 CHAPTER 6 THE CIRCUS The ones of us who had started the society of the would-be-goods began, at about this time, to bother. They said we had not done anything really noble, not worth speaking of, that is, for over a week, and that it was high time to begin again with earnest endeavour, Daisy said, and then Oswald said, All right, but there ought to be an end to everything. Let each of us think of one really noble and unselfish act, and the others shall help to work it out, like we did when we were the treasure-seekers. Then when everybody's had their go-in, we'll write every single thing down in the golden deed-book, and we'll draw two lines in red ink at the bottom, like father does at the end of an account. And after that, if anyone wants to be good, they can jolly well be good on their own, if at all. The ones who had made the society did not welcome this wise idea, but Dickie and Oswald were firm. So they had to agree, when Oswald is really firm, opposingness and obstinacy have to give way. Dora said, It would be a noble action to have all the school-children from the village, and give them tea and games in the paddock. They would think it so nice and good of us. But Dickie showed her that this would not be our good act, but father's, because he would have to pay for the tea, and he had already stood us the keepsakes for the soldiers, as well as having to stump up heavily over the coal-barge. And it is in vain being noble and generous when someone else is paying for it all the time, even if it happens to be your father. Then three others had ideas at the same time, and began to explain what they were. We were all in the dining-room, and perhaps we were making a bit of a row. Anyhow, Oswald, for one, does not blame Alba's uncle for opening his door and saying, I suppose I must not ask for complete silence. That would be too much. But if you could whistle, or stamp your feet, or shriek, or howl, anything to vary the monotony of your well sustained conversation. Oswald said kindly. We are awfully sorry. Are you busy? Busy, said Alba's uncle. My heroin is now hesitating on the verge of an act which, for good or ill, must influence the whole of her subsequent career. You wouldn't like her to decide in the middle of such a row that she can't hear herself think? We said. No, we wouldn't. Then he said, if any outdoor amusement should commend itself to you this bright midsummer day, so we all went out. Then Daisy whispered to Dora. They always hanged together. Daisy is not nearly so white-micey as she was at first, but she still seems to fear the deadly ordeal of public speaking. Dora said, Daisy's idea is a game that will take us all day. She thinks keeping out of the way when he's making his heroin decide right would be a noble act and fit to write in the golden book, and we might as well be playing something at the same time. We all said yes, but what? There was a silent interval. Speak up, Daisy, my child, Oswood said. Fear not to lay bare the utmost thoughts of that faithful heart. Daisy giggled. Our own girls never giggle. They laugh right out or hold their tongues. Their kind brothers have taught them this. Then Daisy said, if we could have a sort of play to keep us out of the way. I once read a story about an animal race. Everybody had an animal. They had to go how they liked, and the one that got in first got the prize. There was a tortoise in it, and a rabbit, and a peacock, and sheep, and dogs, and a kitten. This proposal left us cold, as Albert's uncle says, because we knew there could not be any prize worth bothering about. And though you may be ever ready and willing to do anything for nothing, yet if there is going to be a prize, there must be a prize, and there's an end of it. Thus the idea was not followed up. Dickie yawned and said, let's go into the barn and make a fort. So we did, with straw. It does not hurt straw to be messed about with, like it does hay. The downstairs—I mean, down ladder, part of the barn—was fun too, especially for Pintcher. There was as good ratting there as you could wish to see. Martha tried it, but she could not help running kindly beside the rat, as if she was in double harness with it. This is the noble bulldog's gentle and affectionate nature coming out. We all enjoyed the ratting that day, but it ended, as usual, in the girl's crying because of the poor rats. Girls cannot help this. We must not be waxy with them on account of it. They have their nature, the same as bulldogs have, and it is this that makes them so useful in smoothing the pillows of the sick bed and tending wounded heroes. However, the forts and Pintcher and the girls' crying and having to be thumped on the back passed the time very agreeably till dinner. There was roast mutton with onion sauce and a roly-poly pudding. Albert's uncle said we had certainly effaced ourselves effectually, which means we hadn't bothered. So we determined to do the same during the afternoon, for he told us his heroin was by no means out of the wood yet. And at first it was easy. Jamroly gives you a peaceful feeling, and you do not at first care if you never play any run-about game any more. But after a while the torpor begins to pass away. Oswald was the first to recover from his. He had been lying on his front part in the orchard, but now he turned over on his back, and kicked his legs up, and said, I say, look here, let's do something. Daisy looked thoughtful. She was chewing the soft yellow parts of grass, but I could see she was still thinking about that animal race. So I explained to her that it would be very poor fun without a tortoise and a peacock, and she saw this, though not very willingly. It was H.O. who said, doing anything with animals is prime, if they only will. Let's have a circus. At the word the last thought of the pudding faded from Oswald's memory, and he stretched himself, sat up, and said, bully for H.O., let's. The others also threw off the heavy weight of memory, and sat up, and said, let's, too. Never, never in all our lives had we had such a gay galaxy of animals at our command. The rabbits, and the guinea pigs, and even all the bright glass-eyed stuffed denizens of our late lamented jungle, paled into insignificance before the number of live things on the farm. I hope you do not think that the words I use are getting too long. I know they are the right words, and Albert's uncle says your style is always altered a bit by what you read, and I have been reading the Vicompt de Bragg de Loni. Nearly all my new words come out of those. The worst of a circus is, Dora said, that you've got to teach the animal's things. A circus where the performing creatures haven't learned performing would be a bit silly. Let's give up a week to teaching them, and then have the circus. Some people have no idea of the value of time, and Dora is one of those who do not understand that when you want to do a thing you do want to, and not to do something else, and perhaps your own thing a week later. Oswald said the first thing was to collect the performing animals. Then, perhaps, he said, we may find that they have hidden talents hitherto unsuspected by their harsh masters. So Denny took a pencil and wrote a list of the animals required. This is it. List of animals requisite for the circus we are going to have. One bull for bullfight. One horse for ditto, if possible. One goat to do alpine feats of daring. One donkey to play seesaw. Two white pigs, one to be learned, and the other to play with the clown. Turkeys, as many as possible, because they can make a noise that sounds like an audience applauding. The dogs for any odd parts. One large black pig to be the elephant in the procession. Carves several to be camels and to stand on tubs. Daisy ought to have been captain, because it was partly her idea, but she let Oswald be because she is of a retiring character. Oswald said the first thing is to get all the creatures together, the paddock at the side of the orchard is the very place because the hedge is good all round. When we've got the performers all there we'll make a program and then dress for our parts. It's a pity there won't be any audience but the turkeys. We took the animals in their right order according to Denny's list. The bull was the first. He is black. He does not live in the cowhouse with the other horned people. He has a house all to himself two fields away. Oswald and Alice went to fetch him. They took a halter to lead the bull by and a whip, not to hurt the bull with, but just to make him mind. The others were to try to get one of the horses while we were gone. Oswald as usual was full of bright ideas. I dare say, he said, the bull will be shy at first. He'll have to be goaded into the arena. But goads hurt, Alice said. They don't hurt the bull, Oswald said. His powerful hide is too thick. Then why does he attend to it, Alice asked, if it doesn't hurt? Properly brought up bulls attend because they know they ought, Oswald said. I think I shall ride the bull, the brave boy went on, a bullfight where an intrepid rider appears on the bull sharing its joys and sorrows. It would be something quite new. You can't ride bulls, Alice said, at least not if their backs are sharp, like cows. But Oswald thought he could. The bull lives in a house made of wood and prickly furs bushes, and he has a yard to his house. You cannot climb on the roof of his house at all comfortably. When we got there he was half in his house and half out in his yard, and he was swinging his tail because of the flies which bothered. It was a very hot day. You'll see, Alice said, he won't want to goad, he'll be so glad to get out for a walk he'll drop his head in my hand like a tame fawn and follow me lovingly all the way. Oswald called to him, he said, bull, bull, bull, bull, because we did not know the animal's real name. The bull took no notice. Then Oswald picked up a stone and threw it at the bull, not angrily, but just to make it pay attention. But the bull did not pay a farthing's worth of it. So then Oswald leaned over the iron gates of the bull's yard and just flicked the bull with the whiplash. And then the bull did pay attention. He started when the lash struck him and suddenly he faced round, uttering a roar like that of the wounded king of beasts, and putting his head down close to his feet he ran straight at the iron gate where we were standing. Alice and Oswald mechanically turned away. They did not wish to annoy the bull any more and they ran as fast as they could across the field so as not to keep the others waiting. As they ran across the field Oswald had a dreamlike fancy that perhaps the bull had rooted up the gate with one paralyzing blow and was now tearing across the field after him and Alice with the broken gate balanced on its horns. We climbed the style quickly and looked back. The bull was still on the right side of the gate. Oswald said, I think