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[Illustration: The Psammead]
FIVE CHILDREN
AND IT
BY
E. NESBIT
AUTHOR OF "THE TREASURE-SEEKERS,"
"THE WOULD-BE-GOODS," ETC.
_ILLUSTRATED_
[Illustration]
NEW YORK
DODD, MEAD & COMPANY
1905
COPYRIGHT, 1905, BY
DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY
_Published October, 1905_
_TO_
JOHN BLAND
_My Lamb, you are so very small,
You have not learned to read at all;
Yet never a printed book withstands
The urgence of your dimpled hands.
So, though this book is for yourself,
Let mother keep it on the shelf
Till you can read. O days that pass,
That day will come too soon, alas!_
NOTE
Parts of this story have appeared in the _Strand Magazine_ under the
title of
"THE PSAMMEAD."
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I BEAUTIFUL AS THE DAY 1
II GOLDEN GUINEAS 36
III BEING WANTED 70
IV WINGS 108
V NO WINGS 141
VI A CASTLE AND NO DINNER 159
VII A SIEGE AND BED 183
VIII BIGGER THAN THE BAKER'S BOY 203
IX GROWN UP 236
X SCALPS 261
XI THE LAST WISH 287
ILLUSTRATIONS
The Psammead _Frontispiece_
That First Glorious Rush Round the Garden _Facing page_ 2
Cyril Had Nipped His Finger in the Door of a Hutch " " 4
Anthea Suddenly Screamed, "It's Alive!" " " 12
The Baby Did Not Know Them! " " 28
Martha Emptied a Toilet-jug of Cold Water Over Him " " 32
The Rain Fell in Slow Drops on to Anthea's Face " " 36
He Staggered, and Had to Sit Down Again in a Hurry " " 50
Mr. Beale Snatched the Coin, Bit It, and Put It in
His Pocket " " 58
They Had Run Into Martha and the Baby " " 64
He Said, "Now Then!" to the Policeman and Mr.
Peasemarsh " " 66
The Lucky Children Hurriedly Started for the Gravel
Pit " " 78
"Poof, poof, poofy," He Said, and Made a Grab " " 86
At Double-quick Time Ran the Twinkling Legs of the
Lamb's Brothers and Sisters " " 88
The Next Minute the Two Were Fighting " " 90
He Snatched the Baby from Anthea " " 94
He Consented to Let the Two Gypsy Women Feed Him " " 98
The Sand-fairy Blew Himself Out " " 122
They Flew Over Rochester " " 126
The Farmer Sat Down on the Grass, Suddenly and
Heavily " " 128
Everyone Now Turned Out His Pockets " " 132
These Were the Necessaries of Life " " 134
The Children Were Fast Asleep " " 138
The Keeper Spoke Deep-Chested Words through the
Keyhole " " 150
There the Castle Stood, Black and Stately " " 164
Robert Was Dragged Forthwith--by the Reluctant Ear " " 166
He Wiped Away a Manly Tear " " 168
"Oh, Do, Do, Do, _Do_!" Said Robert " " 174
The Man Fell with a Splash Into the Moat-water " " 196
Anthea Tilted the Pot over the Nearest Leadhole " " 198
He Pulled Robert's Hair " " 210
"The Sammyadd's Done Us Again," Said Cyril " " 214
He Lifted Up the Baker's Boy and Set Him on Top of
the Haystack " " 216
It Was a Strange Sensation Being Wheeled in a
Pony-carriage by a Giant " " 220
When the Girl Came Out She Was Pale and Trembling " " 228
"When Your Time's Up Come to Me" " " 230
He Opened the Case and Used the Whole Thing as a
Garden Spade " " 238
She Did It Gently by Tickling His Nose with a Twig of
Honeysuckle " " 244
There, Sure Enough, Stood a Bicycle " " 248
The Punctured State of It Was Soon Evident " " 250
The Grown-up Lamb Struggled " " 258
She Broke Open the Missionary Box with the Poker " " 266
"Ye Seek a Pow-wow?" He Said " " 278
Bright Knives Were Being Brandished All about Them " " 284
She Was Clasped in Eight Loving Arms " " 294
"We Found a Fairy," Said Jane, Obediently " " 298
It Burrowed, and Disappeared, Scratching Fiercely
to the Last " " 308
CHAPTER I
BEAUTIFUL AS THE DAY
The house was three miles from the station, but, before the dusty hired
hack had rattled along for five minutes, the children began to put their
heads out of the carriage window and say, "Aren't we nearly there?" And
every time they passed a house, which was not very often, they all said,
"Oh, _is_ this it?" But it never was, till they reached the very top of
the hill, just past the chalk-quarry and before you come to the
gravel-pit. And then there was a white house with a green garden and an
orchard beyond, and mother said, "Here we are!"
