days, and yet very short too. It was a funny thing. At last the
morning came for her to start. We had to get up very early, because
she and Father were going by the 7.45 train, and so the lamp was lit
at breakfast, and that always makes you feel queer and choky. Mother
couldn’t eat anything, and Father was sort of scolding her all the time
to get her to; and we were sitting as close to her as we could squeeze,
all dressed anyhow, and not having had time to brush our teeth--at
least, Humph and I hadn’t. As for Ted, Fräulein hadn’t dressed him at
all, but had just brought him down to say goodbye in his little scarlet
dressing-gown, which is made out of my old winter jacket; he sat on
Mother’s lap and tried to hold a fork with his toes, and he still
seemed quite happy. I’d have liked to shake him if I hadn’t been so
miserable myself.
At last there was a ring at the bell, and it was the fly. “Now do try
to drink up your coffee, my dear,” Father said; but Mother said, “I
can’t, I can’t.” “Well, we must start at once,” Father said. It was all
very well for him, for he was going to London with Mother and down to
the ship to see her off.
Mother got up though, and put Teddy into the big chair by the fire,
kissing him all the while. He had still got the fork in his toes.
“Look, look, Teddy eat breakfast with his feet!” he called out,
pointing to them. He didn’t seem able to think of anything else.
Mother went out into the hall with the rest of us clinging to her, and
down the garden path to the fly. Just as she was getting in, Father or
some one asked if she’d got her keys, and Jane the housemaid had to go
tearing indoors for them. While we were waiting, Fräulein looked round
and gave a little cry. There was Teddy creeping down the garden, his
little toes all curling up as they touched the ground, and no fork at
all.
“_Ach_, you naughty, naughty _Kindchen_! Go in out of the cold. You
will have your death,” cried Fräulein, and she rushed back and carried
him into the house and then came out again shutting the front door.
It took two or three minutes for Mother to get settled in the fly and
the luggage to be arranged, and then we all hugged her in a sort of a
heap and they began to drive off, Mother kissing her hand out of the
window. I didn’t see that though, Humph told me afterwards, because I
was running indoors as hard as I could tear and as it was I could only
just hold in the crying until I got to the bathroom. I’ve discovered
that you can pull out a bit of the wood that’s round the bath and creep
in sort of behind, so it’s a lovely place for times of trouble. At
least, I didn’t exactly discover the place, but I saw it when the man
came to mend the taps; he was a very nice man and gave me some putty.
Well, when I got into the bathroom, I was very surprised to see that
the bit of wood had been pulled out already and was lying on the floor,
and then when I began to crawl in I was still more surprised because
there was a funny noise coming from inside, like the guinea-pig makes
when he is excited. I was so astonished that I stopped crying.
I crawled quickly, though it’s very squeezy, but, of course, that’s
really a great ’vantage because no grown-up could possibly come after.
And when I got to the end, there was a large curled-up heap; I couldn’t
see much because it’s almost dark, but I thought it must be a dear dog,
so I put out my hand to feel. It was something soft, but not like a
dog, more like a person; then I felt some curly hair. “Teddy!” I called
out, most amazed, because I didn’t know any of them knew of this place
but me. (I hadn’t meant to be mean in not telling, but one must keep
somewhere for times of great trouble.)
The funny noise was still going on, and then I remembered it’s what
Teddy does, when he cries very hard; he hardly ever cries at all
though, that’s how I’d forgotten. “What is the matter, Ted?” I said.
I couldn’t cuddle him because there wasn’t room, but I stroked him as
well as I could lying on my stomach.
“Go in out of the cold,” he said. “Go in out of the cold. Mother gone
away for a million years. Go in out of the cold.”
I felt I loved him ever so much more to find he really did mind about
Mother going away. “But, Teddy, you’d have only seen Mother for a
minute more, if Fräulein hadn’t sent you in out of the cold,” I told
him.
Then he began to squeak with crying more than ever. “I was g--going
to c--creep under the c--carriage-seat and be a st--stowboy on the
ship. And c--come out at the place with b--black people. I’d g--got a
c--crust of bread in my d--dressing-gown pocket all r--ready. Mother
g--gone away for a m--million years.”
Wasn’t that a good plan? I should never have thought Teddy could
have invented anything so sensible. I said, “Did you make it all up
yourself?” and he said, “Yes,” very pleased, because he saw that I
admired it. What made me feel dreadful though, was that all these days
I’d thought he didn’t care and was going to grow up like Nero.
