FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   38   39   40   41   42   43   44   45   46   47   48   49   50   51   52   53   54   55   56   57   58   59   60   61   62  
63   64   65   66   67   68   69   70   71   72   73   74   75   76   77   78   79   80   81   82   83   84   85   86   87   >>   >|  
ange but attractive foods. In a story about Wouldbegoods it is not proper to tell of times when only some of us were naughty, so I will pass lightly over the time when Noel got up the kitchen chimney and brought three bricks and an old starling's nest and about a ton of soot down with him when he fell. They never use the big chimney in the summer, but cook in the wash-house. Nor do I wish to dwell on what H. O. did when he went into the dairy. I do not know what his motive was. But Mrs. Pettigrew said _she_ knew; and she locked him in, and said if it was cream he wanted he should have enough, and she wouldn't let him out till tea-time. The cat had also got into the dairy for some reason of her own, and when H. O. was tired of whatever he went in for he poured all the milk into the churn and tried to teach the cat to swim in it. He must have been desperate. The cat did not even try to learn, and H. O. had the scars on his hands for weeks. I do not wish to tell tales of H. O., for he is very young, and whatever he does he always catches it for; but I will just allude to our being told not to eat the greengages in the garden. And we did not. And whatever H. O. did was Noel's fault--for Noel told H. O. that greengages would grow again all right if you did not bite as far as the stone, just as wounds are not mortal except when you are pierced through the heart. So the two of them bit bites out of every greengage they could reach. And of course the pieces did not grow again. Oswald did not do things like these, but then he is older than his brothers. The only thing he did just about then was making a booby-trap for Mrs. Pettigrew when she had locked H. O. up in the dairy, and unfortunately it was the day she was going out in her best things, and part of the trap was a can of water. Oswald was not willingly vicious; it was but a light and thoughtless act which he had every reason to be sorry for afterwards. And he is sorry even without those reasons, because he knows it is ungentlemanly to play tricks on women. I remember mother telling Dora and me when we were little that you ought to be very kind and polite to servants, because they have to work very hard, and do not have so many good times as we do. I used to think about mother more at the Moat House than I did at Blackheath, especially in the garden. She was very fond of flowers, and she used to tell us about the big garden where she used to live; and, I remember, Dora
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   38   39   40   41   42   43   44   45   46   47   48   49   50   51   52   53   54   55   56   57   58   59   60   61   62  
63   64   65   66   67   68   69   70   71   72   73   74   75   76   77   78   79   80   81   82   83   84   85   86   87   >>   >|  



Top keywords:

garden

 

greengages

 

things

 

Oswald

 

locked

 

Pettigrew

 

chimney

 

remember

 

mother


reason

 
brothers
 

pieces

 

pierced

 
flowers
 

greengage

 

Blackheath

 

willingly

 

tricks


ungentlemanly
 

telling

 

servants

 

polite

 
reasons
 

mortal

 

vicious

 
thoughtless
 

making


summer

 

wanted

 

motive

 
Wouldbegoods
 

proper

 
naughty
 
attractive
 

lightly

 

starling


bricks

 

kitchen

 

brought

 

catches

 
allude
 

wouldn

 

poured

 

desperate

 
wounds