"How white the house is," said Robert.
"And look at the roses," said Anthea.
"And the plums," said Jane.
"It is rather decent," Cyril admitted.
The Baby said, "Wanty go walky;" and the hack stopped with a last rattle
and jolt.
Everyone got its legs kicked or its feet trodden on in the scramble to
get out of the carriage that very minute, but no one seemed to mind.
Mother, curiously enough, was in no hurry to get out; and even when she
had come down slowly and by the step, and with no jump at all, she
seemed to wish to see the boxes carried in, and even to pay the driver,
instead of joining in that first glorious rush round the garden and
orchard and the thorny, thistly, briery, brambly wilderness beyond the
broken gate and the dry fountain at the side of the house. But the
children were wiser, for once. It was not really a pretty house at all;
it was quite ordinary, and mother thought it was rather inconvenient,
and was quite annoyed at there being no shelves, to speak of, and hardly
a cupboard in the place. Father used to say that the iron-work on the
roof and coping was like an architect's nightmare. But the house was
deep in the country, with no other house in sight, and the children had
been in London for two years, without so much as once going to the
seaside even for a day by an excursion train, and so the White House
seemed to them a sort of Fairy Palace set down in an Earthly Paradise.
For London is like prison for children, especially if their relations
are not rich.
[Illustration: That first glorious rush round the garden]
Of course there are the shops and theatres, and entertainments and
things, but if your people are rather poor you don't get taken to the
theatres, and you can't buy things out of the shops; and London has none
of those nice things that children may play with without hurting the
things or themselves--such as trees and sand and woods and waters. And
nearly everything in London is the wrong sort of shape--all straight
lines and flat streets, instead of being all sorts of odd shapes, like
things are in the country. Trees are all different, as you know, and I
am sure some tiresome person must have told you that there are no two
blades of grass exactly alike. But in streets, where the blades of grass
don't grow, everything is like everything else. This is why many
children who live in the towns are so extremely naughty. They do not
know what is the matter with them, and no more do their fathers and
mothers, aunts, uncles, cousins, tutors, governesses, and nurses; but I
know. And so do you, now. Children in the country are naughty sometimes,
too, but that is for quite different reasons.
The children had explored the gardens and the outhouses thoroughly
before they were caught and cleaned for tea, and they saw quite well
that they were certain to be happy at the White House. They thought so
from the first moment, but when they found the back of the house covered
with jasmine, all in white flower, and smelling like a bottle of the
most expensive perfume that is ever given for a birthday present; and
when they had seen the lawn, all green and smooth, and quite different
from the brown grass in the gardens at Camden Town; and when they found
the stable with a loft over it and some old hay still left, they were
almost certain; and when Robert had found the broken swing and tumbled
out of it and got a bump on his head the size of an egg, and Cyril had
nipped his finger in the door of a hutch that seemed made to keep
rabbits in, if you ever had any, they had no longer any doubts
whatever.
[Illustration: Cyril had nipped his finger in the door of a hutch]
The best part of it all was that there were no rules about not going to
places and not doing things. In London almost everything is labelled
"You mustn't touch," and though the label is invisible it's just as bad,
because you know it's there, or if you don't you very soon get told.
The White House was on the edge of a hill, with a wood behind it--and
the chalk-quarry on one side and the gravel-pit on the other. Down at
the bottom of the hill was a level plain, with queer-shaped white
buildings where people burnt lime, and a big red brewery and other
houses; and when the big chimneys were smoking and the sun was setting,
the valley looked as if it was filled with golden mist, and the
limekilns and hop-drying houses glimmered and glittered till they were
like an enchanted city out of the _Arabian Nights_.
