Part 10

Now Peter-Wise declared that he would not marry a maiden who was less than seventeen or more than twenty-two years old, and in the village there were only six girls between these ages who were not already betrothed or wed. Of these six, therefore—all of whom, being brought up on cream and honey and wheaten bread and saffron cake and wild strawberries, were bonny and plump and fair to see—Peter-Wise decided to choose the cleverest, who, nevertheless, must be just the least bit less clever than he was. So, to discover which was the cleverest, for, busy man that he was with his cows and his sheep and his pigs and his fowls—and his bull, he had not the time to woo each separately, he resolved to set them three tasks: one to try their fingers; one to try their brains; one to try their imaginations; and to marry her who succeeded best in the three.

So Peter-Wise summoned Mary and Sally and Polly and Minnie and Lucy, and Theophania, called Tiffany for short—these were the names of the girls—and said to them:

“Children, I will marry whichever of you can perform to the best advantage these three tasks: first, to darn a hole in the heel of a sock; secondly, to open, without touching the keyhole, the big barn door which is always locked; thirdly, to catch the moon and put it into a wash-tub.”

Mary and Sally and Polly and Minnie and Lucy said:

“Oh, the sock is easy enough, but the door and the moon——”

Theophania, called Tiffany for short, said: “The door and the moon should be easy enough, but the sock——”

The three trials were to take place in the morning, afternoon and evening respectively. So in the morning the six maidens assembled in Peter-Wise’s parlour—Mary and Sally and Polly and Minnie and Lucy in their best flowered-prints—Tiffany in a green smock; Tiffany had brown eyes, but the eyes of the others were five different shades of blue: speedwell, cornflower, lupin, forget-me-not, and chicory.

Peter-Wise gave them each a sock, out of which he had cut the heel, and left them for an hour to darn the hole. When he came back the six socks were lying on the table in a heap, finished. He examined them carefully. Then he said:

“Five of these socks are so perfectly darned that not one exceeds another in excellence. The sixth, however, is very badly done—a mere cobble. Come forward in turn, and let her who darned _this_ sock claim it.”

Mary tripped forward, looked at the sock, turned up her nose a little and shook her pretty head. “Not mine,” said she. Then came Sally and Polly and Minnie and Lucy, also turning up their noses a little and shaking their pretty heads and saying: “Not mine,” “Not mine,” “Not mine,” “Not mine.” Lastly, with a twinkle in her eye, came Theophania, called Tiffany for short.

“Mine,” she said. “I never, never shall be able to darn.”

“The first task is over,” announced Peter-Wise. “This afternoon meet me outside the big barn door which is always locked, at three o’clock.”

And away trotted Mary and Sally and Polly and Minnie and Lucy and Tiffany.

At three o’clock they met outside the big barn door, wearing pink and yellow and blue and white and green sunbonnets, and fluttering together like butterflies, except Tiffany, who did not wear a bonnet at all, and she stood by herself, thinking.

Peter-Wise said:

“This door, as you know, is always kept locked. Here is the key. Now, let me see which of you can open it without touching the keyhole, for I assure you it can quite easily be done.”

“How can we open a locked door without a key?” said Mary and Sally and Polly and Minnie and Lucy in dismay, and each thought—“It is useless trying the handle—besides, I should look so foolish, and the others would jeer.”

But Tiffany—who always thought her own thoughts, not other people’s—thought something quite different.

“We give it up,” sorrowfully said Mary and Sally and Polly and Minnie and Lucy.

“And you?” asked Peter-Wise of Tiffany.

Tiffany thought: “Because the door has always been locked before, that doesn’t prove it is locked to-day. Anyhow, here goes!” And she marched up to the big barn door, turned the handle, and—opened it wide!

“Oh!” cried Mary and Sally and Polly and Minnie and Lucy. “But it is always locked!”

“It wasn’t to-day,” said Theophania, called Tiffany for short; and she could not help laughing, kindly, at the five expressions of surprise on the five fair faces.

