ANNE’S TERRIBLE GOOD NATURE
OTHER BOOKS FOR CHILDREN BY THE SAME AUTHOR
A BOOK OF VERSES FOR CHILDREN
ANOTHER BOOK OF VERSES FOR CHILDREN
THE FLAMP
THE AMELIORATOR
THE SCHOOLBOY’S APPRENTICE
OLD-FASHIONED TALES
FORGOTTEN TALES OF LONG AGO
THREE HUNDRED GAMES AND PASTIMES
RUNAWAYS AND CASTAWAYS
THE “ORIGINAL POEMS” OF ANN AND JANE TAYLOR
THE SLOW-COACH: A Story. Illustrated in Colour by M. V. WHEELHOUSE
A CAT BOOK. Illustrated by PAT SULLIVAN
[Illustration: TO THE OLD WOMAN’S INTENSE ASTONISHMENT, SHE GAVE HER
ONE HUNDRED AND FOUR OF HER THREEPENNY BITS. [p. 42]
ANNE’S TERRIBLE GOOD
NATURE
AND OTHER STORIES FOR CHILDREN
BY
E. V. LUCAS
WITH 12 ILLUSTRATIONS
BY A. H. BUCKLAND
NEW YORK
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
_First published, August 1908; Reprinted December 1908,
July 1911, March 1915, December 1919,
June 1923, December 1924,
and January 1928._
PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN: ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
PREFACE
Of the eleven stories in this book, seven now appear for the first
time. For permission to reprint “Sir Franklin and the Little Mothers,”
I have to thank Messrs. Bradbury, Agnew & Co.; and Messrs. George
Allen & Sons allow me to include “The Miss Bannisters’ Brother.” “The
Monkey’s Revenge” was printed first in Messrs. Dent’s _Christmas
Treasury_, and “The Anti-burglars” in _The Woman at Home_ for December
1902. The motive of the title story was given to me by Mrs. Charles
Bryant, and that of “The Ring of Fortitude” by Mrs. W. M. Meredith.
The suggestion as to organs and street cries in “The Notice-Board”
was made to me by Oxford’s Professor of Poetry. The autobiographies of
coins, I might add, are a commonplace in old books for children; but
one is at liberty, I think, to adapt the idea to one’s own time without
being guilty of very serious want of originality.
E. V. L.
CONTENTS
PAGE
ANNE’S TERRIBLE GOOD NATURE 1
THE THOUSAND THREEPENNY BITS 27
RODERICK’S PROS 55
THE MONKEY’S REVENGE 73
THE NOTICE-BOARD 87
THE MISS BANNISTERS’ BROTHER 109
THE ANTI-BURGLARS 143
SIR FRANKLIN AND THE LITTLE MOTHERS 169
THE GARDENS AND THE NILE 203
A DAY IN THE LIFE OF A SHILLING 217
THE RING OF FORTITUDE 237
ILLUSTRATIONS
TO FACE
PAGE
TO THE OLD WOMAN’S INTENSE ASTONISHMENT, SHE GAVE
HER ONE HUNDRED AND FOUR OF HER THREEPENNY
BITS _frontispiece_
“PLEASE DON’T TROUBLE TO GO BACK. I’LL LEND YOU THE
CUPS AND SAUCERS” 19
THESE TOMMY CATHCART AND SHE SLIPPED INTO THE HANDS
OF THE SANDWICH-MEN 44
THE PRESENCE OF SO SMALL A CRICKETER MADE A GREAT
SENSATION AMONG THE PORTERS 64
“DO LOOK AT THAT QUEER LITTLE MAN!” 80
“WE HAD IT MADE ON PURPOSE” 103
THERE WAS CHRISTINA 114
WHILE MARY HELD THE LANTERN, HE WORKED
AWAY AT THE FASTENINGS 162
A LITTLE PROCESSION PASSED THE DOORWAY 181
“YES, NURSE, BUT DO TELL ME WHAT SPEKE DID?” 206
“A BLUE RIBBON WAS THREADED THROUGH ME,
AND I WAS HUNG ROUND A LITTLE GIRL’S NECK” 229
“WILL YOU TELL ME WHAT MR. DEAR IS LIKE?” 255
ANNE’S TERRIBLE GOOD NATURE
ANNE’S TERRIBLE GOOD NATURE
Once upon a time there was a little girl named Anne Wilbraham Bayes,
Wilbraham being after her grandfather on the mother’s side, a very
clever gentleman living at Great Malvern, and writing books on Roman
history, who has, however, nothing whatever to do with this story. This
story is about Anne and her perfectly appalling good nature.
Where Anne’s good nature came from no one ever could guess, for her
father had little enough, always insisting on silence at breakfast
while he read the paper and ate the biggest egg; and her mother had
little enough, too, never seeing her children without being reminded
of something which she wanted from the top left-hand drawer in
her bedroom; while Anne’s brothers and sisters had so little that
they always forced Anne to be the one who should go on these boring
errands. And so far as I have been able to discover, none of Anne’s
grandparents were particularly good-natured either, for old Mr. Bayes
had a barbed-wire fence all round his estate in west Surrey, near
Farnborough, and old Mrs. Bayes would not allow any fruit to be picked
except by the gardeners; while old Mr. Wilbraham, in consequence of
writing his Roman history all day long, insisted on perfect quietness,
so that whenever the children were at Great Malvern they had to play
only at those games with no noise in them, which are hardly worth
calling games at all; and as for old Mrs. Wilbraham, she was dead. It
looks, therefore, very much as if Anne either inherited her wonderful
and embarrassing good nature from a distant ancestor too far back to
be inquired into, or that it was a totally new kind, beginning with
herself. For she would do the most dreadful things--things to make the
hair of ordinarily good-natured people stand on end.