Just then we heard Fräulein calling, “Teddy, Teddy, where are you?” as
if she were in a great state of mind. So I said we must come else she’d
discover the secret place. We crawled out and I shut up the little door
carefully. Then I shouted, “Teddy’s in here, Fräulein.”
I thought that Fräulein would be cross, but she wasn’t; I suppose it
was to sort of make up for Mother’s going, besides she’s nearly always
nice to Teddy. She just laughed and said, “_Du böser Bube_; you have me
so frightened.”
She took hold of Ted’s hand and was taking him away to dress him, but
he caught hold of me. “Molly get me up to-day,” he said.
I _was_ pleased. You see it had often made me feel rather horrid
Teddy’s being so much fonder of Fräulein than he is of me. Another
thing I didn’t like was that when Teddy was a baby, a real baby I mean,
I used to cuddle and nurse him heaps, but lately he’d said it was silly
and that I didn’t do it to Humph. He wouldn’t even let me kiss him.
It was when I was dressing Ted that I found out something. He was
telling me more about his plan for going with Mother and how he had
meant to wait hidden in the carriage until she got into the train, and
then scramble under the seat of the train when she wasn’t looking. “You
see I thinked I could do it, because everybody says I’m so small. You
don’t call it a silly plan?”
“No, it was a lovely plan,” I said.
“I was ’fraid you call it silly. And if I think of lots and lots of
lovely plans, will you soon, in three, eight, a million days let me
play in the games with you and Humph?”
“But you do sometimes.”
“Yes, but you think I’m a bother.”
I did feel horrid, because he is rather a bother, but we hadn’t meant
him to find it out. “There’s nobody for me to play with,” he said,
beginning to squeak again, “Violet’s always doing her dolls and
Mother’s gone away for a million----”
“We’ll have a new game, and there will be a real part for you, like
Humph’s,” I said quickly.
Teddy clapped his hands and jumped for joy. “And will you knock me
about and tortoise me just like you do Humph?” He meant torture only he
didn’t quite know the right word.
I said “Yes,” and I began to think of a game that minute. “I’ve got
a lovely one out of the book Mother has been reading to us,” I said.
“I’ll be the Sweep Grimes, and you’ll be little Tom. I shall always
shout at you with horrid words and beat you dreadfully and send you up
the most difficult wiggly chimneys.”
“And light straw under if I don’t go up quick enough.” Ted jigged up
and down, so that I could hardly brush his hair; he hugged me all of
himself.
Humph and I get excited over our games sometimes, but I don’t think
we ever were so excited as Ted got. I believe he never thought about
anything else. He used to ask me to come up and say good-night to him,
because of course he goes to bed earlier than us, and then he’d hug me
and whisper, “Fräulein doesn’t know, but I haven’t really had my broth
but just a mouldy crust, and I’m not really wearing my new pyjamas but
just old rags, and this isn’t really a bed at all but just a heap of
dirty straw;” and I’d say in an awful Grimesy voice, “Be quiet, else
I’ll kick you out to sleep in the street.”
All the same, it was through this game that Teddy got into such
trouble. One afternoon it was very cold and there was a horrid wind,
so Fräulein said that Teddy had better not come for a walk with the
rest of us, because of getting croupy. “I will lend you my German
picture-book, with the pictures that move, as a treat,” she said, “and
you must be very good.” Then she asked Jane to give an eye to him every
now and then.
We hate going out for walks, it’s so dull, and this one was
particularly horrid. We were very glad to get back, and we rushed to
the schoolroom fire.
“Why, where’s Teddy?” Fräulein said. “He must have gone to the
dining-room.”
He wasn’t in the dining-room either, nor in the kitchen. Jane’s sister
had come to tea (the one who has got a beautiful tooth that unscrews),
and they were all talking and laughing very loud.
“Where’s Master Teddy?” Fräulein said.
“Oh, he was looking at a book not a minute ago as good as gold, Miss,”
Jane said, and went on talking. The servants do get rather different
when Mother and Father are away, though Jane is most kind. Last Sunday
she let me warm the sort of scissors thing for her that she curls her
hair with, and she has promised to lend it to me one day. It will be
lovely for tortures.
Fräulein began calling, “Teddy, Teddy,” but he didn’t answer. She went
and looked in all the bedrooms and seemed to get quite frightened.
“_Ach Herzliebchen!_” she kept muttering, “if harm should have befallen
thee and _die Mutter_ away.” I wondered if he could have started paying
calls like Violet!