Now that I have begun to tell you about the place, I feel that I could
go on and make this into a most interesting story about all the
ordinary things that the children did,--just the kind of things you do
yourself, you know, and you would believe every word of it; and when I
told about the children's being tiresome, as you are sometimes, your
aunts would perhaps write in the margin of the story with a pencil, "How
true!" or "How like life!" and you would see it and would very likely be
annoyed. So I will only tell you the really astonishing things that
happened, and you may leave the book about quite safely, for no aunts
and uncles either are likely to write "How true!" on the edge of the
story. Grown-up people find it very difficult to believe really
wonderful things, unless they have what they call proof. But children
will believe almost anything, and grown-ups know this. That is why they
tell you that the earth is round like an orange, when you can see
perfectly well that it is flat and lumpy; and why they say that the
earth goes round the sun, when you can see for yourself any day that the
sun gets up in the morning and goes to bed at night like a good sun as
it is, and the earth knows its place, and lies as still as a mouse. Yet
I daresay you believe all that about the earth and the sun, and if so
you will find it quite easy to believe that before Anthea and Cyril and
the others had been a week in the country they had found a fairy. At
least they called it that, because that was what it called itself; and
of course it knew best, but it was not at all like any fairy you ever
saw or heard of or read about.
It was at the gravel-pits. Father had to go away suddenly on business,
and mother had gone away to stay with Granny, who was not very well.
They both went in a great hurry, and when they were gone the house
seemed dreadfully quiet and empty, and the children wandered from one
room to another and looked at the bits of paper and string on the floors
left over from the packing, and not yet cleared up, and wished they had
something to do. It was Cyril who said--
"I say, let's take our spades and dig in the gravel-pits. We can pretend
it's seaside."
"Father says it was once," Anthea said; "he says there are shells there
thousands of years old."
So they went. Of course they had been to the edge of the gravel-pit and
looked over, but they had not gone down into it for fear father should
say they mustn't play there, and it was the same with the chalk-quarry.
The gravel-pit is not really dangerous if you don't try to climb down
the edges, but go the slow safe way round by the road, as if you were a
cart.
Each of the children carried its own spade, and took it in turns to
carry the Lamb. He was the baby, and they called him that because "Baa"
was the first thing he ever said. They called Anthea "Panther," which
seems silly when you read it, but when you say it it sounds a little
like her name.
The gravel-pit is very large and wide, with grass growing round the
edges at the top, and dry stringy wildflowers, purple and yellow. It is
like a giant's washbowl. And there are mounds of gravel, and holes in
the sides of the bowl where gravel has been taken out, and high up in
the steep sides there are the little holes that are the little front
doors of the little bank-martins' little houses.
The children built a castle, of course, but castle-building is rather
poor fun when you have no hope of the swishing tide ever coming in to
fill up the moat and wash away the drawbridge, and, at the happy last,
to wet everybody up to the waist at least.
Cyril wanted to dig out a cave to play smugglers in, but the others
thought it might bury them alive, so it ended in all spades going to
work to dig a hole through the castle to Australia. These children, you
see, believed that the world was round, and that on the other side the
little Australian boys and girls were really walking wrong way up, like
flies on the ceiling, with their heads hanging down into the air.
The children dug and they dug and they dug, and their hands got sandy
and hot and red, and their faces got damp and shiny. The Lamb had tried
to eat the sand, and had cried so hard when he found that it was not,
as he had supposed, brown sugar, that he was now tired out, and was
lying asleep in a warm fat bunch in the middle of the half-finished
castle. This left his brothers and sisters free to work really hard, and
the hole that was to come out in Australia soon grew so deep that Jane,
who was called Pussy for short, begged the others to stop.
"Suppose the bottom of the hole gave way suddenly," said she, "and you
tumbled out among the little Australians, all the sand would get in
their eyes."
"Yes," said Robert; "and they would hate us, and throw stones at us, and
not let us see the kangaroos, or opossums, or bluegums, or Emu Brand
birds, or anything."
Cyril and Anthea knew that Australia was not quite so near as all that,
but they agreed to stop using the spades and to go on with their hands.
