Penelope Hawthorne sat in the school-room window-seat at Easney
Vicarage, one afternoon, looking very gravely out at the garden.
She had sat there for some time, with her hands in her lap and a little
troubled frown on her forehead, and anyone who knew her well would have
guessed at once that she was thinking over a "plan."
Penelope was just thirteen years old, the eldest of the Hawthorne
children, and as she was a thoughtful girl and fond of reading, she
often made very good plans for her brothers and sisters' amusement,
partly out of her own head, and partly out of books. But this
particular plan quite puzzled her, for it had nothing to do with
amusement, and she did not at all see how it was to be carried out. Yet
it was much too good to be given up.
The plan was this. To buy a new Chinese mandarin for Miss Unity
Cheffins.
Now Miss Unity was Pennie's godmother, and lived in the Cathedral Close
at Nearminster, which was two miles away from the village of Easney.
Amongst her knick-knacks and treasures there used to be a funny little
china figure called a mandarin which had always stood on her
sitting-room mantel-piece since the children could remember anything.
This had unfortunately been broken by a friend of Pennie's whilst the
two girls were on a visit at Nearminster; and though it had not been her
fault, Pennie felt as if she were responsible for the accident. She
found out that her godmother had a great affection for the queer little
mandarin, and it made her sorry whenever she went to Nearminster to see
his place empty, and to think that he would never nod his head any more.
She felt all the more sorry when one day, in the cupboard by the
fireplace, she caught sight of a little heap of china fragments which
she knew were the remains of the poor mandarin, and saw by the bottle of
cement near that her godmother had been trying vainly to stick him
together. After this she began to wonder whether it would be possible
to replace Miss Unity's favourite. Could she, if she saved all her
money, get another figure exactly like it? Where were such things to be
bought? No doubt in London, where, she had heard her father say, you
could get anything in the world. It would therefore be easy to get
another mandarin so like the first that Miss Unity would hardly know the
difference, and to set it up on the mantel-piece in her room.
Pennie thought and thought, until this beautiful idea grew to perfect
proportions in her mind. She pictured Miss Unity's surprise and
pleasure, and had settled the new mandarin in all his glory at
Nearminster, before one serious drawback occurred to her--want of money.
If she were to save up her money for years, she would not have enough,
for though she did not know the cost of the figure, she had heard it
spoken of as "valuable." What a very long time it would be before
sixpence a week would buy anything you could call "valuable!" Pennie
did not see her way out of it at all, though she worked endless sums on
scraps of paper, and worried over it both in play-hours and lesson-time.
This afternoon it was still in her mind when Miss Grey, the governess,
came into the school-room with the other children and called her away
from the window-seat where she had sat so long. Pennie gave up her
thoughts with a sigh and prepared to write out her French translation,
while her sister Nancy and her two brothers Ambrose and David were
reading history aloud. She gave her task only half her attention,
however, and sat staring at the words for some time without thinking of
their meaning. It was one of Aesop's fables that she had to put into
French. "Union is strength," said the motto; and as she read it over
for the twentieth time a sudden and splendid idea flashed across her
mind.
"Of course!" she exclaimed aloud in triumph.
"Another bad mark, Pennie," said Miss Grey; for talking in school hours
was one of Pennie's failings.
But she was now so possessed with her new idea and so eager to carry it
out, that bad marks did not seem of much consequence. She scrambled
through her other lessons, straining her ears all the while for the
first tinkle of the four o'clock bell sounding from the village school,
for that was the signal that lessons at the rectory were also over for
the afternoon. There then remained one precious hour before tea-time,
and in summer there was an immediate rush into the garden and fields.
At last the welcome sound came. Nancy was generally the first to
announce it, but to-day Pennie was beforehand.
"It's begun, Miss Grey," she exclaimed, starting up so hastily that
cotton, scissors, and thimble, all fell on the ground.
"More haste worse speed, Pennie," said Miss Grey. "Now you will have to
stay and pick up all those things and put them neatly away."
Poor Pennie gathered up her property as quickly as she could, but the
hateful thimble, as if it knew she was in a hurry, rolled into a dark
corner and could not be found.
