether we'd better wish - Hullo! you've done it now, my
boy!' And, in a flash of glass and pink baby-paws, the bowl of
golden carp in the middle of the table rolled on its side, and
poured a flood of mixed water and goldfish into the Baby's lap and
into the laps of the others.
Everyone was almost as much upset as the goldfish: the Lamb only
remaining calm. When the pool on the floor had been mopped up, and
the leaping, gasping goldfish had been collected and put back in
the water, the Baby was taken away to be entirely redressed by
Martha, and most of the others had to change completely. The
pinafores and jackets that had been bathed in goldfish-and-water
were hung out to dry, and then it turned out that Jane must either
mend the dress she had torn the day before or appear all day in her
best petticoat. It was white and soft and frilly, and trimmed with
lace, and very, very pretty, quite as pretty as a frock, if not
more so. Only it was NOT a frock, and Martha's word was law. She
wouldn't let Jane wear her best frock, and she refused to listen
for a moment to Robert's suggestion that Jane should wear her best
petticoat and call it a dress.
'It's not respectable,' she said. And when people say that, it's
no use anyone's saying anything. You will find this out for
yourselves some day.
So there was nothing for it but for Jane to mend her frock. The
hole had been torn the day before when she happened to tumble down
in the High Street of Rochester, just where a water-cart had passed
on its silvery way. She had grazed her knee, and her stocking was
much more than grazed, and her dress was cut by the same stone
which had attended to the knee and the stocking. Of course the
others were not such sneaks as to abandon a comrade in misfortune,
so they all sat on the grass-plot round the sundial, and Jane
darned away for dear life. The Lamb was still in the hands of
Martha having its clothes changed, so conversation was possible.
Anthea and Robert timidly tried to conceal their inmost thought,
which was that the Psammead was not to be trusted; but Cyril said:
'Speak out - say what you've got to say - I hate hinting, and
"don't know", and sneakish ways like that.'
So then Robert said, as in honour bound: 'Sneak yourself - Anthea
and me weren't so goldfishy as you two were, so we got changed
quicker, and we've had time to think it over, and if you ask me -'
'I didn't ask you,' said Jane, biting off a needleful of thread as
she had always been strictly forbidden to do.
'I don't care who asks or who doesn't,' said Robert, but Anthea and
I think the Sammyadd is a spiteful brute. If it can give us our
wishes I suppose it can give itself its own, and I feel almost sure
it wishes every time that our wishes shan't do us any good. Let's
let the tiresome beast alone, and just go and have a jolly good
game of forts, on our own, in the chalk-pit.'
(You will remember that the happily situated house where these
children were spending their holidays lay between a chalk-quarry
and a gravel-pit.)
Cyril and Jane were more hopeful - they generally were.
'I don't think the Sammyadd does it on purpose,' Cyril said; 'and,
after all, it WAS silly to wish for boundless wealth. Fifty pounds
in two-shilling pieces would have been much more sensible. And
wishing to be beautiful as the day was simply donkeyish. I don't
want to be disagreeable, but it was. We must try to find a really
useful wish, and wish it.'
Jane dropped her work and said:
'I think so too, it's too silly to have a chance like this and not
use it. I never heard of anyone else outside a book who had such
a chance; there must be simply heaps of things we could wish for
that wouldn't turn out Dead Sea fish, like these two things have.
Do let's think hard, and wish something nice, so that we can have
a real jolly day - what there is left of it.'
Jane darned away again like mad, for time was indeed getting on,
and everyone began to talk at once. If you had been there you
could not possibly have made head or tail of the talk, but these
children were used to talking 'by fours', as soldiers march, and
each of them could say what it had to say quite comfortably, and
listen to the agreeable sound of its own voice, and at the same
time have three-quarters of two sharp ears to spare for listening
to what the others said. That is an easy example in multiplication
of vulgar fractions, but, as I daresay you can't do even that, I
won't ask you to tell me whether 3/4 X 2 = 1 1/2, but I will ask
you to believe me that this was the amount of ear each child was
able to lend to the others. Lending ears was common in Roman
times, as we learn from Shakespeare; but I fear I am getting too
instructive.