we'll do without the bull. He did not seem to want to come. We must be kind to dumb animals. Alice said, between laughing and crying, oh Oswald how can you? But we did do without the bull and we did not tell the others how we had hurried to get back. We just said the bull didn't seem to care about coming. The others had not been idle. They had got old clover, the cart-horse, but she would do nothing but graze so we decided not to use her in the bullfight but to let her be the elephant. The elephant is a nice quiet part and she was quite big enough for a young one. Then the black pig could be learned and the other two could be something else. They had also got the goat. He was tethered to a young tree. The donkey was there. Denny was leading him in the halter. The dogs were there, of course. They always are. So now we only had to get the turkeys for the applause and the calves and pigs. The calves were easy to get because they were in their own house. There were five and the pigs were in their houses too. We got them out after long and patient toil and persuaded them that they wanted to go into the paddock where the circus was to be. This is done by pretending to drive them the other way. A pig only knows two ways, the way you want him to go and the other. But the turkeys knew thousands of different ways and tried them all. They made such an awful row we had to drop all ideas of ever hearing applause from their lips. So we came away and left them. Never mind, H.O. said, they'll be sorry enough afterwards, nasty, unabliging things, because they won't see the circus. I hope the other animals will tell them about it. While the turkeys were engaged in baffling the rest of us, Dickey had found three sheep who wished to join the glad throng. So we let them. Then we shut the gate of the paddock and left the dumb circus performers to make friends with each other while we dressed. Oswald and H.O. were to be clowns. It was quite easy with Albert's uncle's pyjamas and flour on your hair and face and the red they do the brick floors with. Alice had very short pink and white skirts and roses in her hair and round her dress. Her dress was the pink calico and white muslin stuff off the dressing table in the girl's room, fastened with pins, and tied around the waist with a small bath towel. She was to be the dauntless equestrian, and to give her enhancing act a barebacked daring, riding either a pig or a sheep, whichever we found was freshest and most skittish. Dora was dressed for the H.O.D. a cool, which means a riding habit and high hat. She took Dic's topper that he wears with his eatons, and a skirt of Mrs. Pettigrews. Daisy dressed the same as Alice, taking the muslin from Mrs. Pettigrew's dressing table, without saying anything beforehand. None of us would have advised this, and indeed we were thinking of trying to put it back, when Denny and Noel, who were wishing to look like highwaymen with brown paper top boots and slouch hats and Turkish towel cloaks, suddenly stopped dressing and gazed out of the window. Crikey, said Dic, come on Oswald, and he bounded like an antelope from the room. Oswald and the rest followed, casting a hasty glance through the window. Noel had got brown paper boots, too, and a Turkish towel cloak. H.O. had been waiting for Dora to dress him up for the other clown. He had only his shirt and knickerbockers and his braces on. He came down as he was, as indeed we all did. And no wonder, for in the paddock where the circus was to be, a blood-thrilling thing had transpired. The dogs were chasing the sheep. And we had now lived long enough in the country to know the fell nature of our dog's improper conduct. We all rushed into the paddock, calling to Pintcher and Martha and Lady. Pintcher came almost at once. He is a well-brought-up dog, Oswald trained him. Martha did not seem to hear. She's awfully deaf. But she did not matter so much, because the sheep could walk away from her easily. She has no pace and no wind. But Lady is a deer-hound. She is used to pursuing the fleet and answered Pride of the Forest, the Stag, and she can go like Billy-O. She was now far away in a distant region of the paddock, with a fat sheep just before her in full flight. I'm sure, if ever anybody's eyes did start out of their heads with horror, like in narratives of adventure, ours did then. There was a moment's pause of speechless horror. We expected to see Lady pull down her quarry, and we knew what a lot of money a sheep costs to say nothing of its own personal feelings. Then we started to run for all we were worth. It is hard to run swiftly as the arrow from the bow when you happen to be wearing pyjamas belonging to a grown-up person, as I was, but even so I beat Dickie. He said afterwards it was because his brown paper boots came undone and tripped him up. Alice came in third. She held on the dressing-table muslin and ran jolly well. But ere we reached the fatal spot, all was very nearly up with the sheep. We heard a plop. Lady stopped and looked round. She must have heard us bellowing to her as we ran. Then she came towards us, prancing with happiness. But we said down, and bad dog, and ran sternly on. When we came to the brook which forms the northern boundary of the paddock, we saw the sheep struggling in the water. It is not very deep, and I believe the sheep could have stood up and been well in its depth if it had liked. But it would not try. It was a steepish bank. Alice and I got down and stuck our legs into the water, and then Dickie came down, and the three of us hauled that sheep up by its shoulders till it could rest on Alice and me as we sat on the bank. It kicked all the time we were hauling. It gave one extra kick at last that raised it up, and I tell you that sopping, wet, heavy, panting, silly, donkey of a sheep sat there on our laps like a pet dog. And Dickie got his shoulder under it at the back, and heaved constantly to keep it from flumping off into the water again while the others fetched the shepherd. When the shepherd came to us, he called us every name you can think of. And then he said, Good thing Master didn't come along. He would have called you some tidy names. He got the sheep out and took it and the others away, and the calves too. He did not seem to care about the other performing animals. Alice, Oswald, and Dick had had almost enough circus for just then, so we sat in the sun and dried ourselves, and wrote the programme of the circus. This was it. Programme. One. Startling leap from the lofty precipice by the performing sheep, real water, and real precipice, the gallant rescue, O, A, and D, Bustable. We thought we might as well put that in, though it was over and had happened accidentally. Two. Graceful bareback equestrian act on the trained pig Eliza, A, Bustable. Three. Amusing clown interlude, introducing trained dog pincher and the other white pig, H, O, and O, Bustable. Four. The seesaw, trained donkeys. H, O said we only had one donkey, so Dicky said H, O could be the other. When peace was restored we went on to five. Five. Elegant equestrian act by D, Bustable. Hort echol enclover the incomparative trained elephant from the plains of Venezuela. Six. Alpine feet of daring. The climbing of the Andes by Billy, the well-known acrobatic goat. We thought we could make the Andes out of hurdles and things, and so we could have, but for what always happens, this is the unexpected. This is a saying father told me, but I see I am three deep in brackets, so I will close them before I get into any more. Seven. The black but learned pig. I dare say he knows something, Alice said. If only we could find out what. We did find out all too soon. We could not think of anything else, and our things were nearly all dry, all except Dick's brown paper top boots, which were mingled with the gurgling waters of the brook. We went back to the seat of action, which was the iron trough where the sheep have their salt put, and began to dress up the creatures. We had just tied the uni and jack we made out of Daisy's flannel, petticoat and et cetera, when we gave the soldiers the backie, round the waist of the black and learned pig, when we heard screams from the back part of the house, and suddenly we saw that Billy, the acrobatic goat, had got loose from the tree we had tied him to. He had eaten all the parts of his bark that he could get at, but we did not notice it until next day, when led to the spot by a grown-up. The gate of the paddock was open. The gate leading to the bridge that goes over the moat to the back door was open too. We hastily proceeded in the direction of the screams, and guided by the sound, threaded our way into the kitchen. As we went, Noel, ever fertile in melancholy ideas, said he wondered whether Mrs. Pettigrew was being robbed or only murdered. In the kitchen we saw that Noel was wrong as usual. It was neither. Mrs. Pettigrew, screaming like a steam siren and waving a broom, occupied the foreground. In the distance the maid was shrieking in a horse and a monotonous way, and trying to shut herself up inside a clothes-horse on which washing was being aired. On the dresser, which he had ascended by a chair, was Billy, the acrobatic goat, doing his alpine daring act. He had found out the Andes for himself, and even as we gazed, he turned and tossed his head in a way that showed us some mysterious purpose was hidden beneath his calm exterior. The next moment he put his off-horn neatly beside the end plate of the next to the bottom row, and ran it along against the wall. The plates fell crashing onto the soup, terrine, and vegetable dishes which adorned the lower range of the Andes. Mrs. Pettigrew's screams were almost drowned in the discarding crash and crackle of the falling avalanche of crockery. Oswald, though stricken with horror and polite regret, preserved the most dauntless coolness. Disregarding the mop which Mrs. Pettigrew kept on poking at the goat in a timid yet crossway, he sprang forward, crying out to his trusty followers, Stand by to catch him! But Dick had thought of the same thing, and ere Oswald could carry out his long cherished and general-like design, Dicky had caught the goat's legs and tripped it up. The goat fell against another row of plates, righted itself hastily in the gloomy ruins of the soup, terrine, and the sauce-boats, and then fell again this time towards Dicky. The two fell heavily on the ground together. The trusty followers had been so struck by the daring of Dicky and his lion-hearted brother that they had not stood by to catch anything. The goat was not hurt, but Dicky had a sprained thumb and a lump on his head like a black marble doorknob. He had to go to bed. I will draw a veil and asterisks over what Mrs. Pettigrew said, also Albert's uncle, who was brought to the scene of ruin by her screams. Few words escaped our lips. There are times when it is not wise to argue, however