"Oh, _does_ it matter to-day?" she asked pleadingly, as Nancy, Ambrose,
and David, having put away their books, rushed headlong past her, and
she heard their first yells of delight as they burst into the garden.
"I'll find it afterwards--I _really_ will."
But Miss Grey was firm.
"You are too careless, Pennie. I must have it found before you go out."
Pennie groped about the school-room floor, groaning with vexation. The
others would be all scattered about, and she would never get them to
listen to her plan. What did a stupid thimble matter in comparison? If
it were lost for ever, so much the better. Nancy at least might have
stayed to help. While she was peering and poking about, and fuming and
grumbling, Dickie came into the room ready for the garden, in her round
holland pinafore, and grasping a basket and spade.
Dickie, whose real name was Delicia, was only five years old and not yet
admitted to the school-room, but she was fond of escaping from the
nursery whenever she could and joining the others in their games. She
at once cast herself flat on the floor to help in the search, and in
this position not only spied the thimble under the fender, but by means
of the spade succeeded to her great delight in poking it out.
In another minute she and Pennie were running across the lawn to a part
of the garden called the Wilderness, where only Ambrose was to be found
soberly digging in his garden, and quite ready for conversation. But
Pennie would not unfold the plan unless the others heard it too. David
at any rate was sure to be in the barn feeding his rabbits, and perhaps
Nancy might be with him. So to the barn they all took their way.
The barn was large and roomy, quite unused except by the children, who
kept all their pets and a good deal of what Andrew the gardener called
"rubbage" there. At one end the boys had fixed a swing and some
rope-ladders, on which they practised all sorts of monkey-like feats.
At the other lived David's rabbits in numerous hutches, Ambrose's owl, a
jackdaw, a squirrel, and a wonderfully large family of white mice.
Besides those captives there were bats which lived free but retired
lives high up in the rafters, flapping and whirring about when dusk came
on. Pigeons also flew in and out, and pecked at the various morsels of
food left about on the ground, so that the barn was a thickly-peopled
place, with plenty of noise and flutter, and much coming and going
through its wide doors.
When the children entered, Nancy was lazily swinging herself backwards
and forwards while she watched David, who moved steadily from hutch to
hutch, with a box of bran under one arm and a huge bunch of green meat
under the other.
"Come and hear Pennie's plan," said Ambrose; "she won't tell it till you
all listen."
"I can't come," said David, "I've got to finish feeding the rabbits, and
after that I must do up my pig for the night. There's only just time
before tea."
"Why don't you come in and tell it here if you want to?" said Nancy,
shoving herself off with her foot. "Look here. Ambrose, I've touched
the rafters twice. You couldn't."
It did not seem a very promising moment.
"If I do will you _really_ listen?" said Pennie, sitting down on a
packing-case midway between David and Nancy, "because it's an important
plan."
David nodded, and Nancy in her wild passage through the air, now high up
in the roof, now low down on the floor of the barn, screamed out "All
right! Go on." It was not of much consequence, but Pennie felt vexed
with her. She might at _least_ have stopped swinging. Turning her full
attention therefore on Ambrose and David, whom she hoped to impress, she
began:
"It's not exactly a pleasure plan, it's a sort of sacrificing plan, and
I want you to help me."
"I don't know a bit what you mean," said Nancy; "but if it isn't
pleasant, what's the good of it?"
"It _is_ pleasant," said Pennie hurriedly, for she saw a cold look of
disapproval on David's face; "not at first, but _afterwards_."
"I like a plan that's pleasant first, and afterwards, and all the time,"
said Nancy, who was now standing still on the swing.
It was worse for Nancy to listen in this mood than to pay no attention.
"I wish you'd go on swinging, Nancy," said Pennie impatiently, "you only
interrupt."
"Oh, all right!" said Nancy. "I thought you wanted us to listen. I
don't like the beginning at any rate."
She launched herself into motion again, but Pennie was uneasily
conscious that she could still hear every word, and though she explained
her plan as well as she could, she felt she was not doing it justice.
She got through it, however, without any further interruption.