When the frock was darned, the start for the gravel-pit was delayed
by Martha's insisting on everybody's washing its hands - which was
nonsense, because nobody had been doing anything at all, except
Jane, and how can you get dirty doing nothing? That is a difficult
question, and I cannot answer it on paper. In real life I could
very soon show you - or you me, which is much more likely.
During the conversation in which the six ears were lent (there were
four children, so THAT sum comes right), it had been decided that
fifty pounds in two-shilling pieces was the right wish to have.
And the lucky children, who could have anything in the wide world
by just wishing for it, hurriedly started for the gravel-pit to
express their wishes to the Psammead. Martha caught them at the
gate, and insisted on their taking the Baby with them.
'Not want him indeed! Why, everybody 'ud want him, a duck! with
all their hearts they would; and you know you promised your ma to
take him out every blessed day,' said Martha.
'I know we did,' said Robert in gloom, 'but I wish the Lamb wasn't
quite so young and small. It would be much better fun taking him
out.'
'He'll mend of his youngness with time,' said Martha; 'and as for
his smallness, I don't think you'd fancy carrying of him any more,
however big he was. Besides he can walk a bit, bless his precious
fat legs, a ducky! He feels the benefit of the new-laid air, so he
does, a pet!' With this and a kiss, she plumped the Lamb into
Anthea's arms, and went back to make new pinafores on the
sewing-machine. She was a rapid performer on this instrument.
The Lamb laughed with pleasure, and said, 'Walky wif Panty,' and
rode on Robert's back with yells of joy, and tried to feed Jane
with stones, and altogether made himself so agreeable that nobody
could long be sorry that he was of the party.
The enthusiastic Jane even suggested that they should devote a
week's wishes to assuring the Baby's future, by asking such gifts
for him as the good fairies give to Infant Princes in proper
fairy-tales, but Anthea soberly reminded her that as the
Sand-fairy's wishes only lasted till sunset they could not ensure
any benefit to the Baby's later years; and Jane owned that it would
be better to wish for fifty pounds in two-shilling pieces, and buy
the Lamb a three-pound-fifteen rocking-horse, like those in the
Army and Navy Stores list, with part of the money.
It was settled that, as soon as they had wished for the money and
got it, they would get Mr Crispin to drive them into Rochester
again, taking Martha with them, if they could not get out of taking
her. And they would make a list of the things they really wanted
before they started. Full of high hopes and excellent resolutions,
they went round the safe slow cart-road to the gravel-pits, and as
they went in between the mounds of gravel a sudden thought came to
them, and would have turned their ruddy cheeks pale if they had
been children in a book. Being real live children, it only made
them stop and look at each other with rather blank and silly
expressions. For now they remembered that yesterday, when they had
asked the Psammead for boundless wealth, and it was getting ready
to fill the quarry with the minted gold of bright guineas -
millions of them - it had told the children to run along outside
the quarry for fear they should be buried alive in the heavy
splendid treasure. And they had run. And so it happened that they
had not had time to mark the spot where the Psammead was, with a
ring of stones, as before. And it was this thought that put such
silly expressions on their faces.
'Never mind,' said the hopeful Jane, 'we'll soon find him.'
But this, though easily said, was hard in the doing. They looked
and they looked, and though they found their seaside spades,
nowhere could they find the Sand-fairy.
At last they had to sit down and rest - not at all because they
were weary or disheartened, of course, but because the Lamb
insisted on being put down, and you cannot look very carefully
after anything you may have happened to lose in the sand if you
have an active baby to look after at the same time. Get someone to
drop your best knife in the sand next time you go to the seaside,
and then take your baby brother with you when you go to look for
it, and you will see that I am right.
The Lamb, as Martha had said, was feeling the benefit of the
country air, and he was as frisky as a sandhopper. The elder ones
longed to go on talking about the new wishes they would have when
(or if) they found the Psammead again. But the Lamb wished to
enjoy himself.
He watched his opportunity and threw a handful of sand into
Anthea's face, and then suddenly burrowed his own head in the sand
and waved his fat legs in the air. Then of course the sand got
into his eyes, as it had into Anthea's, and he howled.
