"Little words of kindness" (he said),"Little deeds of love,Make this earth an eagleLike the one above."
"Little words of kindness" (he said),"Little deeds of love,Make this earth an eagleLike the one above."
This did not sound right, but we let it pass, because an eagledoeshave wings, and we wanted to hear the rest of what the girls had written. But there was no rest.
"That's all," said Alice, and Daisy said:
"Don't you think it's a good idea?"
"That depends," Oswald answered, "who is president, and what you mean by being good."Oswald did not care very much for the idea himself, because being good is not the sort of thing he thinks it is proper to talk about, especially before strangers. But the girls and Denny seemed to like it, so Oswald did not say exactly what he thought, especially as it was Daisy's idea. This was true politeness.
"I think it would be nice," Noël said, "if we made it a sort of play. Let's do the 'Pilgrim's Progress.'"
We talked about that for some time, but it did not come to anything, because we all wanted to be Mr. Greatheart, except H. O., who wanted to be the lions, and you could not have lions in a Society for Goodness.
Dicky said he did not wish to play if it meant reading books about children who die; he really felt just as Oswald did about it, he told me afterwards. But the girls were looking as if they were in Sunday school, and we did not wish to be unkind.
At last Oswald said, "Well, let's draw up the rules of the society, and choose the president and settle the name."
Dora said Oswald should be president, and he modestly consented. She was secretary, and Denny treasurer if we ever had any money.
Making the rules took us all the afternoon. They were these:
Rules
1. Every member is to be as good as possible.
2. There is to be no more jaw than necessary about being good. (Oswald and Dicky put that rule in.)
3. No day must pass without our doing some kind action to a suffering fellow-creature.
4. We are to meet every day, or as often as we like.
5. We are to do good to people we don't like as often as we can.
6. No one is to leave the Society without the consent of all the rest of us.
7. The Society is to be kept a profound secret from all the world except us.
8. The name of our Society is—
And when we got as far as that we all began to talk at once. Dora wanted it called the Society for Humane Improvement; Denny said the Society for Reformed Outcast Children; but Dicky said, "No, we really were not so bad as all that." Then H. O. said, "Call it the Good Society."
"Or the Society for Being Good In," said Daisy.
"Or the Society of Goods," said Noël.
"That's priggish," said Oswald; "besides, we don't know whether we shall be so very."
"You see," Alice explained, "we only said if wecouldwe would be good."
"Well, then," Dicky said, getting up and beginning to dust the chopped hay off himself, "call it the Society of the Wouldbegoods and have done with it."
Oswald thinks Dicky was getting sick of it and wanted to make himself a little disagreeable. Ifso, he was doomed to disappointment. For every one else clapped hands and called out, "That's the very thing!" Then the girls went off to write out the rules, and took H. O. with them, and Noël went to write some poetry to put in the minute book. That's what you call the book that a society's secretary writes what it does in. Denny went with him to help. He knows a lot of poetry. I think he went to a lady's school where they taught nothing but that. He was rather shy of us, but he took to Noël. I can't think why. Dicky and Oswald walked round the garden and told each other what they thought of the new society.
"I'm not sure we oughtn't to have put our foot down at the beginning," Dicky said. "I don't see much in it, anyhow."
"It pleases the girls," Oswald said, for he is a kind brother.
"But we're not going to stand jaw, and 'words in season,' and 'loving sisterly warnings.' I tell you what it is, Oswald, we'll have to run this thing our way, or it'll be jolly beastly for everybody."
Oswald saw this plainly.
"We must do something," Dicky said; "it's very hard, though. Still, there must besomeinteresting things that are not wrong."
"I suppose so," Oswald said, "but being good is so much like being a muff, generally. Anyhow I'm not going to smooth the pillows of the sick, or read to the aged poor, or any rot out ofMinistering Children."
"No more am I," Dicky said. He was chewing a straw like the head had in its mouth, "but I suppose we must play the game fair. Let's begin by looking out for something useful to do—something like mending things or cleaning them, not just showing off."
"The boys in books chop kindling wood and save their pennies to buy tea and tracts."
"Little beasts!" said Dick. "I say, let's talk about something else." And Oswald was glad to, for he was beginning to feel jolly uncomfortable.
We were all rather quiet at tea, and afterwards Oswald played draughts with Daisy and the others yawned. I don't know when we've had such a gloomy evening. And every one was horribly polite, and said "Please" and "Thank you," far more than requisite.
