by Enid Blyton
The responses to those questions are based on comments by Enid Blyton in her autobiography, The Story of My Life, © Hodder & Stoughton, 1952.
In 1920, Enid Blyton became a governess to the four Thompson children, whose ages ranged from four to ten. The family lived in Surbiton, in Surrey, in a house called ‘Southernhay’. Enid had a small room which overlooked the garden, and it was there that she wrote many of her stories. Enid’s tiny class often had lessons outdoors in the summer months.
Enid was very popular with her students, because her lessons were both practical and creative. She worked with them to put on performances for which they made props, costumes and invitations – and even sold tickets.
In 1941, she published a long story called ‘What They Did at Miss Brown’s School’, which was divided into monthly episodes. It’s been hard to find for many years, but you can read extracts in these new editions
of the Naughtiest Girl books. The character of Miss Brown and her tiny class is very much based on Enid Blyton and her school at the Thompsons’ . . .
Here’s the eighth extract . . .
September. Planning for the Spring-time.
Bulbs for the Classroom.
WHEN THE children came back to school at the beginning of September, they were delighted to see that Miss Brown had set out a good many of their sea-shells on cards.
‘You must print the names neatly underneath and let me see how many you remember,’ said Miss Brown. ‘And Mary shall hang the seaweed up outside the window and tell us each day what the weather is going to be!’
John saw that Miss Brown had put up a big blank Nature Chart on the wall. It was headed WINTER TERM.
‘Oh, Miss Brown!’ he said, making a face, ‘winter term! How horrid that sounds! Here we are still in summery weather, with the blue sky above and the sun so hot that I can’t wear a coat – and you are going to make us keep a chart for the WINTER TERM!’
Miss Brown laughed. ‘You will find it is winter when the middle of November comes,’ she said, ‘and our swallows and martins are gone, and there are few flowers left and few leaves on the trees!’
‘I like the spring best of all,’ said Mary. ‘I wish we could have a bit of spring in the middle of winter, Miss Brown – wouldn’t it be lovely?’
‘Well, I don’t see why we shouldn’t,’ said Miss Brown unexpectedly. ‘How would you like to smell the delicious sweetness of hyacinths in December, and to see the gold of daffodils and the red of tulips in the New Year?’
‘Oh yes, let’s!’ cried the children.
‘How can we do that?’ asked Mary.
‘We’ll plant all kinds of bulbs in bowls,’ said Miss Brown. ‘If we do them this month the first of them will be out by Christmas, and we shall really feel that spring can’t be very far off, even if snow is thick on the ground!’
‘I can bring two bowls, Miss Brown,’ said Susan. ‘I’ve got two of my own at home.’
‘Well, if you will all try to bring the bowls I will buy the bulbs and the fibre to plant them in,’ said Miss Brown. ‘A friend has kindly given me some money to spend on flowers – and I think it would be a fine way to spend it – to buy bulbs that will give us flowers in the middle of winter.’
Well, that week the children brought six bowls, big and small. There were two blue bowls, two green ones, a yellow one and a brown one. Miss Brown was so pleased. She brought out from the cupboard four tall glass vases, nipped in at the neck, which she said were hyacinth glasses.
‘They are rather like acorn glasses but much bigger,’ said Susan. ‘Do we just put the bulb at the top, here, Miss Brown?’
‘Yes, and we put water in up to the neck,’ said Miss Brown, ‘with a bit of charcoal to keep the water sweet – and the hyacinth bulb will put its roots out into the water and grow well.’
‘Can we come with you to buy the bulbs?’ asked John. ‘What are you going to buy?’
‘Well, we will have some white Roman hyacinths for one bowl,’ said Miss Brown. ‘They will be out in December. We will also have a bowl of paper-white narcissi – they flower very early too.’
‘And let’s have some red tulips!’ begged Mary.
‘Very well,’ said Miss Brown, ‘and we must have some ordinary hyacinths as well – we’ll get bright blue for this blue bowl.’
‘And can we have some daffodils?’ asked Peter. ‘I do love those.’
