_End of June._
Of course there ought to be a story in all this--the story of my life. I
have a Relative who can spin you the story of anybody's life if you only
tell him what number of shoe he wears. Only I am just a little girl, and
have neither been murdered nor married--as yet. So in my life there are
no--what is the word?--ingredients for the pudding. Yes, that is it.
So it must just come anyhow, like things tumbling out of your pocket
when you hang head down from a tree or haystack which you are climbing.
All the same I will try always to put one story or one subject into a
chapter, though these won't be called "Printed in Gore," or "The House
of Crime," or anything like that.
For, you see, the stories the boys read are just stuffed with such
things. So it will be rather a change to write about "The Dirty Piece
of Embroidery" and "The Colored-Silk Work-basket."
And that reminds me. Often Grown-ups "give it" to their children for the
very identical things they used to do themselves when young. There is a
friend of father's down at Dumfries whom he calls Mr. Massa. And once we
bribed Mr. Massa to tell us all about when father was young--he was his
earliest and dearest friend--though, by his telling, father pounded him
shamefully and unmercifully for nothing at all, even after they had
vowed eternal friendship. And do you know, the things that father did
when he was a boy--well, he would thrash Hugh John and Sir Toady for
_now_!
But I expect that all fathers and most mothers were like that. When _I_
am a mother, I shan't be. Because, having kept a Diary, I shall only
have to take it out and see how I felt. Don't you think that is a
first-rate idea?
Besides, if it is printed, as Mr. Dignus says that it will be, it is
bound to be true, and I shall have to believe it. Oh, just won't my
children have a good time! Also Hugh John's. But Sir Toady Lion says he
isn't going to have any--being married is ever such a swot, and children
are all little pigs.
Well, _he_ ought to know.
Oh, about this Mr. Massa? He told us some splendid things about
father--how he stood on the top of Thrieve Castle with a stone in one
hand and his watch in the other to measure the altitude, having just
learned how. Only he forgot, and let go the wrong hand.
_Smack_--went the watch on the grass about seventy feet below! And there
was he left standing with the stone in his hand. But the watch was
ticking cheerfully away when they picked it up, and it is that very same
old nursery watch that is hung up there now, and tells us when it is
time _not_ to get up.
I don't think I ever knew what it was to have a true friend with a good
memory till that moment. And as for the boys and me, we never thought we
should like any of father's friends so much. But Mr. Massa told us more
things that we can cast up to him in time of need than we would ever
have wormed out of father himself in a century. Funny how close people
get about some things when they get older. Oh, I wish I had been born
my own little girl. Then I _should_ have been properly brought up!
However, that is not my fault.
Hugh John says that being naughty is just according as you look at it.
Big Folks' job is to make us behave, so that we are as little of a
nuisance to them as possible. _Our_ business to get as much fun as we
can out of life without getting in the way of the Grown-ups. All their
"Don't do this's" and "You mustn't do that's" are just warnings not to
give them trouble. Moral (according to Hugh John), "Give as little
trouble as possible to Grown-ups. And they will let you do pretty much
as you want to."
He says that acts first-rate at school. Toe the line with the masters,
and then if you _do_ "whale" your fellow-pupil, no questions are asked.
The only way to be a bad little boy in peace and quiet is to be a good
little boy so far as work is concerned!
And as Hugh John does it, this is not hypocritical. He couldn't be that
if he tried. He has just thought it out, and now makes it work with the
greatest coolness in the world. It is his system. And he says every boy
is a fool who gives the masters trouble. He means Grown-ups generally.
You do certain things _as_ they say, work out your sums, and keep your
drawers tidy. Then you can live in your own world and they in theirs.
They won't bother about you.
But, of course, Hugh John is pretty safe anyway. He has a reason for
everything, and is always ready to give it if asked. If not, he keeps it
to himself, wraps it about him like an inky cloak--and is triply armed
because he has his quarrel just--and knows it.
But, you see, we are really pretty well off at our house, though we do
grumble sometimes. When I was a little girl I rode many hundreds of
miles with father on his cycle, and now Hugh John and he spend days over
glasses of all descriptions, telescopes and binoculars, while Sir Toady
talks about birds' eggs for hours, and has succeeded to father's
collection.
