by Edith Nesbit
The man the house belongs to likes new houses, so he built a big one with conservatories and a stable with a clock in a turret on the top, and he let the Moat House. And Albert’s uncle took it, and my father was to come down sometimes from Saturday to Monday, and Albert’s uncle was to live with us all the time, and he would be writing a book, and we were not to bother him, but he would give an eye to us. I hope all this is plain. I have said it as short as I can.
We got down rather late, but there was still light enough to see the big bell hanging at the top of the house. The rope belonging to it went right down the house, through our bedroom to the dining-room. H. O. saw the rope and pulled it while he was washing his hands for supper, and Dick and I let him, and the bell tolled solemnly. Father shouted to him not to, and we went down to supper. But presently there were many feet trampling on the gravel, and father went out to see. When he came back he said:
“The whole village, or half of it, has come up to see why the bell rang. It’s only rung for fire or burglars. Why can’t you kids let things alone?”
Albert’s uncle said:
“Bed follows supper as the fruit follows the flower. They’ll do no more mischief to-night, sir. To-morrow I will point out a few of the things to be avoided in this bucolic retreat.”
So it was bed directly after supper, and that was why we did not see much that night.
But in the morning we were all up rather early, and we seemed to have awakened in a new world, rich in surprises beyond the dreams of anybody, as it says in the quotation.
We went everywhere we could in the time, but when it was breakfast-time we felt we had not seen half or a quarter. The room we had breakfast in was exactly like in a story — black oak panels and china in corner cupboards with glass doors. These doors were locked. There were green curtains, and honeycomb for breakfast. After brekker my father went back to town, and Albert’s uncle went too, to see publishers. We saw them to the station, and father gave us a long list of what we weren’t to do. It began with “Don’t pull ropes unless you’re quite sure what will happen at the other end,” and it finished with “For goodness’ sake, try to keep out of mischief till I come down on Saturday.” There were lots of other things in between.
We all promised we would. And we saw them off, and waved till the train was quite out of sight. Then we started to walk home. Daisy was tired, so Oswald carried her home on his back. When we got home she said:
“I do like you, Oswald.”
She is not a bad little kid; and Oswald felt it was his duty to be nice to her because she was a visitor. Then we looked all over everything. It was a glorious place. You did not know where to begin.
We were all a little tired before we found the hay-loft, but we pulled ourselves together to make a fort with the trusses of hay — great square things — and we were having a jolly good time, all of us, when suddenly a trap-door opened and a head bobbed up with a straw in its mouth. We knew nothing about the country then, and the head really did scare us rather, though, of course, we found out directly that the feet belonging to it were standing on the bar of the loose-box underneath. The head said:
“Don’t you let the governor catch you a-spoiling of that there hay, that’s all.” And it spoke thickly because of the straw.
It is strange to think how ignorant you were in the past. We can hardly believe now that once we really did not know that it spoiled hay to mess about with it. Horses don’t like to eat it afterwards. Always remember this.
When the head had explained a little more it went away, and we turned the handle of the chaff-cutting machine, and nobody got hurt, though the head had said we should cut our fingers off if we touched it.
And then we sat down on the floor, which is dirty with the nice clean dirt that is more than half chopped hay, and those there was room for hung their legs down out of the top door, and we looked down at the farmyard, which is very slushy when you get down into it, but most interesting.
Then Alice said:
“Now we’re all here, and the boys are tired enough to sit still for a minute, I want to have a council.”
We said, “What about?” And she said, “I’ll tell you. H. O., don’t wriggle so; sit on my frock if the straws tickle your legs.”
You see he wears socks, and so he can never be quite as comfortable as any one else.
“Promise not to laugh,” Alice said, getting very red, and looking at Dora, who got red too.
We did, and then she said: “Dora and I have talked this over, and Daisy too, and we have written it down because it is easier than saying it. Shall I read it? or will you, Dora?”
Dora said it didn’t matter; Alice might. So Alice read it, and though she gabbled a bit we all heard it. I copied it afterwards. This is what she read:
“NEW SOCIETY FOR BEING GOOD IN
“I, Dora Bastable, and Alice Bastable, my sister, being of sound mind and body, when we were shut up with bread and water on that jungle day, we thought a great deal about our naughty sins, and we made our minds up to be good forever after. And we talked to Daisy about it, and she had an idea. So we want to start a society for being good in. It is Daisy’s idea, but we think so too.”
“You know,” Dora interrupted, “when people want to do good things they always make a society. There are thousands — there’s the Missionary Society.”
“Yes,” Alice said, “and the Society for the Prevention of something or other, and the Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Society, and the S. P. G.”
“What’s S. P. G.?” Oswald asked.
“Society for the Propagation of the Jews, of course,” said Noël, who cannot always spell.
“No, it isn’t; but do let me go on.”
Alice did go on.
“We propose to get up a society, with a chairman and a treasurer and secretary, and keep a journal-book saying what we’ve done. If that doesn’t make us good it won’t be my fault.