‘Yes – this deep, tall bowl will do for those,’ said Miss Brown. ‘They grow a bit leggy.’
‘That leaves one empty bowl,’ said Susan. ‘Can I choose something for it, Miss Brown? I’d like crocuses!’
‘Yes, crocuses would be lovely in that little green bowl,’ said Miss Brown. ‘And we will grow red, white, blue and pink hyacinths in the glasses – one for each of you! We can set those on the window-sill and watch them. We shall not need to put them away in the dark, as we shall with the other bowls.
‘Let’s go and buy the bulbs tomorrow!’ cried John. So the next day they set out to get them. They soon arrived at the same shop where they had bought their garden seeds and the shopman was pleased to see them.
‘I’ve some fine bulbs,’ he said, ‘all ready prepared for growing early. It’s no good growing ordinary garden bulbs in bowls, you know, Miss Brown – they won’t come out any earlier than the ones out of doors. You want to buy specially prepared bowl-bulbs.’
‘Yes, I know,’ said Miss Brown. ‘Now, children, here are the hyacinths – big, round, fat bulbs with purplish-brown scales. Feel them and choose one good solid one for yourselves, any colour you like. Be sure the bulbs don’t feel soft or pulpy – they will not grow if they do.
Susan chose a fat hyacinth bulb that would have a blue flower. Mary chose a pink one, Peter chose a white one and John had a red one. The shopman put each into a small bag and wrote the colour on in pencil.
Miss Brown had chosen fifteen small Roman hyacinth bulbs. They were not nearly so big as the children’s bulbs. ‘But, you see,’ said Miss Brown, ‘Roman hyacinths are almost like white bluebells – not really like the big hyacinths you see in gardens. The flowers are smaller, so the bulbs are smaller.’
Then she chose six fine blue hyacinths. That was for another bowl. Then she and the children picked out six brown-skinned daffodil bulbs, and six neat red-brown tulips.
‘There are the paper-white narcissi,’ said the shopman, bringing some bulbs that looked rather like small daffodil bulbs. ‘These will flower very early. How many will you have?’
They chose six. And then they looked at the little rounded crocus corms.
‘These are not bulbs but corms,’ explained Miss Brown. ‘A corm is quite solid inside, but if you cut a bulb open you would see that it is more like an onion, and right in the middle you would fine the hidden leaves and flowers, waiting to grow. Now, we’ll have twelve of these crocus corms – purple crocus, please – as the yellow corms do not seem to be very good.
Then they bought a bag of brown fibre to grow the bulbs in, and off they went back to school, very happy indeed.
The next day they set to work to plant all their bulbs. They did have a fine time. Miss Brown emptied the fibre into a big enamel bowl.
‘Now,’ she said, ‘you must pour water into the fibre, and work it about with your hands until it is thoroughly wet. It is just wet enough if you can squeeze it in your hands without water coming out. When it is all ready, pack it neatly into the bowls, about half-way up.’
This kept the children very busy. How they loved to feel the wet fibre in their hands! At last they had wetted it enough, and they put some in the bowls.
‘And now we will plant the bulbs,’ said Miss Brown. ‘Mary, put the Roman hyacinths into that green bowl. Settle them firmly on the fibre. Then neatly pack the bowl full to about an inch from the top. John, do the same with the narcissus bulbs.
Peter, plant the daffodils, and Susan, you can do the tulips.’
Very soon four bowls were packed full. Miss Brown planted the blue hyacinths, and then the children found that there was not enough fibre for the sixth bowl!
‘It doesn’t matter,’ said Mis Brown. ‘We can grow crocuses in stones and water very nicely indeed – and we can put them straightaway on the window-sill, and watch them grow instead of putting them away in the dark! John, go outside and collect about thirty little pebbles and wash them.’
John soon came in with thirty clean pebbles and he arranged some of them at the bottom of the crocus bowl. Miss Brown poured water in. It just reached to the top of the pebbles but no more. Then John set the twelve crocus corms neatly on the stones. After that he packed the rest of the stones around the corms, so that only the tiniest bit of the little white shoots at the top could be seen.