little what has occurred is really our fault. When they had said what they deemed enough and we will let go, we all went out. Then Alice said distractedly in a voice which she vainly strove to render firm. Let's give up the circus. Let's put the toys back in the boxes. No, I don't mean that. The creatures in their places and drop the whole thing I want to go and read to Dicky. Oswald has a spirit that no reverses can depreciate. He hates to be beaten. But he gave into Alice, as the others said so too, and we went out to collect the performing troupe and sort it out into its proper places. Alas, we came too late. In the interest we had felt about whether Mrs. Pettigrew was the abject victim of burglars or not, we had left both gates open again. The old horse, I mean the trained elephant from Venezuela, was there all right? The dogs we had beaten and tied up after the first act when the intrepid sheep bounded, as it says in the programme. The two white pigs were there, but the donkey was gone. We heard his hooves down the road growing fainter and fainter in the direction of the rose and crown. And just round the gate post we saw a flash of red and white and blue and black that told us, with dumb signification, that the pig was off in exactly the opposite direction. Why couldn't they have gone the same way? But no, one was a pig and the other was a donkey, as Denny said afterwards. Daisy and H.O. started after the donkey. The rest of us, with one accord, pursued the pig. I don't know why. It trotted quietly down the road. It looked very black against the white road, and the ends on the top where the union jack was tied bobbed brightly as it trotted. At first we thought it would be easy to catch up to. This was an error. When we ran faster, it ran faster. When we stopped, it stopped and looked round at us and nodded. I dare say you won't swallow this, but you may safely. It's as true as true, and sows all that about the goat. I give you my sacred word of honour. I tell you the pig nodded as much as to say, oh yes, you think you will, but you won't. And then, as soon as we moved off again, it went. That pig led us on and on were miles and miles of strange country. One thing it did keep to the roads. When we met people, which wasn't often, we called out to them to help us, but they only waved their arms and roared with laughter. One chap on a bicycle almost tumbled off his machine, and then he got off it and propped it against a gate and sat down in the hedge to laugh properly. You remember Alice was still dressed up as a gay equestrian in the dressing table pink and white with rosy garlands, now very droopy, and she had no stockings on, only white sand shoes, because she thought they would be easier than boots for balancing on the pig in the graceful bear-backed act. Oswald was attired in red paint and flour and pyjamas for a clown. It is really impossible to run speedfully in another man's pyjamas, so Oswald had taken them off and wore his own brown knickerbockers belonging to his Norfolk's. He had tied the pyjamas round his neck to carry them easily. He was afraid to leave them in a ditch, as Alice suggested, because he did not know the roads, and for ought he wrecked, they might have been infested with foot-pads. If it had been his own pyjamas, it would have been different. I'm going to ask for pyjamas next winter. They are so useful in many ways. Noel was a highwayman in brown paper-gators and bath-tales and a cocked hat of newspaper. I don't know how he kept it on, and the pig was encircled by the dauntless banner of our country. All the same, I think if I had seen a band of youthful travellers in bitter distress about a pig, I should have tried to lend a helping hand, and not sat roaring in the hedge, no matter how the travellers and the pig might have been dressed. It was hotter than any one would believe who has never had occasion to hunt the pig when dressed for quite another part. The flower got out of Oswald's hair into his eyes and his mouth. His brow was wet with what the village blacksmiths was wet with, and not his fair brow alone. It ran down his face and washed the red off in streaks, and when he rubbed his eyes he only made it worse. Alice had to run holding the equestrian skirt on with both hands, and I think the brown paper-boots bothered Noel from the first. Dora had the skirt over her arm, and carried the topper in her hand. It was no use to tell ourselves that it was a wild boar hunt. We were long past that. At last we met a man who took pity on us. He was a kind-hearted man. I think perhaps he had a pig of his own, or perhaps children, honour to his name. He stood in the middle of the road and waved his arms. The pig right wheeled through a gate into a private garden and cantered up the drive. We followed. What else were we to do I should like to know? The learned black pig seemed to know its way. It turned first to the right, and then to the left, and emerged on a lawn. Now, all together, cried Oswald, mustering his failing voice to give the words of command. Surround him. Cut off his retreat. We almost surrounded him. He edged off towards the house. Now we've got him, cried the crafty Oswald, as the pig got onto a bed of yellow pansies close against the Red House Wall. All would have been well, but Denny, at the last, shrank from meeting the pig face to face in a manly way. He let the pig pass him, and the next moment, with a squeak that said, there now, as plain as words, the pig bolted into a French window. The pursuers halted not. This was no time for trivial ceremony. In another moment the pig was a captive. Alice and Oswald had their arms round him under the ruins of a table that had had teacups on it. And around the hunters and their prey stood the startled members of a parish society for making clothes for the poor heathen that the pig had led us into the very mid-stoff. They were reading a missionary report or something when we ran our quarry to earth under their table. Even as he crossed the threshold, I heard something about black brothers being already white to the harvest. All the ladies had been sewing flannel things for the poor blacks, while the curate read aloud to them. You think they screamed when they saw the pig and us? You are right. On the whole I cannot say that the missionary people behaved badly. Oswald explained that it was entirely the pigs doing and asked pardon quite properly for any alarm the ladies had felt. And Alice said how sorry we were, but really it was not our fault this time. The curate looked a bit nasty, but the presence of ladies made him keep his hot blood to himself. When we had explained we said might we go? The curate said the sooner the better. But the lady of the house asked for our names and addresses and said she should write to our father. She did. And we heard of it too. They did not do anything to us, as Oswald at one time believed to be the curate's idea. They let us go. And we went, after we had asked for a piece of rope to lead the pig by. In case it should come back into your nice room, Alice said, and that would be such a pity, wouldn't it? A little girl in a starched pinafore was sent for the rope, and as soon as the pig had agreed to let us tie it round his neck we came away. The scene in the drawing-room had not been long. The pig went slowly. Like the meandering brook, Denny said. Just by the gate the shrubs rustled and opened, and the little girl came out. Her pinafore was full of cake. Here, she said, you must be hungry if you've come all that way. I think they might have given you some tea after all the trouble you've had. We took the cake with correct thanks. I wish I could play at circuses, she said. Tell me about it. We told her while we ate the cake, and when we had done she said perhaps it was better to hear about than do, especially the goat's part and Dickie's. But I do wish auntie had given you tea, she said. We told her not to be too hard on her aunt, because you have to make allowances for grown-up people. When we parted she said she would never forget us, and Oswald gave her his pocket buttonhawk and a corkscrew combined for a keepsake. Dickie's act with the goat, which is true and no kid, was the only thing out of that day that was put in the Golden Deed Book, and he put that in himself while we were hunting the pig. Alice and me capturing the pig was never put in. We would scorn to write our own good actions. But I suppose Dickie was dull with us all away, and you must pity the dull and not blame them. I will not seek to unfold to you how we got the pig home, or how the donkey was caught, that was poor sport compared to the pig. Nor will I tell you a word of all that was said and done to the intrepid hunters of the blackened learned. I have told you all the interesting part. Seek not to know the rest. It is better buried in obliquity. The Woodpeagods by Inesbit, being the further adventures of the treasure-seekers Chapter 7 Being Beavers or the Young Explorers Artic or Otherwise You read in books about the pleasures of London, and about how people who live in the country long for the gay world of fashion in town, because the country is so dull. I do not agree with this at all. In London, or at any rate, Lewisham, nothing happens unless you make it happen. Or if it happens, it doesn't happen to you, and you don't know the people it does happen to. But in the country, the most interesting events occur quite freely, and they seem to happen to you as much as to anyone else, very often quite without you doing anything to help. The natural and right ways of earning your living in the country are much jollier than town ones, too. Sewing and reaping and doing things with animals are much better sport than fishmongering or bakering or oil-shopping and all those sorts of things, except of course of plumbers and gas-fitters, and he is the same in town or country, most interesting and like an engineer. I remember what a nice man it was that came to cut the gas off once at our old house in Lewisham, when my father's business was feeling so poorly. He was a true gentleman, and gave Osward and Dickie over two yards and a quarter of good lead piping, and a brass tap thing that only wanted a washer, and a whole handful of screws to do what we liked with. We screwed the back door up with the screws, I remember, one night when Eliza was out without leave. There was an awful row. We did not mean to get her into trouble. We only thought it would be amusing for her to find the door screwed up when she came down to take the milk in in the morning. But I must not say any more about the Lewisham house. It is only the pleasures of memory, and nothing to do with being beavers or any sort of exploring. I think Dora and Daisy are the kind of girls who will grow up very good, and perhaps marry missionaries. I am glad Osward's destiny looks at present as if it might be