At last I opened the drawing-room door. We hadn’t thought of looking
there directly because we never use the room when Mother is away. And
what I saw surprised me so that I stood quite still.
There was a dust-sheet laid out on the floor very neatly, and it was
all covered with soot. A lot of soot had got on the carpet, too,
around. All the vases on the mantelpiece were covered with soot and
standing quite deep in it, and the pictures near had a layer of soot on
the tops. Even the chairs had a good lot of soot on them. And there in
the middle, hanging down in the fireplace were a pair of bare and very
sooty legs.
“Teddy,” Fräulein called loud and angrily. She had come in behind me
without my noticing her. There was a sort of scuffle, and Teddy came
tumbling down the chimney into the fender, bringing a whole cloud of
soot with him. He had only got his shirt on, and he had the hearthbrush
in one hand and the poker in the other. He was dirtier than any one I
ever saw; he did look beautifully real though.
“It wanted sweeping awfully, couldn’t have been done for a million
years,” he spluttered, very pleased.
Well, Fräulein was furious. I don’t think I’ve ever seen her so angry,
certainly not with Teddy. And now the awful part comes. She caught hold
of Teddy and whipped him, really whipped him, not fun!
Teddy was so astonished that for the first two slaps he never made a
sound; then he simply howled. He sobbed with squeaks all the way into
the bathroom, and all the time Fräulein bathed him and all the time she
dried him, and when she carried him into the schoolroom and put him in
front of the fire, he was still sobbing. Fräulein went to get him out
some clean clothes and things but he stood there, wrapped in a big bath
towel, sobbing and sobbing and squeaking until I couldn’t bear it.
I went and put my arm round him. I’d thought it rather a shame all the
time, because I don’t see that he’d been so very naughty. No one had
ever told him he mustn’t climb up chimneys and sweep them. Of course
it was very silly of him, and I knew Mother wouldn’t like the soot all
over the drawing-room carpet, especially when it’s Persian and the best
one in the house, not to mention the chairs and pictures and it’s being
a trouble for the servants. Still I’m sure Mother wouldn’t have whipped
Teddy. So I put my arms round him and whispered, “Never mind, Ted, it’s
all right now. It’s all right.” Fräulein came into the room, but she
didn’t say anything. She gave me his shirt and knickerbockers to put
on, and went off to get his stockings. I believe she was rather sorry
she’d done it herself.
At last Teddy began to speak, though he was still sobbing. “Th--there’s
one th--thing, though, she th--thinks she h--hurt me, but she
d--didn’t; no, not a bit.”
“Well, if I didn’t, why are you crying, then?” Fräulein said, who had
come in suddenly.
Teddy didn’t answer. He went on sobbing, but much less. Suddenly he
whispered in my ear, “She didn’t h--hurt me h--half as much as you
often do when we’re Grimesing,” and then he smiled a little bit.
So I said, “Shall I be Grimes now?” and he nodded. Fräulein had gone
away again by now.
“And we’ll pretend you swept a chimney at a very grand house and made
rather a mess.” Then I went on in the awful voice, “You scamp, I’ll
thrash you within two inches of your life.”
“With a rope end?” Teddy said. He began to look quite happy. “I saw
a piece in the stable-yard yesterday, Molly,” he went on, sort of
coaxingly.
“Shall I go out and get it to knock you with?” I asked him.
“Oh, Molly!”--he put both his arms round my neck and gave a little
shriek for happiness--“Oh, Molly, I do love you!”
V
THE RAGE OF THE HEATHEN
I advise you not ever to be a missionary. I don’t mean the proper sort
that get eaten up by savages and cassowaries, because you can’t do
that until you’re grown up; but don’t try and be a missionarying child
at home. If you do, the most disagreeable things will happen, though
perhaps that part wouldn’t have been so bad if Mother had been there.
It was in November, very soon after Mother had gone away, that Humphrey
and I went to the children’s service. I know it was then because the
day before had been Guy Fawkes day, and so everything seemed dull and
horrid, like it does when there’s just been something very nice, and
that was why we went. Jane took us--she’s the housemaid and very fond
of things like that, not only reading the Bible, which any one would
enjoy, but she loves the most difficult books of sermons and prayers,
and she doesn’t even think the litany a little bit too long.
I don’t mean that it was Jane that made us think about being
missionaries; it was the clergyman himself. He was a stranger, and his
sermon wasn’t a bit like other sermons; it was most interesting, and
it was all about setting a good example and being an influence unto
righteousness in the lives of little brothers and sisters and lots of
things like that. I began to think he must know I was the eldest.