For instance, this is what she did once. She heard her mother complain
to a visitor one January afternoon that there were no flowers in the
garden at that time of year, and it made the view from the sitting-room
window very depressing. After lying awake most of the night thinking
how she might improve this view and make it more cheerful for her
mother’s eyes, Anne got up very early, while it was still dark, and
went to the conservatory, and chose from it by candlelight a number of
gay flowers, and these she carefully planted in the bed just in front
of her mother’s window. It was raining a little, and bitterly cold,
and Anne’s fingers became numb, and her feet like stones, and her nose
pink, but she went right through with it without faltering until the
bed was as gay as summer.
That was good nature, if you like, but no one seemed to think so. Mrs.
Bayes, when she looked out of the window, instead of being cheered,
screamed out “Oh!” and sent for her smelling salts, and then became
quite tearful over the ruin of her pet geraniums, freesias, carnations,
cyclamens, and genistas. Mr. Bayes was perfectly furious, and said so
several times in different ways, each more cutting than the last; while
Anne’s brothers and sisters thought it the greatest joke against Anne
possible.
“You didn’t really think they’d live, did you?” they asked her. “How
absolutely dotty!”
Directly after breakfast the gardener dug them all up again and put
them back in their hot-house pots. Anne was not punished for her folly
in any other way than by want of appreciation; but if anyone had seen
her crying by herself in her bedroom they might have thought that she
had been.
However, when Valentine’s Day came round, which was about three weeks
later, and all the little Bayeses found a parcel on their plates at
breakfast--their Aunt Margaret being one of those few eccentric persons
left who remember St. Valentine’s Day--Anne’s package was found to
be twice as good as any of the others, containing as it did not only
the ordinary present, but a gold bangle as well, with a little piece
of blue turquoise hanging from it (from Liberty’s probably), and this
inscription on a tiny label: “From St. Valentine to the little girl who
tried to make her mother’s garden bright in winter and was only laughed
at and chidden for her pains.”
So Anne really scored, you see; but, of course, it was a ridiculous
thing to do, wasn’t it? Just think of supposing that hot-house flowers
would grow out of doors in January! It shows how perfectly absurd
Anne’s good nature could be.
That is one case. Now I will tell you of another.
One day the whole Bayes family were going to London--they lived near
Leatherhead--for the day. They were going to Cousin Alice’s wedding in
the morning, and afterwards to the Hippodrome matinée. Marceline, it
is true, was not there any longer, but it was a wonderful programme,
Mr. Bayes said, and they were all immensely excited. Besides, they had
bunches of flowers to throw at the bride, rice having now gone out on
account of its being dangerous for the eyes and very smartful generally.
The train was full, but Mr. Bayes, by mentioning the fact overnight,
had had a third-class compartment guarded for him by a porter, and into
this they all climbed: Mr. Bayes, Mrs. Bayes, Arthur Lloyd Bayes,
Gerald Gilmer Bayes, Marion Lease Bayes, Meta Cleghorn Bayes, and Anne
Wilbraham Bayes. There were also two friends from Leatherhead who knew
Cousin Alice, making nine in all.
Anne sat next the window, on the platform side.
All went well until the train drew up at the next station, but there an
unfortunate thing happened. Scores of people were waiting to get in,
and they began to push round the third-class carriage doors. Several
came to the Bayeses’ compartment, but, seeing that it was all one
family in their best clothes, they had consideration and passed on.
Gradually every one found a seat, either in the thirds or the seconds,
and even the first--all except a poor shabby old woman in a shawl, with
a big basket, who tottered piteously up and down trying in vain to find
a place. Anne saw her pass and peer into their carriage with an anxious
and even tearful look, but Mr. Bayes frowned so forbiddingly that she
hurried on.
At this moment Anne’s terrible good nature overpowered her, and she
leaned out of the window and cried invitingly: “Come in here--quick!
There’s room for one.”
“Nonsense,” said Mr. Bayes; “it’s full.”
“Oh no,” said Anne--“look! It says, ‘To seat five persons on each
side,’ and we’re only nine altogether. Come in here,” she cried again
to the old woman.
“But she’s dirty,” said Mrs. Bayes; “she’ll spoil your frocks.”
“Very likely got something catching,” said Mr. Bayes.
“What a rotter you are, Anne!” said the others.
But meanwhile a porter had opened the door and pushed the old woman in.
Anne stood up to give her her place; the others moved to the other end;
and Mr. Bayes, who, after all, was a very good father and exceedingly
keen about health, let down the window with a bang and hid behind his
paper.
“I’m sure,” said the old woman to Anne, “I’m very much obliged to you,
missy.”
She got out at the next station, and as she did so she handed Anne a
little paper article from her basket, for she was a pedlar, and said
it was a present for her for being so good-natured; and so saying she
hobbled off, and Mr. Bayes blew hard through his lips, as if he had
come up from a long dive, and Mrs. Bayes made the children smell at her
salts.
When Anne looked at her present she found it was a halfpenny row of
pins, and this made every one laugh and quite happy again. Anne put
them in her pocket and laughed too, although how she could find it in
her heart to laugh, after ruining the railway journey like that by her
unfortunate trick of good nature, I can’t think.
The wedding was a great success until Cousin Alice, the bride--and a
very pretty bride too--was coming down the aisle on Captain Vernon’s
arm (and the Captain looked every inch a soldier, and had across his
forehead the nicest brown line, which he had brought back with him from
Egypt, where he had been on duty before he hurried home to marry Cousin
Alice); all went well until a silly boy, in his desire to cross the
church and get to the door first and begin to throw confetti, stepped
on Cousin Alice’s beautiful white satin train and tore a yard or two
nearly off.