Albert's uncle came home after tea. He was jolly, and told us stories, but he noticed us being a little dull, and asked what blight had fallen on our young lives. Oswald could have answered and said, "It is the Society of the Wouldbegoods that is the blight," but of course he didn't; and Albert's uncle said no more, but he went up and kissed the girls when they were in bed, and asked them if there was anything wrong. And they told him no, on their honor.
"'LITTLE BEASTS,' SAID DICK""'LITTLE BEASTS,' SAID DICK"
The next morning Oswald awoke early. The refreshing beams of the morning sun shone on his narrow, white bed and on the sleeping forms of his dear little brothers, and Denny, who had got the pillow on top of his head and was snoring like a kettle when it sings. Oswald could not remember at first what was the matter with him, and then he remembered the Wouldbegoods, and wished he hadn't. He felt at first as if there was nothing you could do, and even hesitated to buzz a pillow at Denny's head. But he soon saw that this could not be. So he chucked his boot and caught Denny right in the waistcoat part, and thus the day began more brightly than he had expected.
Oswald had not done anything out of the way good the night before, except that when no one was looking he polished the brass candlestick in the girls' bedroom with one of his socks. And he might just as well have let it alone, for the servants cleaned it again with the other things in the morning, and he could never find the sock afterwards. There were two servants. One of them had to be called Mrs. Pettigrew instead of Jane and Eliza like others. She was cook and managed things.
After breakfast Albert's uncle said:
"I now seek the retirement of my study. At your peril violate my privacy before 1.30 sharp. Nothing short of bloodshed will warrant the intrusion, and nothing short of man—or rather boy—slaughter shall avenge it."
So we knew he wanted to be quiet, and the girls decided that we ought to play out of doors so as not to disturb him; we should have played out of doors anyhow on a jolly fine day like that.
But as we were going out Dicky said to Oswald:
"I say, come along here a minute, will you?"
So Oswald came along, and Dicky took him into the other parlor and shut the door, and Oswald said:
"Well, spit it out: what is it?" He knows that is vulgar, and he would not have said it to any one but his own brother.
Dicky said:
"It's a pretty fair nuisance. I told you how it would be."
And Oswald was patient with him, and said:
"What is? Don't be all day about it."
Dicky fidgeted about a bit, and then he said:
"Well, I did as I said. I looked about for something useful to do. And you know that dairy window that wouldn't open—only a little bit like that? Well, I mended the catch with wire and whipcord and it opened wide."
"And I suppose they didn't want it mended," said Oswald. He knows but too well that grown-up people sometimes like to keep things far different from what we would, and you catch it if you try to do otherwise.
"I shouldn't have mindedthat," Dicky said, "because I could easily have taken it all off again if they'd only said so. But the sillies went and propped up a milk-pan against the window. They never took the trouble to notice I had mended it. So the wretched thing pushed the window open all by itself directly they propped it up, and it's tumbled through into the moat, and they are mostawfully waxy. All the men are out in the fields, and they haven't any spare milk-pans. If I were a farmer, I must say I wouldn't stick at an extra milk-pan or two. Accidents must happen sometimes. I call it mean."
Dicky spoke in savage tones. But Oswald was not so unhappy, first because it wasn't his fault, and next because he is a far-seeing boy.
"Never mind," he said, kindly. "Keep your tail up. We'll get the beastly milk-pan out all right. Come on."
He rushed hastily to the garden and gave a low signifying whistle, which the others know well enough to mean something extra being up.
And when they were all gathered round him he spoke.
"Fellow-countrymen," he said, "we're going to have a rousing good time."
"It's nothing naughty, is it," Daisy asked, "like the last time you had that was rousingly good?"
Alice said "Shish," and Oswald pretended not to hear.
"A precious treasure," he said, "has inadvertently been laid low in the moat by one of us."
"The rotten thing tumbled in by itself," Dicky said.
Oswald waved his hand and said, "Anyhow, it's there. It's our duty to restore it to its sorrowing owners. I say, look here—we're going to drag the moat."
Every one brightened up at this. It was ourduty and it was interesting too. This is very uncommon.
So we went out to where the orchard is, at the other side of the moat. There were gooseberries and things on the bushes, but we did not take any till we had asked if we might. Alice went and asked. Mrs. Pettigrew said, "Law! I suppose so; you'd eat 'em anyhow, leave or no leave."