different. We made two expeditions to discover the source of the Nile, or the North Pole, and owing to their habit of sticking together and doing dull and praiseable things like sowing and helping with the cooking, and taking invalid delicacies to the poor and indignant. Daisy and Dora were wholly out of it both times. Though Dora's foot was now quite well enough to have gone to the North Pole, or the Equator, either. They said they did not mind the first time, because they liked to keep themselves clean. It is another of their queer ways. And they said they had had a better time than us. It was only a clergyman and his wife who called, and had hot cakes for tea. The second time they said they were lucky not to have been in it. And perhaps they were right. But let me to my narrating. I hope you will like it. I am going to try to write it a different way, like the books they give you for a prize at a girl's school. I mean a young lady's school, of course, not a high school. High schools are not nearly so silly as some other kinds. Here goes. Are me, Sider, slender maiden of twelve summers, removing her elegant hat and passing her tapery fingers through her fair tresses. How sad it is, is it not, to see able-bodied youths and young ladies wasting their precious summer hours in idleness and luxury. The maiden frowned reproachingly, but yet with earnest gentleness, at the groups of youths and maidens, who sat beneath an unbraggapiest beech-tree, and ate black currents. Dear brothers and sisters, the blushing girl went on, could we not, even now at the eleventh hour, turn to account these wasted lives of ours, and seek some occupation at once improving and agreeable? I do not quite follow your meaning, dear sister, replied the cleverest of her brothers, on whose brow? It's no use. I can't write like these books. I wonder how the book's authors can keep it up. What really happened was that we were all eating black currents in the orchard out of a cabbage leaf, and Alice said, I say, look here, let's do something. It's simply silly to waste a day like this. It's just on eleven. Come on. And Oswood said, where to? This was the beginning of it. The moat that is all around our house is fed by streams. One of them is a sort of open overflow pipe from a good-sized stream that flows at the other side of the orchard. It was this stream that Alice meant when she said, why not go and discover the source of the Nile? Of course Oswood knows quite well that the source of the real, live Egyptian Nile is no longer buried in that mysteriousness where it lurked undisturbed for such a long time, but he was not going to say so. It is a great thing to know when not to say things. Why not have it an Arctic expedition? said Dickie. Then we could take an Isaacs and live on blubbering things besides it sounds cooler. Vote, vote, cried Oswood. So we did. Oswood, Alice, Noel and Denny voted for the river of the Ibis and the crocodile, Dickie, H.O. and the other girls for the region of perennial winter and rich blubber. So Alice said, we can decide as we go. Let's start anyway. The question of supplies had now to be gone into. Everybody wanted to take something different, and nobody thought the other people's things would be the slightest use. It is sometimes thus even with grown-up expeditions. So then Oswood, who is equal to the hardest emergency that ever emerged yet, said, Let's each get what we like. The secret storehouse can be the shed in the corner of the stable yard where we got the door for the raft. Then the captain can decide who's to take what. This was done. You may think it was but the work of a moment to fit out an expedition, but this is not so, especially when you know not whether your exploring party is speeding to Central Africa or merely to the world of icebergs and the polar bear. Dickie wished to take the wood ax, the coal hammer, a blanket, and a macintosh. H.O. bought a large faggot in case we had to light fires, and a pair of old skates he happened to have noticed in the box room, in case the expedition turned out icy. Noel had nicked a dozen boxes of matches, a spade, and a trowel, and had also obtained, I know not by what means, a jar of pickled onions. Denny had a walking stick. We can't break him of walking with it. A book to read in case he got tired of being a discoverer, a butterfly net, and a box with a cork in it, a tennis ball if we happen to want to play round us in the pauses of exploring, two towels, and an umbrella in the event of camping, or if the river got big enough to bathe in or be fallen into. Alice had a comforter for Noel, in case we got late, a pair of scissors, a pair of scissors, and a needle and cotton, two whole candles in case of caves. And she had thoughtfully bought the tablecloth off the small table in the dining room, so that we could make all the things up into one bundle and take it in turns to carry it. Oswood had fastened his mastermind entirely on grub, nor had the others neglected this. All the stores for the expedition were put down on the tablecloth and the corners tied up. Then it was more than even Oswood's muscly arms could raise from the ground, so we decided not to take it, but only the best selected grub. The rest we hid in the straw loft, for there are many ups and downs in life, and grub is grub at any time, and so are stores of all kinds. The pickled onions we had to leave, but not for ever. Then Dora and Daisy came along with their arms round each other's necks, as usual, like a picture on a grocer's almanac, and said they weren't coming. It was, as I have said, a blazing hot day, and there were differences of opinion among the explorers about what eatables we ought to have taken, and H.O. had lost one of his garters and wouldn't let Alice tie it up with her handkerchief, which the gentle sister was quite willing to do. So it was a rather gloomy expedition that set off that bright sunny day to seek the source of the river, where Cleopatra sailed in Shakespeare, or the frozen plains Mr. Nansen wrote that big book about. But the barmy calm of peaceful nature soon made the others less cross. Oswald had not been cross exactly, but only disinclined to do anything the others wanted. And by the time we had followed the stream a little way, and had seen a water-rat, and shied a stone or two at him, harmony was restored. We did not hit the rat. You will understand that we were not the sort of people who have lived so long near a stream without plumbing its depths. Indeed it was the same stream the sheep took its daring leap into the day we had the circus, and of course we had often paddled in it in the shallower parts. But now our hearts were set on exploring. At least they ought to have been. But when we got to the place where the stream goes under a wooden sheep-bridge, Dickie cried, A camp! A camp! And we were all glad to sit down at once. Not at all like real explorers who know no rest day or night till they have got there, whether it's the North Pole or the central point of the part marked Desert of Sahara on old-fashioned maps. The food supplies obtained by various members were good and plenty of it. Cake, hard eggs, sausage rolls, currants, lemon, cheesecakes, raisins, and cold apple dumplings. It was all very decent, but Oswald could not help feeling that the source of the Nile, or North Pole, was a long way off, and perhaps nothing much when you got there. So he was not wholly displeased when Denny said, as he lay kicking into the bank when the things to eat were all gone. I believe this is clay. Did you ever make huge platters and bowls out of clay and dry them in the sun? Some people did in a book called Fail Play, and I believe they baked turtles or oysters or something like that at the same time. He took up a bit of clay and began to mess it about, like you do putty when you get hold of a bit. And at once the heavy gloom that had hung over the explorers became expelled, and we all got under the shadow of the bridge and messed about with clay. It will be jolly, Alice said, and we can give the huge platters to poor cottagers who are short of the usual sorts of crockery. That would really be a very golden deed. It is harder than you would think when you read about it to make huge platters with clay. It flops about as soon as you get it to any size, unless you keep it much too thick, and then when you turn up the edges they crack. Yet we did not mind the trouble, and we had all got our shoes and stockings off. It is impossible to go on being cross when your feet are in cold water and there is something in the smooth messiness of clay and not minding how dirty you get that would soothe the savagest breast that ever beat. After a bit though we gave up the idea of the huge platters and tried little things. We made some platters. They were like flowerpot sources, and Alice made a bowl by doubling up her fists and getting knoll to slab the clay on outside. Then they smoothed the thing inside and out with wet fingers. And it was a bowl, at least they said it was. When we had made a lot of things we set them in the sun to dry, and it seemed a pity not to do the thing thoroughly. So we made a bonfire, and when it had burned down we put our pots on the soft white hot ashes amongst the little red sparks and kicked the ashes over them and heaped up more fuel over the top. It was a fine fire. Then tea time seemed as if it ought to be near, and we decided to come back next day and get our pots. As we went home across the fields Dickie looked back and said, the bonfire's going pretty strong. We looked. It was. Great flames were rising to heaven against the evening sky, and we had left it a smouldering flat heap. The clay must have caught a light, H.O. said. Perhaps it's the kind that burns. I know I've heard of fire clay, and there's another sort you can eat. Oh, shut up, Dickie said, with anxious scorn. With one accord we turned back. We all felt the feeling, the one that means something fatal being up and it being your fault. Perhaps, Alice said, a beautiful young lady in a muslin dress was passing by, and a spark flew on to her, and now she is rolling in agony, enveloped in flames. We could not see the fire now, because of the corner of the wood, but we hoped Alice was mistaken. But when we got in sight of the scene of our pottering industry, we saw it was as bad nearly as Alice's wild dream, for the wooden fence leading up to the bridge had caught fire, and it was burning like billy-ho. Oswald started to run, so did the others. As he ran, he said to himself, this is no time to think about your clothes. Oswald, be bold. And he was. Arrived at the site of the conflagration, he saw that caps or straw hats full of water, however quickly and perseveringly given, would never put the bridge out. And his eventful past life made him know exactly the sort of wigging you get for an accident like this. So he said, Dickie, soak