She was as sweet about it as only Cousin Alice could be, but she
stopped and picked it up, and looked round imploringly for help. And
then happened that which I need hardly tell you, for you have guessed
it already. The only person that had any pins was Anne, who stepped out
of her pew and handed her little halfpenny row to Captain Vernon; and
there and then, several people helping, the beautiful white satin train
was made all right again, at least for the time being, and the bride
and bridegroom walked on, smiling to right and left, and ducked their
heads outside as the flowers and confetti rained on them, and got into
the brougham, and the coach-man cracked his whip with the white rosette
on it, and they were driven to Uncle Maurice’s house, where Cousin
Alice used to live, but where she would now live no more.
After a while the Bayes family, with many other guests, arrived there
too, to stay for a few minutes to see the presents and say good-bye to
the bride. It was a morning wedding, because they were going on a very
long journey.
When Anne came at last face to face with Cousin Alice and Captain
Vernon, Captain Vernon, who had suddenly become Cousin Phil, took out
of his pocket a piece of money, and, holding it tight in his hand, said
to Anne: “I owe you this.”
“Oh no,” said Anne, “you don’t. How could you?”
“How could I?” said Cousin Phil. “Why, I bought a row of pins from you
this morning.”
“Oh no!” said Anne again. “I was very glad to have them for Cousin
Alice to use.”
“You may say what you like, Anne,” said Cousin Phil, “but I consider
that you sold them to me, and I intend to pay for them; and here you
are, and you shall give me a receipt for it.” And so saying, he stooped
down, and Anne kissed him, and he kissed Anne; and then Cousin Alice
kissed Anne and Anne kissed Cousin Alice; and then other people pressed
forward and Anne walked away. And when she looked at the piece of money
in her hand it was a sovereign.
All’s well that ends well, says Shakespeare, but of course it was very
unwise and very unnecessary of Anne to have leaned out of the window
of that nice clean family compartment and invited into it a dirty old
pedlar woman, even if she was very infirm and unhappy and there was no
room anywhere else. We must, as Mr. Bayes remarked on the way home--his
words not very clear by reason of his eating all the time one of the
chocolate creams which Anne had bought with part of her sovereign for
the family at the Hippodrome. “We must,” said Mr. Bayes--and the others
all agreed with him--“we must, dear Anne, be a little careful how we
exercise even so amiable a quality as kindness of heart. I am very glad
to see you always so ready to be nice and helpful to others, but your
brain has been given you to a large extent to control your impulses.
Never forget that.”
Here Mr. Bayes took another chocolate, and very soon afterwards their
station was reached.
But did Anne profit by her father’s excellent advice? We shall soon
see, for now I come to the worst adventure into which her terrible good
nature has ever led her.
You must know that the Bayeses were not rich, although they had rich
relations and really never wanted for anything. But they lived on as
little as possible, and on two or three mornings every week Mr. Bayes,
after reading his letters, would remark that all his investments were
going wrong and they would soon be in the workhouse. That was, of
course, only his way; but they could not have many treats, or many
visitors, and it caused them to look with very longing eyes on the
young Calderons, the children of the gentleman that had taken the Hall,
the great house near by, for August and September, who used to gallop
by on their ponies, and play golf and cricket in their park, and who
never seemed to want for anything.
To know the Calderon family was the Bayeses’ great desire, but their
mother explained that it would not be right to call on strangers
staying for so short a time, and nothing therefore could be done: which
was particularly trying because, owing to the absence of something
called dividends, the visit to Sea View, said Mr. Bayes, was this year
an impossibility.
Such was the state of affairs on the morning of August 21, when Anne
was working in her garden just under the wall which separated Mr.
Bayes’s property from the high road. She was steadily pulling up weeds
after the rain, and thinking how nice the sun made the earth smell,
when she heard the beating of hoofs, and the scrunching of wheels on
the road, and a murmur of happy voices young and old. And then she
heard a man’s voice call out “Stop!” and the horses were pulled up.
“What is it, father?” she heard a girl’s voice say.
And then the man’s voice replied, “We shall have to go back. I’ve just
remembered that no cups and saucers were put in.”
“Oh no, don’t let’s go back,” said one child’s voice after another.
“It’s so hot, and it doesn’t really matter. We can drink out of the
glasses.”
“No,” said the father’s voice again, “we must go back. You forget that
the Richardsons are going to meet us there, and they will want tea and
want it properly served. We must have at least six cups and saucers.
Turn round, John!”
[Illustration: “PLEASE DON’T TROUBLE TO GO BACK. I’LL LEND YOU THE CUPS
AND SAUCERS.”]
By this time, Anne, who had been struggling to set a ladder against the
wall, had got it to stand still and climbed to the top, and just as
John began to turn the horses of the carriage she called out:
“Please don’t trouble to go back. I’ll lend you the cups and saucers. I
won’t be gone a minute”; and before anyone could reply she was down the
ladder and running to the house.
Perhaps if she had not been in such a hurry, and had not been so
genuinely troubled to think of the picnic party spoiling their pleasure
by going back to the Hall (a horrid thing to do, as Anne remembered,
after leaving it so gaily), she would have asked herself several
questions--such as, “What right have I to offer to lend strangers
cups and saucers belonging to my parents?” and “Is my head properly
controlling my impulse?” and so forth. But Anne had no time for
inquiries like that: all she could think of was getting the cups and
saucers as soon as possible, and returning with them so as to save
those nice picnic people from having to go back again.
Just before she reached the house, however, she remembered that old
Martha, the cook, was in a very bad temper that morning, and would
certainly refuse to give them up; but Anne also remembered at the same
instant that there was in the drawing-room a cabinet full of cups and
saucers, which no one ever used, but which now and then a visitor took
out and examined underneath, and she decided to take six of these
instead--so hastily seizing a basket from a hook in the hall she took
what she wanted from the cabinet and ran back panting to the gate
leading to the road.