The thoughtful Robert had brought one solid brown bottle of
ginger-beer with him, relying on a thirst that had never yet failed
him. This had to be uncorked hurriedly - it was the only wet thing
within reach, and it was necessary to wash the sand out of the
Lamb's eyes somehow. Of course the ginger hurt horribly, and he
howled more than ever. And, amid his anguish of kicking, the
bottle was upset and the beautiful ginger-beer frothed out into the
sand and was lost for ever.
It was then that Robert, usually a very patient brother, so far
forgot himself as to say:
'Anybody would want him, indeed! Only they don't; Martha doesn't,
not really, or she'd jolly well keep him with her. He's a little
nuisance, that's what he is. It's too bad. I only wish everybody
DID want him with all their hearts; we might get some peace in our
lives.'
The Lamb stopped howling now, because Jane had suddenly remembered
that there is only one safe way of taking things out of little
children's eyes, and that is with your own soft wet tongue. It is
quite easy if you love the Baby as much as you ought to.
Then there was a little silence. Robert was not proud of himself
for having been so cross, and the others were not proud of him
either. You often notice that sort of silence when someone has
said something it ought not to - and everyone else holds its tongue
and waits for the one who oughtn't to have said it is sorry.
The silence was broken by a sigh - a breath suddenly let out. The
children's heads turned as if there had been a string tied to each
nose, and someone had pulled all the strings at once.
And everyone saw the Sand-fairy sitting quite close to them, with
the expression which it used as a smile on its hairy face.
'Good-morning,' it said; 'I did that quite easily! Everyone wants
him now.'
'It doesn't matter,' said Robert sulkily, because he knew he had
been behaving rather like a pig. 'No matter who wants him -
there's no one here to - anyhow.'
'Ingratitude,' said the Psammead, 'is a dreadful vice.'
'We're not ungrateful,'Jane made haste to say, 'but we didn't
REALLY want that wish. Robert only just said it. Can't you take
it back and give us a new one?'
'No - I can't,' the Sand-fairy said shortly; 'chopping and changing
- it's not business. You ought to be careful what you do wish.
There was a little boy once, he'd wished for a Plesiosaurus instead
of an Ichthyosaurus, because he was too lazy to remember the easy
names of everyday things, and his father had been very vexed with
him, and had made him go to bed before tea-time, and wouldn't let
him go out in the nice flint boat along with the other children -
it was the annual school-treat next day - and he came and flung
himself down near me on the morning of the treat, and he kicked his
little prehistoric legs about and said he wished he was dead. And
of course then he was.'
'How awful!' said the children all together.
'Only till sunset, of course,' the Psammead said; 'still it was
quite enough for his father and mother. And he caught it when he
woke up - I can tell you. He didn't turn to stone - I forget why
- but there must have been some reason. They didn't know being
dead is only being asleep, and you're bound to wake up somewhere or
other, either where you go to sleep or in some better place. You
may be sure he caught it, giving them such a turn. Why, he wasn't
allowed to taste Megatherium for a month after that. Nothing but
oysters and periwinkles, and common things like that.'
All the children were quite crushed by this terrible tale. They
looked at the Psammead in horror. Suddenly the Lamb perceived that
something brown and furry was near him.
'Poof, poof, poofy,' he said, and made a grab.
'It's not a pussy,' Anthea was beginning, when the Sand-fairy
leaped back.
'Oh, my left whisker!' it said; 'don't let him touch me. He's
wet.'
Its fur stood on end with horror - and indeed a good deal of the
ginger-beer had been spilt on the blue smock of the Lamb.
The Psammead dug with its hands and feet, and vanished in an
instant and a whirl of sand.
The children marked the spot with a ring of stones.
'We may as well get along home,' said Robert. 'I'll say I'm sorry;
but anyway if it's no good it's no harm, and we know where the
sandy thing is for to-morrow.'
The others were noble. No one reproached Robert at all. Cyril
picked up the Lamb, who was now quite himself again, and off they
went by the safe cart-road.
The cart-road from the gravel-pits joins the road almost directly.
At the gate into the road the party stopped to shift the Lamb from
Cyril's back to Robert's. And as they paused a very smart open
carriage came in sight, with a coachman and a groom on the box, and
inside the carriage a lady - very grand indeed, with a dress all
white lace and red ribbons and a parasol all red and white - and a
white fluffy dog on her lap with a red ribbon round its neck. She
looked at the children, and particularly at the Baby, and she
smiled at him. The children were used to this, for the Lamb was,
as all the servants said, a 'very taking child'. So they waved
their hands politely to the lady and expected her to drive on. But
she did not. Instead she made the coachman stop. And she beckoned
to Cyril, and when he went up to the carriage she said:
'What a dear darling duck of a baby! Oh, I SHOULD so like to adopt
it! Do you think its mother would mind?'