“The second task is over,” said Peter-Wise. “Now go and borrow your mothers’ wash-tubs, wait till the moon rises, catch it, and put it in the tub. Then come and fetch me.”

“But,” said Tiffany, “there is only one moon.”

“Exactly,” he replied, “therefore only one of you can succeed.”

Mary and Sally and Polly and Minnie and Lucy whispered together.

“He is making sport of us,” they agreed. “Not even Tiffany can catch the moon. We must give it up.” And each of them said in her heart: “After all, so-and-so would make a much better husband.”

So they gave it up.

But in the evening Tiffany came to Peter-Wise and said:

“I have caught the moon and put it into mother’s wash-tub. Come and see.”

“Caught the moon!” exclaimed Peter. “But there it is up in the sky!”

“Not at all,” replied she. “That is not the moon.”

The night was still and warm. Peter-Wise followed Tiffany to a water-meadow, in the middle of which was her mother’s wash-tub.

“There!” she cried, pointing. “Go and see if the moon isn’t in that tub.”

So he went up to it, looked over the edge, and there, sure enough, was the round, silver moon shining up at him.

“Well, but there are not two moons,” he said, looking at the other moon in the sky.

“How foolish you are!” said Tiffany. “That moon in the sky is just the reflection of the real moon in this tub.”

Peter-Wise was determined to make sure, so he took a penny out of his pocket and dropped it into the tub. It fell through the moon with a splash.

“Oh ho!” he exclaimed. “Whoever heard of a penny falling through the moon? This moon is made of water.”

“Nobody ever tried to throw a penny through before,” said Tiffany.

Then Peter-Wise kicked the tub, and the moon began to wobble. A piece of it splashed over the edge on to his boots.

“Whoever heard of the moon being spilt?” he asked.

“Nobody ever tried to spill it before,” said Tiffany.

Peter-Wise stroked his chin.

“I have it!” he cried, and grasping the tub, heaved it sideways and upset the mock moon on to the grass, where with little watery sighs it slowly disappeared.

“So much for your moon,” said he. “And behold its reflection is still in the sky!” But Tiffany only laughed and laughed and laughed.

“Yes,” said Peter to himself, “she is certainly the cleverest girl in the village, but just the least bit less clever than I am. I will marry her.” And aloud he said:

“Theophania, you shall, in spite of the sock and the moon that was not a moon, be my wife.”

“Peter-Wise,” she answered, “you shall not win me so easily. There is a task that _you_ shall perform for _me_ before I will marry you.”

“Well, that is only fair after all,” said he, rather taken aback.

“It is quite out of the question for me to marry you before I can darn a sock,” she continued, “but in six years I shall have perfected myself in that difficult art. Will you wait for me six years?”

This she said to try his love.

“I will wait,” said he, who really loved her, and knew something about women.

Now, at the end of three months Peter-Wise was still waiting for Theophania, and she realised that he would keep his word for the rest of the six years. But meanwhile she had learnt to darn as beautifully as Mary and Sally and Polly and Minnie and Lucy, who by this time were betrothed respectively to John and James and William and Tom and Adam. So she came to him one day with an example of her darning, and said:

“Peter, it has not taken me so long to learn to darn as I thought it would. How would it be if we were married _before_ the six years are up?”

“We will get married whenever you please, dear heart,” he said, not surprised.

“Well then,” she replied, “—to-morrow.”

And they were married at eleven o’clock the next morning.

The Weasel in the Storeroom

(_La Fontaine, Fables, III._, 17)

EDWARD MARSH

Into a storeroom once Miss Weasel came, Through a small hole squeezing her lank lean frame: From illness she had grown so slender. Once in, she made complete surrender To her capacious appetite, Nibbling and guzzling day and night. The life she led, Lord only knew, Or the amount of bacon she got through— Small wonder she grew chubby, plump, and sleek! After this diet for a week, She heard some noise which made her wish to egress. Where was the hole? She scuttled to and fro. Surely ’twas this one? No—then this? Still less. “Well, bless my soul!” she said, “’twas here, I know, I wriggled through, hardly a week ago.” A rat perceived how she was troubled. “Since you’ve been here,” said he, “your paunch has doubled. Thin you came in, and thin you must go out.”