In the library there are the loveliest books on flowers--both editions
of _Curtis_, the _Botanical Magazine_, two _Sowerby's English Botanies_,
and lots more in foreign languages. Maid Margaret thinks she will go in
for botany so as to get these. But I like best just reading books--or
browsing among them, rather. For of course you can't really _read_
forty thousand volumes, even if you knew all the languages they are
written in.
There are sets of all the magazines that ever were: _Annual Registers_,
_Scots Magazines_, _Gentleman's_, _Blackwood's_, _Chamber's_, _Leisure
Hour_, _Cassell's_, _Magazine of Art_--oh, everything! And the library,
being about eighty feet long altogether, is the loveliest place for wet
Saturdays--so "mousey," and window-seaty, with big logs burning on a
brass fireplace, and the storm pattering above and all about. It has a
zinc roof, only nicely painted and covered with creepers. There is room
enough for everybody to lie about, and read, and draw, all the time
keeping out of Big Growly's way if he is working.
Even if he does see us, he only says, "Get out, Imps! I can't be
bothered with you just now!"
Only if you are careful and have the kitchen key, you can tell by the
growling and the "tick-tack" whereabouts the Ogre of Castle Bookworm is,
and slip into another part. Best of all is the Old Observatory, where
there is a bed in a little cabin, and windows all about, and a big brass
telescope high overhead, with shelves and all sorts of fittings as in a
ship.
It is first-rate, I tell you. Only you have to put the books you have
been using back again exactly, or you will get Ursa Major after you, and
he will fetch you out of your bed to do it, storming at you all the
time. Then maybe he will forget, and show you the first edition of some
book that there are only three or four of in all the world!
You don't really need to be afraid of Big Growly. It makes rather a
noise while It lasts, but once It is finished, there is no more about
it. It is like a thunderstorm which you hear sleepily among the hills in
the night. All you have to do is just to pull the bed-clothes over your
head and put your fingers in your ears. There is not the least danger,
not really.
Altogether we are about as well off for Grown-ups as it is possible to
be, and though lessons are seen to sharply enough--that is all in the
day's work. While for the rest, we live less of the Double Life than
other children have to do--that is, we don't have to "_pretend_ good,"
and that makes all the difference.
And this brings me to the tale of Polly Pretend. That was what we called
her. And by and by other people found her out, and did so too. And it
is an awful thing to be going through the world with a name like that.
Yet Polly Pretend wasn't half a bad girl either. Indeed, if she had been
left alone, she would have been quite nice. It wasn't her fault. Only
this tale is a "terrible example" for parents and guardians. _They_ put
such things, like nasty medicine, in the books we have to read, and why
shouldn't I hit back, when it is only my poor old Dear Diary that sees
it? Till Mr. Dignus gets ready to print it, that is.
Polly Pretend had a father and mother, but worse than most. If ever they
had been young, they had forgotten all about it. Polly mustn't run or
romp, nor speak above her breath, nor climb a tree, nor do anything that
makes life happy and really worth living.
And when we went to see her, it was ever so much worse than going to
church four times a Sunday. _We_ only go once, except on special
occasions, because our folks believe in making Sunday an extra happy
day. And, after all, church is church, and there is always the music,
which is nice, and the organist's back hair, which isn't--and the sermon
is never very long and sometimes interesting. Then for the boys there
are the bees booming in the tall windows, and the flies that will
persist in crawling stickily over the old gentlemen's bald heads--really
quite pious flies they are. For the old gentlemen would be sure to go to
sleep if it were not for the excitement of watching out and moving those
flies on!
But at Polly Pretend's house it was ever so much worse. You couldn't
believe it if you had not been there. And, do my best, I really can't
give you an idea.
All the toys locked up, of course, all the drawing things, and every
book except two--one of which was that everlasting _Josephus_, and the
other the _Pilgrim's Progress_. As we knew these by heart, you may guess
how cheerful it was. And you had to learn chapters till you hated the
sight of an Oxford Bible, and hymns till you wanted to throw the book
behind the fire.
Hugh John stuck to it and did pretty well, though he is not a quick
study. But Sir Toady boldly asserted that he was a true Mahometan, and
made a green turban out of an old green baize school-bag to prove that
he was a "haji and a holy man"!