‘Good!’ said Miss Brown. ‘Now we will do our other hyacinth bulbs – the ones we want to grow in the hyacinth glasses.’
Mary filled each hyacinth glass with water. Then the children each put a bit of charcoal in the water and carefully set their fat bulbs at the top of the glass. They rested there nicely, just touching the water underneath.
‘Set them on the window-sill,’ said Miss Brown. The crocuses can go there too. I will put the other bowls away into a dark, airy cupboard. There is one in the kitchen. Carry the bowls, children, please.’
There was a little dark cupboard off the kitchen that had plenty of fresh air from an outside ventilator. Miss Brown set all the bowls on a shelf there.
‘They must stay for some weeks in the dark,’ she said, ‘so that they will make plenty of root-growth. Then, when their roots are well-grown, and the shoot is beginning to sprout, we will put them in the classroom. Once a week we must feel the fibre, and if it is dry, we must give a little water.’
It wasn’t long before the hyacinths in the glasses put out tiny white roots into the water. After that they grew very quickly, and soon the whole water was full of roots! Susan’s had the first and biggest roots. She was very proud.
The crocus corms grew roots too. Miss Brown took up a few of the top stones and showed the children how the roots were twining around and between the pebbles. She added a little more water, for the warmth of the classroom was drying it up.
‘The white crocus shoots look like white animal’s teeth growing up,’ said Susan. And so they did!
‘It was very exciting when Miss Brown brought the bowls of bulbs out into the classroom in November. They had all grown fine strong roots and were now sending up fat green shoots.
‘Miss Brown!’ said Susan, one day in December, ‘look! Is this a bud in the paper-white narcissi – down here in between the leaves?’
It was! Everyone was very pleased, and when they saw how quickly the leaves and buds grew they were astonished. Then the Roman hyacinths put up buds too, and as Christmas drew near the children anxiously watched to see if the flowers would open.
All their own hyacinths were budding too, but would not be out till the New Year. The tulips would be out just at the beginning of January and the daffodils later still.
The week before the holidays the white Roman hyacinths were out in full flower! How lovely they were – just like white bluebells, with a very sweet scent indeed. They made the whole classroom smell nice. Then the paper-white narcissi opened their sweet-smelling stars, and the classroom smelt twice as sweet! Really, it was lovely!
‘You were right when you said that we would have a bit of spring in the middle of winter, Miss Brown,’ said Mary, sniffing the hyacinths. ‘This was a lovely thing to do! And how pleased I shall be when the purple crocuses are all out too, and the tulips shine red, and the big hyacinths hang out their scented bells! And how lovely the classroom will look when the bowl of golden daffodils is out!’
‘The only thing I’m sorry about is that we can’t use our bulbs again for bowls next year,’ said Peter. ‘The man said they wouldn’t be any use.’
‘Ah, but we can plant them out in the garden and they will flower for us there! said Miss Brown. ‘We will have a little bulb-corner, shall we – and plant our bowl-bulbs there each year! Isn’t that a good idea!’
Have you read them all?
1. The Naughtiest Girl In the School
2. The Naughtiest Girl Again
3. The Naughtiest Girl Is a Monitor
4. Here’s the Naughtiest Girl
5. The Naughtiest Girl Keeps a Secret
6. The Naughtiest Girl Helps a Friend
7. The Naughtiest Girl Saves the Day
8. Well Done, the Naughtiest Girl!
9. The Naughtiest Girl Wants to Win
10. The Naughtiest Girl Marches On
Text copyright © Hodder & Stoughton Ltd, 1999
Illustrations copyright © Hodder & Stoughton Ltd, 2014
First published in Great Britain in 1999 by George Newnes
This ebook edition published in 2014
The right of Anne Digby to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
All rights reserved. Apart from any use permitted under UK copyright law, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in any form, or by any means with prior permission in writing from the publishers or in the case of reprographic production in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency and may not be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
A Catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 978 1 844 56956 4
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