To her immense delight the carriage was still standing there, and she
hastened to hand the basket to the gentleman who was waiting in the
road to receive it.
“Well, you are a little brick,” he said, “and how hot it has made you.”
Anne gasped out something in reply, but not at all comfortably, because
for one thing she was out of breath, and for another the children in
the carriage were all looking at her very hard. But at this moment the
gentleman, who had been examining the basket, gave a low whistle and
then called to one of the ladies to come and speak to him. She got out
of the carriage and walked a little way apart with the gentleman, who
showed her something in the basket and talked very earnestly. Then all
of a sudden he called to the children to get out and play for a little
while until he and their mother came back, and taking Anne’s hand he
asked her if she would lead him and his wife to her mother, as he had
something to say to her, and they all three went off through the gate
to the house.
The gentleman talked gaily as they went, and the lady held Anne’s other
hand very softly, and so they came to Mr. Bayes’s study, where he
was writing, Mrs. Bayes and the other children being in Leatherhead
shopping. The gentleman and Mr. Bayes then talked together, while Anne
led the lady about the garden until she was suddenly sent for to change
her clothes--why, you shall hear.
What happened at the interview between Mr. Bayes and the gentleman can
best be told by repeating the conversation between Mr. and Mrs. Bayes
and the children at lunch.
“But where’s Anne?” said Mrs. Bayes, as the servant removed the cover
from the joint.
“Anne,” said Mr. Bayes, “Anne? Oh, yes, Anne has gone for a picnic.”
“For a picnic!” cried the whole family.
“Yes,” said Mr. Bayes, “for a picnic with the people staying at the
Hall.”
Mrs. Bayes sat back with a gasp, and the children’s mouths opened so
wide you could have posted letters in them.
“Yes,” said Mr. Bayes. “She was working in her garden when she heard
Mr. Calderon order the driver to go back because cups and saucers had
been forgotten. He is a very nice fellow, by the way. I find we were
at Oxford together, although I did not know him there, but he has
been intimate with Charley for years. It is the same Calderon, the
architect, that built your uncle’s house at Chichester.”
“Do go on, father,” said the children.
“Well,” said Mr. Bayes, “what does that little duffing Anne do but sing
out that they were not to go back, but wait a minute, and she would
lend them the cups and saucers.”
“Yes, yes, go on!”
“Well, and fearing that Martha--very properly--wouldn’t let her have
any for the party, what does she do but take six of the very best of my
Crown Derby from the cabinet in the drawing-room and scamper back with
them!”
“My love,” said Mrs. Bayes, “the Crown Derby that Uncle Mortimer left
us?”
“Yes, the Crown Derby, valued only a month ago at two guineas apiece.
Off she runs with it in a basket and hands it over to Mr. or Mrs.
Calderon. Mrs. Calderon, by the way, I like. She wants you to call. I
said you’d go to-morrow.”
“Do go on, father!”
“Well, where was I? Oh yes. The Calderons no sooner saw the china
than they realized what had happened, and brought it back to me. By a
miracle there wasn’t a chip on it. Of course, I said I was very much
obliged to them, and I offered some ordinary crockery, but Calderon
said they would take it only on condition that Anne accompanied it in
the capacity of caretaker and brought it back. So she went.”
“I hope she changed her frock,” said Mrs. Bayes.
“I believe she did,” said Mr. Bayes. “They’ve gone to Chidley Woods,
where the Richardsons will meet them, and they won’t be back till six.
Now perhaps I may get on with my lunch.”
* * * * *
By the following Saturday evening, I may add, the Bayes children and
the Calderon children were very friendly, and Arthur Lloyd Bayes had
fallen off Harold Armiger Calderon’s pony twice.
THE THOUSAND THREEPENNY BITS
THE THOUSAND THREEPENNY BITS
I
Once upon a time there was a little girl named Alison Muirhead, and
she had a doll named Rosamund and a dog named Thomson. The dog was an
Aberdeen terrier, and he came from Aberdeen by train in the care of
the guard, and he rarely did what he was told, which is the way of
Aberdeens, as you have perhaps discovered.
Alison used to take her doll and Thomson every day into Kensington
Gardens, and when they were well inside the Gardens, opposite the
tulips and the new statue of William III., she used to unclasp the
catch of Thomson’s lead and let him run, doing her best to keep an eye
on him. This was not easy, for Thomson was a sociable dog, and he
rushed after every other dog he saw, and either told them the latest
dog joke or heard it, and Alison was often in despair to get him back.
If, however, Thomson had been an angel of a dog this story would never
have been written, because it was wholly owing to his naughtiness that
Alison and the Old Gentleman met.
The Old Gentleman used also to go into the Gardens on every fine day
and sit on one of the seats by the may-trees between the long bulb walk
and the Round Pond, with his back to the Albert Memorial. Not that he
was one of those persons who always click their tongues when the Albert
Memorial is mentioned, for, as a matter of fact, he did not mind the
gold on it at all, and he really liked the groups of Asia and Europe
and India at the corners, with the nice friendly elephant and camel in
them; but he turned his back on the Memorial because the seat was set
that way, and he liked also, when he raised his eyes from his book,
to see so much green grass, and in the distance the yachtsmen running
round the Round Pond to prevent their vessels wrecking themselves on
the cement.
Alison had noticed the Old Gentleman for a long time before they had
become acquainted, and he had noticed her, and was much attracted by
her quiet little ways with Rosamund, and her calm, if despairing,
pursuit of Thomson; and he liked her, too, for never playing diabolo.