He had the cheek to brazen it out even when Polly's people threatened
to inform his parents and have him sent home to-morrow!
Bless you, Toadums wished for nothing better. He missed his fox-terrier,
Boss, worse than words can tell, and his eggs and his paint-box and
everything.
But of course we soon saw how Polly Pretend managed. She pretended. She
did not really read the books. She moved back the marker, and, if asked
questions, knew all about the chapter. Even if they ticked it in pencil,
there was india-rubber in Polly's pocket to rub it out. She played with
beads in church--in her muff or under her cloak. And when one rolled on
the floor, she said it was her collection money. She got another given
her too, which was always a halfpenny saved.
At least so thought Polly Pretend. And Hugh John could not make her see
it was not the square thing--to buy sweets and thus defraud the Church.
He is awfully armor-plated on what is "the Square Thing," my brother
Hugh John.
But Polly Pretend could not or would not see it. I think _could_ not.
For what could be expected of any girl who had such people for parents?
Then I saw clearly how well _we_ were off--whacked sometimes, of course,
or Big Growly called upon to erupt (which he does very fierce for five
minutes). But not expected to do anything except tell the truth and keep
on telling it--not behave like reptiles--and if caught, own up prompt.
Say your prayers when you feel like it. But don't do it just when you
know parents and guardians will be coming into your bedroom, as Polly
does--so that father or mother will say, "See how sweet and devotional
our little girl is!"
And Polly's father and mother thought how good she was, and told all
round the countryside what little heathens we were. Not that _we_ cared
for that.
But Sir Toady went up-stairs to the lumber-room and got an image of some
Chinese dragon which had been stowed away there ever since Uncle Peter
had been home the last time. And when Polly Pretend's father and mother
came to complain of us, he was down on his knees worshiping this false
image on the front lawn! Awful, wasn't it? But all the same it would
have made you laugh till you cried if you had seen him doing kow-tow to
this false god--it was only an old cardboard dragon anyway, like what
you see on the Shanghai stamps--and smelling the whole neighborhood by
burning brown paper joss-sticks before it, with a penny fire-cracker at
every finger-length.
[Illustration: "DOING KOW-TOW TO THIS FALSE GOD"]
He was had up into the study for that, though, because father said he
would have no "mockery" about such things. But I don't think he got it
very bad, because we all knew by the noise he made that Big Growly
wasn't really very mad.
When he is, he goes off and you see no more of him for a long time. He
only stops in his den and doesn't growl. That is a good time to keep
away and say nothing, till he has done chewing his paws. Only Maid
Margaret dare go in then, and even she is wearing out of it--getting too
old, I mean.
But about Polly Pretend. Of course she did not pretend to us. First of
all, she could not--she knew that it was quite in vain. Children don't
try on things with one another. They know they will be seen through.
Generally they can see through Grown-ups too, though, bless you, _They_
never know it.
Oh, poor Polly! I was sorry for Polly. Because she could never be
natural, but all the time had got to--what is it the book
says?--"assume a virtue when she had it not."
At school she knew wads of Scripture and all the Kings of Israel and
Judah, but never did a French exercise without copying. Then, because
her people were rich, and she so good, she got lots of money sent
her--so much for telling what her place in class was. She told lies
about that, and got money for being first when really most of the time
she was first at the wrong end.
Now at our school every fortnight the class was turned upside down, the
top girl being put at the bottom and the wooden spoon at the top, so
that the clever ones could work their way up again. And so each
alternate Monday Polly Pretend was really top girl for about five
minutes. It was on that day she wrote to her parents, and often got a
golden sovereign or a Post Office Order sent to her for her wonderful
cleverness. So, after all, in a way it was true.
But there was trouble at the end of term--after the examinations, when
Polly Pretend always came out the very last.
Because, you see, she had to save money to buy her own prizes, get one
of the charwomen to steal the school tickets that they stick in
prize-books, and print in her own name in capital letters as "first
prize" to show her parents.
Then she had to watch for the School Report, which comes a day or two
after, and get it safely from the postman. She burned it, after trying
to alter the figures, but, of course, was anxious all the holidays. Also
she warned me to say nothing about it when I came to see her.