She little knows the honorable nature of the house of Bastable. But she has much to learn.
The orchard slopes gently down to the dark waters of the moat. We sat there in the sun and talked about dragging the moat, till Denny said, "Howdoyou drag moats?"
And we were speechless, because, though we had read many times about a moat being dragged for missing heirs and lost wills, we really had never thought about exactly how it was done.
"Grappling-irons are right, I believe," Denny said, "but I don't suppose they'd have any at the farm."
And we asked, and found they had never even heard of them. I think myself he meant some other word, but he was quite positive.
So then we got a sheet off Oswald's bed, and we all took our shoes and stockings off, and we tried to see if the sheet would drag the bottom of the moat, which is shallow at that end. But it would keep floating on the top of the water, and when we tried sewing stones into one end of it, it stuck on something in the bottom, and when we got it up it was torn. We were verysorry, and the sheet was in an awful mess; but the girls said they were sure they could wash it in the basin in their room, and we thought as we had torn it any way, we might as well go on. That washing never came off.
"No human being," Noël said, "knows half the treasures hidden in this dark tarn."
And we decided we would drag a bit more at that end, and work gradually round to under the dairy window where the milk-pan was. We could not see that part very well, because of the bushes that grow between the cracks of the stones where the house goes down into the moat. And opposite the dairy window the barn goes straight down into the moat too. It is like pictures of Venice; but you cannot get opposite the dairy window anyhow.
We got the sheet down again when we had tied the torn parts together in a bunch with string, and Oswald was just saying:
"Now then, my hearties, pull together, pull with a will! One, two, three," when suddenly Dora dropped her bit of the sheet with a piercing shriek and cried out:
"Oh! it's all wormy at the bottom. I felt them wriggle." And she was out of the water almost before the words were out of her mouth. The other girls all scuttled out too, and they let the sheet go in such a hurry that we had no time to steady ourselves, and one of us went right in, and the rest got wet up to our waistbands. The one who went right in was only H. O.; but Dora madean awful fuss and said it was our fault. We told her what we thought, and it ended in the girls going in with H. O. to change his things. We had some more gooseberries while they were gone. Dora was in an awful wax when she went away, but she is not of a sullen disposition though some times hasty, and when they all came back we saw it was all right, so we said:
"What shall we do now?"
Alice said, "I don't think we need drag any more. Itiswormy. I felt it when Dora did. And besides, the milk-pan is sticking a bit of itself out of the water. I saw it through the dairy window."
"Couldn't we get it up with fish-hooks?" Noël said. But Alice explained that the dairy was now locked up and the key taken out.
So then Oswald said:
"Look here, we'll make a raft. We should have to do it some time, and we might as well do it now. I saw an old door in that corner stable that they don't use. You know. The one where they chop the wood."
We got the door.
We had never made a raft, any of us, but the way to make rafts is better described in books, so we knew what to do.
We found some nice little tubs stuck up on the fence of the farm garden, and nobody seemed to want them for anything just then, so we took them. Denny had a box of tools some one had given him for his last birthday; they were rather rotten little things, but the gimlet worked allright, so we managed to make holes in the edges of the tubs and fasten them with string under the four corners of the old door. This took us a long time. Albert's uncle asked us at dinner what we had been playing at, and we said it was a secret, and it was nothing wrong. You see we wished to atone for Dicky's mistake before anything more was said. The house has no windows in the side that faces the orchard.
The rays of the afternoon sun were beaming along the orchard grass when at last we launched the raft. She floated out beyond reach with the last shove of the launching. But Oswald waded out and towed her back; he is not afraid of worms. Yet if he had known of the other things that were in the bottom of that moat he would have kept his boots on. So would the others, especially Dora, as you will see.
At last the gallant craft rode upon the waves. We manned her, though not up to our full strength, because if more than four got on the water came up too near our knees, and we feared she might founder if over-manned.
Daisy and Denny did not want to go on the raft, white mice that they were, so that was all right. And as H. O. had been wet through once he was not very keen. Alice promised Noël her best paint-brush if he'd give up and not go, because we knew well that the voyage was fraught with deep dangers, though the exact danger that lay in wait for us under the dairy window we never even thought of.
So we four elder ones got on the raft very carefully; and even then, every time we moved the water swished up over the raft and hid our feet. But I must say it was a jolly decent raft.