This has been said to others, I’ve no doubt; But Reader, be it far from you or me To press the delicate analogy.[2]

Footnote 2:

The allusion is to the tribunal set up by Colbert to enquire into the peculations of the Financiers.

Love the Jealous

W. H. DAVIES

I praised the daisies on my lawn, And then my lady mowed them down. My garden stones, improved by moss, She moved—and that was Beauty’s loss. When I adored the sunlight, she Kept a bright fire indoors for me. She saw I loved the birds, and that Made her one day bring home a cat. She plucks my flowers to deck each room, And make me follow where they bloom. Because my friends were kind and many, She said—“What need has Love of any?” What is my gain, and what my loss? Fire without sun, stones bare of moss, Daisies beheaded, one by one; The birds cat-hunted, friends all gone— These are my losses: yet, I swear, A love less jealous in its care Would not be worth the changing skin That she and I are living in.

The Magic Medicine

BY DENIS MACKAIL

Once upon a time there was a very naughty little girl called Freda. She was what is known as an only child, and so you might have thought that her father and mother and her grandparents and her uncles and aunts and her nurse would have had all the more time for teaching her to be good. But though this was perfectly true, and they all worked very hard at saying “Don’t do that, Freda,” or “Put that down at once!” she continued to be extremely naughty.

She never tried to be polite to anybody, she used to tear her clothes on purpose, she used to break her toys, and walk in puddles, and snatch things from other children, and say things that weren’t true, and eat gravel and blow bubbles in her milk. If there are any other naughty things that I have forgotten to mention, then she did them too. And when she was scolded, instead of saying she was sorry, she used to lie down on the ground and bellow at the top of her voice.

For this reason the people who knew her best grew to be rather careful about scolding her—especially in the Park, where her behaviour had often attracted quite a crowd; but, of course, the only result of this was that she became far naughtier than ever.

Is that perfectly clear? Well, now we come to the story.

One afternoon she was taken to a children’s party, where there was not only a bran-pie but also a conjuror. Freda was fairly good while she was being dressed, and still fairly good while she was driving there in the taxi with her nurse, but as soon as she got to the party itself she just let herself go. She made a face at a little boy who was smaller than she was until he cried and had to be taken to sit upstairs. She snatched a balloon from another child and burst it, so that the child also cried and had to be taken to sit upstairs. And when the bran-pie came in, she felt about in it for nearly two minutes until she had found the largest parcel—which, of course, is cheating—and afterwards, because she didn’t like what was inside, she forced another little girl to change presents with her, and the other little girl cried and had to be taken to sit upstairs.

And when the conjuror was in the middle of his most difficult trick and had just got to the part where he was going to cut open an orange and take out of it a watch which he had borrowed from the father of the little girl who was giving the party, I am sorry to say that Freda shouted out: “It isn’t the same orange!”

This was exceedingly naughty of her, and distressed the conjuror more than I can say, as well as spoiling all the pleasure of the good children who thought it _was_ the same orange. And several of them were so much upset that they cried, and had to be taken to sit upstairs.

Freda’s nurse had seen her doing all these naughty things, but she had said to herself: “It’s no use my saying anything to Miss Freda now, because if I do she will only lie down on the floor and bellow at the top of her voice. It will be better to speak to her about it when we get home.” So she contented herself by making a stern face when she thought that Freda and no one else could see her. Only, as a matter of fact, she did this just at the wrong moment and missed Freda altogether, and only succeeded in frightening a little boy in a kilt. And he cried, and had to be taken to sit upstairs.

So Freda went on being naughtier and naughtier, and the room upstairs became fuller and fuller of other children, but the lady whose little girl was giving the party didn’t like to say anything because she thought, “Freda is an only child, and, anyhow, I needn’t ask her another time.” And Freda’s nurse didn’t like to say anything because (as I have already told you) she was afraid that Freda might disgrace her by lying down on the floor and bellowing at the top of her voice.