your jacket and mine in the stream and chuck them along. Alice, stand clear or your silly girls' clothes will catch as sure as fate. Dickie and Oswald tore off their jackets, so did Denny, but we would not let him and H.O. wet theirs. Then the brave Oswald advanced wearily to the end of the burning rails and put his wet jacket over the end bit like a linseed poultice on the throat of a suffering invalid who has got bronchitis. The burning wood hissed and smoldered, and Oswald fell back almost choked with the smoke. But at once he caught up the other wet jacket and put it on another place, and of course he did the trick as he had known it would do. But it was a long job, and the smoke in his eyes made the young hero obliged to let Dickie and Denny take a turn as they had bothered to do from the first. At last all was safe. The devouring element was conquered. We covered up the beastly bonfire with clay to keep it from getting into mischief again, and then Alice said, Now we must go and tell. Of course, Oswald said shortly, he had meant to tell all the time. So we went to the farmer who has the Motel's farm, and we went at once because if you have any news like that to tell it only makes it worse if you wait about. When we told him, he said, You little! I shall not say what he said besides that, because I am sure he must have been sorry for it next Sunday when he went to church, if not before. We did not take any notice of what he said, but just kept on saying how sorry we were, and he did not take our apology like a man, but only said he dare say it just like a woman does. Then he went to look at his bridge, and we went into our tea. The jackets were never quite the same again. Really good explorers would never be discouraged by the dare saying of a farmer, still less by his calling them names he ought not to. Albert's uncle was away, so he got no double slating, and next day we started again to discover the source of the river of cataracts, or the region of mountain-like icebergs. We set out heavily provisioned with a large cake Daisy and Dora had made themselves, and six bottles of ginger beer. I think real explorers most likely have their ginger beer in something lighter to carry than stone bottles. Perhaps they have it by the cask, which would come cheaper, and you could make the girls carry it on their back, like in pictures of the daughters of regiments. We passed the scene of the devouring conflagration, and the thought of the fire made us so thirsty we decided to drink the ginger beer, and leave the bottles in a place of concealment. Then we went on, determined to reach our destination, tropic or polar, that day. Denny and H.O. wanted to stop and try to make a fashionable watering-place at that part where the stream spreads out like a small-sized sea, but Noel said, No, we did not like fashionableness. You ought to, at any rate, Denny said, a Mr. Collings wrote an ode to the fashions, and he was a great poet. The poet Milton wrote a long book about Satan, Noel said, but I'm not bound to like him. I think it was smart of Noel. People aren't obliged to like everything they write about even, let alone read, Alice said. Look at Ruin Sees the Ruthless King, and all the pieces of poetry about war and tyrants, and slaughtered saints, and the one you made yourself about the black beetle, Noel. By this time we had got to the pondy place, and the danger of delay was past, but the others went on talking about poetry for quite a field and a half, as we walked along by the banks of the stream. The stream was broad and shallow at this part, and you could see the stones and gravel at the bottom, and millions of baby fishes, and sort of skating spiders walking about on the top of the water. Denny said, the water must be ice for them to be able to walk on it, and this showed we were getting near the North Pole. But Oswood had seen a kingfisher by the wood, and he said it was an ibis, so this was even. When Oswood had had as much poetry as he could bear, he said, Let's be beavers, and make a dam. And everybody was so hot they agreed joyously, and soon our clothes were tucked up as far as they could go, and our legs looked green through the water, though they were pink out of it. Making a dam is jolly good fun, though laborious as books about beavers take care to let you know. Dicky said, it must be Canada if we were beavers, and so it was on the way to the polar system. But Oswood pointed to his heated brow, and Dicky owned it was warm for polar regions. He had bought the ice axe, it's called the wood chopper sometimes. And Oswood, ever ready and able to command, set him and Denny to cut turfs from the bank while we heaped stones across the stream. It was clayy here, or of course dam making would have been vain, even for the best trained beaver. When we had made a ridge of stones, we laid turfs against them, nearly across the stream, leaving about two feet for the water to go through. Then more stones, then lumps of clay stamped down as hard as we could. The industrious beavers spent hours over it, with only one easy to eat cake in. And at last the dam rose to the level of the bank. Then the beavers collected a great heap of clay, and four of them lifted it, and dumped it down in the opening where the water was running. It did splash a little, but a true-hearted beaver knows better than to mind a bit of a wetting, as Oswood told Alice at the time. Then, with more clay, the work was completed. We must have used tons of clay. There was quite a big long hole in the bank above the dam where we had taken it out. When our beaver task was performed, we went on. And Dicky was so hot he had to take his jacket off, and shut up about icebergs. I cannot tell you about all the windings of the stream. It went through fields and woods and meadows, and at last the banks got steeper and higher, and the trees overhead darkly arched their mysterious branches, and we felt like the princes in a fairy tale who go out to seek their fortunes. And then we saw a thing that was well worth coming all that way for. The stream suddenly disappeared under a dark stone archway, and however much you stood in the water and stuck your head down between your knees, you could not see any light at the other end. The stream was much smaller than where we had been beavers. Gentle reader, you will guess in a moment who it was that said, Alice, you've got a candle, let's explore. This gallant proposal met but a cold response. The other said they didn't care much about it, and what about tea? I often think the way people try to hide their cowardliness behind their teas is simply beastly. Oswald took no notice. He just said with that dignified manner, not at all like sulking, which he knows so well how to put on. All right, I'm going. If you funk it, you'd better cut along home and ask your nurses to put you to bed. So then, of course, they agreed to go. Oswald went first with the candle. It was not comfortable. The architect of the dark subterranean passage had not imagined anyone would ever be brave enough to lead a band of beavers into its inky recesses, or he would have have built it high enough to stand upright in. As it was, we were bent almost at a right angle, and this is very awkward if for long. But the leader pressed dauntlessly on and paid no attention to the groans of his faithful followers, nor to what they said about their backs. It really was a very long tunnel, though, and even Oswald was not sorry to say, I see daylight. The followers cheered as well as they could as they splashed after him. The floor was stone as well as the roof, so it was easy to walk on. I think the followers would have turned back if it had been sharp stones or gravel. And now the spot of daylight at the end of the tunnel grew larger and larger, and presently the intrepid leader found himself blinking in the full sun and the candle he carried looked simply silly. He emerged, and the others too, and they stretched their backs, and the word crikey fell from more than one lip. It had indeed been a cramping adventure. Bushes grew close to the mouth of the tunnel, so we could not see much landscape, and when we had stretched our backs we went on upstream, and nobody said they'd had Jolly well enough of it, though in more than one young heart this was thought. It was Jolly to be in the sunshine again. I never knew before how cold it was underground. The stream was getting smaller and smaller. Dickey said, this can't be the way. I expect there was a turning to the North Pole inside the tunnel, only we missed it. It was cold enough there. But here a twist in the stream brought us out from the bushes, and Oswald said, Here is strange wild tropical vegetation in the richest profusion. Such blossoms as these never opened in a frigid—what's his name? It was indeed true. We had come out into a sort of marshy swampy place, like I think a jungle is, that the stream ran through, and it was simply crammed with queer plants and flowers we never saw before or since, and the stream was quite thin. It was torridly hot and softish to wall-con. There were rushes and reeds and small willows, and it was all tangled over with different sorts of grasses and pools here and there. We saw no wild beasts, but there were more different kinds of wild flies and beetles than you could believe anybody could bear, and dragonflies and gnats. The girls picked a lot of flowers. I know the names of some of them, but I will not tell you them, because this is not meant to be instructing, so I will only name meadow-sweet, yarrow, loose strife, ladies' bedstraw and willowherb, both the larger and the lesser. Everyone now wished to go home. It was much hotter here than in natural fields. It made you want to tear all your clothes off and play at savages instead of keeping respectable in your boots. But we had to bear the boots because it was so brambly. It was Oswald who showed the others how flat it would be to go home the same way we came, and he pointed out the telegraph wires in the distance and said, There must be a road there. Let's make for it. Which is quite a simple and ordinary thing to say, and he does not ask any credit for it. So we sloshed along scratching our legs with the brambles and the water scorching in our boots. And Alice's blue muslin frock was torn all over in those crisscrossed tears which are considered so hard to darn. We did not follow the stream any more. It was only a trickle now, so we knew we had tracked it to its source. And we got hotter and hotter and hotter. And the Jews of agony stood in beads on our brows and rolled down our noses and off our chins. And the flies buzzed and the gnats stung, and Oswald bravely sought to keep up Dickie's courage when he tripped on a snag and came down on a bramblebush, by saying, You see it is the source of the Nile we've discovered. What price North Pole's now? Alice said, Ah, but