"Wouldn't it be nice," she said after dwelling on Miss Unity's
attachment to the mandarin, "if we _all_ saved up some money and put it
into a box, and when we got enough if we _all_ bought a new mandarin,
and _all_ gave it her? I wanted to do it by myself, but I never could.
It would take too long."
She looked anxiously at her hearers. No one spoke at first. David
seemed entirely occupied in picking out the choicest bits of parsley and
carrot for Goliath, his biggest rabbit; but at last he said moodily:
"Ethelwyn broke it."
"Mean thing!" exclaimed Nancy's voice on high.
"Yes, I know," murmured Pennie.
"Then," continued David, "she ought to pay for a new one. Not us."
"But she never would," said Ambrose. "Why, I don't suppose she even
remembers doing it."
"If there ever was," put in Nancy, "anyone I hated, it was that stupid
Ethelwyn."
"You oughtn't to say that, Nancy," said Pennie reprovingly. "You know
mother doesn't like you to say you hate people."
"Well, I won't say so, then; but I did all the same, and so did you at
last."
"Will anyone agree to the plan?" asked Pennie dejectedly, for she felt
that the proposal had been a failure. To her surprise David turned
round from the row of hutches.
"_I_ will," he said, "because she was so kind once, but I can't give it
every week. I'll give it when I don't want it very much for something
else."
Ambrose remained silent a little while. He was rather vexed that David
had made this offer before he had spoken himself, for he did not like
his younger brother to take the lead.
"I don't call that much of a sacrifice," he said at length. "I shall
give some _every_ week."
Dickie had listened to all this without any clear idea as to what it
meant, but she could not bear to be left out of any scheme, and she now
said firmly:
"Me will too."
Her offer was received with laughter.
"You've got no pocket-money, Dickie," said Pennie.
"She's got her slug-money," observed David. This property of Dickie's
consisted of the payment for slugs and snails which she collected in a
flower-pot and delivered to Andrew for execution. He kept the account
chalked up in the potting shed, and when it reached a hundred, Dickie
was entitled to ask her father for a penny.
"I call it a shame to take her slug-money," cried out Nancy from the
swing.
"No one wants to _take_ it," replied Pennie, "but she shall give it if
she likes."
"I call it a stupid old plan, with nothing pleasant about it at all,"
were Nancy's last words as they all left the barn.
Pennie tried to treat those remarks with indifference, but she was in
truth wounded and discouraged by them, and felt, moreover, that they
were likely to affect the boys unfavourably. She observed that Ambrose
became very thoughtful as they approached the house, and presently he
asked in an off-hand manner:
"How long do you suppose it will take us to buy a mandarin?"
Pennie could not say, but she thought it might be a long while, because
she had heard that china figures of that sort were expensive, "and of
course," she added, "we must get one of the _very best_."
"Oh, of course!" said Ambrose at once. But he began to reflect that it
would be very dull never to have any pocket-money to spend, and to wish
that he had followed David's prudent example. He could not possibly
draw back now, but he hoped the mandarin might not prove quite so
expensive as Pennie thought.
Pennie herself hardly knew what to think about the success of her plan.
It certainly had not been received very heartily, but there was no
reason why it should fail if Ambrose and David would remain true to
their promise. That was the question. Much patience and self-denial
would be needed, and it was unfortunate that next month there would be a
great temptation in the way--Cheddington Fair.
David had only agreed to give his share when he did not want to spend it
on anything else. Now even without the attractions of a fair there are
plenty of ways of spending 4 pence a week, and though he had a thrifty
nature, David had never found any difficulty in laying out his money.
Again, Nancy's behaviour had been most disappointing. She had always
been so fond of the old mandarin, who had so often nodded his head for
her pleasure, that Pennie had counted on her support, but instead of
this she had only displayed a most perverse and provoking spirit.
Pennie sighed to remember all these drawbacks, but she determined not to
be beaten without an effort, and directly after tea she set about
preparing a box to receive all possible contributions. Would David lend
his china cottage for the purpose? This being graciously given she
printed the words, "For the Mandarin" in large letters on a piece of
paper, pasted it on the front, and set the house up on the school-room
mantel-piece that it might be constantly before the general eye.