“The aim of the society is nobleness and goodness, and great and unselfish deeds. We wish not to be such a nuisance to grown-up people, and to perform prodigies of real goodness. We wish to spread our wings” — here Alice read very fast. She told me afterwards Daisy had helped her with that part, and she thought when she came to the wings they sounded rather silly—”to spread our wings and rise above the kind of interesting things that you ought not to do, but to do kindnesses to all, however low and mean.”
Denny was listening carefully. Now he nodded three or four times.
“Little words of kindness” (he said), “Little deeds of love, Make this earth an eagle Like the one above.”
This did not sound right, but we let it pass, because an eagle does have wings, and we wanted to hear the rest of what the girls had written. But there was no rest.
“That’s all,” said Alice, and Daisy said:
“Don’t you think it’s a good idea?”
“That depends,” Oswald answered, “who is president, and what you mean by being good.” Oswald did not care very much for the idea himself, because being good is not the sort of thing he thinks it is proper to talk about, especially before strangers. But the girls and Denny seemed to like it, so Oswald did not say exactly what he thought, especially as it was Daisy’s idea. This was true politeness.
“I think it would be nice,” Noël said, “if we made it a sort of play. Let’s do the ‘Pilgrim’s Progress.’”
We talked about that for some time, but it did not come to anything, because we all wanted to be Mr. Greatheart, except H. O., who wanted to be the lions, and you could not have lions in a Society for Goodness.
Dicky said he did not wish to play if it meant reading books about children who die; he really felt just as Oswald did about it, he told me afterwards. But the girls were looking as if they were in Sunday school, and we did not wish to be unkind.
At last Oswald said, “Well, let’s draw up the rules of the society, and choose the president and settle the name.”
Dora said Oswald should be pre
sident, and he modestly consented. She was secretary, and Denny treasurer if we ever had any money.
Making the rules took us all the afternoon. They were these:
Rules
1. Every member is to be as good as possible.
2. There is to be no more jaw than necessary about being good. (Oswald and Dicky put that rule in.)
3. No day must pass without our doing some kind action to a suffering fellow-creature.
4. We are to meet every day, or as often as we like.
5. We are to do good to people we don’t like as often as we can.
6. No one is to leave the Society without the consent of all the rest of us.
7. The Society is to be kept a profound secret from all the world except us.
8. The name of our Society is —
And when we got as far as that we all began to talk at once. Dora wanted it called the Society for Humane Improvement; Denny said the Society for Reformed Outcast Children; but Dicky said, “No, we really were not so bad as all that.” Then H. O. said, “Call it the Good Society.”
“Or the Society for Being Good In,” said Daisy.
“Or the Society of Goods,” said Noël.
“That’s priggish,” said Oswald; “besides, we don’t know whether we shall be so very.”
“You see,” Alice explained, “we only said if we could we would be good.”
“Well, then,” Dicky said, getting up and beginning to dust the chopped hay off himself, “call it the Society of the Wouldbegoods and have done with it.”
Oswald thinks Dicky was getting sick of it and wanted to make himself a little disagreeable. If so, he was doomed to disappointment. For every one else clapped hands and called out, “That’s the very thing!” Then the girls went off to write out the rules, and took H. O. with them, and Noël went to write some poetry to put in the minute book. That’s what you call the book that a society’s secretary writes what it does in. Denny went with him to help. He knows a lot of poetry. I think he went to a lady’s school where they taught nothing but that. He was rather shy of us, but he took to Noël. I can’t think why. Dicky and Oswald walked round the garden and told each other what they thought of the new society.
“I’m not sure we oughtn’t to have put our foot down at the beginning,” Dicky said. “I don’t see much in it, anyhow.”
“It pleases the girls,” Oswald said, for he is a kind brother.
“But we’re not going to stand jaw, and ‘words in season,’ and ‘loving sisterly warnings.’ I tell you what it is, Oswald, we’ll have to run this thing our way, or it’ll be jolly beastly for everybody.”
Oswald saw this plainly.
“We must do something,” Dicky said; “it’s very hard, though. Still, there must be some interesting things that are not wrong.”
“I suppose so,” Oswald said, “but being good is so much like being a muff, generally. Anyhow I’m not going to smooth the pillows of the sick, or read to the aged poor, or any rot out of Ministering Children.”
“No more am I,” Dicky said. He was chewing a straw like the head had in its mouth, “but I suppose we must play the game fair. Let’s begin by looking out for something useful to do — something like mending things or cleaning them, not just showing off.”
“The boys in books chop kindling wood and save their pennies to buy tea and tracts.”
“Little beasts!” said Dick. “I say, let’s talk about something else.” And Oswald was glad to, for he was beginning to feel jolly uncomfortable.
We were all rather quiet at tea, and afterwards Oswald played draughts with Daisy and the others yawned. I don’t know when we’ve had such a gloomy evening. And every one was horribly polite, and said “Please” and “Thank you,” far more than requisite.