think of Isis. I expect Oswald wishes it had been the Pole anyway. Oswald is naturally the leader, especially when following up what is his own idea, but he knows that leaders have other duties besides just leading. One is to assist weak or wounded members of the expedition, whether polar or equatorish. So the others had got a bit ahead through Oswald lending the tottering Denny a hand over the rough places. Denny's feet hurt him, because when he was a beaver his stockings had dropped out of his pocket, and boots without stockings are not a bed of luxuriousness, and he is often unlucky with his feet. Presently we came to a pond, and Denny said, Let's paddle. Oswald likes Denny to have ideas. He knows it is healthy for the boy, and generally he backs him up. But just now it was getting late, and the others were ahead, so he said, Oh, rot, come on. Generally the dentist would have, but even worms will turn if they are hot enough and their feet are hurting them. I don't care, I shall, he said. Oswald overlooked the mutiny, and did not say who was leader. He just said, Well, don't be all day about it, for he is a kind-hearted boy, and can make allowances. So Denny took off his boots, and went into the pool. Oh, it's ripping, he said. You ought to come in. It looks beastly muddy, said his tolerating leader. It is a bit, Denny said, but the mud's just as cool as the water, and so soft it squeezes between your toes quite different to boots. And so he splashed about, and kept asking Oswald to come along in. But some unseen influence prevented Oswald doing this, or it may have been, because both his bootlaces were in hard knots. Oswald had cause to bless this unseen influence, or the bootlaces, or whatever it was. Denny had got to the middle of the pool, and he was splashing about and getting his clothes very wet indeed, and altogether you would have thought his was a most envious and happy state. But alas, the bright cloud had a waterproof lining. He was just saying, you are a silly Oswald, you'd much better when he gave a blood-piercing scream, and began to kick about. What's up? cried the ready Oswald. He feared the worst from the way Denny screamed. But he knew it could not be an old meat-tin in this quiet and jungler spot, like it was in the moat when the shark bit Dora. I don't know, it's biting me. Oh, it's biting me all over my legs. Oh, what shall I do? Oh, it does hurt! Oh, oh, oh! remarked Denny among his screams, and he splashed towards the bank. Oswald went into the water and caught hold of him and helped him out. It is true that Oswald had his boots on, but I trust he would not have funked the unknown terrors of the deep, even without his boots. I am almost sure he would not have. When Denny had scrambled and been hauled ashore, we saw with horror and amaze that his legs were stuck all over with the large black slug-looking things. Denny had turned green in the face, and even Oswald felt a bit queer, for he knew in a moment what the black dreadfulnesses were. He had read about them in a book called Magnet Stories, where there was a girl called Theodosia, and she could play brilliant trebles on the piano in duets, but the other girl knew all about leeches, which is much more useful, and Golden Dee Dee. Oswald tried to pull the leeches off, but they wouldn't, and Denny howled, so he had to stop trying. He remembered from the Magnet Stories how to make the leeches begin biting, the girl did it with cream, but he could not remember how to stop them, and they had not wanted any showing how to begin. Oh, what shall I do, what shall I do? Oh, it does hurt! Oh, oh! Denny observed, and Oswald said, Be a man, buck up! If you won't let me take them off, you'll just have to walk home in them. At this thought the unfortunate youth's tears fell fast, but Oswald gave him an arm and carried his boots for him, and he consented to buck up, and the two struggled on towards the others who were coming back attracted by Denny's yells. He did not stop howling for a moment except to breathe. No one ought to blame him till they had had eleven leeches on their right leg and six on their left making seventeen in all, as Dicky said at once. It was lucky he did yell as it turned out, because a man on the road where the telegraph wires were was interested by his howls and came across the marsh to us as hard as he could. When he saw Denny's legs he said, Blessed if I didn't think so, and he picked Denny up and carried him under one arm where Denny went on saying, Oh, and it does hurt as hard as ever. Our rescuer, who proved to be a fine big young man in the bloom of youth, and a farm labourer by trade in Cordroy's carried the wretched sufferer to the cottage where he lived with his aged mother, and then Oswald found that what he had forgotten about the leeches was salt. The young man in the bloom of youth's mother put salt on the leeches and they squirmed off and fell with sickening slug-like flops on the brick floor. Then the young man in Cordroy's and the bloom, etc., carried Denny home on his back after his legs had been bandaged up so that he looked like wounded warriors returning. It was not far by the road, though such a long distance by the way the young explorers had come. He was a good young man, and though of course acts of goodness are their own reward, still I was glad he had the two half-crowns Albert's uncle gave him as well as his own good act. But I'm not sure Alice ought to have put him in the Golden Deed Book, which was supposed to be reserved for us. Perhaps you will think this was the end of the source of the Nile or North Pole. If you do, it only shows how mistaken the gentlest reader may be. The wounded explorer was lying with his wounds and bandages on the sofa, and we were all having our tea with raspberries and white currants, which were richly needed after our torrid adventures. When Mrs. Pettigrew, the housekeeper, put her head in at the door and said, Please could I speak to you half a moment, sir? to Albert's uncle. And her voice was the kind that makes you look at each other when the grown-up has gone out. And you are silent with your bread-and-butter halfway to the next bite, or your tea-cup in mid-flight to your lips. It was as we supposed. Albert's uncle did not come back for a long while. We did not keep the bread-and-butter on the wing all that time, of course, and we thought we might as well finish the raspberries and white currants. We kept some for Albert's uncle, of course, and they were the best ones, too. But when he came back, he did not notice our thoughtful unselfishness. He came in, and his face swore the look that means bed, and very likely no supper. He spoke, and it was the calmest of white hot iron, which is something like the calmness of despair. He said, You have done it again. What on earth possessed you to make a dam? We were being beavers, said H.O. in proud tones. He did not see as we did, where Albert's uncle's tone pointed to. No doubt, said Albert's uncle, rubbing his hands through his hair. No doubt, no doubt. Well, my beavers, you may go and build dams with your bolsters. Your dam stopped the stream. The clay you took for it left a channel through which it has run down and ruined about seven pounds worth of freshly reaped barley. Luckily, the farmer found it out in time, or you might have spoiled seventy pounds worth. And you burned a bridge yesterday. We said we were sorry. There was nothing else to say. Only Alice added, We didn't mean to be naughty. Of course not, said Albert's uncle. You never do. Oh yes, I'll kiss you, but it's bed and it's two hundred lines to-morrow. And the line is, Beware being beavers and burning bridges. Dread dams. It will be a capital exercise in capital B's and D's. We knew by that, that though annoyed, he was not furious. We went to bed. I got jolly sick of capital B's and D's before sunset on the morrow. That night, just as the others were falling asleep, Oswood said, I say. Well, retorted his brother. There is one thing about it, Oswood went on. It does show. It was a rattling good dam, anyhow. And filled with this agreeable thought, the weary beavers, or explorers, polar, or otherwise, fell asleep. End of Chapter 7, read by Hazel and Alan Chant of Tumbridge in Kent, England. Chapter 8 The High-Born Babe It really was not such a bad baby, for a baby. Its face was round and quite clean, which baby's faces are not always, as I daresay you know by your own youthful relatives. And Dora said its cape was trimmed with real lace, whatever that may be. I don't see myself how one kind of lace can be realer than another. It was in a very swagger sort of perambulator when we saw it, and the perambulator was standing quite by itself in the lane that leads to the mill. I wonder whose baby it is, Dora said. Isn't it a darling, Alice? Alice agreed to its being one, and said she thought it was most likely the child of noble parents stolen by gypsies. These two, as likely as not, Noel said, can't you see something crime-like in the very way they're lying? They were two tramps, and they were lying on the grass at the edge of the lane on the shady side, fast asleep, only a very little further on than where the baby was. They were very ragged, and their snores did have a sinister sound. I expect they stole the titled air at dead of night, and they've been travelling hot foot ever since, so now they're sleeping the sleep of exhaustedness, Alice said. What a heart-rending scene when the patrician mother wakes in the morning, and finds the infant aristocrat isn't in bed with his mama. The baby was fast asleep, or else the girls would have kissed it. They are strangely fond of kissing. The author never could see anything in it himself. If the gypsies did steal it, Dora said, perhaps they'll sell it to us. I wonder what they'd take for it. What could you do with it if you got it, H.O. asked? Why adopt it, of course, Dora said. I've often thought I should enjoy adopting a baby. It would be a golden deed, too. We've hardly got any in the book yet. I should have thought there were enough of us, Dickie said. Ah, but you're none of you babies, said Dora, unless you count H.O. as a baby. He behaves jolly like one sometimes. This was because of what had happened that morning when Dickie found H.O. going fishing with a box of worms, and the box was the one Dickie keeps his silver studs in, and the medal he got at school, and what is left of his watch and chain. The box is lined with real velvet, and it was not nice afterwards. And then H.O. said Dickie had hurt him, and he was a beastly bully, and he cried. We thought all this had been made up, and was sorry to see it threatened to break out again. So Oswald said, Oh, bother the baby, come along, do. And the others came. We were going to the millers with a message about some flour that hadn't come, and about a sack of sharps for the pigs. After you