Well, I listened to every word he said, I truthfully did, and all the
way coming home I talked to Humphrey about it, and planned how to be
a home missionary. We settled that we must be very kind to the Poor
Heathens--those were Violet and Ted--because they didn’t know any
better, but that we’d have to be very firm. Of course, it was rather
silly for Humph to be talking like that, because he was really a Poor
Heathen too, but he didn’t seem to understand that part properly. I
didn’t like to explain it to him then either, and that was the first
great mistake, because afterwards he used to get awfully sulky and
cross about it, which just showed that he really was a heathen like I
said. Besides, how could he possibly be anything else?
The clergyman had said one mustn’t put off doing good, so I started
directly we got home. Fräulein had gone out to see a friend, and we
were to have tea alone, which was a good thing, because it made it
easier. I went and tidied myself very nicely, and then I came into the
schoolroom. I said, “Violet and Ted, have you washed your hands for
tea?”
They both looked most astonished. Violet said, “Of course I have, I
always do,” which is quite true, but I thought she might just have
forgotten that once. That was the worst of Violet though, she was so
good she made a perfectly horrid heathen. Teddy only laughed and said,
“Fräulein forgot to wash mine and now she’s gone out. Hooray!”
So then I began to talk quite properly. I said, “That doesn’t make
the least difference; you should do your duty in life, if any one is
there to make you or not.” I said lots more, too, just as nice. I said,
“It’s a horrible habit to sit down to table with dirty hands, and any
gentleman would scorn such a foul deed.” I made him come with me to
wash them at once, though he didn’t like it, ’specially when I cut his
nails, every one, and pushed them all down most beautifully.
The other two had nearly finished tea by the time we came back. It
_was_ naughty of them. Of course, I had to tell them of it, so I
began to talk again, but really, it wasn’t a bit crossly. I spoke
more in sorrow than in anger. I said that such disgraceful behaviour
was excusable in Violet, as she was so little, but that I should have
thought that Humphrey would have known better. I said that in any
respectable society they always waited to begin meals for the Pourer
Out. They both looked very cross, but they didn’t say anything. For one
thing, Humph’s mouth was too full. Suddenly he got down from his chair
without asking any permission, and walked across to the fireplace. Then
he started toasting his bread and butter!
Well, I really didn’t want to make any more fusses, but what was I to
do? Fräulein had particularly said we weren’t to toast our slices,
because the butter will drip about, besides its being too nice to be
good for you. So I just said very firmly, “Come and sit in your place
this minute.” Well, he didn’t. Being a missionary is very difficult.
Of course I started talking again, though I’d hardly had a bit of tea,
and I was most hungry. I said that Humphrey was disobeying Fräulein,
who had been set in authority over us, and that it was just as bad as
breaking laws, and that he might as well commit murder or anything.
I said very likely one day he would. He said he didn’t care, and that
it didn’t say anything in the Bible about not making toast, and that
Mother had never told us not to either. I said any way Mother had
always told us to do what Fräulein said, but it all wasn’t the least
use.
I had to let him do it, for I couldn’t threaten to tell Fräulein--that
seemed too mean. I couldn’t drag him away either, because he’d got
the slice on his knife, and I thought he might get cut. Of course, I
might have got hurt too, but that would have been quite right for a
missionary, and rather nice. Any way, I determined that he shouldn’t do
any more, so I took the plate with all the rest of the bread and butter
on my lap and held it tight. Then I sat in silence and dignity.
I shouldn’t have thought that even Humph could have taken so long
over one bit of toast, but I expect he did it to pay me out; it was
all frizzly and smelt most delicious. I sat there, though, and never
moved except when I gave the little ones more. I couldn’t eat a single
mouthful myself. Even that didn’t make me cross. I said in the nicest
way at the end, “And now, children, we’ll have grace.”
Well, you see, the worst of it was we don’t generally say grace except
at dinner, so Humph answered directly, “Why should we? We never do,”
and Teddy copies every one, so he shouted out, too, “Sha’n’t; we never
do.” As for Violet, she just looked astonished.
“My dear children,” I said most exactly like the clergyman, “we are
certainly going to have grace, and I shall say it,” but before I could
begin Humphrey roared out, “If we have gwace I shall say it, because
I’m a man.” It was dreadfully silly; just as if he could, when besides
being younger, he was only a heathen!