Dicky was captain, because it was his adventure. We had hop-poles from the hop-garden beyond the orchard to punt with. We made the girls stand together in the middle and hold on to each other to keep steady. Then we christened our gallant vessel. We called it theRichard, after Dicky, and also after the splendid admiral who used to eat wine-glasses and died after the Battle of theRevengein Tennyson's poetry.
Then those on shore waved a fond adieu as well as they could with the dampness of their handkerchiefs, which we had had to use to dry our legs and feet when we put on our stockings for dinner, and slowly and stately the good ship moved away from shore, riding on the waves as though they were her native element.
We kept her going with the hop-poles, and we kept her steady in the same way, but we could not always keep her steady enough, and we could not always keep her in the wind's eye. That is to say, she went where we did not want, and once she bumped her corner against the barn wall, and all the crew had to sit down suddenly to avoid falling overboard into a watery grave. Of course then the waves swept her decks, and when we got up again we said that we should have to change completely before tea.
But we pressed on undaunted, and at last oursaucy craft came into port under the dairy window, and there was the milk-pan, for whose sake we had endured such hardships and privations, standing up on its edge quite quietly.
The girls did not wait for orders from the captain, as they ought to have done; but they cried out, "Oh, here it is!" and then both reached out to get it. Any one who has pursued a naval career will see that of course the raft capsized. For a moment it felt like standing on the roof of the house, and the next moment the ship stood up on end and shot the whole crew into the dark waters.
We boys can swim all right. Oswald has swum three times across the Ladywell Swimming Baths at the shallow end, and Dicky is nearly as good; but just then we did not think of this; though, of course, if the water had been deep we should have.
As soon as Oswald could get the muddy water out of his eyes he opened them on a horrid scene.
Dicky was standing up to his shoulders in the inky waters; the raft had righted itself, and was drifting gently away towards the front of the house, where the bridge is, and Doar and Alice were rising from the deep, with their hair all plastered over their faces—like Venus in the Latin verses.
There was a great noise of splashing. And besides that a feminine voice, looking out of the dairy window and screaming:
"Lord love the children!"
It was Mrs. Pettigrew. She disappeared atonce, and we were sorry we were in such a situation that she would be able to get at Albert's uncle before we could. Afterwards we were not so sorry.
Before a word could be spoken about our desperate position, Dora staggered a little in the water, and suddenly shrieked, "Oh, my foot! oh, it's a shark! I know it is—or a crocodile!"
The others on the bank could hear her shrieking, but they could not see us properly; they did not know what was happening. Noël told me afterwards he never could care for that paint-brush.
Of course we knew it could not be a shark, but I thought of pike, which are large and very angry always, and I caught hold of Dora. She screamed without stopping. I shoved her along to where there was a ledge of brickwork, and shoved her up, till she could sit on it, then she got her foot out of the water, still screaming.
It was indeed terrible. The thing she thought was a shark came up with her foot, and it was a horrid, jagged, old meat-tin, and she had put her foot right into it. Oswald got it off, and directly he did so blood began to pour from the wounds. The tin edges had cut it in several spots. It was very pale blood, because her foot was wet, of course.
She stopped screaming, and turned green, and I thought she was going to faint, like Daisy did on the jungle day.
Oswald held her up as well as he could, but it really was one of the least agreeable moments in his life. For the raft was gone, and she couldn'thave waded back anyway, and we didn't know how deep the moat might be in other places.
But Mrs. Pettigrew had not been idle. She is not a bad sort really.
Just as Oswald was wondering whether he could swim after the raft and get it back, a boat's nose shot out from under a dark archway a little further up under the house. It was the boathouse, and Albert's uncle had got the punt and took us back in it. When we had regained the dark arch where the boat lives we had to go up the cellar stairs. Dora had to be carried.
There was but little said to us that day. We were sent to bed—those who had not been on the raft the same as the others, for they owned up all right, and Albert's uncle is the soul of justice.
Next day but one was Saturday. Father gave us a talking to—with other things.
The worst, though, was when Dora couldn't get her shoe on, so they sent for the doctor, and Dora had to lie down for ever so long. It was indeed poor luck.
When the doctor had gone Alice said to me:
"Itishard lines, but Dora's very jolly about it. Daisy's been telling her about how we should all go to her with our little joys and sorrows and things, and about the sweet influence from a sick bed that can be felt all over the house, like inWhat Katy Did, and Dora said she hoped she might prove a blessing to us all while she's laid up."