But it was not until one day that Thomson broke loose at the very gate
of the Gardens with his lead still on him, and in course of time ran
right under the Old Gentleman’s legs and caught the chain in one of the
eyelet flaps of his laced boots, that Alison and he came to speak.
“Ha, ha!” said the Old Gentleman to Thomson, “I’ve got you now. And I
shall hold you tight till your mistress comes.”
Alison was still a long way off. Thomson said nothing, but tugged at
the chain.
“I’ve been watching you for a long time, Mr. Thomson,” said the Old
Gentleman, “and I have come to the conclusion that you are a bad dog.
You don’t care for anyone. You do what you want to do and nothing
else.” Thomson lay down and put out a yard and a half of pink tongue.
Alison came nearer.
“If you were my dog,” the Old Gentleman continued, “do you know what I
should do? I should thrash you.” Thomson began to snore.
Alison at this point came up, and Thomson sprang to his feet and
affected to be pleased to see her.
“Thank you ever so much,” Alison said to the Old Gentleman. “But
however did you catch him?”
“I didn’t catch him,” said the Old Gentleman, “he caught me. Come and
sit down and rest yourself.”
So Alison sat down, and Thomson laid his wicked cheek against her boot,
and that was the beginning of the acquaintance.
The next day when she went into the Gardens Alison looked for the Old
Gentleman, and sure enough there he was, and seeing there was no one
beside him, she sat down there again. And for a little while on every
fine day she sat with him and they talked of various things. He was
very interesting: he knew a great deal about birds and flowers and
foreign countries. He had not only lived in China, but had explored
the Amazon. On his watch chain was a blue stone which an Indian
snake-charmer had given him. But he lived now in the big hotel at the
corner of the Gardens and all his wanderings were over.
The funniest thing about him was his name. Alison did not learn what it
was for a long time, but one day as she was calling “Thomson! Thomson!”
very loudly as they sat there, the Old Gentleman said, “When you do
that it makes me nervous.”
“Why?” Alison asked.
“Because,” the Old Gentleman said, “my name’s Thomson too.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry,” Alison said, “I must call Thomson--I mean my
dog--something else. I can’t ever call him Thomson again.”
“Why not?” said the Old Gentleman. “It doesn’t matter at all. I can’t
expect to be the only Thomson in the world.”
“Oh yes,” said Alison, “I shall.”
The next day the first thing she did when she saw the Old Gentleman
was to tell him she had changed Thom--the dog’s name. “In future,” she
said, “he is to be called Jimmie.”
The Old Gentleman laughed. “That’s my name too,” he said.
II
One day the Old Gentleman was not in his accustomed place; and it was
a very fine day too. Alison was disappointed, and even Thomson, I mean
Jimmie, I mean the Aberdeen terrier, seemed to miss something.
And the next day he was not there.
And the next.
And then came Sunday, when Alison went to church, and afterwards for a
rather dull walk with her father, strictly on the paths, past “Physical
Energy” to the Serpentine, to look at the peacocks, and then back again
by the Albert Memorial, and so home. Monday and Tuesday were both wet,
and on Wednesday it was a whole week since Alison had seen the Old
Gentleman; but to her grief he was again absent.
And so, having her mother’s permission, the next day she called at the
hotel. She had the greatest difficulty in getting in because it was the
first time that either she or her dog had ever been through a revolving
door; but at last they came safely into the hall into the presence of a
tall porter in a uniform of splendour.
“Can you tell me if Mr. James Thomson is still staying here?” Alison
asked.
“I am sorry to say, Missie,” replied the porter, “that Mr. Thomson died
last week.”
Poor Alison....
III
One morning, some few weeks afterwards, Alison found on her plate a
letter addressed to herself in a strange handwriting. After wondering
about it for some moments, she opened it. The letter ran thus:
“_Re Mr. James Thomson, deceased._
“TO MISS ALISON MUIRHEAD.
“DEAR MADAM,
“We beg to inform you that, in accordance with the last will and
testament of our client, the late Mr. James Thomson, there lies at
our office a packet containing a thousand threepenny bits, being
a legacy which he devised to yourself, free of duty, in a codicil
added a few days before his death. We should state that, by the terms
of the bequest, it was our client’s wish that five hundred of the
threepenny bits should be spent by you for others within a year of
its receipt, and not put away against a maturer age; the remaining
five hundred he wished to be spent by yourself, for yourself, and for
yourself alone, also within the year. The parcel is at your service
whenever it is convenient to you to call for it.
“We are, dear madam,
“Yours faithfully,
“LEE, LEE AND LEE.”
Alison was too bewildered to take it all in on the first reading, and
her father therefore read it again and explained some of the words,
which perhaps your father will do for you.
But if Alison was bewildered, it was nothing to her mother’s state,
which was one of amazement and pride too.
“To think of it!” she cried.
“Well, I never heard of such a thing in my life!” she said.
“It’s like something in a book or a play!” she exclaimed.
“A thousand threepenny bits! Why, that’s--let me see--yes, it’s--why,
it’s twelve pounds ten,” she remarked.
As for Mr. Muirhead, he was pleased too; but him it seemed to amuse
more than surprise.
“After your lessons this morning,” he said, “instead of going for a
walk you can come into the city to me, and we’ll go to the lawyers’
together, and then have lunch at Birch’s.”
When they reached the lawyers’ office Alison and her father were
shown into a large room with three grave gentlemen in it, whom Alison
supposed were Lee, Lee and Lee; and all the time that her father was
talking to them she wondered which was _the_ Lee, and which was the
second Lee, and which was “and Lee.” Then she had to sign a paper,
and then one of the Lees gave her a canvas bag containing a thousand
threepenny bits.