As if I would! I knew Polly Pretend too well. So I never said a thing
about school, for fear Polly had been telling some lie about it, and I
should be giving her away. The visit was an unhappy time for all of
us--except, that is, for Sir Toady, who invented new and horrible forms
of idolatry every other day, and scared the immortal soul out of Polly
Pretend by putting on his day-shirt (the spare one) over his clothes,
and letting on to be an Evil Spirit which haunted the gooseberry-bushes.
And I will say he did growl most fearfully--especially when he found a
good ripe bush. But we knew that was only to keep the rest of us off. So
Hugh John chased the Evil Spirit by the sound, and growled too. Because
the bush really was a good one--thin-skinned "silver-grays," and quite
ripe. I had some.
But you should have seen poor Polly. She was frightened till she nearly
told the truth. I can't say more than that. Almost--but not quite. I do
believe that she would have gone and confessed the most innocent of her
lies to her parents, if it had not been for that young Imp, Sir Toady,
who laughed out loud, and jumped up and down in the shirt like a white
Jack-in-the-Box.
But perhaps it was as well that she did not. For they were just the sort
of people not to understand that Polly's lies had mostly been their own
fault. But of course, as you may imagine, it was only putting off the
day of reckoning.
It was in holiday-time--midsummer--when school-mistresses are just like
other folk; only, if anything, a trifle nicer.
Now the head of our school, Miss Gray, came to Romano, which is the name
of the town where Polly Pretend lived. And Miss Gray thought it would be
a nice thing to call upon the mother of her pupil. Perhaps she might be
able to give Mrs. Pretend a hint or two which would keep Polly from
entirely wasting her time next term at Olympia.
Oh, Miss Gray meant it just as kindly as she could, and that's saying a
good deal. She is a nice chicky-biddy, fussy, motherly sort of thing,
and wears the nicest satiny gowns at dinner-parties. It was the last
thing in the world she would have thought of, to give Polly Pretend
away--even to her parents.
But it happened that on this day the Pretends had gone for a motor-ride.
And as it was hot, Miss Gray said that she would be glad to wait a few
minutes in the drawing-room. Because, you see, Mrs. Pretend was expected
in every minute. The maid knew her business, of course; there was no
"pretend" about her. She brought a cup of tea, and left Miss Gray to
do--what do you think?--look over the books on the table.
At first Miss Gray thought that something had suddenly gone wrong with
her eyes. She opened a fine Macaulay, and saw "First Prize for History,
Presented to Miss P. Pretend." Next came "Special Prize for Good
Conduct--Miss P. Pretend."
There was a whole table covered with them, laid out in the center of the
room, and more stuck in decorative oaken shelves, of fine old oak, made
by the village handy-man.
Then Miss Gray understood, and her feelings were too much for her. But
even then she did not give Polly away. You see, Miss Gray was a pretty
good sort--that is, a good sort, and a pretty one too--which is the best
sort of all, Hugh John says.
So she just rang the bell, and told the maid that she could not wait any
longer to see Mrs. Pretend, but that she would write.
And she did. It was a little letter just saying that circumstances over
which she had no control, etc., had caused such a pressure upon Olympia
College that she was sorry there would not be a vacancy for Polly that
year.
Well, you can fancy--Polly's mother and father were very angry. So much
so that they determined to start off at once to call on the heads of the
college and complain.
But Polly herself, as soon as she had heard from Ellen, the housemaid,
what had happened, and how Miss Gray had been twenty minutes in the
drawing-room, and gone away leaving her tea hardly "sipped," knew at
once what was the matter.
So she dissuaded her father and mother from going to Olympia College.
She was not appreciated, she said. She had always known it. Even Miss
Gray was jealous of her. And her mother said to her father, "I do not
wonder at it, dear. It is all the effect of our too careful bringing up
of Polly. Truly we may say with the Psalmist--
"'Than all her teachers now she has
More understanding far!'"
And in a way, do you know, she had. And it was the training that did it.
But later on, Dear Diary, I shall write more about Polly Pretend, when
she got a governess. For then she pretended and the governess pretended,
and instead of getting out of the habit, as Hugh John says, seven
Pretending Devils worse than the first entered into her.
But of that another time.
V