I tried to explain this to him kindly, I really did, but he wouldn’t
understand. So it ended in our both shouting out, “For what we
have received the Lord make us truly thankful,” at the tops of our
voices, with our hands over our ears, which didn’t seem quite right,
and suddenly in the middle the bread-and-butter plate fell off my
lap--crash! It was broken to little bits.
That was the first disagreeable thing that happened, for not even
missionaries like their pocket-money to be stopped for two weeks, but
there were lots more to come. And it wasn’t only big things that were
horrid, being a missionary seemed to make everybody cross the whole
day long. Now there was Father. You see, I was trying hard to be good
myself, besides improving the Poor Heathens, so I’d settled to count
ten every time before I spoke, and then I’d not be led into evil and
profane discourse. I got the idea out of a book I’d been reading. Well,
instead of liking it, Father used to get dreadfully vexed; the trouble
was that he generally asked me the question again before I got to
ten, and then I had to start counting all over again, so it was quite
a long time sometimes before I could answer. I did think it seemed
rather silly myself, when he’d only asked me something like, “Have
you been out to-day?” because it wasn’t likely that I should have
replied anything very dreadful. But in the book it said that one can
never tell, and that habit is everything. I did wish that Father hadn’t
thought me muttering and sulky.
What I minded most, though, was the way the others went on. They used
to stop up their ears whenever they saw me coming and run away. It
was dreadful. Some days I’d forget to talk to them about their sins,
and then we’d be quite happy, but I always fined myself afterwards. I
used to throw a farthing into the pig-sty each time, because I thought
if I gave it to any one I’d get pleasure out of it, so that oughtn’t
to count; I used to have fines for lots of other wrong things too.
Besides this, I’d hit myself with whips and straps to try and make me
gooder, but it’s very difficult to hurt oneself much. It was a better
mortification when I wore Humphrey’s new jersey under all my clothes,
because, though it wasn’t hairy, nor a shirt, it was very rough and
tight, but Fräulein discovered it and was most cross.
It was because I hated the others always running away from me that I
took to writing about their wickedness instead. I pretended that I was
a dumb missionary, and so it wasn’t my fault, and I used to push little
notes into their pockets all in printing, so as to be easy to read, but
after the first they threw them away without looking at them, so it was
no use at all. That’s what made me take to writing things on the walls,
where they couldn’t help seeing them, like in our room I put, “Don’t
have the cat in bed,” for Violet to read, because Fräulein doesn’t
like us to. In the dining-room I put, “It’s horrible to drink with
your mouth full,” opposite to where Humphrey sits. Instead of being
pleased, though, Fräulein got in a rage again, and said I was spoiling
the wall-paper, and made me rub it all out. It did seem difficult to do
good.
It was after this that I thought of writing placards. It was all my own
idea, and didn’t hurt anything, and was just as good as putting it on
the wall. I forgot to say that I hadn’t invented that plan myself. I
took it out of _Belshazzar’s Feast_, and I do think they must have made
much worse marks than I did, because in the piece of poetry we learnt
it says:
“In that same hour and hall,
The fingers of a hand
Came forth against the wall,
And wrote as if on sand.”
So it must have made great holes. I suppose the plaster was wet. At any
rate, I thought that with the placards no one could possibly grumble.
I couldn’t have done the placards, of course, if I hadn’t known just
the sort of naughty things that the Heathens would do. So I wrote
very big on large sheets of paper, “DON’T,” and then a whole heap of
different wrong things. I kept them all stuffed up the front of my
dress (it was rather loose, because of my growing so fast, and that
was the only helping part I had). Then when the others were naughty I
got out the right placard, for they were all put like the alphabet,
most beautifully, and I waved it in front of them. They used to get
dreadfully cross, and Humph tore a good many trying to snatch them
away, but I always wrote them again. It _was_ a good idea!
It was out of the placards, though, that all the trouble came; at
least, it was partly that and partly our not hearing that Father had
come home unexpectedly. You see, it was after we’d gone to bed, so we
couldn’t possibly guess it of ourselves. So the next morning, when I
heard the water running in the bathroom, which is next door to the room
where Violet and I sleep, I thought of course it must be Humphrey. Ted
doesn’t have baths in the morning because of being croupy, and, as I
said, I didn’t know that Father was at home; besides, he always gets up
much later. I’d been wanting to be awake when Humph had his bath for a
long while, so I jumped up quickly, though it was very cold, and put on
my dressing-gown and tore round to the bathroom door. Then I pushed
a new placard under the crack, a very big one all done in red ink. It
said, “Dirty Pig, scrub your toe-nails.”