Oswald said he hoped so, but he was not pleased.Because this sort of jaw was exactly the sort of thing he and Dicky didn't want to have happen.
The thing we got it hottest for was those little tubs off the garden railings. They turned out to be butter-tubs that had been put out there "to sweeten."
But as Denny said, "After the mud in that moat not all the perfumes of somewhere or other could make them fit to use for butter again."
I own this was rather a bad business. Yet we did not do it to please ourselves, but because it was our duty. But that made no difference to our punishment when father came down. I have known this mistake occur before.
TThere were soldiers riding down the road, on horses, two and two. That is the horses were two and two, and the men not. Because each man was riding one horse and leading another. To exercise them. They came from Chatham Barracks. We all drew up in a line outside the church-yard wall, and saluted as they went by, though we had not readToady Lionthen. We have since. It is the only decent book I have ever read written byToady Lion'sauthor. The others are mere piffle. But many people like them.
There were soldiers riding down the road, on horses, two and two. That is the horses were two and two, and the men not. Because each man was riding one horse and leading another. To exercise them. They came from Chatham Barracks. We all drew up in a line outside the church-yard wall, and saluted as they went by, though we had not readToady Lionthen. We have since. It is the only decent book I have ever read written byToady Lion'sauthor. The others are mere piffle. But many people like them.
InSir Toady Lionthe officer salutes the child.
There was only a lieutenant with those soldiers, and he did not salute me. He kissed his hand to the girls; and a lot of the soldiers behind kissed theirs too. We waved ours back.
Next day we made a Union Jack out of pocket-handkerchiefs and part of a red flannel petticoat of the White Mouse's, which she did not want just then, and some blue ribbon we got at the village shop.
Then we watched for the soldiers, and after three days they went by again, by twos and twos as before. It was A1.
We waved our flag, and we shouted. We gave them three cheers. Oswald can shout loudest. So as soon as the first man was level with us (not the advance guard, but the first of the battery)—he shouted:
"Three cheers for the Queen and the British Army!"
And then we waved the flag, and bellowed. Oswald stood on the wall to bellow better, and Denny waved the flag because he was a visitor, and so politeness made us let him enjoy the fat of whatever there was going.
The soldiers did not cheer that day; they only grinned and kissed their hands.
The next day we all got up as much like soldiers as we could. H. O. and Noël had tin swords, and we asked Albert's uncle to let us wear some of the real arms that are on the wall in the dining-room. And he said, "Yes," if we would clean them up afterwards. But we jolly well cleaned them up first with Brooke's soap and brick dust and vinegar, and the knife polish (invented by the great and immortal Duke of Wellington in his spare time when he was not conquering Napoleon. Three cheers for our Iron Duke!), and with emery paper and wash leather and whitening. Oswald wore a cavalry sabre in its sheath. Alice and the Mouse had pistols in their belts, large old flint-locks, with bits of red flannel behind the flints. Denny had a naval cutlass, a very beautiful blade, and old enough to have been at Trafalgar. I hope it was. The others had French sword-bayonetsthat were used in the Franco-German War. They are very bright, when you get them bright, but the sheaths are hard to polish. Each sword-bayonet has the name on the blade of the warrior who once wielded it. I wonder where they are now. Perhaps some of them died in the war. Poor chaps! But it is a very long time ago.
I should like to be a soldier. It is better than going to the best schools, and to Oxford afterwards, even if it is Balliol you go to. Oswald wanted to go to South Africa for a bugler, but father would not let him. And it is true that Oswald does not yet know how to bugle, though he can play the infantry "advance," and the "charge" and the "halt" on a penny whistle. Alice taught them to him with the piano, out of the red book father's cousin had when he was in the Fighting Fifth. Oswald cannot play the "retire," and he would scorn to do so. But I suppose a bugler has to play what he is told, no matter how galling to the young boy's proud spirit.
The next day, being thoroughly armed, we put on everything red, white, and blue that we could think of—night-shirts are good for white, and you don't know what you can do with red socks and blue jerseys till you try—and we waited by the church-yard wall for the soldiers. When the advance-guard (or whatever you call it of artillery—it's that for infantry, I know) came by we got ready, and when the first man of the first battery was level with us Oswald played on hispenny whistle the "advance" and the "charge"—and then shouted:
"Three cheers for the Queen and the British Army!"