'She'd mind very much indeed,' said Anthea shortly.
'Oh, but I should bring it up in luxury, you know. I am Lady
Chittenden. You must have seen my photograph in the illustrated
papers. They call me a beauty, you know, but of course that's all
nonsense. Anyway -'
She opened the carriage door and jumped out. She had the
wonderfullest red high-heeled shoes with silver buckles. 'Let me
hold him a minute,' she said. And she took the Lamb and held him
very awkwardly, as if she was not used to babies.
Then suddenly she jumped into the carriage with the Lamb in her
arms and slammed the door and said, 'Drive on!'
The Lamb roared, the little white dog barked, and the coachman
hesitated.
'Drive on, I tell you!' cried the lady; and the coachman did, for,
as he said afterwards, it was as much as his place was worth not
to.
The four children looked at each other, and then with one accord
they rushed after the carriage and held on behind. Down the dusty
road went the smart carriage, and after it, at double-quick time,
ran the twinkling legs of the Lamb's brothers and sisters.
The Lamb howled louder and louder, but presently his howls changed
by slow degree to hiccupy gurgles, and then all was still and they
knew he had gone to sleep.
The carriage went on, and the eight feet that twinkled through the
dust were growing quite stiff and tired before the carriage stopped
at the lodge of a grand park. The children crouched down behind
the carriage, and the lady got out. She looked at the Baby as it
lay on the carriage seat, and hesitated.
'The darling - I won't disturb it,' she said, and went into the
lodge to talk to the woman there about a setting of Buff Orpington
eggs that had not turned out well.
The coachman and footman sprang from the box and bent over the
sleeping Lamb.
'Fine boy - wish he was mine,' said the coachman.
'He wouldn't favour YOU much,' said the groom sourly; 'too
'andsome.'
The coachman pretended not to hear. He said:
'Wonder at her now - I do really! Hates kids. Got none of her
own, and can't abide other folkses'.'
The children, crouching in the white dust under the carriage,
exchanged uncomfortable glances.
'Tell you what,' the coachman went on firmly, 'blowed if I don't
hide the little nipper in the hedge and tell her his brothers took
'im! Then I'll come back for him afterwards.'
'No, you don't,' said the footman. 'I've took to that kid so as
never was. If anyone's to have him, it's me - so there!'
'Stow your gab!' the coachman rejoined. 'You don't want no kids,
and, if you did, one kid's the same as another to you. But I'm a
married man and a judge of breed. I knows a first-rate yearling
when I sees him. I'm a-goin' to 'ave him, an' least said soonest
mended.'
'I should 'a' thought,' said the footman sneeringly, you'd a'most
enough. What with Alfred, an' Albert, an' Louise, an' Victor
Stanley, and Helena Beatrice, and another -'
The coachman hit the footman in the chin - the foot- man hit the
coachman in the waistcoat - the next minute the two were fighting
here and there, in and out, up and down, and all over everywhere,
and the little dog jumped on the box of the carriage and began
barking like mad.
Cyril, still crouching in the dust, waddled on bent legs to the
side of the carriage farthest from the battlefield. He unfastened
the door of the carriage - the two men were far too much occupied
with their quarrel to notice anything - took the Lamb in his arms,
and, still stooping, carried the sleeping baby a dozen yards along
the road to where a stile led into a wood. The others followed,
and there among the hazels and young oaks and sweet chestnuts,
covered by high strong-scented bracken, they all lay hidden till
the angry voices of the men were hushed at the angry voice of the
red-and-white lady, and, after a long and anxious search, the
carriage at last drove away.
'My only hat!' said Cyril, drawing a deep breath as the sound of
wheels at last died away. 'Everyone DOES want him now - and no
mistake! That Sammyadd has done us again! Tricky brute! For any
sake, let's get the kid safe home.'