“Of course you would like to count them,” he said; and Alison replied,
“Yes,” at which every one laughed, because Mr. Lee had meant it for a
joke and Alison had taken it seriously. But how could she expect that
Mr. Thomson’s lawyer, or, indeed, any lawyer of a dead friend, would
make a joke?
“I’m afraid,” said Mr. Lee, when they had done laughing “that you would
be very tired of the job before you were half-way through it. Count
them when you get home, and if there is any mistake we will put it
right; but one of our most careful clerks has already gone through them
very thoroughly.”
Then they all shook hands, and each of the three Lees said something
playful.
The one that Alison guessed was Lee said, “Don’t be extravagant and buy
the moon.”
The one that Alison guessed was the second Lee said, “If at any time
you get tired of so much money, we shall be pleased to have it again.”
While “and Lee” looked very solemn and said, “Now you can go to church
a thousand times.”
Then they all laughed again, and Alison and her father were shown out
into the street by a little sharp boy, whose eyes were fixed so keenly
on the canvas bag that Alison was quite certain that he was the most
careful clerk who had done the counting.
After they had been to lunch at Birch’s, where they had mock turtle
soup and oyster patties, they went home, and Alison poured all the
threepenny bits into a depression in a cushion from the sofa, and
counted them into a hundred piles of ten each. Then she got a wooden
writing-desk, which had been given her by her grandmother, and emptied
out all the treasures it contained, and put fifty of the little heaps
into the large part of the writing-case, and the remaining fifty little
heaps into the compartment for pens and sealing-wax, and locked it up
again.
IV
For the next few days Alison collected advice about the spending of her
money from every one she knew. All her friends were asked to give their
opinions, and thus gradually she decided upon the best way to spend the
five hundred threepenny bits which were for others.
Her first thought was naturally for her mother, who was an invalid.
Mrs. Muirhead was very fond of flowers, and so Alison went at once
to see the old flower-woman who sits outside Kensington High Street
Station, and who was so cross with the Suffragettes in self-denial week
for interfering with her “pitch,” as she called it; and Alison arranged
with her for a threepenny bunch of whatever was in season to be taken
to her mother twice every week, on Saturdays and Wednesdays, for a
year, and, to the old woman’s intense astonishment, she gave her one
hundred and four of her threepenny bits.
Her uncle Mordaunt advised her to take in a weekly illustrated
paper--say the _Sphere_--and, after she had looked at it herself, to
send it to one of the lighthouses, where the men are very lonely and
unentertained. Alison thought this was a very good idea. The _Sphere_
cost two threepences a week, and postage a halfpenny, or one hundred
and twelve threepences--altogether one pound eight shillings.
Alison had now spent two hundred and sixteen threepenny bits, and,
having arranged these two things, she decided to wait till Christmas
came nearer (it was now July) before she spent any more large sums,
always, however, keeping a few threepenny bits handy in her purse in
case of meeting any particularly hard case, such as a very blind man,
or a begging mother with a dreadfully cold little baby, or a Punch
and Judy man with a really nice face, or a little boy who had fallen
down and hurt himself badly, or an old woman who ought to be riding in
a ’bus. In this way she got rid of fifty of her little coins before
Christmas came near enough for her once more to think of little else
but threepenny plans.
It was then that she found Tommy Cathcart so useful. Tommy Cathcart was
one of her father’s articled pupils, and it was he who reminded Alison
of the claims of sandwichmen. Sandwichmen have an awfully bad time,
Tommy explained to her. It is almost the last thing men do. No one
carries sandwich-boards until he has failed in every other way.
[Illustration: THESE TOMMY CATHCART AND SHE SLIPPED INTO THE HANDS OF
THE SANDWICH-MEN.]
After talking it over very seriously, they went together to a
tobacconist near the Strand, who undertook to make up thirty little
packets for threepence each, containing a clay pipe and tobacco, and
these Tommy Cathcart and she slipped into the hands of the sandwichmen
as they drifted by in Regent Street, in the Strand, and in Oxford
Street, while the rest were given to a little group of the men who were
resting, with their sandwich-boards leaned against the wall, in a court
near Shaftesbury Avenue.
“Don’t you think,” Alison said, “that those who carry a notice over the
head as well ought to have more?”
But Tommy Cathcart thought not.
That exhausted seven-and-sixpence.
Another thing that Alison and Tommy Cathcart did was to knock at the
door of the cabmen’s shelter opposite De Vere Gardens, and ask if she
might present a few puddings for Christmas Day. The man said she might,
and that used up seven-and-sixpence--three puddings at half a crown,
thirty threepences.
The other people to whom Alison sent Christmas presents with Mr.
Thomson’s money were the children of the boatmen who had taken out her
and her father and her cousins, Harry and Francis Frend, in the Isle
of Wight last year. These boatmen were two brothers named Fagg--Jack
and Willy Fagg--and their boat was the _Seamew_. Jack had four children
and Willy six, and Alison used to go and see them now and then. After
much consideration she sent four threepenny bits to each of these
children, a shilling pipe, with real silver on it, to Jack and Willy,
and a pound of two-shilling tea to Mrs. Jack and Mrs. Willy. That made
sixteen shillings, or sixty-four threepenny bits.
Just then Alison had an unexpected piece of luck, for as she was
passing a shop in Westbourne Grove she saw a window full of mittens
at threepence a pair, sale price. Now, mittens are just the thing for
cabmen in winter--cabmen and crossing-sweepers and errand-boys. So
Alison bought thirty pairs, or seven-and-sixpence worth, and she gave a
pair to each of the boys that called regularly--the butcher’s boy, and
the baker’s boy, and the grocer’s boy, and a pair to the milkman, and
a pair to the crossing-sweeper, and the rest were put in the hall for
cabmen who brought her father home or took him out.
And then, just as they were getting rather in despair, one afternoon
Tommy Cathcart came home with a brilliant idea.