This time they had the guns with them. And every man of the battery cheered too. It was glorious. It made you tremble all over. The girls said it made them want to cry—but no boy would own to this, even if it were true. It is babyish to cry. But it was glorious, and Oswald felt different to what he ever did before.
Then suddenly the officer in front said, "Battery! Halt!" and all the soldiers pulled their horses up, and the great guns stopped too. Then the officer said, "Sit at ease," and something else, and the sergeant repeated it, and some of the men got off their horses and lit their pipes, and some sat down on the grass edge of the road, holding their horses' bridles.
We could see all the arms and accoutrements as plain as plain.
Then the officer came up to us. We were all standing on the wall that day, except Dora, who had to sit, because her foot was bad, but we let her have the three-edged rapier to wear, and the blunderbuss to hold as well—it has a brass mouth, and is like in Mr. Caldecott's pictures.
He was a beautiful man the officer. Like a Viking. Very tall and fair, with mustaches very long, and bright blue eyes.
He said:
"Good-morning."
So did we.
Then he said:
"You seem to be a military lot."
We said we wished we were.
"And patriotic," said he.
Alice said she should jolly well think so.
Then he said he had noticed us there for several days, and he had halted the battery because he thought we might like to look at the guns.
Alas! there are but too few grown-up people so far-seeing and thoughtful as this brave and distinguished officer.
We said, "Oh yes," and then we got off the wall, and that good and noble man showed us the string that moves the detonator, and the breech-block (when you take it out and carry it away, the gun is in vain to the enemy, even if he takes it); and he let us look down the gun to see the rifling, all clean and shiny; and he showed us the ammunition boxes, but there was nothing in them. He also told us how the gun was unlimbered (this means separating the gun from the ammunition carriage), and how quick it could be done—but he did not make the men do this then, because they were resting. There were six guns. Each had painted on the carriage, in white letters, 15 Pr., which the captain told us meant fifteen-pounder.
"I should have thought the gun weighed more than fifteen pounds," Dora said. "It would if it was beef, but I suppose wood and gun are lighter."
And the officer explained to her very kindlyand patiently that 15 Pr. meant the gun could throw ashellweighing fifteen pounds.
When we had told him how jolly it was to see the soldiers go by so often, he said:
"You won't see us many more times. We're ordered to the front; and we sail on Tuesday week; and the guns will be painted mud-color, and the men will wear mud-color too, and so shall I."
The men looked very nice, though they were not wearing their busbies, but only Tommy caps, put on all sorts of ways.
We were very sorry they were going, but Oswald, as well as others, looked with envy on those who would soon be allowed—being grown up, and no nonsense about your education—to go and fight for their Queen and country.
Then suddenly Alice whispered to Oswald, and he said:
"All right; but tell him yourself."
So Alice said to the captain:
"Will you stop next time you pass?"
He said, "I'm afraid I can't promise that."
Alice said, "You might; there's a particular reason."
He said, "What?" which was a natural remark; not rude, as it is with children.
Alice said:
"We want to give the soldiers a keepsake. I will write to ask my father. He is very well off just now. Look here—if we're not on the wall when you come by, don't stop; but if we are,please,pleasedo!"
The officer pulled his mustache and looked as if he did not quite know; but at last he said "Yes," and we were very glad, though but Alice and Oswald knew the dark but pleasant scheme at present fermenting in their youthful nuts.
The captain talked a lot to us. At last Noël said:
"I think you are like Diarmid of the Golden Collar. But I should like to see your sword out, and shining in the sun like burnished silver."
The captain laughed and grasped the hilt of his good blade. But Oswald said, hurriedly:
"Don't. Not yet. We sha'n't ever have a chance like this. If you'd only show us the pursuing practice! Albert's uncle knows it; but he only does it on an arm-chair, because he hasn't a horse."
And that brave and swagger captain did really do it. He rode his horse right into our gate when we opened it, and showed us all the cuts, thrusts, and guards. There are four of each kind. It was splendid. The morning sun shone on his flashing blade, and his good steed stood with all its legs far apart and stiff on the lawn. Then we opened the paddock gate and he did it again, while the horse galloped as if upon the bloody battle-field among the fierce foes of his native land, and this was far more ripping still.