This was quite easy, because the sand at the bottom of the hole was very
soft and fine and dry, like sea-sand. And there were little shells in
it.
"Fancy it having been wet sea here once, all sloppy and shiny," said
Jane, "with fishes and conger-eels and coral and mermaids."
"And masts of ships and wrecked Spanish treasure. I wish we could find a
gold doubloon, or something," Cyril said.
"How did the sea get carried away?" Robert asked.
"Not in a pail, silly," said his brother.
"Father says the earth got too hot underneath, as you do in bed
sometimes, so it just hunched up its shoulders, and the sea had to slip
off, like the blankets do us, and the shoulder was left sticking out,
and turned into dry land. Let's go and look for shells; I think that
little cave looks likely, and I see something sticking out there like a
bit of wrecked ship's anchor, and it's beastly hot in the Australian
hole."
The others agreed, but Anthea went on digging. She always liked to
finish a thing when she had once begun it. She felt it would be a
disgrace to leave that hole without getting through to Australia.
The cave was disappointing, because there were no shells, and the
wrecked ship's anchor turned out to be only the broken end of a pick-axe
handle, and the cave party were just making up their minds that sand
makes you thirstier when it is not by the seaside, and someone had
suggested that they all go home for lemonade, when Anthea suddenly
screamed--
"Cyril! Come here! Oh, come quick--It's alive! It'll get away! Quick!"
They all hurried back.
"It's a rat, I shouldn't wonder," said Robert. "Father says they infest
old places--and this must be pretty old if the sea was here thousands of
years ago"--
"Perhaps it is a snake," said Jane, shuddering.
"Let's look," said Cyril, jumping into the hole. "I'm not afraid of
snakes. I like them. If it is a snake I'll tame it, and it will follow
me everywhere, and I'll let it sleep round my neck at night."
"No, you won't," said Robert firmly. He shared Cyril's bedroom. "But
you may if it's a rat."
[Illustration: Anthea suddenly screamed, "It's alive!"]
"Oh, don't be silly!" said Anthea; "it's not a rat, it's _much_ bigger.
And it's not a snake. It's got feet; I saw them; and fur! No--not the
spade. You'll hurt it! Dig with your hands."
"And let _it_ hurt _me_ instead! That's so likely, isn't it?" said
Cyril, seizing a spade.
"Oh, don't!" said Anthea. "Squirrel, _don't_. I--it sounds silly, but it
said something. It really and truly did"--
"What?"
"It said, 'You let me alone.'"
But Cyril merely observed that his sister must have gone off her head,
and he and Robert dug with spades while Anthea sat on the edge of the
hole, jumping up and down with hotness and anxiety. They dug carefully,
and presently everyone could see that there really was something moving
in the bottom of the Australian hole.
Then Anthea cried out, "_I'm_ not afraid. Let me dig," and fell on her
knees and began to scratch like a dog does when he has suddenly
remembered where it was that he buried his bone.
"Oh, I felt fur," she cried, half laughing and half crying. "I did
indeed! I did!" when suddenly a dry husky voice in the sand made them
all jump back, and their hearts jumped nearly as fast as they did.
"Let me alone," it said. And now everyone heard the voice and looked at
the others to see if they had heard it too.
"But we want to see you," said Robert bravely.
"I wish you'd come out," said Anthea, also taking courage.
"Oh, well--if that's your wish," the voice said, and the sand stirred
and spun and scattered, and something brown and furry and fat came
rolling out into the hole, and the sand fell off it, and it sat there
yawning and rubbing the ends of its eyes with its hands.
"I believe I must have dropped asleep," it said, stretching itself.
The children stood round the hole in a ring, looking at the creature
they had found. It was worth looking at. Its eyes were on long horns
like a snail's eyes, and it could move them in and out like telescopes;
it had ears like a bat's ears, and its tubby body was shaped like a
spider's and covered with thick soft fur; its legs and arms were furry
too, and it had hands and feet like a monkey's.
"What on earth is it?" Jane said. "Shall we take it home?"
The thing turned its long eyes to look at her, and said--
"Does she always talk nonsense, or is it only the rubbish on her head
that makes her silly?"
It looked scornfully at Jane's hat as it spoke.