go down the lane, you come to a cloverfield, and then a cornfield, and then another lane, and then it is the mill. It is a jolly fine mill. In fact, it is two, water and wind ones, one of each kind, with a house and farm buildings as well. I never saw a mill like it, and I don't believe you have either. If we had been in a storybook, the miller's wife would have taken us into the neat sanded kitchen where the old oak settle was black with thyme and rubbing, and dusted chairs for us, old brown Windsor chairs, and given us each a gloss of sweet scented cow slip wine, and thick slices of rich homemade cake. And there would have been fresh roses in an old china bowl on the table. As it was, she asked us all into the parlour and gave us Eiffel Tower lemonade and marie biscuits. The chairs in her parlour were bent wood, and no flowers except some wax ones under a glass shade. But she was very kind, and we were very much obliged to her. We got out to the miller, though, as soon as we could. Only Dora and Daisy stayed with her, and she talked to them about her lodgers and about her relations in London. The miller is a man. He showed us all over the mills, both kinds, and let us go right up into the very top of the windmill, and showed us how the top moved round so the sails could catch the wind, and the great heaps of corn, some red and some yellow. The red is English wheat, and the heaps slide down a little bit at a time into a square hole and go into the millstones. The corn makes a rustling soft noise that is very jolly, something like the noise of the sea, and you can hear it through all the other mill noises. Then the miller let us go over the water mill. It is fairy palaces inside a mill. Everything is powdered over white, like sugar on pancakes when you are allowed to help yourself. And he opened the door and showed us the great water-wheel, working on, slow and sure, like some great round-dripping giant knolls said, and then he asked if we fished. Yes, was our immediate reply. Then why not try the mill, Paul, he said, and we replied politely, and when he was gone to tell his man something, we owned to each other that he was a trump. He did the thing thoroughly. He took us out and cut us ash saplings for rods. He found us in lines and hooks and several different sorts of bait, including a handsome handful of mealworms, which Oswald put loose into his pocket. And when it came to bait, Alice said she was going home with Dora and Daisy. Girls are strange, mysterious, silly things. Alice always enjoys a rat hunt until the rat is caught, but she hates fishing from beginning to end. We boys have got to like it. We don't feel now as we did when we turned off the water and stopped the competition of the competing anglers. We had a grandstay fishing that day. I can't think what made the miller so kind to us. Perhaps he felt a thrill or fellow feeling in his manly breast for his fellow sportsman, for he was a noble fisherman himself. We had glorious sport. Eight roach, six days, three eels, seven perch, and a young pike. But he was so very young the miller asked us to put him back, and of course we did. He'll live to bite another day, said the miller. The miller's wife gave us bread and cheese and more Eiffel Tower lemonade, and we went home at last a little damp, but full of successful ambition with our fish on a string. It had been a strikingly good time, one of those times that happen in the country quite by themselves. Country people are much more friendly than town people. I suppose they don't have to spread their friendly feelings out over so many persons, so it's thicker, like a pound of butter on one loaf, is thicker than on a dozen. Friendliness in the country is not scrape, like it is in London. Even Dicky and Acho forgot the affair of honour that had taken place in the morning. Acho changed rods with Dicky because Acho's was the best rod, and Dicky baited Acho's hook for him, just like loving, unselfish brothers in Sunday school magazines. We were talking fish likely as we went along down the lane and through the cornfield and the cloverfield, and then we came up to the other lane where we had seen the baby. The tramps were gone, and the perambulator was gone, and of course the baby was gone too. I wonder if those gypsies had stolen the baby? Noel said dreamily. He had not fished much, but he had made a piece of poetry. It was this. How I wish I was a fish. I would not look at your hook, but lie still and be cool at the bottom of the pool. And when you went to look at your cruel hook, you would not find me there, so there. If they did steal the baby, Noel went on, they will be tracked by the lordly perambulator. You can disguise a baby in rags and walnuts juice, but there isn't any disguise dark enough to conceal a perambulator's person. You might disguise it as a wheelbarrow, said Dicky, or cover it with leaves, said H.O., like the robins. We told him to shut up and not jibber. But afterwards we had to own that even a young brother may sometimes talk sense, by accident. For we took the shortcut home from the lane. It begins with a large gap in the hedge, and the grass and weeds trodden down by the hasty feet of persons who were late for church, and in too great a hurry to go round by the road. Our house is next to the church, as I think I have said before, some time. The shortcut leads to a style at the edge of a bit of wood. The parson's shave, they call it, because it belongs to him. The wood has not been shaved for some time, and it has grown out beyond the style, and here, among the hazels and chestnuts and young dogwood bushes, we saw something white. We felt it was our duty to investigate, even if the white was only the underside of the tail of a dead rabbit caught in a trap. It was not. It was part of the perambulator. I forget whether I said that the perambulator was enameled white, not the kind of enameling you do at home with aspenels and the hairs of the brush come out, and it's all gritty looking, but smooth, like the handles of Lady's very best lace parasols. And whoever had abandoned the helpless perambulator in that lonely spot had done exactly as H.O. said, and covered it with leaves. Only they were green, and some of them had dropped off. The others were wild with excitement. Now or never, they thought, it was a chance to be real detectives. Oswald alone retained a calm exterior. It was he who would not go straight to the police station. He said, let's try and ferret out something for ourselves before we tell the police. They always have a clue directly they hear about the finding of the body, and besides, we might as well let Alice be in anything there is going, and besides, we haven't had our dinners yet. This argument of Oswald's was so strong and powerful, his arguments are often that, as I daresay you have noticed, that the others agreed. It was Oswald, too, who showed his artless brothers why they had much better not take the deserted perambulator home with them. The dead body, or whatever the clue is, is always left exactly as it is found, he said, till the police have seen it, and the coroner and the inquest, and the doctor, and the sorrowing relations. Besides, suppose someone saw us with the beastly thing, and thought we had stolen it, then they would say, what have you done with the baby, and then where should we be? Oswald's brothers could not answer this question, but once more Oswald's native eloquence and far-seeing discerningness conquered. Anyway, Sticky said, let's shove the derelict a little further under cover, so we did. Then we went on home, dinner was ready, and so were Alice and Daisy, but Dora was not there. She's got a—well, she's not coming to dinner anyway, Alice said, when we asked. She can tell you, afterwards herself, what it is she's got. Oswald thought it was a headache, or a pain in the temper, or in the pinafore, so he said no more. But as soon as Mrs. Pettigrew had helped us and left the room, he began the thrilling tale of the forsaken perambulator. He told it, with the greatest thrillingness anyone could have. But Daisy and Alice seemed almost unmoved. Alice said, yes, very strange, and things like that. But both the girls seemed to be thinking of something else. They kept looking at each other and trying not to laugh. So Oswald saw they had got some silly secret, and he said, oh, all right, I don't care about telling you, I only thought you liked to be in on it. It's going to be a really big thing with policemen in it, and perhaps a judge. In what? H.O. said, the perambulator. Daisy choked, and then tried to drink, and spluttered, and got purple, and had to be thumped on the back. But Oswald was not appeased. When Alice said, do go on, Oswald, I'm sure we all like it very much, he said. Oh, no, thank you, very politely. As it happens, he went on, I'd just as soon go through with this thing without having any girls in it. In the perambulator, said H.O. again. It's a man's job, Oswald went on without taking any notice of H.O. Do you really think so, said Alice, when there's a baby in it? But there isn't, said H.O., if you mean in the perambulator. Blow you and your perambulator, said Oswald, with gloomy forbearance. Alice kicked Oswald under the table, and said, don't be waxy, Oswald. Really and truly, Daisy and I have got a secret. Only it's Dora's secret, and she wants to tell you herself. If it was mine or Daisy's, we'd tell you this minute, wouldn't we, Mouse? This very second, said the White Mouse. And Oswald consented to take their apologies. Then the pudding came in, and no more was said except asking for things to be passed. Sugar and water and bread and things. Then, when the pudding was all gone, Alice said, come on. And we came on. We did not want to be disagreeable, though really, we were keen on being detectives and sifting that perambulator to the very dregs. But boys have to try to take an interest in their sister's secrets, however silly. This is part of being a good brother. Alice led us across the field where the sheep once fell into the brook, and across the brook by the plank. At the other end of the next field there was a sort of wooden house on wheels that the shepherd sleeps in at the time of year when lambs are being born, so that he can see that they are not stolen by gypsies before the owners have counted them. To this hut Alice now led her kind brothers, and Daisy's kind brother. Dora is inside, she said, with the secret. We were afraid to have it in the house, in case it made a noise. The next moment, the secret, was a secret no longer, for we all beheld Dora sitting on a sack on the floor of the hut, with the secret in her lap. It was the High-Born Babe. Oswald was so overcome that he sat down suddenly, just like Betsy Trotwood did in David Copperfield, which shows you what a true author Dickens is. You've done it this time, he said. I suppose you know you're