So they peeped out, and finding on the right hand only lonely white
road, and nothing but lonely white road on the left, they took
courage, and the road, Anthea carrying the sleeping Lamb.
Adventures dogged their footsteps. A boy with a bundle of faggots
on his back dropped his bundle by the roadside and asked to look at
the Baby, and then offered to carry him; but Anthea was not to be
caught that way twice. They all walked on, but the boy followed,
and Cyril and Robert couldn't make him go away till they had more
than once invited him to smell their fists. Afterwards a little
girl in a blue-and-white checked pinafore actually followed them
for a quarter of a mile crying for 'the precious Baby', and then
she was only got rid of by threats of tying her to a tree in the
wood with all their pocket-handkerchiefs. 'So that the bears can
come and eat you as soon as it gets dark,' said Cyril severely.
Then she went off crying. It presently seemed wise, to the
brothers and sisters of the Baby, who was wanted by everyone, to
hide in the hedge whenever they saw anyone coming, and thus they
managed to prevent the Lamb from arousing the inconvenient
affection of a milkman, a stone-breaker, and a man who drove a cart
with a paraffin barrel at the back of it. They were nearly home
when the worst thing of all happened. Turning a corner suddenly
they came upon two vans, a tent, and a company of gipsies encamped
by the side of the road. The vans were hung all round with wicker
chairs and cradles, and flower-stands and feather brushes. A lot
of ragged children were industriously making dust-pies in the road,
two men lay on the grass smoking, and three women were doing the
family washing in an old red watering-can with the top broken off.
In a moment all the gipsies, men, women, and children, surrounded
Anthea and the Baby.
'Let me hold him, little lady,' said one of the gipsy women, who
had a mahogany-coloured face and dust-coloured hair; 'I won't hurt
a hair of his head, the little picture!'
'I'd rather not,' said Anthea.
'Let me have him,' said the other woman, whose face was also of the
hue of mahogany, and her hair jet-black, in greasy curls. 'I've
nineteen of my own, so I have.'
'No,' said Anthea bravely, but her heart beat so that it nearly
choked her.
Then one of the men pushed forward.
'Swelp me if it ain't!' he cried, 'my own long-lost cheild! Have
he a strawberry mark on his left ear? No? Then he's my own babby,
stolen from me in hinnocent hinfancy. 'And 'im over - and we'll
not 'ave the law on yer this time.'
He snatched the Baby from Anthea, who turned scarlet and burst into
tears of pure rage.
The others were standing quite still; this was much the most
terrible thing that had ever happened to them. Even being taken up
by the police in Rochester was nothing to this. Cyril was quite
white, and his hands trembled a little, but he made a sign to the
others to shut up. He was silent a minute, thinking hard. Then he
said:
'We don't want to keep him if he's yours. But you see he's used to
us. You shall have him if you want him.'
'No, no!' cried Anthea - and Cyril glared at her.
'Of course we want him,' said the women, trying to get the Baby out
of the man's arms. The Lamb howled loudly.
'Oh, he's hurt!' shrieked Anthea; and Cyril, in a savage undertone,
bade her 'Stow it!'
'You trust to me,' he whispered. 'Look here,' he went on, 'he's
awfully tiresome with people he doesn't know very well. Suppose we
stay here a bit till he gets used to you, and then when it's
bedtime I give you my word of honour we'll go away and let you keep
him if you want to. And then when we're gone you can decide which
of you is to have him, as you all want him so much.'
'That's fair enough,' said the man who was holding the Baby, trying
to loosen the red neckerchief which the Lamb had caught hold of and
drawn round his mahogany throat so tight that he could hardly
breathe. The gipsies whispered together, and Cyril took the chance
to whisper too. He said, 'Sunset! we'll get away then.'
And then his brothers and sisters were filled with wonder and
admiration at his having been so clever as to remember this.
'Oh, do let him come to us!' said Jane. 'See we'll sit down here
and take care of him for you till he gets used to you.'
'What about dinner?' said Robert suddenly. The others looked at
him with scorn. 'Fancy bothering about your beastly dinner when
your br - I mean when the Baby' - Jane whispered hotly. Robert
carefully winked at her and went on:
'You won't mind my just running home to get our dinner?' he said to
the gipsy; 'I can bring it out here in a basket.'