"She doesn't mean to be silly," Anthea said gently; "we none of us do,
whatever you may think! Don't be frightened; we don't want to hurt you,
you know."
"Hurt _me_!" it said. "_Me_ frightened? Upon my word! Why, you talk as
if I were nobody in particular." All its fur stood out like a cat's when
it is going to fight.
"Well," said Anthea, still kindly, "perhaps if we knew who you are in
particular we could think of something to say that wouldn't make you
angry. Everything we've said so far seems to have done so. Who are you?
And don't get angry! Because really we don't know."
"You don't know?" it said. "Well, I knew the world had
changed--but--well, really--Do you mean to tell me seriously you don't
know a Psammead when you see one?"
"A Sammyadd? That's Greek to me."
"So it is to everyone," said the creature sharply. "Well, in plain
English, then, a _Sand-fairy_. Don't you know a Sand-fairy when you see
one?"
It looked so grieved and hurt that Jane hastened to say, "Of course I
see you are, _now_. It's quite plain now one comes to look at you."
"You came to look at me, several sentences ago," it said crossly,
beginning to curl up again in the sand.
"Oh--don't go away again! Do talk some more," Robert cried. "I didn't
know you were a Sand-fairy, but I knew directly I saw you that you were
much the wonderfullest thing I'd ever seen."
The Sand-fairy seemed a shade less disagreeable after this.
"It isn't talking I mind," it said, "as long as you're reasonably civil.
But I'm not going to make polite conversation for you. If you talk
nicely to me, perhaps I'll answer you, and perhaps I won't. Now say
something."
Of course no one could think of anything to say, but at last Robert
thought of "How long have you lived here?" and he said it at once.
"Oh, ages--several thousand years," replied the Psammead.
"Tell us about it. Do."
"It's all in books."
"_You_ aren't!" Jane said. "Oh, tell us everything you can about
yourself! We don't know anything about you, and you _are_ so nice."
The Sand-fairy smoothed his long rat-like whiskers and smiled between
them.
"Do please tell!" said the children all together.
It is wonderful how quickly you get used to things, even the most
astonishing. Five minutes before, the children had had no more idea than
you had that there was such a thing as a Sand-fairy in the world, and
now they were talking to it as though they had known it all their lives.
It drew its eyes in and said--
"How very sunny it is--quite like old times! Where do you get your
Megatheriums from now?"
"What?" said the children all at once. It is very difficult always to
remember that "what" is not polite, especially in moments of surprise or
agitation.
"Are Pterodactyls plentiful now?" the Sand-fairy went on.
The children were unable to reply.
"What do you have for breakfast?" the Fairy said impatiently, "and who
gives it to you?"
"Eggs and bacon, and bread and milk, and porridge and things.
Mother gives it to us. What are Mega-what's-its-names and
Ptero-what-do-you-call-thems? And does anyone have them for breakfast?"
"Why, almost everyone had Pterodactyl for breakfast in my time!
Pterodactyls were something like crocodiles and something like birds--I
believe they were very good grilled. You see, it was like this: of
course there were heaps of Sand-fairies then, and in the morning early
you went out and hunted for them, and when you'd found one it gave you
your wish. People used to send their little boys down to the seashore in
the morning before breakfast to get the day's wishes, and very often the
eldest boy in the family would be told to wish for a Megatherium, ready
jointed for cooking. It was as big as an elephant, you see, so there was
a good deal of meat on it. And if they wanted fish, the Ichthyosaurus
was asked for,--he was twenty to forty feet long, so there was plenty of
him. And for poultry there was the Plesiosaurus; there were nice
pickings on that too. Then the other children could wish for other
things. But when people had dinner-parties it was nearly always
Megatheriums; and Ichthyosaurus, because his fins were a great delicacy
and his tail made soup."
"There must have been heaps and heaps of cold meat left over," said
Anthea, who meant to be a good housekeeper some day.
"Oh no," said the Psammead, "that would never have done. Why, of course
at sunset what was left over turned into stone. You find the stone bones
of the Megatherium and things all over the place even now, they tell
me."
"Who tell you?" asked Cyril; but the Sand-fairy frowned and began to dig
very fast with its furry hands.
