The Wouldbegoods (11 page)

While we were being told this Oswald’s trembling fingers felt at the wet cricket ball in his pocket. And he
knew
, but he
could
not tell. He heard them wondering what the obstruction could have been, and all the time he had the obstruction in his pocket, and never said a single word.

I do not seek to defend him. But it really was an awful thing to have been the cause of; and Mrs Pettigrew is but harsh and hasty. But this, as Oswald knows too well, is no excuse for his silent conduct.

That night at tea Albert’s uncle was rather silent too. At last he looked upon us with a glance full of intelligence, and said –

‘There was a queer thing happened yesterday. You know there was an angling competition. The pen was kept full on purpose. Some mischievous busybody went
and opened the sluices and let all the water out. The anglers’ holiday was spoiled. No, the rain wouldn’t have spoiled it anyhow, Alice; anglers
like
rain. The Rose and Crown dinner was half of it wasted because the anglers were so furious that a lot of them took the next train to town. And this is the worst of all – a barge, that was on the mud in the pen below, was lifted and jammed across the river and the water tilted her over, and her cargo is on the river bottom. It was coals.’

During this speech there were four of us who knew not where to turn our agitated glances. Some of us tried bread-and-butter, but it seemed dry and difficult, and those who tried tea choked and spluttered and were sorry they had not let it alone. When the speech stopped Alice said, ‘It was us.’

And with deepest feelings she and the rest of us told all about it.

Oswald did not say much. He was turning the obstruction round and round in his pocket, and wishing with all his sentiments that he had owned up like a man when Albert’s uncle asked him before tea to tell him all about what had happened during the night.

When they had told all, Albert’s uncle told us four still more plainly, and exactly, what we had done, and how much pleasure we had spoiled, and how much of my father’s money we had wasted – because he would have to pay for the coals being got up from the bottom of the river, if they could be, and if not, for the price of the coals. And we saw it
all
.

And when he had done Alice burst out crying over her plate and said –

‘It’s no use! We
have
tried to be good since we’ve been down here. You don’t know how we’ve tried! And it’s all no use. I believe we are the wickedest children in the whole world, and I wish we were all dead!’

This was a dreadful thing to say, and of course the rest of us were all very shocked. But Oswald could not help looking at Albert’s uncle to see how he would take it.

He said very gravely, ‘My dear kiddie, you ought to be sorry, and I wish you to be sorry for what you’ve done. And you will be punished for it.’ (We were; our pocket money was stopped and we were forbidden to go near the river, besides impositions miles long.) ‘But,’ he went on, ‘you mustn’t give up trying to be good. You are extremely naughty and tiresome, as you know very well.’

Alice, Dicky and Noel began to cry at about this time.

‘But you are not the wickedest children in the world by any means.’

Then he stood up and straightened his collar, and put his hands in his pockets.

‘You’re very unhappy now,’ he said, ‘and you deserve to be. But I will say one thing to you.’

Then he said a thing which Oswald at least will never forget (though but little he deserved it, with the obstruction in his pocket, unowned up to all the time).

He said, ‘I have known you all for four years – and you know as well as I do how many scrapes I’ve seen you in and out of – but I’ve never known one of you tell a lie, and I’ve never known one of you do a mean or dishonourable action. And when you have done wrong you are always sorry. Now this is something to stand firm on. You’ll learn to be good in the other ways some day.’

He took his hands out of his pockets, and his face looked different, so that three of the four guilty creatures knew he was no longer adamant, and they threw themselves into his arms. Dora, Denny, Daisy, and H.O., of course, were not in it, and I think they thanked their stars.

Oswald did not embrace Albert’s uncle. He stood there and made up his mind he would go for a soldier. He gave the wet ball one last squeeze, and took his hand out of his pocket, and said a few words before going to enlist. He said –

‘The others may deserve what you say. I hope they do, I’m sure. But I don’t, because it was my rotten cricket ball that stopped up the pipe and caused the midnight flood in our bedroom. And I knew it quite early this morning. And I didn’t own up.’

Oswald stood there covered with shame, and he could feel the hateful cricket ball heavy and cold against the top of his leg, through the pocket.

Albert’s uncle said – and his voice made Oswald hot all over, but not with shame – he said –

I shall not tell you what he said. It is no one’s business but Oswald’s; only I will own it made Oswald not quite so anxious to run away for a soldier as he had been before.

That owning up was the hardest thing I ever did. They did put that in the Book of Golden Deeds, though it was not a kind or generous act, and did no good to anyone or anything except Oswald’s own inside feelings. I must say I think they might have let it alone. Oswald would rather forget it. Especially as Dicky wrote it in and put this:

‘Oswald acted a lie, which, he knows, is as bad as telling one. But he owned up when he needn’t have, and this condones his sin. We think he was a thorough brick to do it.’

Alice scratched this out afterwards and wrote the record of the incident in more flattering terms. But Dicky had used Father’s ink, and she used Mrs Pettigrew’s, so anyone can read his underneath the scratching outs.

The others were awfully friendly to Oswald, to show they agreed with Albert’s uncle in thinking I deserved as much share as anyone in any praise there might be going.

It was Dora who said it all came from my quarrelling with Noel about that rotten cricket ball; but Alice, gently yet firmly, made her shut up.

I let Noel have the ball. It had been thoroughly soaked, but it dried all right. But it could never be the same to me after what it had done and what I had done.

I hope you will try to agree with Albert’s uncle and not think foul scorn of Oswald because of this story. Perhaps you have done things nearly as bad yourself sometimes. If you have, you will know how ‘owning up’ soothes the savage breast and alleviates the gnawings of remorse.

If you have never done naughty acts I expect it is only because you never had the sense to think of anything.

chapter six

the circus

The ones of us who had started the Society of the Wouldbegoods began, at about this time, to bother.

They said we had not done anything really noble – not worth speaking of, that is – for over a week, and that it was high time to begin again – ‘with earnest endeavour’, Daisy said. So then Oswald said –

‘All right; but there ought to be an end to everything. Let’s each of us think of one really noble and unselfish act, and the others shall help to work it out, like we did when we were Treasure Seekers. Then when everybody’s had their go-in we’ll write every single thing down in the Golden Deed book, and we’ll draw two lines in red ink at the bottom, like Father does at the end of an account. And after that, if anyone wants to be good they can jolly well be good on our own, if at all.’

The ones who had made the Society did not welcome this wise idea, but Dicky and Oswald were firm.

So they had to agree. When Oswald is really firm, opposingness and obstinacy have to give way.

Dora said, ‘It would be a noble action to have all the school children from the village and give them tea and games in the paddock. They would think it so nice and good of us.’

But Dicky showed her that this would not be
our
good act, but Father’s, because he would have to pay for the tea, and he had already stood us the keepsakes for the soldiers, as well as having to stump up heavily over the coal barge. And it is in vain being noble and generous when someone else is paying for it all the time, even if it happens to be your father. Then three others had ideas at the same time and began to explain what they were.

We were all in the dining room, and perhaps we were making a bit of a row. Anyhow, Oswald, for one, does not blame Albert’s uncle for opening his door and saying –

‘I suppose I must not ask for complete silence. That were too much. But if you could whistle, or stamp with your feet, or shriek or howl – anything to vary the monotony of your well-sustained conversation.’

Oswald said kindly, ‘We’re awfully sorry. Are you busy?’

‘Busy?’ said Albert’s uncle. ‘My heroine is now hesitating on the verge of an act which, for good or ill, must influence her whole subsequent career. You wouldn’t like her to decide in the middle of such a row that she can’t hear herself think?’

We said, ‘No, we wouldn’t.’

Then he said, ‘If any outdoor amusement should commend itself to you this bright mid-summer day.’ So we all went out.

Then Daisy whispered to Dora – they always hang together. Daisy is not nearly so white-micey as she was at first, but she still seems to fear the deadly ordeal of public speaking. Dora said –

‘Daisy’s idea is a game that’ll take us all day. She thinks keeping out of the way when he’s making his heroine
decide right would be a noble act, and fit to write in the Golden Book; and we might as well be playing something at the same time.’

We all said ‘Yes, but what?’

There was a silent interval.

‘Speak up, Daisy, my child,’ Oswald said; ‘fear not to lay bare the utmost thoughts of that faithful heart.’

Daisy giggled. Our own girls never giggle – they laugh right out or hold their tongues. Their kind brothers have taught them this. Then Daisy said –

‘If we could have a sort of play to keep us out of the way. I once read a story about an animal race. Everybody had an animal, and they had to go how they liked, and the one that got in first got the prize. There was a tortoise in it, and a rabbit, and a peacock, and sheep, and dogs, and a kitten.’

This proposal left us cold, as Albert’s uncle says, because we knew there could not be any prize worth bothering about. And though you may be ever ready and willing to do anything for nothing, yet if there’s going to be a prize there must
be
a prize and there’s an end of it.

Thus the idea was not followed up. Dicky yawned and said, ‘Let’s go into the barn and make a fort.’

So we did, with straw. It does not hurt straw to be messed about with like it does hay.

The downstairs – I mean down-ladder – part of the barn was fun too, especially for Pincher. There was as good ratting there as you could wish to see. Martha tried it, but she could not help running kindly beside the rat, as if she was in double harness with it. This is the noble
bulldog’s gentle and affectionate nature coming out. We all enjoyed the ratting that day, but it ended, as usual, in the girls crying because of the poor rats. Girls cannot help this; we must not be waxy with them on account of it, they have their nature, the same as bulldogs have, and it is this that makes them so useful in smoothing the pillows of the sickbed and tending wounded heroes.

However, the forts, and Pincher, and the girls crying, and having to be thumped on the back, passed the time very agreeably till dinner. There was roast mutton with onion sauce, and a roly-poly pudding.

Albert’s uncle said we had certainly effaced ourselves effectually, which means we hadn’t bothered.

So we determined to do the same during the afternoon, for he told us his heroine was by no means out of the wood yet.

And at first it was easy. Jam roly gives you a peaceful feeling and you do not at first care if you never play any runabout game ever any more. But after a while the torpor begins to pass away. Oswald was the first to recover from his.

He had been lying on his front part in the orchard, but now he turned over on his back and kicked his legs up, and said –

‘I say, look here; let’s do something.’

Daisy looked thoughtful. She was chewing the soft yellow parts of grass, but I could see she was still thinking about that animal race. So I explained to her that it would be very poor fun without a tortoise and a peacock, and she saw this, though not willingly.

It was H.O. who said –

‘Doing anything with animals is prime, if they only will. Let’s have a circus!’

At the word the last thought of the pudding faded from Oswald’s memory, and he stretched himself, sat up, and said –

‘Bully for H.O. Let’s!’

The others also threw off the heavy weight of memory, and sat up and said ‘Let’s!’ too.

Never, never in all our lives had we had such a gay galaxy of animals at our command. The rabbits and the guinea pigs, and even all the bright, glass-eyed, stuffed denizens of our late-lamented jungle paled into insignificance before the number of live things on the farm.

(I hope you do not think that the words I use are getting too long. I know they are the right words. And Albert’s uncle says your style is always altered a bit by what you read. And I have been reading the Vicomte de Bragelonne. Nearly all my new words come out of those.)

‘The worst of a circus is,’ Dora said, ‘that you’ve got to teach the animals things. A circus where the performing creatures hadn’t learned performing would be a bit silly. Let’s give up a week to teaching them and then have the circus.’

Some people have no idea of the value of time. And Dora is one of those who do not understand that when you want to do a thing you do want to, and not to do something else, and perhaps your own thing, a week later.

Oswald said the first thing was to collect the performing animals.

‘Then perhaps,’ he said, ‘we may find that they have hidden talents hitherto unsuspected by their harsh masters.’

So Denny took a pencil and wrote a list of the animals required. This is it:

Daisy ought to have been captain because it was partly her idea, but she let Oswald be, because she is of a retiring character. Oswald said –

‘The first thing is to get all the creatures together; the paddock at the side of the orchard is the very place, because the hedge is good all round. When we’ve got the performers all there we’ll make a programme, and then dress for our parts. It’s a pity there won’t be any audience but the turkeys.’

We took the animals in their right order, according to Denny’s list. The bull was the first. He is black. He does
not live in the cowhouse with the other horned people; he has a house all to himself two fields away. Oswald and Alice went to fetch him. They took a halter to lead the bull by, and a whip, not to hurt the bull with, but just to make him mind.

The others were to try to get one of the horses while we were gone.

Oswald as usual was full of bright ideas.

‘I daresay,’ he said, ‘the bull will be shy at first, and he’ll have to be goaded into the arena.’

‘But goads hurt,’ Alice said.

‘They don’t hurt the bull,’ Oswald said; ‘his powerful hide is too thick.’

‘Then why does he attend to it,’ Alice asked, ‘if it doesn’t hurt?’

‘Properly brought-up bulls attend because they know they ought,’ Oswald said. ‘I think I shall ride the bull,’ the brave boy went on. ‘A bullfight, where an intrepid rider appears on the bull, sharing its joys and sorrows. It would be something quite new.’

‘You can’t ride bulls,’ Alice said; ‘at least, not if their backs are sharp like cows.’

But Oswald thought he could. The bull lives in a house made of wood and prickly furze bushes, and he has a yard to his house. You cannot climb on the roof of his house at all comfortably.

When we got there he was half in his house and half out in his yard, and he was swinging his tail because of the flies which bothered. It was a very hot day.

‘You’ll see,’ Alice said, ‘he won’t want a goad. He’ll be so glad to get out for a walk he’ll drop his head in
my hand like a tame fawn, and follow me lovingly all the way.’

Oswald called to him. He said, ‘Bull! Bull! Bull! Bull!’ because we did not know the animal’s real name. The bull took no notice; then Oswald picked up a stone and threw it at the bull, not angrily, but just to make it pay attention. But the bull did not pay a farthing’s worth of it. So then Oswald leaned over the iron gate of the bull’s yard and just flicked the bull with the whiplash. And then the bull
did
pay attention. He started when the lash struck him, then suddenly he faced round, uttering a roar like that of the wounded King of Beasts, and putting his head down close to his feet he ran straight at the iron gate where we were standing.

Alice and Oswald mechanically turned away; they did not wish to annoy the bull any more, and they ran as fast as they could across the field so as not to keep the others waiting.

As they ran across the field Oswald had a dream-like fancy that perhaps the bull had rooted up the gate with one paralysing blow, and was now tearing across the field after him and Alice, with the broken gate balanced on its horns. We climbed the stile quickly and looked back; the bull was still on the right side of the gate.

Oswald said, ‘I think we’ll do without the bull. He did not seem to want to come. We must be kind to dumb animals.’

Alice said, between laughing and crying –

‘Oh, Oswald, how can you!’

But we did do without the bull, and we did not tell the others how we had hurried to get back. We just said, ‘The bull didn’t seem to care about coming.’

The others had not been idle. They had got old Clover, the carthorse, but she would do nothing but graze, so we decided not to use her in the bullfight, but to let her be the Elephant. The Elephant’s is a nice quiet part, and she was quite big enough for a young one. Then the black pig could be Learned, and the other two could be something else. They had also got the goat; he was tethered to a young tree.

The donkey was there. Denny was leading him in the halter. The dogs were there, of course – they always are.

So now we only had to get the turkeys for the applause and the calves and pigs.