His brother and sisters felt themselves very noble, and despised
him. They did not know his thoughtful secret intention. But the
gipsies did in a minute.
'Oh yes!' they said; 'and then fetch the police with a pack of lies
about it being your baby instead of ours! D'jever catch a weasel
asleep?' they asked.
'If you're hungry you can pick a bit along of us,' said the
light-haired gipsy woman, not unkindly. 'Here, Levi, that blessed
kid'll howl all his buttons off. Give him to the little lady, and
let's see if they can't get him used to us a bit.'
So the Lamb was handed back; but the gipsies crowded so closely
that he could not possibly stop howling. Then the man with the red
handkerchief said:
'Here, Pharaoh, make up the fire; and you girls see to the pot.
Give the kid a chanst.' So the gipsies, very much against their
will, went off to their work, and the children and the Lamb were
left sitting on the grass.
'He'll be all right at sunset,'Jane whispered. 'But, oh, it is
awful! Suppose they are frightfully angry when they come to their
senses! They might beat us, or leave us tied to trees, or
something.'
'No, they won't,' Anthea said. ('Oh, my Lamb, don't cry any more,
it's all right, Panty's got oo, duckie!) They aren't unkind people,
or they wouldn't be going to give us any dinner.'
'Dinner?' said Robert. 'I won't touch their nasty dinner. It
would choke me!'
The others thought so too then. But when the dinner was ready - it
turned out to be supper, and happened between four and five - they
were all glad enough to take what they could get. It was boiled
rabbit, with onions, and some bird rather like a chicken, but
stringier about its legs and with a stronger taste. The Lamb had
bread soaked in hot water and brown sugar sprinkled on the top. He
liked this very much, and consented to let the two gipsy women feed
him with it, as he sat on Anthea's lap. All that long hot
afternoon Robert and Cyril and Anthea and Jane had to keep the Lamb
amused and happy, while the gipsies looked eagerly on. By the time
the shadows grew long and black across the meadows he had really
'taken to' the woman with the light hair, and even consented to
kiss his hand to the children, and to stand up and bow, with his
hand on his chest - 'like a gentleman' - to the two men. The whole
gipsy camp was in raptures with him, and his brothers and sisters
could not help taking some pleasure in showing off his
accomplishments to an audience so interested and enthusiastic. But
they longed for sunset.
'We're getting into the habit of longing for sunset,' Cyril
whispered. 'How I do wish we could wish something really sensible,
that would be of some use, so that we should be quite sorry when
sunset came.'
The shadows got longer and longer, and at last there were no
separate shadows any more, but one soft glowing shadow over
everything; for the sun was out of sight - behind the hill - but he
had not really set yet. The people who make the laws about
lighting bicycle lamps are the people who decide when the sun sets;
he has to do it, too, to the minute, or they would know the reason
why!
But the gipsies were getting impatient.
'Now, young uns,' the red-handkerchief man said,'it's time you were
laying of your heads on your pillowses - so it is! The kid's all
right and friendly with us now - so you just hand him over and
sling that hook o' yours like you said.'
The women and children came crowding round the Lamb, arms were held
out, fingers snapped invitingly, friendly faces beaming with
admiring smiles; but all failed to tempt the loyal Lamb. He clung
with arms and legs to Jane, who happened to be holding him, and
uttered the gloomiest roar of the whole day.
'It's no good,' the woman said, 'hand the little poppet over, miss.
We'll soon quiet him.'
And still the sun would not set.
'Tell her about how to put him to bed,' whispered Cyril; 'anything
to gain time - and be ready to bolt when the sun really does make
up its silly old mind to set.'
'Yes, I'll hand him over in just one minute,' Anthea began, talking
very fast - 'but do let me just tell you he has a warm bath every
night and cold in the morning, and he has a crockery rabbit to go
into the warm bath with him, and little Samuel saying his prayers
in white china on a red cushion for the cold bath; and if you let
the soap get into his eyes, the Lamb -'
'Lamb kyes,' said he - he had stopped roaring to listen.
The woman laughed. 'As if I hadn't never bath'd a babby!' she
said. 'Come - give us a hold of him. Come to 'Melia, my
precious.'
'G'way, ugsie!' replied the Lamb at once.