Then we thanked him very much, and he went away, taking his men with him. And the guns, of course.
Then we wrote to my father, and he said "Yes,"as we knew he would, and next time the soldiers came by—but they had no guns this time, only the captive Arabs of the desert—we had the keepsakes ready in a wheelbarrow, and we were on the church-yard wall.
And the bold captain called an immediate halt.
Then the girls had the splendid honor and pleasure of giving a pipe and four whole ounces of tobacco to each soldier.
Then we shook hands with the captain and the sergeant and the corporals, and the girls kissed the captain—I can't think why girls will kiss everybody—and we all cheered for the Queen.
It was grand. And I wish my father had been there to see how much you can do with £12 if you order the things from the Stores.
We have never seen those brave soldiers again.
I have told you all this to show you how we got so keen about soldiers, and why we sought to aid and abet the poor widow at the white cottage in her desolate and oppressedness.
Her name was Simpkins, and her cottage was just beyond the church-yard, on the other side from our house. On the different military occasions which I have remarked upon this widow woman stood at her garden gate and looked on. And after the cheering she rubbed her eyes with her apron. Alice noticed this slight but signifying action.
We feel quite sure Mrs. Simpkins liked soldiers, and so we felt friendly to her. But when we tried to talk to her she would not. She told us to goalong with us, do, and not bother her. And Oswald, with his usual delicacy and good breeding, made the others do as she said.
But we were not to be thus repulsed with impunity. We made complete but cautious inquiries, and found out that the reason she cried when she saw soldiers was that she had only one son, a boy. He was twenty-two, and he had gone to the war last April. So that she thought of him when she saw the soldiers, and that was why she cried. Because when your son is at the wars you always think he is being killed. I don't know why. A great many of them are not. If I had a son at the wars I should never think he was dead till I heard he was, and perhaps not then, considering everything.
After we had found this out we held a council.
Dora said, "We must do something for the soldier's widowed mother."
We all agreed, but added, "What?"
Alice said, "The gift of money might be deemed an insult by that proud, patriotic spirit. Besides, we haven't more than eighteenpence among us."
We had put what we had to father's £12 to buy the baccy and pipes.
The Mouse then said, "Couldn't we make her a flannel petticoat and leave it without a word upon her doorstep?"
But every one said, "Flannel petticoats in this weather?" so that was no go.
Noël said he would write her a poem, but Oswald had a deep, inward feeling that Mrs. Simpkinswould not understand poetry. Many people do not.
H. O. said, "Why not sing 'Rule Britannia' under her window after she had gone to bed, like waits," but no one else thought so.
Denny thought we might get up a subscription for her among the wealthy and affluent, but we said again that we knew money would be no balm to the haughty mother of a brave British soldier.
"What we want," Alice said, "is something that will be a good deal of trouble to us and some good to her."
"A little help is worth a deal of poetry," said Denny. I should not have said that myself. Noël did look sick.
"Whatdoesshe do that we can help in?" Dora asked. "Besides, she won't let us help."
H. O. said, "She does nothing but work in the garden. At least if she does anything inside you can't see it, because she keeps the door shut."
Then at once we saw. And we agreed to get up the very next day, ere yet the rosy dawn had flushed the east, and have a go at Mrs. Simpkins's garden.
We got up. We really did. But too often when you mean to, over night, it seems so silly to do it when you come to waking in the dewy morn. We crept down-stairs with our boots in our hands. Denny is rather unlucky, though a most careful boy. It was he who dropped his boot, and it went blundering down the stairs,echoing like thunder-bolts, and waking up Albert's uncle. But when we explained to him that we were going to do some gardening he let us, and went back to bed.
Everything is very pretty and different in the early morning, before people are up. I have been told this is because the shadows go a different way from what they do in the awake part of the day. But I don't know. Noël says the fairies have just finished tidying up then. Anyhow it all feels quite otherwise.
We put on our boots in the porch, and we got our gardening tools and we went down to the white cottage. It is a nice cottage, with a thatched roof, like in the drawing-copies you get at girls' schools, and you do the thatch—if you can—with a B.B. pencil. If you cannot, you just leave it. It looks just as well, somehow, when it is mounted and framed.