Is that all perfectly clear? Well, now we get on to what happened next.

All the children went into the dining-room, where there were so many buns and chocolates and crackers and pink cakes and sandwiches and other things of this nature that their eyes nearly popped out of their heads. And in the middle of the biggest table there was an enormous cake, and on the top of the enormous cake there was a rather smaller cake, and on the top of the rather smaller cake there was a golden star.

And as soon as Freda saw this golden star, she pointed at it (which, of course, she shouldn’t have done) and said in a very loud, clear voice: “I WANT THAT STAR.”

If only her nurse had heard these words, she would most certainly have said something which would have made Freda lie down on the floor and bellow at the top of her voice. For there is no need to explain how naughty it is to point at things in other people’s houses and say that you want them. No grown-up person would ever dream of doing a thing like that.

But, as a matter of fact, the nurse had just met another nurse who was a great friend of hers, and although they had had a long talk in the Park only that very morning, they still found they had so much to tell each other that neither of them heard what Freda was saying.

Is that all perfectly clear? Well, now Freda really _is_ going to be naughty.

For I am grieved to say that, having pushed a number of other children out of the way (several of whom cried and had to be taken to sit upstairs) she went on pushing until she had got right up to the middle table. And then, when no one was looking, she stood up very quickly on a chair and snatched at the golden star.

I really don’t know what, exactly, she meant to do with it, because she had no pocket in her party frock; and very likely if she had been left to herself she would have got tired of the golden star and dropped it under the table.

But just at this moment a little boy in a white silk blouse looked up and saw what she had done.

“Oh!” he said, in a very loud, clear voice. “Freda has taken the golden star.”

And all the other children began to shout and tell each other that Freda had taken the golden star. And Freda’s nurse heard the noise, and came quickly to see what had happened.

“What’s the matter, Miss Freda?” she said. “What did you do?”

“Nothing,” said Freda.

“She did,” said a little girl who had just lost all her front teeth. “She took the golden star off the top of the cake.”

“Put it back at once,” said Freda’s nurse.

“Shan’t!” said Freda.

And then the nurse saw it in her hand and tried to take it from her. And Freda never stopped to think what the star might be made of, but put it very quickly into her mouth, and crunched it into three bits, and swallowed them all with one swallow.

“I’ve swallowed it,” she said.

Her nurse turned first pink, then white, and then green in the face.

“Put it out at once,” she said.

“I can’t,” said Freda. “It’s gone.”

“Oh dear,” said the nurse. “Does anyone know what that star was made of?”

But nobody knew what the star was made of. Even the mother of the little girl whose party it was didn’t know.

“What did it taste like?” they asked Freda.

But she had swallowed it so quickly that she didn’t know.

“You’re a very naughty little girl,” said the nurse. And of course you can all guess what happened then. Freda got off her chair and lay down on the floor, and began to bellow at the top of her voice.

But it was far too serious a case to be treated merely by sending her to sit upstairs. For all that anyone knew the star might have been made of the most deadly kind of poison. So Freda’s nurse ran off and found her shawl, and she picked her up off the floor (where she was still bellowing at the top of her voice) and wrapped the shawl round her and carried her away and put her into a taxi, and they drove back to Freda’s home, and she missed the dancing altogether—which served her perfectly right.

And when they got home, the nurse went to the cupboard in the corner of the room and took out a very large bottle and a very small glass, and filled the very small glass from the very large bottle, and then she said to Freda:

“Now you must drink this.”

At these words Freda lay down on the floor and bellowed at the top of her voice.

“If you don’t drink it,” said the nurse, “you will have a terrible pain.”

“Whoo-hoo-hoo,” said Freda (for this was the way that she bellowed), and she crawled right under the table—in her best frock—and stayed there.

“Now, Miss Freda,” said the nurse presently, when everything else had failed, “I shall put this glass on the table here, and I shall go upstairs and turn on your bath, and if you haven’t drunk it by the time I come back again, I shall be very angry indeed.”