Albert’s uncle came home after tea. He was jolly, and told us stories, but he noticed us being a little dull, and asked what blight had fallen on our young lives. Oswald could have answered and said, “It is the Society of the Wouldbegoods that is the blight,” but of course he didn’t; and Albert’s uncle said no more, but he went up and kissed the girls when they were in bed, and asked them if there was anything wrong. And they told him no, on their honor.
“‘LITTLE BEASTS,’ SAID DICK”
The next morning Oswald awoke early. The refreshing beams of the morning sun shone on his narrow, white bed and on the sleeping forms of his dear little brothers, and Denny, who had got the pillow on top of his head and was snoring like a kettle when it sings. Oswald could not remember at first what was the matter with him, and then he remembered the Wouldbegoods, and wished he hadn’t. He felt at first as if there was nothing you could do, and even hesitated to buzz a pillow at Denny’s head. But he soon saw that this could not be. So he chucked his boot and caught Denny right in the waistcoat part, and thus the day began more brightly than he had expected.
Oswald had not done anything out of the way good the night before, except that when no one was looking he polished the brass candlestick in the girls’ bedroom with one of his socks. And he might just as well have let it alone, for the servants cleaned it again with the other things in the morning, and he could never find the sock afterwards. There were two servants. One of them had to be called Mrs. Pettigrew instead of Jane and Eliza like others. She was cook and managed things.
After breakfast Albert’s uncle said:
“I now seek the retirement of my study. At your peril violate my privacy before 1.30 sharp. Nothing short of bloodshed will warrant the intrusion, and nothing short of man — or rather boy — slaughter shall avenge it.”
So we knew he wanted to be quiet, and the girls decided that we ought to play out of doors so as not to disturb him; we should have played out of doors anyhow on a jolly fine day like that.
But as we were going out Dicky said to Oswald:
“I say, come along here a minute, will you?”
So Oswald came along, and Dicky took him into the other parlor and shut the door, and Oswald said:
“Well, spit it out: what is it?” He knows that is vulgar, and he would not have said it to any one but his own brother.
Dicky said:
“It’s a pretty fair nuisance. I told you how it would be.”
And Oswald was patient with him, and said:
“What is? Don’t be all day about it.”
Dicky fidgeted about a bit, and then he said:
“Well, I did as I said. I looked about for something useful to do. And you know that dairy window that wouldn’t open — only a little bit like that? Well, I mended the catch with wire and whipcord and it opened wide.”
“And I suppose they didn’t want it mended,” said Oswald. He knows but too well that grown-up people sometimes like to keep things far different from what we would, and you catch it if you try to do otherwise.
“I shouldn’t have minded that,” Dicky said, “because I could easily have taken it all off again if they’d only said so. But the sillies went and propped up a milk-pan against the window. They never took the trouble to notice I had mended it. So the wretched thing pushed the window open all by itself directly they propped it up, and it’s tumbled through into the moat, and they are most awfully waxy. All the men are out in the fields, and they haven’t any spare milk-pans. If I were a farmer, I must say I wouldn’t stick at an extra milk-pan or two. Accidents must happen sometimes. I call it mean.”
Dicky spoke in savage tones. But Oswald was not so unhappy, first because it wasn’t his fault, and next because he is a far-seeing boy.
“Never mind,” he said, kindly. “Keep your tail up. We’ll get the beastly milk-pan out all right. Come on.”
He rushed hastily to the garden and gave a low signifying whistle, which the others know well enough to mean something extra being up.
And when they were all gathered round him he spoke.
“Fellow-countrymen,” he said, “we’re going to have a rousing good time.”
“It’s nothing naughty, is it,” Daisy asked, �
�like the last time you had that was rousingly good?”
Alice said “Shish,” and Oswald pretended not to hear.
“A precious treasure,” he said, “has inadvertently been laid low in the moat by one of us.”
“The rotten thing tumbled in by itself,” Dicky said.
Oswald waved his hand and said, “Anyhow, it’s there. It’s our duty to restore it to its sorrowing owners. I say, look here — we’re going to drag the moat.”
Every one brightened up at this. It was our duty and it was interesting too. This is very uncommon.
So we went out to where the orchard is, at the other side of the moat. There were gooseberries and things on the bushes, but we did not take any till we had asked if we might. Alice went and asked. Mrs. Pettigrew said, “Law! I suppose so; you’d eat ’em anyhow, leave or no leave.”
She little knows the honorable nature of the house of Bastable. But she has much to learn.
The orchard slopes gently down to the dark waters of the moat. We sat there in the sun and talked about dragging the moat, till Denny said, “How do you drag moats?”
And we were speechless, because, though we had read many times about a moat being dragged for missing heirs and lost wills, we really had never thought about exactly how it was done.
“Grappling-irons are right, I believe,” Denny said, “but I don’t suppose they’d have any at the farm.”