“Smith,” he said, “is the commonest name in England. In every workhouse
in England,” he said, “there must be one Smith at least. Why not,” he
said, “get, say, sixty picture postcards and send them addressed to
Mrs. Smith or Mr. Smith, or plain Smith, to sixty workhouses? We can
get,” he said, “the names from ‘Bradshaw.’ A person in a workhouse will
be awfully excited to get a Christmas card, and if,” he said, “there
happens to be no Smith, some one else will have it.”
Alison liked the idea very much, and so they went off to a shop in the
Strand absolutely full of picture postcards and bought sixty at a
penny each. They had some little difficulty in choosing, because Tommy
Cathcart wanted a certain number to be photographs of Pauline Chase
and other pretty people, but Alison said that views of London would
be better, since most persons knew London, and the card would remind
them of old times. As it was, so to speak, her money, Alison got her
own way. Then they bought sixty halfpenny stamps, and returned home
to find the towns in “Bradshaw” and send them off. That all came to
seven-and-six, or thirty threepenny bits.
Then Alison had a very brilliant inspiration--to give Jimmie a
beautiful silver collar all for himself, with the words “In memory
of James Thomson” on it, as a Christmas present. Dogs have so few
presents, and Jimmie really was very good, except when he lost his head
in the Gardens, which indeed, to be truthful, he always did. So he had
his collar on Christmas morning, and it cost exactly twelve-and-six
altogether, or fifty threepenny bits.
So much for the first five hundred.
V
Alison had then to lay out the second five hundred, or £6 5s., on
herself and herself alone. This was easier. She and her father spent
three afternoons among the old furniture shops of Kensington and the
Brompton Road, and at last came upon the very thing they were looking
for in the back room of a shop close to the Oratory, kept by an elderly
Jewish lady with a perfectly gigantic nose and rings on every finger.
This was an old bureau writing-desk, with drawers, and a flap to pull
down to write on, and lots of pigeon-holes, and a very strong lock.
Also a secret drawer. After some bargaining Mr. Muirhead got it for
six pounds, which left five shillings for writing paper and sealing-wax
and blotting-paper and nibs.
And that was an end of the thousand threepenny bits, as the
balance-sheet on the opposite page shows.
At least, not quite the end, as I will tell you. The face of the old
Jewess, when the time came to pay for the bureau and Alison took
forty-eight little packets of ten threepenny bits each out of her bag
and laid them on the table, was a picture of perplexity and amusement.
“Well, ma tear, what’s that?” she asked.
“Four hundred and eighty threepenny bits--six pounds,” said Alison.
“But, ma tear, what will I do with all the little money?”
“It’s all I’ve got,” said Alison.
“You see,” said Mr. Muirhead--and then he told the old lady with the
big nose the story.
STATEMENT OF ACCOUNTS
FIRST ACCOUNT--FOR OTHER PEOPLE.
Threepences. £ s. d.
A year’s flowers for mother, twice a week,
at 3d. a bunch 104 1 6 0
The _Sphere_ for a year 104 1 6 0
Postage of same to a lighthouse 8 0 2 0
Odd threepenny bits given to unhappy
people in the streets, etc. 50 0 12 6
Tobacco and pipes to thirty sandwichmen,
at 3d. each 30 0 7 6
Three Christmas puddings for the cabmen’s
shelter near De Vere Gardens, at 2s. 6d. 30 0 7 6
Ten Fagg children, at 1s. each 40 0 10 0
Two pipes for Jack and Willy Fagg, at 1s. 8 0 2 0
Two pounds tea for Mrs. Jack and Mrs.
Willy, at 2s. 16 0 4 0
Mittens for cabmen, etc. 30 0 7 6
Sixty picture postcards for the Smith family
at 1d., and postage at ½d. 30 0 7 6
Silver collar for Jimmie, with engraving 50 0 12 6
---- ----------
500 £6 5 0
SECOND ACCOUNT--FOR ALISON MUIRHEAD HERSELF.
Threepences. £ s. d.
Old Bureau 480 6 0 0
Writing paper, etc. 20 0 5 0
---- ----------
500 6 5 0
First account total 500 6 5 0
---- ----------
Grand total 1000 £12 10 0
==== ============
Audited and found correct,
(_Signed_) THOMAS W. CATHCART.
And what do you think she did? “Well, ma tear,” she said, “I can’t let
you go away without something left, in case you met a poor beggar in
the street. You must take back one of those little packets to go on
with, as a present from me;” and she picked up one and placed it in
Alison’s hand, and Alison took it gladly.
And that was the beginning of a new Threepenny Trust, for Mr. Cathcart
also contributed a little heap, and Mr. Muirhead henceforward made a
point of saving every threepenny bit that he received in change (and
I believe that sometimes he asked specially for them when he went to
his bank) and bringing them home for Alison’s fund; and Uncle Mordaunt
must have done the same, for the last time he came to dinner he said to
Alison, “I wish you’d get rid of this rubbish for me,” and handed her
seventeen of the little coins.
So you see that there is every chance of Mr. James Thomson’s kind
scheme going on for a long time yet; but, in so far as his own thousand
threepenny bits are concerned, the story is done.
RODERICK’S PROS.
RODERICK’S PROS.
Once upon a time there was a little boy of ten, who bowled out C. B.
Fry. This little boy’s name was Roderick Bulstrode (or Bulstrode is
the name that we will give him here), and he lived in St. John’s Wood,
in one of the houses whose gardens join Lord’s. His father played for
the M.C.C. a good deal, and practised in the nets almost every day, to
the bowling of various professionals, or pros., as they are called for
short, but chiefly to that of Tom Stick; and in the summer Roderick was
more often at Lord’s than not.
