lwyn), but they told Mother
they did not seem to want Mrs. Viney, and that she was an old muddler.
So Mrs. Viney came only two days a week to do washing and ironing. Then
Clara and Ethelwyn said they could do the work all right if they weren't
interfered with, and that meant that the children no longer got the tea
and cleared it away and washed up the tea-things and dusted the rooms.

This would have left quite a blank in their lives, although they
had often pretended to themselves and to each other that they hated
housework. But now that Mother had no writing and no housework to do,
she had time for lessons. And lessons the children had to do. However
nice the person who is teaching you may be, lessons are lessons all the
world over, and at their best are worse fun than peeling potatoes or
lighting a fire.

On the other hand, if Mother now had time for lessons, she also had time
for play, and to make up little rhymes for the children as she used
to do. She had not had much time for rhymes since she came to Three
Chimneys.

There was one very odd thing about these lessons. Whatever the children
were doing, they always wanted to be doing something else. When Peter
was doing his Latin, he thought it would be nice to be learning History
like Bobbie. Bobbie would have preferred Arithmetic, which was what
Phyllis happened to be doing, and Phyllis of course thought Latin much
the most interesting kind of lesson. And so on.

So, one day, when they sat down to lessons, each of them found a little
rhyme at its place. I put the rhymes in to show you that their Mother
really did understand a little how children feel about things, and also
the kind of words they use, which is the case with very few grown-up
people. I suppose most grown-ups have very bad memories, and have
forgotten how they felt when they were little. Of course, the verses are
supposed to be spoken by the children.

PETER

I once thought Caesar easy pap--
How very soft I must have been!
When they start Caesar with a chap
He little know what that will mean.
Oh, verbs are silly stupid things.
I'd rather learn the dates of kings!

BOBBIE

The worst of all my lesson things
Is learning who succeeded who
In all the rows of queens and kings,
With dates to everything they do:
With dates enough to make you sick;--
I wish it was Arithmetic!

PHYLLI