"Oh, don't go!" they all cried; "tell us more about when it was
Megatheriums for breakfast! Was the world like this then?"
It stopped digging.
"Not a bit," it said; "it was nearly all sand where I lived, and coal
grew on trees, and the periwinkles were as big as tea-trays--you find
them now; they're turned into stone. We Sand-fairies used to live on the
seashore, and the children used to come with their little flint-spades
and flint-pails and make castles for us to live in. That's thousands of
years ago, but I hear that children still build castles on the sand.
It's difficult to break yourself of a habit."
"But why did you stop living in the castles?" asked Robert.
"It's a sad story," said the Psammead gloomily. "It was because they
_would_ build moats to the castles, and the nasty wet bubbling sea used
to come in, and of course as soon as a Sand-fairy got wet it caught
cold, and generally died. And so there got to be fewer and fewer, and,
whenever you found a fairy and had a wish, you used to wish for a
Megatherium, and eat twice as much as you wanted, because it might be
weeks before you got another wish."
"And did _you_ get wet?" Robert inquired.
The Sand-fairy shuddered. "Only once," it said; "the end of the twelfth
hair of my top left whisker--I feel the place still in damp weather. It
was only once, but it was quite enough for me. I went away as soon as
the sun had dried my poor dear whisker. I scurried away to the back of
the beach, and dug myself a house deep in warm dry sand, and there I've
been ever since. And the sea changed its lodgings afterwards. And now
I'm not going to tell you another thing."
"Just one more, please," said the children. "Can you give wishes now?"
"Of course," said it; "didn't I give you yours a few minutes ago? You
said, 'I wish you'd come out,' and I did."
"Oh, please, mayn't we have another?"
"Yes, but be quick about it. I'm tired of you."
I daresay you have often thought what you would do if you had three
wishes given you, and have despised the old man and his wife in the
black-pudding story, and felt certain that if you had the chance you
could think of three really useful wishes without a moment's hesitation.
These children had often talked this matter over, but, now the chance
had suddenly come to them, they could not make up their minds.
"Quick," said the Sand-fairy crossly. No one could think of anything,
only Anthea did manage to remember a private wish of her own and Jane's
which they had never told the boys. She knew the boys would not care
about it--but still it was better than nothing.
"I wish we were all as beautiful as the day," she said in a great hurry.
The children looked at each other, but each could see that the others
were not any better-looking than usual. The Psammead pushed out his long
eyes, and seemed to be holding its breath and swelling itself out till
it was twice as fat and furry as before. Suddenly it let its breath go
in a long sigh.
"I'm really afraid I can't manage it," it said apologetically; "I must
be out of practice."
The children were horribly disappointed.
"Oh, _do_ try again!" they said.
"Well," said the Sand-fairy, "the fact is, I was keeping back a little
strength to give the rest of you your wishes with. If you'll be
contented with one wish a day among the lot of you I daresay I can
screw myself up to it. Do you agree to that?"
"Yes, oh yes!" said Jane and Anthea. The boys nodded. They did not
believe the Sand-fairy could do it. You can always make girls believe
things much easier than you can boys.
It stretched out its eyes farther than ever, and swelled and swelled and
swelled.
"I do hope it won't hurt itself," said Anthea.
"Or crack its skin," Robert said anxiously.
Everyone was very much relieved when the Sand-fairy, after getting so
big that it almost filled up the hole in the sand, suddenly let out its
breath and went back to its proper size.
"That's all right," it said, panting heavily. "It'll come easier
to-morrow."
"Did it hurt much?" said Anthea.
"Only my poor whisker, thank you," said he, "but you're a kind and
thoughtful child. Good day."
It scratched suddenly and fiercely with its hands and feet, and
disappeared in the sand.
Then the children looked at each other, and each child suddenly found
itself alone with three perfect strangers, all radiantly beautiful.
They stood for some moments in silence. Each thought that its brothers
and sisters had wandered off, and that these strange children had stolen
up unnoticed while it was watching the swelling form of the Sand-fairy.
Anthea spoke first--
"Excuse me," she said very politely to Jane, who now had enormous blue
eyes and a cloud of russet hair, "but have you seen two little boys and
a little girl anywhere about?"