Then she left the room, and after a second Freda came out from under the table and picked up the glass and sloshed all the slimy stuff in it into the fireplace, and it spluttered and fizzed and disappeared from sight.

And when she had done this, she was terribly frightened.

She was so frightened that when the nurse came back and said, “Ah, that’s a good little girl. I see you’ve drunk it all up nicely,” she never said anything at all. She didn’t even bellow at the top of her voice.

All the time she was having her bath she was trying to say what she had done, but she never could quite bring herself to do it. And after she was in bed she called out suddenly to her nurse, meaning to say what she had done with the slimy stuff in the little glass; but when the nurse came in, she just couldn’t get it out. She pretended that she had wanted a drink of water, and the nurse gave it her and went away again, and Freda was left alone—still feeling terribly frightened.

“Supposing,” she thought, “that star really _was_ made of poison. Supposing that stuff I threw in the fire might have saved me. Oh dear, if the poison kills me now, it will be all my own fault.”

It was a long time before she could go to sleep, and in the morning she hadn’t been awake for more than five minutes when it all came back to her. But she had left it so long now, that it was quite impossible to tell anyone.

Is that all perfectly clear? Well, now I’ll tell you something that Freda doesn’t know to this day.

The mother of the little girl who had given the party had been so anxious about Freda that the very first thing in the morning she had telephoned to the shop where the cake had come from, and had asked the lady there what the star was made of. And the lady had said: “Sugar.” And the mother of the little girl who had given the party had telephoned to Freda’s house and had asked to speak to Freda’s nurse and had told her that the star was made of sugar. And when Freda’s nurse heard this she was very much relieved, but at the same time she wasn’t going to tell Freda that she had made her drink that slimy stuff (as she thought) for nothing at all. “If I do that,” she said to herself, “I shall never get Miss Freda to drink any medicine again.”

So she said nothing; and Freda—who of course hadn’t drunk even a drop of the slimy stuff—went about wondering when the poison was going to begin working, and whether it would hurt horribly when it did.

She was so frightened now that if only she could have got at the large bottle, she would have drunk it all up without saying anything—and that really _would_ have made her ill. But she couldn’t get at the large bottle, because the cupboard was out of her reach.

And so what do you think she did?

She went to the china pig in which she kept all her money, and she shook it and rattled it and waved it and waggled it until at last a very bright sixpence (which her grandfather had once given her) rolled out on to the floor. And she picked up this sixpence, and waited carefully until her nurse went up to the bathroom to wash out the party frock which had got all dirty from being under the table last night, and then she ran downstairs very quickly and let herself out by the front door and ran off to the chemist’s shop, which was just round the corner.

The chemist was a very old man with spectacles, and in the ordinary way Freda was rather frightened of him, but she was still more frightened of being poisoned, so she pushed open his door—which, always made a little bell ring—and went straight up to his counter and knocked on it with her sixpence.

Presently the old chemist came out and looked at her through his spectacles.

“And what can I do for you, miss?” he said.

“I want to buy some medicine,” said Freda, “that would save someone from being poisoned by a golden star on the top of a cake at a party. And it mustn’t cost more than sixpence, because that’s all I’ve got.”

“Dear, dear,” said the chemist. “And are you the little girl who ate the golden star?”

Freda would have liked to say “No,” but she didn’t dare.

“Yes,” she said, in a very small voice.

“Dear, dear,” said the chemist again. “That wasn’t very good of you, was it?”

“No,” said Freda, in a still smaller voice.

“And when did you eat it?” asked the old chemist.

“Yesterday,” said Freda.

“And do you still feel quite well?” asked the old chemist.

“Yes,” said Freda. “But I only pretended to drink the slimy stuff they gave me last night, and I’m afraid the poison may still be waiting inside me.”

“It seems to me,” said the chemist, “that what you really need is some medicine to make you good. Eh?”

He looked at her very hard through his spectacles as he said this, and Freda agreed at once.