Then Denny said, 'Why not wood and paint?' and he showed us how. We
got a board and two stumps from the carpenter's in the village, and we
painted it all white, and when that was dry Denny did the words on it.

It was something like this:

'IN MEMORY OF
BILL SIMPKINS

DEAD FOR QUEEN AND COUNTRY.

HONOUR TO HIS NAME AND ALL

OTHER BRAVE SOLDIERS.'

We could not get in what we meant to at first, so we had to give up the
poetry.

We fixed it up when it was dry. We had to dig jolly deep to get the
posts to stand up, but the gardener helped us.

Then the girls made wreaths of white flowers, roses and Canterbury
bells, and lilies and pinks, and sweet-peas and daisies, and put them
over the posts. And I think if Bill Simpkins had known how sorry we
were, he would have been glad. Oswald only hopes if he falls on the wild
battlefield, which is his highest ambition, that somebody will be as
sorry about him as he was about Bill, that's all!

When all was done, and what flowers there were over from the wreaths
scattered under the tombstone between the posts, we wrote a letter to
Mrs Simpkins, and said--

DEAR MRS SIMPKINS--

We are very, very sorry about the turnips and things, and we beg your
pardon humbly. We have put up a tombstone to your brave son.

And we signed our names. Alice took the letter.

The soldier's mother read it, and said something about our oughting to
know better than to make fun of people's troubles with our tombstones
and tomfoolery.

Alice told me she could not help crying.

She said--

'It's not! it's NOT! Dear, DEAR Mrs Simpkins, do come with me and see!
You don't know how sorry we are about Bill. Do come and see.

We can go through the churchyard, and the others have all gone in, so as
to leave it quiet for you. Do come.'

And Mrs Simpkins did. And when she read what we had put up, and Alice
told her the verse we had not had room for, she leant against the wall
by the grave--I mean the tombstone--and Alice hugged her, and they both
cried bitterly. The poor soldier's mother was very, very pleased, and
she forgave us about the turnips, and we were friends after that, but
she always liked Alice the best. A great many people do, somehow.

After that we used to put fresh flowers every day on Bill's tombstone,
and I do believe his mother was pleased, though she got us to move it
away from the churchyard edge and put it in a corner of our garde