"I was just going to ask you that," said Jane. And then Cyril cried--
"Why, it's _you_! I know the hole in your pinafore! You _are_ Jane,
aren't you? And you're the Panther; I can see your dirty handkerchief
that you forgot to change after you'd cut your thumb! The wish _has_
come off, after all. I say, am I as handsome as you are?"
"If you're Cyril, I liked you much better as you were before," said
Anthea decidedly. "You look like the picture of the young chorister,
with your golden hair; you'll die young, I shouldn't wonder. And if
that's Robert, he's like an Italian organ-grinder. His hair's all
black."
"You two girls are like Christmas cards, then--that's all--silly
Christmas cards," said Robert angrily. "And Jane's hair is simply
carrots."
It was indeed of that Venetian tint so much admired by artists.
"Well, it's no use finding fault with each other," said Anthea; "let's
get the Lamb and lug it home to dinner. The servants will admire us most
awfully, you'll see."
Baby was just waking up when they got to him, and not one of the
children but was relieved to find that he at least was not as beautiful
as the day, but just the same as usual.
"I suppose he's too young to have wishes naturally," said Jane. "We
shall have to mention him specially next time."
Anthea ran forward and held out her arms.
"Come, then," she said.
The Baby looked at her disapprovingly, and put a sandy pink thumb in his
mouth. Anthea was his favourite sister.
"Come, then," she said.
"G'way 'long!" said the Baby.
"Come to own Pussy," said Jane.
"Wants my Panty," said the Lamb dismally, and his lip trembled.
"Here, come on, Veteran," said Robert, "come and have a yidey on Yobby's
back."
"Yah, narky narky boy," howled the Baby, giving way altogether. Then the
children knew the worst. _The Baby did not know them!_
[Illustration: The baby did not know them!]
They looked at each other in despair, and it was terrible to each, in
this dire emergency, to meet only the beautiful eyes of perfect
strangers, instead of the merry, friendly, commonplace, twinkling, jolly
little eyes of its own brothers and sisters.
"This is most truly awful," said Cyril when he had tried to lift up the
Lamb, and the Lamb had scratched like a cat and bellowed like a bull!
"We've got to _make friends_ with him! I can't carry him home screaming
like that. Fancy having to make friends with our own baby!--it's too
silly."
That, however, was exactly what they had to do. It took over an hour,
and the task was not rendered any easier by the fact that the Lamb was
by this time as hungry as a lion and as thirsty as a desert.
At last he consented to allow these strangers to carry him home by
turns, but as he refused to hold on to such new acquaintances he was a
dead weight, and most exhausting.
"Thank goodness, we're home!" said Jane, staggering through the iron
gate to where Martha, the nursemaid, stood at the front door shading her
eyes with her hand and looking out anxiously. "Here! Do take Baby!"
Martha snatched the Baby from her arms.
"Thanks be, _he's_ safe back," she said. "Where are the others, and
whoever to goodness gracious are all of you?"
"We're _us_, of course," said Robert.
"And who's Us, when you're at home?" asked Martha scornfully.
"I tell you it's _us_, only we're beautiful as the day," said Cyril.
"I'm Cyril, and these are the others, and we're jolly hungry. Let us in,
and don't be a silly idiot."
Martha merely dratted Cyril's impudence and tried to shut the door in
his face.
"I know we _look_ different, but I'm Anthea, and we're so tired, and
it's long past dinner-time."
"Then go home to your dinners, whoever you are; and if our children put
you up to this play-acting you can tell them from me they'll catch it,
so they know what to expect!" With that she did bang the door. Cyril
rang the bell violently. No answer. Presently cook put her head out of a
bedroom window and said--
"If you don't take yourselves off, and that precious sharp, I'll go and
fetch the police." And she slammed down the window.
"It's no good," said Anthea. "Oh, do, do come away before we get sent to
prison!"
The boys said it was nonsense, and the law of England couldn't put you
in prison for just being as beautiful as the day, but all the same they
followed the others out into the lane.
"We shall be our proper selves after sunset, I suppose," said Jane.
"I don't know," Cyril said sadly; "it mayn't be like that now--things
have changed a good deal since Megatherium times."