'Yes, but,' Anthea went on, 'about his meals; you really MUST let
me tell you he has an apple or a banana every morning, and
bread-and-milk for breakfast, and an egg for his tea sometimes, and
-'
'I've brought up ten,' said the black-ringleted woman, 'besides the
others. Come, miss, 'and 'im over - I can't bear it no longer. I
just must give him a hug.'
'We ain't settled yet whose he's to be, Esther,' said one of the
men.
'It won't be you, Esther, with seven of 'em at your tail a'ready.'
'I ain't so sure of that,' said Esther's husband.
'And ain't I nobody, to have a say neither?' said the husband of
'Melia.
Zillah, the girl, said, 'An' me? I'm a single girl - and no one
but 'im to look after - I ought to have him.'
'Hold yer tongue!'
'Shut your mouth!'
'Don't you show me no more of your imperence!'
Everyone was getting very angry. The dark gipsy faces were
frowning and anxious-looking. Suddenly a change swept over them,
as if some invisible sponge had wiped away these cross and anxious
expressions, and left only a blank.
The children saw that the sun really HAD set. But they were afraid
to move. And the gipsies were feeling so muddled, because of the
invisible sponge that had washed all the feelings of the last few
hours out of their hearts, that they could not say a word.
The children hardly dared to breathe. Suppose the gipsies, when
they recovered speech, should be furious to think how silly they
had been all day.
It was an awkward moment. Suddenly Anthea, greatly daring, held
out the Lamb to the red-handkerchief man.
'Here he is!' she said.
The man drew back. 'I shouldn't like to deprive you, miss,' he
said hoarsely.
'Anyone who likes can have my share of him,' said the other man.
'After all, I've got enough of my own,' said Esther.
'He's a nice little chap, though,' said Amelia. She was the only
one who now looked affectionately at the whimpering Lamb.
Zillah said, 'If I don't think I must have had a touch of the sun.
I don't want him.'
'Then shall we take him away?' said Anthea.
'Well, suppose you do,' said Pharaoh heartily, 'and we'll say no
more about it!'
And with great haste all the gipsies began to be busy about their
tents for the night. All but Amelia. She went with the children
as far as the bend in the road - and there she said:
'Let me give him a kiss, miss - I don't know what made us go for to
behave so silly. Us gipsies don't steal babies, whatever they may
tell you when you're naughty. We've enough of our own, mostly.
But I've lost all mine.'
She leaned towards the Lamb; and he, looking in her eyes,
unexpectedly put up a grubby soft paw and stroked her face.
'Poor, poor!' said the Lamb. And he let the gipsy woman kiss him,
and, what is more, he kissed her brown cheek in return - a very
nice kiss, as all his kisses are, and not a wet one like some
babies give. The gipsy woman moved her finger about on his
forehead, as if she had been writing something there, and the same
with his chest and his hands and his feet; then she said:
'May he be brave, and have the strong head to think with, and the
strong heart to love with, and the strong hands to work with, and
the strong feet to travel with, and always come safe home to his
own.' Then she said something in a strange language no one could
understand, and suddenly added:
'Well, I must be saying "so long" - and glad to have made your
acquaintance.' And she turned and went back to her home - the tent
by the grassy roadside.
The children looked after her till she was out of sight. Then
Robert said, 'How silly of her! Even sunset didn't put her right.
What rot she talked!'
'Well,' said Cyril, 'if you ask me, I think it was rather decent of
her -'
'Decent?' said Anthea; 'it was very nice indeed of her. I think
she's a dear.'
'She's just too frightfully nice for anything,' said Jane.
And they went home - very late for tea and unspeakably late for
dinner. Martha scolded, of course. But the Lamb was safe.
'I say - it turned out we wanted the Lamb as much as anyone,' said
Robert, later.
'Of course.'
'But do you feel different about it now the sun's set?'
'No,' said all the others together.
'Then it's lasted over sunset with us.'
'No, it hasn't,' Cyril explained. 'The wish didn't do anything to
US. We always wanted him with all our hearts when we were our
proper selves, only we were all pigs this morning; especially you,
Robert.' Robert bore this much with a strange calm.
'I certainly THOUGHT I didn't want him this morning,' said he.
'Perhaps I was a pig. But everything looked so different when we
thought we were going to lose him.'