a baby-stealer. I'm not, Dora said. I've adopted him. Then it was you, Dickie said, who scuttled the perambulator in the wood. Yes, Alice said, we couldn't get it over the style unless Dora put down the baby, and we were afraid of the nettles for his legs. His name is to be Lord Edward. But, Dora, really, don't you think? If you'd been there, you'd have done the same, said Dora firmly, the gypsies had gone. Of course, something had frightened them, and they fled from justice, and the little darling was awake and held out his arms to me. No, he hasn't cried a bit, and I know all about babies. I've often nursed Mrs. Simpkin's daughter's baby, which she brings up on Sundays. They have bread and milk to eat. You take him, Alice, and I'll go and get some bread and milk for him. Alice took the noble brat. It was horribly lively, and squirmed about in her arms, and wanted to crawl on the floor. She could only keep it quiet by saying things to it a boy would be ashamed to even think of saying, such as goo-goo, and diddums was, and higgleduckums then. When Alice used these expressions, the baby laughed and chuckled and replied, da-da-da-da, ba-ba-ba, or glue-glue. But if Alice stopped her remarks for an instant, the thing screwed up its face as if it was going to cry. But she never gave it time to begin. It was a rummy little animal. Then Dora came back with the bread and milk, and they fed the noble infant. It was greedy and slobbery, but all three girls seemed unable to keep their eyes and hands off it. They looked at it exactly as if it was pretty. We boys stayed watching them. There was no amusement left for us now, for us would saw that Dora's secret knocked the bottom out of the perambulator. When the infant aristocrat had eaten a hearty meal, it sat on Alice's lap and played with the amber heart she wears that Albert's uncle bought her from Hastings after the business of the bad sixpence and the nobleness of Oswood. Now, said Dora, this is a council, so I want to be business-like. Duckum's darling has been stolen away. Its wicked stealers have deserted the precious. We've got it. Perhaps its ancestral halls are miles and miles away. I vote we keep the little lovey-duck till it's advertised for. If Albert's uncle lets you, said Dickie, darkly. Oh, don't say you like that, Dora said. I want it to be all of our baby. It will have five fathers and three mothers and a grandfather and a great Albert's uncle and a great granduncle. I'm sure Albert's uncle will let us keep it, at any rate till it's advertised for. And suppose it never is, Noel said. Then so much the better, said Dora, the little duck yucks. She began kissing the baby again. Oswood ever thoughtful, said. Well, what about your dinner? Bother dinner, Dora said, so like a girl. Will you all agree to be his fathers and mothers? Anything for a quiet life, said Dickie, and Oswood said. Oh, yes, if you like, but you'll see we shan't be allowed to keep it. You talk as if he was rabbits or white rats, said Dora, and he's not. He's a little man, he is. All right, he's no rabbit but a man. Come on and get some grub, Dora, rejoined the kind-hearted Oswood. And Dora did, with Oswood and the other boys. Only Noel stayed with Alice. He really seemed to like the baby. When I looked back, he was standing on his head to amuse it, but the baby didn't seem to like him any better, whichever end of him was up. Dora went back to the shepherd's house on wheels directly. She had had her dinner. Mrs. Pettigrew was very cross about her not being into it, but she had kept her some mutton hot all the same. She is a decent sort. And there were strewed prunes. We had some to keep Dora company. Then we boys went fishing again in the moat, but we caught nothing. Just before tea-time we all went back to the hut, and before we got half across the last field we could hear the howling of the secret. Poor little beggar, said Oswood with manly tenderness. They must be sticking pins in it. We found the girls and Noel looking quite pale and breathless. Daisy was walking up and down with the secret in her arms. It looked like Alice in Wonderland nursing the baby that turned into a pig. Oswald said so, and added that it screams were like it too. What on earth is the matter with it, he said? I don't know, said Alice. Daisy's tired, and Dora and I are quite worn out. He's been crying for hours and hours. You take him a bit. Not me, replied Oswald firmly, withdrawing a pace from the secret. Dora was fumbling with her waistband in the furthest corner of the hut. I think he's cold, she said. I thought I'd take off my flannelette petticoat. Only the horrid strings got into a hard knot. Here, Oswald, let's have your knife. With the word she plunged her hand into Oswald's jacket pocket, and next moment she was rubbing her hand like mad on her dress and screaming almost as loud as the baby. Then she began to laugh and to cry at the same time. This is called hysterics. Oswald was sorry, but he was annoyed too. He had forgotten that his pocket was half full of the mealworms the miller had kindly given him, and anyway Dora ought to have known that a man always carries his knife in his trouser pockets and not in his jacket one. Alice and Daisy rushed to Dora. She had thrown herself down on the pile of sacks in the corner. The titled infant delayed its screams for a moment to listen to Dora's, but almost at once it went on again. Oh, get some water! cried Alice. Daisy, run! The white mouse, Everdose Sirland obedient, shoved the baby into the arms of the nearest person, who had to take it or it would have fallen erect to the ground. This nearest person was Oswald. He tried to pass it on to the others, but they wouldn't. No one would have, but he was busy kissing Dora and begging her not to. So our hero, for such I may perhaps term him, found himself the degraded nursemaid of a small but furious kid. He was afraid to lay it down, for fear in its rage it would beat its brains out against the hard earth, and he did not wish, however innocently, to be the cause of its hurting itself at all. So he walked earnestly up and down with it, thumping it unceasingly on the back, while the others attended to Dora who presently ceased to yell. Suddenly it struck Oswald that the high-born had also ceased to yell. He looked at it and could hardly believe the glad tidings of his faithful eyes. With bated breath he hastened back to the sheep-house. The others turned on him full of reproaches about the mealworms and Dora, but he answered without anger. Shut up! he said, in a whisper of imperial command. Can't you see? It's gone to sleep! As exhausted, as if they had all taken parts in all the events of a very long athletic sports, the youthful Bastabas and their friends dragged their weary limbs back across the fields. Oswald was compelled to go on holding the titled infant, for fear it should wake up if it changed hands and began to yell again. Dora's flannelette petticoat had been got off somehow, how I do not seek to inquire, and the secret was covered with it. The others surrounded Oswald as much as possible, with a view to concealment if we met Mrs. Pettigrew. But the coast was clear. Oswald took the secret up into his bedroom. Mrs. Pettigrew doesn't come there much as it's too many stairs. With breathless precaution Oswald laid it down on his bed. It sighed, but did not wake. Then we took it in turns to sit by it and see that it did not get up and fling itself out of bed, which in one of its furious fits it would just as soon have done as not. We expected Albert's uncle every minute. At last we heard the gate, but he did not come in, so we looked out and saw that he was talking to a distracted looking man on a pie-balled horse, one of the miller's horses. A shiver of doubt coursed through our veins. We could not remember having done anything wrong at the miller's, but you never know, and it seems strange his sending a man up on his own horse. But when we had looked a bit longer our fears went down and our curiosity got up, for we saw that the distracted one was a gentleman. Presently he rode off, and Albert's uncle came in. A deputation met him at the door, all the boys, and Dora, because the baby was her idea. We found something, Dora said, and we want to know whether we may keep it. The rest of us said nothing. We were not so very anxious to keep it after we had heard how much and how long it could howl. Even Noel had said he had no idea a baby could yell like it. Dora said it only cried because it was sleepy. But we reflected that it would certainly be sleepy once a day, if not often. What is it? said Albert's uncle. Let's see this treasure-trove. Is it a wild beast? Come and see! said Dora, and we led him to our room. Alice turned down the pink flannelette petticoat with silly pride, and showed the youthful air fatally and pinkly sleeping. A baby! said Albert's uncle. The baby! Oh, my cat's alive! That is an expression which he uses to express despair unmixed with anger. Where did you—but that doesn't matter, we'll talk of this later. He rushed from the room, and in a moment or two we saw him mount his bicycle and ride off. Quite shortly he returned with the distracted horseman. It was his baby, and not titled at all. The horseman and his wife were the lodgers at the mill. The nursemaid was a girl from the village. She said she only left the baby five minutes while she went to speak to her sweetheart who was gardener at the Red House. But we knew she left it over an hour, and nearly two. I never saw anyone so pleased as the distracted horseman. When we were asked, we explained about having thought the baby was a prey of gypsies, and the distracted horseman stood hugging the baby, and actually thanked us. But when he had gone we had a brief lecture on minding our own business. But Dora still thinks she was right. As for Oswald and most of the others, they agreed that they would rather mind their own business all their lives than mind a baby for a single hour. If you have never had to do with a baby in the frenzied throes of sleepiness, you can have no idea what its screams are like. If you have been through such a scene, you will understand how we managed to bear up under having no baby to adopt. Oswald insisted on having the whole thing written in the Golden Deed Book. Of course his share could not be put in without telling about Dora's generous adopting of the forlorn infant outcast, and Oswald could not and cannot forget that he was the one who did get that baby to sleep. What a time Mr and Mrs Distracted Horseman must have of it though, especially now they've sacked the nursemaid. If Oswald is ever married, I suppose he must be some day, he will have ten nurses to each baby, eight is not enough. We know that because we tried, and the whole eight of us were not enough for the needs of that deserted infant who was not so extra-high-born after all.