"Oh," cried Anthea suddenly, "perhaps we shall turn into stone at
sunset, like the Megatheriums did, so that there mayn't be any of us
left over for the next day."
She began to cry, so did Jane. Even the boys turned pale. No one had the
heart to say anything.
It was a horrible afternoon. There was no house near where the children
could beg a crust of bread or even a glass of water. They were afraid to
go to the village, because they had seen Martha go down there with a
basket, and there was a local constable. True, they were all as
beautiful as the day, but that is a poor comfort when you are as hungry
as a hunter and as thirsty as a sponge.
Three times they tried in vain to get the servants in the White House to
let them in and listen to their tale. And then Robert went alone, hoping
to be able to climb in at one of the back windows and so open the door
to the others. But all the windows were out of reach, and Martha emptied
a toilet-jug of cold water over him from a top window, and said--
"Go along with you, you nasty little Eye-talian monkey."
It came at last to their sitting down in a row under the hedge, with
their feet in a dry ditch, waiting for sunset, and wondering whether,
when the sun _did_ set, they would turn into stone, or only into their
own old natural selves; and each of them still felt lonely and among
strangers, and tried not to look at the others, for, though their voices
were their own, their faces were so radiantly beautiful as to be quite
irritating to look at.
"I don't believe we _shall_ turn to stone," said Robert, breaking a long
miserable silence, "because the Sand-fairy said he'd give us another
wish to-morrow, and he couldn't if we were stone, could he?"
The others said "No," but they weren't at all comforted.
Another silence, longer and more miserable, was broken by Cyril's
suddenly saying, "I don't want to frighten you girls, but I believe it's
beginning with me already. My foot's quite dead. I'm turning to stone, I
know I am, and so will you in a minute."
"Never mind," said Robert kindly, "perhaps you'll be the only stone one,
and the rest of us will be all right, and we'll cherish your statue and
hang garlands on it."
But when it turned out that Cyril's foot had only gone to sleep through
his sitting too long with it under him, and when it came to life in an
agony of pins and needles, the others were quite cross.
"Giving us such a fright for nothing!" said Anthea.
[Illustration: Martha emptied a toilet-jug of cold water over him]
The third and miserablest silence of all was broken by Jane. She
said--
"If we _do_ come out of this all right, we'll ask the Sammyadd to make
it so that the servants don't notice anything different, no matter what
wishes we have."
The others only grunted. They were too wretched even to make good
resolutions.
At last hunger and fright and crossness and tiredness--four very nasty
things--all joined together to bring one nice thing, and that was sleep.
The children lay asleep in a row, with their beautiful eyes shut and
their beautiful mouths open. Anthea woke first. The sun had set, and the
twilight was coming on.
Anthea pinched herself very hard, to make sure, and when she found she
could still feel pinching she decided that she was not stone, and then
she pinched the others. They, also, were soft.
"Wake up," she said, almost in tears for joy; "it's all right, we're not
stone. And oh, Cyril, how nice and ugly you do look, with your old
freckles and your brown hair and your little eyes. And so do you all!"
she added, so that they might not feel jealous.
When they got home they were very much scolded by Martha, who told them
about the strange children.
"A good-looking lot, I must say, but that impudent."
"I know," said Robert, who knew by experience how hopeless it would be
to try to explain things to Martha.
"And where on earth have you been all this time, you naughty little
things, you?"
"In the lane."
"Why didn't you come home hours ago?"
"We couldn't because of _them_," said Anthea.
"Who?"
"The children who were as beautiful as the day. They kept us there till
after sunset. We couldn't come back till they'd gone. You don't know how
we hated them! Oh, do, do give us some supper--we are so hungry."
"Hungry! I should think so," said Martha angrily; "out all day like
this. Well, I hope it'll be a lesson to you not to go picking up with
strange children--down here after measles, as likely as not! Now mind,
if you see them again, don't you speak to them--not one word nor so
much as a look--but come straight away and tell me. I'll spoil their
beauty for them!"
"If ever we _do_ see them again we'll tell you," Anthea said; and
Robert, fixing his eyes fondly on the cold beef that was being brought
in on a tray by cook, added in heartfelt undertones--
"And we'll take jolly good care we never _do_ see them again."
And they never have.