We looked at the garden. It was very neat. Only one patch was coming up thick with weeds. I could see groundsell and chickweed, and others that I did not know. We set to work with a will. We used all our tools—spades, forks, hoes, and rakes—and Dora worked with the trowel, sitting down, because her foot was hurt. We cleared the weedy patch beautifully, scraping off all the nasty weeds and leaving the nice clean brown dirt. We worked as hard as ever we could. And we were happy, because it was unselfish toil, and no one thought then of putting it in the Book of Golden Deeds, where we had agreed to write downour virtuous actions and the good doings of each other, when we happen to notice them.
We had just done, and we were looking at the beautiful production of our honest labor, when the cottage door burst open, and the soldier's widowed mother came out like a wild tornado, and her eyes looked like upas-trees—death to the beholder.
"You wicked, meddlesome, nasty children!" she said, "ain't you got enough of your own good ground to runch up and spoil but you must come intomylittle lot?"
Some of us were deeply alarmed, but we stood firm.
"We have only been weeding your garden," Dora said; "we wanted to do something to help you."
"Dratted little busybodies," she said. It was indeed hard, but every one in Kent says "dratted" when they are cross. "It's my turnips," she went on, "you've hoed up, and my cabbages. My turnips that my boy sowed afore he went. There, get along with you, do, afore I come at you with my broom-handle."
She did come at us with her broom-handle as she spoke, and even the boldest turned and fled. Oswald was even the boldest.
"They looked like weeds right enough," he said.
And Dicky said, "It all comes of trying to do golden deeds."
This was when we were out in the road.
As we went along, in a silence full of gloomy remorse, we met the postman. He said:
"Here's the letters for the Moat," and passed on hastily. He was a bit late.
When we came to look through the letters, which were nearly all for Albert's uncle, we found there was a post-card that had got stuck in a magazine wrapper. Alice pulled it out. It was addressed to Mrs. Simpkins. We honorably only looked at the address, although it is allowed by the rules of honorableness to read post-cards that come to your house if you like, even if they are not for you.
After a heated discussion, Alice and Oswald said they were not afraid, whoever was, and they retraced their steps, Alice holding the post-card right way up, so that we should not look at the lettery part of it, but only the address.
With quickly beating heart, but outwardly unmoved, they walked up to the white cottage door.
It opened with a bang when we knocked.
"Well?" Mrs. Simpkins said, and I think she said it what people in books call "sourly."
Oswald said, "We are very, very sorry we spoiled your turnips, and we will ask my father to try and make it up to you some other way."
She muttered something about not wanting to be beholden to anybody.
"We came back," Oswald went on, with his always unruffled politeness, "because the postman gave us a post-card in mistake with our letters, and it is addressed to you."
"We haven't read it," Alice said, quickly. I think she needn't have said that. Of course wehadn't. But perhaps girls know better than we do what women are likely to think you capable of.
The soldier's mother took the post-card (she snatched it really, but "took" is a kinder word, considering everything) and she looked at the address a long time. Then she turned it over and read what was on the back. Then she drew her breath in as far as it would go, and caught hold of the door-post. Her face got awful. It was like the wax face of a dead king I saw once at Madame Tussaud's.
Alice understood. She caught hold of the soldier's mother's hand and said:
"Ohno—it'snotyour boy Bill!"
And the woman said nothing, but shoved the post-card into Alice's hand, and we both read it—and itwasher boy Bill.
Alice gave her back the card. She had held on to the woman's hand all the time, and now she squeezed the hand, and held it against her face. But she could not say a word because she was crying so. The soldier's mother took the card again and she pushed Alice away, but it was not an unkind push, and she went in and shut the door; and as Alice and Oswald went down the road Oswald looked back, and one of the windows of the cottage had a white blind. Afterwards the other windows had too. There were no blinds really to the cottage. It was aprons and things she had pinned up.
Alice cried most the morning, and so did the other girls. We wanted to do something for thesoldier's mother, but you can do nothing when people's sons are shot. It is the most dreadful thing to want to do something for people who are unhappy, and not to know what to do.
It was Noël who thought of what wecoulddo at last.
He said, "I suppose they don't put up tombstones to soldiers when they die in war. But there—I mean—"
Oswald said, "Of course not."
Noël said, "I dare say you'll think it's silly, but I don't care. Don't you think she'd like it if we put one up tohim? Not in the church-yard, of course, because we shouldn't be let, but in our garden, just where it joins on to the church-yard?"
And we all thought it was a first-rate idea.
This is what we meant to put on the tombstone: