The E. Nesbit Megapack: 26 Classic Novels and Stories (49 page)

His brothers and sisters felt themselves very noble and despised him. They did not know his thoughtful secret intention. But the gypsies did in a minute.

“Oh yes!” they said; “and then fetch the police with a pack of lies about it being your baby instead of ours! D’jever catch a weasel asleep?” they asked.

“If you’re hungry you can pick a bit along of us,”
said the light-haired gypsy-woman, not unkindly. “Here Levi, that blessed kid’ll howl all his buttons off. Give him to the little lady, and let’s see if they can’t get him used to us a bit.”

So the Lamb was handed back; but the gypsies crowded so closely that he could not possibly stop howling. Then the man with the red handkerchief said—

“Here, Pharaoh, make up the fire; and you girls see to the pot. Give the kid a chanst.” So the gypsies, very much against their will, went off to their work, and the children and the Lamb were left sitting on the grass.

“He’ll be all right at sunset,” Jane whispered. “But, oh, it is awful! Suppose they are frightfully angry when they come to their senses! They might beat us, or leave us tied to trees, or something.”

“No, they won’t,” Anthea said (“Oh, my Lamb, don’t cry any more, it’s all right, Panty’s got oo, duckie”); “they aren’t unkind people, or they wouldn’t be going to give us any dinner.”

“Dinner?” said Ro
bert; “I won’t touch their nasty dinner. It would choke me!”

The others thought so too then. But when the dinner was ready—it turned out to be supper, and happened between four and five—they were all glad enough to take what they could get. It was boiled rabbit, with onions, and some bird rather like a chicken, but stringier about its legs and with a stronger taste. The Lamb had bread soaked in hot water and brown sugar sprinkled on the top. He liked this very much, and consented to let the two gypsy women feed him with it, as he sat on Anthea’s lap. All that long hot afternoon Robert and Cyril and Anthea and Jane had to keep the Lamb amused and happy, while the gypsies looked eagerly on. By the time the shadows grew long and black across the meadows he had really “taken to” the woman with the light hair, and even consented to kiss his hand to the children, and to stand up and bow, with his hand on his chest—“like a gentleman”—to the two men. The whole gypsy camp was in raptures w
ith him, and his brothers and sisters could not help taking some pleasure in showing off his accomplishments to an audience so interested and enthusiastic. But they longed for sunset.

“We’re getting into the habit of longing for sunset,” Cyril whispered. “How I do wish we could wish something really sensible
, that would be of some use, so that we should be quite sorry when sunset came.”

The shadows got longer and longer, and at last there were no separate shadows any more, but one soft glowing shadow over everything; for the sun was out of sight—behind the hill—but he had not really set yet. The people who make the laws about lighting bicycle lamps are the people who decide when the sun sets; she has to do it too, to the minute, or they would know the reason why!

But the gypsies were getting impatient.

“Now, young’uns,” the red-handkerchief man said, “it’s time you were laying of your heads on your pillowses—so it is! The kid’s all right and friendly with us now—so you just hand him over and get home like yo
u said.”

The women and children came crowding round the Lamb, arms were held out, fingers snapped invitingly, friendly faces beaming with admiring smiles; but all failed to tempt the loyal Lamb. He clung with arms and legs to Jane, who happened to be holding him, and uttered the gloomiest roar of the whole day.

“It’s no good,” the woman said, “hand the little poppet over, miss. We’ll soon quiet him.”

And still the sun would not set.

“Tell her about how to put him to bed,” whispered Cyril; “anything to gain time—and be ready to bolt when the sun really does make up its silly old mind to set.”

“Yes, I’ll hand him over in just one minute,” Anthea began, talking very fast,—“but do let me just tell you he has a warm bath every night and cold in the morning, and he has a crockery rabbit to go into the warm bath with him, and little Samuel saying his prayers in white china on a red cushion for the co
ld bath; and he hates you to wash his ears, but you must; and if you let the soap get into his eyes, the Lamb—”

“Lamb kyes,” said he—he had stopped roaring to listen.

The woman laughed. “As if I hadn’t never bath’d a babby!” she said. “Come—give us a hold of him. Come to ’Melia, my precious—”

“G’way, ugsie!” replied the Lamb at once.

“Yes, but,” Anthea went on, “about his meals; you really
must
let me tell you he has an apple or banana every morning, and bread and milk for breakfast, and an egg for his tea sometimes, and—”

“I’ve brought up ten,” said the black ringleted woman, “besides the others. Come, miss, ’and ’im over—I can’t bear it no longer. I just must give him a hug.”

“We ain’t settled yet whose he’s to be, Esther,” said one of the men.

“It won’t be you, Esther, with seven of ’em at your tail a’ready.”

“I ain’t so sure of that,” said Esther’s husband.

“And ain’t I nobody, to have a say neither?” said the husband of ’Melia.

Zillah, the girl, said, “An’ me? I’m a single girl—and no one but ’im to look after—I ought to have him.”

“Hold your tongue!”

“Shut your mouth!”

“Don’t you show me no more of your imperence!”

Everyone was getting very angry. The dark gypsy faces were frowning and anxious-looking. Suddenly a change swept over them, as if some invisible sponge had wiped away these cross and anxious expressions, and left only a blank.

The children saw that the sun really
had
set. But they were afraid to move. And the gypsies were feeling so muddled because of the invisible sponge that had washed all the feelings of the last few hours out of their hearts, that they could not say a word.

The children hardly dared to breathe. Suppose the gypsies, when they recovered speech, should be furious to think how silly they had been all day?

It was an awkward moment. Suddenly Anthea, greatly daring, held out the Lamb to the red-handkerchief man.

“Here he is!” she said.

The man drew back. “I shouldn’t like to deprive you, miss,” he said hoarsely.

“Anyone who likes can have my share of him,” said the other man.

“After all, I’ve got enough of my own,” said Esther.

“He’s a nice little chap, though,” said Amelia. She was the only one who now looked affectionately at the whimpering Lamb.

Zillah said, “If I don’t think I must have had a touch of the sun.
I
don’t want him.”

“Then shall we take him away?” said Anthea.

“Well—suppose you do,” said Pharaoh heartily, “and we’ll say no more about it!”

And with great haste all the gypsies began to be busy about their tents for the night. All but Amelia. She went with the children as far as the bend in the road—and there she said—

“Let me give him a kiss, miss,—I don’t know what made us go for to behave so silly. Us gypsies don’t steal babies, whatever they may tell you when you’re naughty. We’ve enough of our own, mostly. But I’ve lost all mine.”

She leaned towards the Lamb; and he, looking in her eyes, unexpectedly put up a grubby soft paw and stroked her face.

“Poor, poor!” said the Lamb. And he let the gypsy woman kiss him, and, what is more, he kissed her brown cheek in return—a very nice kiss, as all his kisses are, and not a wet one like some babies give. The gypsy woman moved her finger about on his forehead as if she had been writing something there, and the same with his chest and his hands and his feet; then she said—

“May he be brave, and have the strong head to think with, and the strong heart to love with, and the strong arms to work with, and the strong feet to travel with, and always come safe home to his own.” Then she said something in a strange language no one could understand, and suddenly added—

“Well, I must be saying ‘so long’—and glad to have made your acquaintance.” And she turned and went back to her home—the tent by the grassy roadside.

The children looked after her till she was out of sight. Then Robert said, “How silly of her! Even sunset didn’t put
her
right. What rot she talked!”

“Well,” said Cyril, “if you ask me, I think it was rather decent of her—”

“Decent?” said Anthea; “it was very nice indeed of her. I think she’s a dear—”

“She’s just too frightfully nice for anything,” said Jane.

And they went home—very late for tea and unspea
kably late for dinner. Martha scolded, of course. But the Lamb was safe.

“I say—it turned out we wanted the Lamb as much as anyone,” said Robert, later.

“Of course.”

“But do you feel different about it now the sun’s set?”

“
No
,” said all the others together.

“Then it’s lasted over sunset with us.”

“No, it hasn’t,” Cyril explained. “The wish didn’t do anything to
us
. We always wanted him with all our hearts when we were our proper selves, only we were all pigs this morning; especially you, Robert.” Robert bore this much with a strange calm.

“I certainly
thought
I didn’t want him this morning,” said he. “Perhaps I
was
a pig. But everything looked so different when we thought we were going to lose him.”

And that, my dear children, is the moral of this chapter. I did not mean it to have a moral, but morals are nasty forward beings, and will keep putting in their oars where they are not wanted. And since the moral has crept i
n, quite against my wishes, you might as well think of it next time you feel piggy yourself and want to get rid of any of your brothers and sisters. I hope this doesn’t often happen, but I daresay it has happened sometimes, even to you!

CHAPT
ER IV

WINGS

The next day was very wet—too wet to go out, and far too wet to think of disturbing a Sand-fairy so sensitive to water that he still, after thousands of years, felt the pain of once having his left whisker wetted. It was a long day, and it was not till the afternoon that all the children suddenly decided to write letters to their mother. It was Robert who had the misfortune to upset the ink well—an unusually deep and full one—straight into that part of Anthea’s desk where she had long pretended that an arrangement of mucilage and cardboard painted with Indian ink was a secret drawer. It was not exactly Robert’s fault; it was only his misfortune that he chanced to be lifting the ink across the desk just at the moment when Anthea had got it open, and that that same moment should have been the one chosen by the Lamb to g
et under the table and break his squeaking bird. There was a sharp convenient wire inside the bird, and of course the Lamb ran the wire into Robert’s leg at once; and so, without anyone’s meaning to do it the secret drawer was flooded with ink. At the same time a stream was poured over Anthea’s half-finished letter.

So that her letter was something like this—

“Darling Mother,—I hope you are quite well, and I hope Granny is better. The other day we.…”

Then came a flood of ink, and at the bottom these words in pencil—

“It was not me upset the ink, but it took such a time clearing up, so no more as it is post-time.—From your loving daughter “Anthea.”

Robert’s letter had not even been begun. He had been drawing a ship on the blotting paper while he was trying to think of what to say. And of course after the ink was upset he had to help Anthea to clean out her desk, and he promised to make her another secret drawer, better than th
e other. And she said, “Well, make it now.” So it was post-time and his letter wasn’t done. And the secret drawer wasn’t done either.

Cyril wrote a long letter, very fast, and then went to set a trap for slugs that he had read about in the
Home-made Gardener
, and when it was post-time the letter could not be found, and it was never found. Perhaps the slugs ate it.

Jane’s letter was the only one that went. She meant to tell her mother all about the Psammead,—in fact they had all meant to do this,—but she spent so long thinking how to spell the word that there was no time to tell the story properly, and it is useless to tell a story unless you
do
tell it properly, so she had to be contented with this—

My dear Mother Dear,—

We are all as good as we can, like you told us to, and the Lamb has a little cold, but Martha says it is nothing, only he upset the gold-fish into himself yesterday morning. When we were up at the sand-pit the other day we went round by the safe way where carts go, and we found a—

* * * *

Half an hour went
by before Jane felt quite sure that they could none of them spell Psammead. And they could not find it in the dictionary either, though they looked. Then Jane hastily finished her letter—

We found a strange thing, but it is nearly post-time, so no more at present from your little girl,

Jane.

P.S.—If you could have a wish come true what would you have?”

Then the postman was heard blowing his horn, and Robert rushed out in the rain to stop his cart and give him the letters. And that was how it happened that, though all the children meant to tell their mother about the Sand-fairy, somehow or other she never got to know. There were other reasons why she never got to know, but these come later.

* * * *

The next day Uncle Richard came and took them all to Maidstone in a wagonette—all except the Lamb. Uncle Richard was the very best kind of uncle. He bought them toys at Maidstone. He took them into a shop and let them all choose exactly what they wanted, without any restrictio
ns about price, and no nonsense about things being instructive. It is very wise to let children choose exactly what they like, because they are very foolish and inexperienced, and sometimes they will choose a really instructive thing without meaning to do so. This happened to Robert, who chose, at the last moment, and in a great hurry, a box with pictures on it of winged bulls with men’s heads and winged men with eagles’ heads. He thought there would be animals inside, the same as on the box. When he got it home it was a Sunday puzzle about ancient Nineveh! The others chose in haste, and were happy at leisure. Cyril had a model engine, and the girls had two dolls, as well as a china tea-set with forget-me-nots on it, to be “between them.” The boys’ “between them” was bow and arrow.

Then Uncle Richard took them on the beautiful Medway in a boat, and then they all had tea at a beautiful confectioner’s and when they reached home it was far too late to have any wishes that day.

They did not tell Unc
le Richard anything about the Psammead. I do not know why. And they do not know why. But I daresay you can guess.

The day after Uncle Richard had behaved so handsomely was a very hot day indeed. The people who decide what the weather is to be, and put its orders down for it in the newspapers every morning, said afterwards that it was the hottest day there had been for years. They had ordered it to be “warmer—some showers,” and warmer it certainly was. In fact it was so busy being warmer that it had no time to attend to the order about showers, so there weren’t any.