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THE THIRTEEN LITTLE BLACK PIGS
_AND OTHER STORIES_.
[Illustration: The THIRTEEN LITTLE BLACK PIGS
AND OTHER STORIES
BY
MRS MOLESWORTH
ILLUSTRATED BY W. J. MORGAN
LONDON
Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge
NEW. YORK. E & J. B. Young & Co]
LONDON:
ENGRAVED AND PRINTED BY EDMUND EVANS,
RACQUET-CT., FLEET-ST., E.C.
CONTENTS.
PAGE
THE THIRTEEN LITTLE BLACK PIGS 7
RIGHT HAND AND LEFT 29
A SHILLING OF HALFPENCE 38
A FRIEND IN NEED 46
PANSY'S PANSY 54
PET'S HALF-CROWN 76
A CATAPULT STORY 83
A VERY LONG LANE; OR, LOST IN THE MIST 90
[Illustration]
THE THIRTEEN
LITTLE
BLACK PIGS
CHAPTER. I
The house stood on rising ground, and the nursery was at the top of the
house--except of course for the attics above--so there was a good view
from the two large windows. This was a great comfort to the children
during the weeks they were busy getting better from a long, very long,
illness, or illnesses. For they had been so unwise as to get measles,
and scarlet fever, and something else--I am not sure if it was
whooping-cough or chicken-pox--all mixed up together! Don't you think
they might have been content with one at a time? Their mamma thought so,
and the doctor thought so, and most of all, perhaps, nurse thought so.
But when they began to get really better, they themselves weren't so
sure about it. Maxie said to Dolly that he really thought it was rather
clever to have finished up all the illnesses at once, and Dolly agreed
with him, adding that their cousins had been nearly as long "with _only_
measles." But nurse, who heard what they were saying, reminded them that
instead of them "finishing up the illnesses," as Master Max said, it
might have been the illnesses finishing _them_ up. Which was true
enough, and made Max, who was the older of the two, look rather grave.
And then the getting better was _very_ long, especially as it was early
spring, and there were lots of damp and chilly days still, and for weeks
and weeks there was no talk or thought of their going out, and it was
very difficult indeed not to get tired of the toys and games their
mother provided for them, and _even_ of her very nicest stories.
Besides, a mamma cannot go on telling stories all day, however sorry she
is for her little invalids, and however well she understands that when
people, little or big, have been ill and are still feeling weak, and
"unlike themselves," it is very, _very_ difficult not to be discontented
and quarrelsome. So but for the nursery windows I don't quite know what
the children would have done sometimes.
The windows both looked out at the same side, which was a good thing in
some ways and a bad thing in others. Each child had a special one, and
as Dolly said to Maxie, "if yours had been at the back, you could have
told me stories of what you saw, and I could have told you stories of
what I saw."
"It couldn't have looked out at the back," said Max, who was more of an
architect than his sister, for he was two years older, "for it's there
the nursery's joined on to the house. It could only have looked to the
side, and the side's very stupid--just shrubs and beds, nothing to see
except the gardeners sometimes, and p'r'aps there'd have been a scroodgy
bit of seeing round to the front, so I'd rather have it as it is.
Indeed, if there had been one at the side, I wouldn't have had it for my
window at all."
[Illustration: "it was very difficult indeed not to get tired of the
toys & games"]
"You'd have had to," said Dolly, her voice sounding rather "peepy,"
"'cos I'm a girl, and I _hope_ you're a gentleman."
"I'm the eldest," said Max, "and that always counts. Stuff about being a
gentleman; the Prince of Wales won't give up being king to let his
sister be queen, will he?"
This was rather a poser.
"Papa says," Dolly began, but she stopped suddenly. "Oh Maxie," she
went on, in _quite_ a different tone of voice, "what _is_ coming into
Farmer Wilder's field? It isn't turkeys this time. Oh, Maxie, what can
it be?"
[Illustration: There's only twelve.]
For they were both at their posts, though for the last few minutes Max
had not been giving much attention to the outside world, and I rather
fancy too, that Dolly's eyes were quicker than his.
He turned to the window now--it _was_ a very nice look-out certainly, at
that side of the house. First there was their own lawn, which the
gardeners were now busy "machining," as the children called it, and
skirting it at the right the broad terrace walk where the dogs loved to
follow their father as he walked up and down, often reading as he went.
Then on the left there were the "houses," where there was always some
bustle of washing the glass or moving the pots, or watering or
_something_ going on. And though hidden from the view of the front of
the house, there was, farther back, a path to the poultry-yard, where
two or three times a day their mamma's pet beauties were fed, and the
noise and chatter of the pretty feathered creatures could be heard even
through the closed nursery windows. For this was not the big
poultry-yard, but their mother's own particular one. And most
interesting of all, perhaps, further off beyond the lawn, divided from
it by a "ha-ha," there was the great field let to Farmer Wilder, where
all sorts of creatures were to be seen in their turn; sometimes cattle,
sometimes sheep, sometimes only two or three quiet old horses. There had
been nothing but horses there lately--not since the turkeys had been
taken away--so it was no wonder that Dolly's eyes were caught by the
sight of a sudden arrival of new-comers.
[Illustration: "There are thirteen"]
There they came--rushing, scrambling, tumbling over each other--one,
two, three--no, it was impossible to count them as yet--they were just a
mass of rolling jerking black specks against the green grass, and for a
minute or two, the children stared and gazed and wondered, in complete
silence.
What could they be?
"Are they little bears?" Dolly was on the point of saying, only she
stopped short for fear of Maxie's laughing at her, as he had done that
time when they were staying at their grandmamma's in London, and she had
asked if it was rabbits that had nibbled the crocuses in the square
gardens.
"Rabbits in London!" said Max, with lordly contempt. "What a baby you
are, Dolly!"
Dolly had never forgotten it; she hated being called "a baby" in that
tone, and very likely Max would laugh even more if she asked if these
strange visitors were little bears.
[Illustration]
So she waited. Then said her brother in his grand, big man tone, as if
he had known it all the time, which he hadn't--
"They're pigs--just little black pigs of course. Can't you see their
curly tails, Dolly?"
"Yes," said Dolly in rather a disappointed tone, "I can, now I know
they're pigs. But I thought that they were something curiouser than
pigs--though," and her voice grew more cheerful again, "I never saw
quite _black_ pigs before, did you, Maxie? What makes them black, I
wonder?"
"You've seen black men?" said Max. "Well, it's like that--there's black
men and proper-coloured men, so there's black pigs and proper-coloured
pigs."
"But black men are painted black. Christy minstrel men are, I know, for
nurse told me so when I was frightened of them. And _pigs_ couldn't
paint themselves black. But oh, Max," she broke off, "do look how
they're running and jumping now. They're all over the field. One, two,
three, four--there's _thirteen_ of them, Maxie."
"No," said Max, after a moment or two's silence, "there's only twelve."
Dolly counted again--it was not very easy, I must allow. But she stuck
to it.
"There are _thirteen_," she repeated.
Two could play at that game.
"There are _twelve_, I tell you, you silly," said Max, without taking
the trouble to count them again as carefully as Dolly had done.
[Illustration: call it twelve and a half and split the difference]