How it came about that Roderick bowled C. B. Fry was this way.
Middlesex were playing Sussex, and Mr. Fry went to the nets early
to practise, and Roderick’s father bowled to him and let Roderick
have the ball now and then. And whether it was that Mr. Fry was not
thinking, or was looking another way, or was simply very good-natured,
I don’t know, but one of Roderick’s sneaks got under his bat and hit
the stumps. (They were not sneaks, you must understand, because he
wanted to bowl sneaks, but because he was not big enough to bowl any
other way for 22 yards. He was only ten.) Roderick thus did that day
what no one else could do, for Mr. Fry went in and made 143 not out, in
spite of all the efforts of Albert Trott and Tarrant and J. T. Hearne.
Roderick’s bedroom walls had been covered with portraits of cricketers
for years, but after he bowled out C. B. Fry he took away a lot of them
and made an open space with the last picture postcard of Mr. Fry right
in the middle of it, and underneath, on the mantelpiece, he put the
ball he had bowled him with, which his father gave him, under a glass
shade. And other little St. John’s Wood boys, friends of Roderick’s
from the Abbey Road, and Hamilton Terrace, and Loudoun Road, and that
very attractive red-brick village with a green of its own just off the
Avenue Road, used to come and see it, and stand in front of it and hold
their breath, rather like little girls looking at a new baby.
Roderick also had a “Cricketers’ Birthday Book,” so that when he came
down to breakfast he used to say, “Tyldesley’s thirty-five to-day,”
“Hutchings is twenty-four,” and so on. And he knew the initials of
every first-class amateur and the Christian name of every pro.
That was not Roderick’s only cricketing triumph. It is true that he
had never succeeded in bowling out any other really swell batsman,
but he had shaken hands with Sammy Woods and J. R. Mason, and one day
Lord Hawke took him by both shoulders and lifted him to one side,
saying: “Now then, Tommy, out of the way.” But these were only chance
acquaintances. His real cricketing friend was Tom Stick, the ground
bowler.
Tom Stick came from Devonshire, which is a county without a first-class
eleven that plays the M.C.C. in August, and he lived in a little
street off Lisson Grove, where he kept a bird-fancier’s shop. For
most professional cricketers, you know, are something else as well,
or they would not be able to live in the winter. Many of them make
cricket-bats, many keep inns, many are gardeners. I know one who is a
picture-framer, and another an organist, while George Hirst, who is the
greatest of them all, makes toffee. Well, Tom Stick was a bird-fancier,
with a partner named Dick Crawley, who used to mind the shop when Tom
had to be at Lord’s bowling to gentlemen, Roderick’s father among them,
or playing against Haileybury or Rugby or wherever he was sent to do
all the hard work and go in last.
Roderick’s father was very fond of Tom and was quite happy to know
that Roderick was with him, so that Roderick not only used to join
Tom at Lord’s, but also at the shop off Lisson Grove, where he often
helped in cleaning out the cages and feeding the birds and teaching the
bullfinches to whistle, and was very good friends also with certain
puppies and rabbits. His own dog, a fox-terrier named “Sinhji,” had
come from Tom.
Tom used to bowl to Roderick in the mornings before the gentlemen
arrived for their practice, and he taught him to hold his bat straight
and not slope it, and to keep his feet still and not draw them away
when the ball was coming (which are the two most important things
in batting), and it was he who stopped Roderick from carrying an
autograph-book about and worrying the cricketers for their signatures.
In fact, Tom was a kind of nurse to Roderick, and they were so much
together that, whereas Tom was known to Roderick’s small friends as
“Roddy’s Pro,” Roderick was known to Tom’s friends as “Sticky’s Shadow.”
Now it happened that last summer Roderick’s father had been making a
great many runs for the M.C.C. in one of their tours. (Roderick did not
see him, for he had to stay at home and do his lessons; but his father
sent him a telegram after each innings.) Mr. Bulstrode (as we are
calling him) batted so well, indeed, that when he returned to London
he was asked to play for Middlesex against Yorkshire on the following
Monday, to take the place of one of the regular eleven who was ill; and
you may be sure he said yes, for, although he was now thirty-two, this
was the first time he had ever been asked to play for his county.
Roderick, you may be equally sure, was also pleased; and when his
father suddenly said to him, “Would you like to come with me?” his
excitement was almost too great to bear.
“And Tom too?” he asked, after a minute or so.
“Yes, Tom’s going,” said his father. “He’s going to field if anyone is
hurt or has to leave early. But if he’s not wanted he will look after
you.”
“Hurray!” said Roderick. “I know what I shall do. I shall score every
run and keep the bowling analysis too.”
The train left St. Pancras on the Sunday afternoon, and that in itself
was an excitement, for Roderick had never travelled on Sunday before;
but before that had come the rapture of packing his bag, which on
this occasion was not an ordinary one, but an old cricket-bag of his
father’s, which he begged for, in which were not only his sponge and
collars and other necessary things, but his flannels and his bat and
pads.
This bag he insisted upon carrying himself all along the platform, and,
as several of the Middlesex team were also on their way to the train at
the same moment, the presence of so small a cricketer in their midst
made a great sensation among the porters.
“My word!” said one, “Yorkshire will have to look out this time.”
“Who’s the giant,” asked another, “walking just behind Albert Trott? I
shouldn’t like to be in when he bowled his fastest.”
But Roderick was unconscious of any laughter. He was the proudest
boy in London, although his arm, it is true, was beginning to ache
horribly. But when, as he was climbing into the carriage, the guard
lifted him up and called him “Prince Run-get-simply,” he joined in the
fun.
[Illustration: THE PRESENCE OF SO SMALL A CRICKETER MADE A GREAT
SENSATION AMONG THE PORTERS.]