Nancy and Plum

by Betty Macdonald

  THIS IS A BORZOI BOOK PUBLISHED BY ALFRED A. KNOPF

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either

  are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance

  to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Text copyright © 1952 by Betty MacDonald, copyright renewed 1980

  by Anne Elizabeth Evans and Joan Keil

  Introduction copyright © 2010 by Jeanne Birdsall

  Illustrations copyright © 2010 by Mary GrandPré

  All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Alfred A. Knopf,

  an imprint of Random House Children’s Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

  Originally published in the United States with different illustrations by

  J. B. Lippincott, Philadelphia, in 1952.

  Knopf, Borzoi Books, and the colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

  Visit us on the Web! www.randomhouse.com/kids

  Educators and librarians, for a variety of teaching tools, visit us at

  www.randomhouse.com/teachers

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  MacDonald, Betty Bard.

  Nancy and Plum / by Betty MacDonald ; illustrated by Mary GrandPré. —

  1st Alfred A. Knopf ed.

  p. cm.

  Summary: Two orphaned sisters are sent to live at a boarding home run by the cruel and greedy

  Mrs. Monday, where they dream about someday having enough to eat and being able to experience a real Christmas.

  eISBN: 978-0-375-89776-4

  [1. Orphans—Fiction. 2. Sisters—Fiction. 3. Boardinghouses—Fiction.] I. GrandPré, Mary, ill.

  II. Title.

  PZ7.M1464Nan 2011

  [Fic]—dc22

  2009039778

  Random House Children’s Books supports the First Amendment

  and celebrates the right to read.

  v3.1

  For Anne and Joan

  CONTENTS

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Introduction

  Chapter 1 - Mrs. Monday’s Boarding Home

  Chapter 2 - Christmas Eve

  Chapter 3 - What Was in the Box?

  Chapter 4 - Nanela

  Chapter 5 - The Sunday-School Picnic

  Chapter 6 - A Magic Carpet

  Chapter 7 - A Letter to Uncle John

  Chapter 8 - Uncle John’s Visit

  Chapter 9 - The Escape

  Chapter 10 - Looking for Work

  Chapter 11 - Back to Mrs. Monday’s

  Chapter 12 - Chicken Pie and New Shoes

  Chapter 13 - “Merry Christmas, Everybody in the Whole World!”

  About the Author

  Introduction

  ONCE THERE WAS a young girl named Betty who enjoyed making up stories to tell her sister Mary at bedtime. The stories were about two other sisters, Plum and Nancy. Unlike Betty and Mary, who had a big, happy, safe family, Plum and Nancy were orphans who had wild adventures, like escaping from their terrible orphanage, being kidnapped by bank robbers, and stowing away on a boat to China.

  The bedtime tales about the orphan sisters went on for years, but Betty couldn’t help growing up, and when she did, she got married, moved away from home, and, sometime later, became an author. Her first book, The Egg and I, was for adults, and was so well written and funny that it made her famous. Much encouraged, Betty went on to write more books for adults, and also some for children—all about Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle, who knew everything there is to know about being young, was as wise as she was happy and as magical as she was commonsensical, and always had delicious snacks on hand for visitors.

  Through all of this writing, Betty never forgot those old bedtime stories about orphans, and eventually she put a version of them into a book called Nancy and Plum. The kidnapping bank robbers and the boat to China are gone, but the sisters still live in a terrible orphanage. It’s run by Mrs. Monday, who is “as warm and motherly as a pair of pliers,” or, in other words, not at all like the wondrous Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle. Mrs. Monday’s horrid little niece, Marybelle, lives there, too, spying and tattling and threatening the unwary with recitations of Longfellow. Then there are the other orphans, a sad and lonely lot, who look to Nancy and Plum for comfort and leadership. And who wouldn’t? The sisters are charmingly self-sufficient. They can roast potatoes in woodstoves and make a doll out of burlap sacks. They can scrub floors, cut lawns, trim hedges, and weed gardens. When they’re locked up without food, they climb out a window and run to the barn for fresh milk. When they can’t mail letters the normal way, they use a chicken for a carrier pigeon. And when Mrs. Monday and Marybelle become too evil to bear, Nancy and Plum escape from the orphanage with the help of everyone from an old horse named Jerry to a friendly librarian named Miss Waverly to a kindly farmer named Campbell.

  Though I never heard the original stories, I don’t regret losing the bank robbers, et cetera, because for me, Nancy and Plum is perfect just as it is. I’m guessing Betty’s sister Mary, who did hear the originals, thought the same. But I do wonder if Mary ever complained that Betty, who was the younger sister of the two, gave all the best lines to Plum, the fictional younger sister. While the swashbuckling Plum gets to say things like “I wish I had some firecrackers, I’d take out all the powder and blast my way out,” Nancy, the timid one, is stuck saying “How can Plum be so brave?” I choose to imagine that if Mary did complain, Betty told her to write her own books. Which Mary did, but those details are for a different introduction.

  In this tale I’m telling of sisters, there is yet one more set to consider. Before Betty wrote any of her books, she had two daughters. And these daughters must have been just as important to Nancy and Plum as Mary and Betty were, or even Nancy and Plum, because Betty said so right there on the dedication page. Read it for yourself. It says: “For Anne and Joan.”

  Three pairs of sisters, woven together through time and stories—this is Nancy and Plum. Enjoy.

  Jeanne Birdsall

  Author of The Penderwicks

  1

  Mrs. Monday’s Boarding Home

  IT WAS CHRISTMAS EVE. Big snowflakes fluttered slowly through the air like white feathers and made all of Heavenly Valley smooth and white and quiet and beautiful. Tall fir trees stood up to their knees in the snow and their outstretched hands were heaped with it. Trees that were bare of leaves wore soft white fur on their scrawny, reaching arms and all the stumps and low bushes had been turned into fat white cupcakes. Mrs. Monday’s big brick Boarding Home for Children wore drifts on its window sills, thick frosting on its steep slate roofs, big white tam o’shanters on its cold chimneys and by the light of the lanterns on either side of the big iron gates you could see that each of the gateposts wore a round snow hat. Even the sharp spikes of the high iron fence had been blunted by the snow.

  However, in spite of its snowy decorations, in spite of the beauty of its setting, and even in spite of its being Christmas Eve, Mrs. Monday’s was a forbidding-looking establishment. The fences were high and strong, the house was like a brick fortress and the windows, with the exception of one small one high up and almost hidden by the bare branches of a large maple tree, were like dark staring eyes. No holly wreath graced the heavy front door, no Christmas-tree lights twinkled through the windows and beckoned in the passer-by, no fragrant boughs nor pine cones were heaped on the mantel of the large cold fireplace, for Mrs. Monday, her niece Marybelle Whistle and all but two of her eighteen boarders had gone to the city to spend Christmas. Nancy and Plum Remson (Plum’s real name was Pamela but she had named herself Plum when she was t
oo little to say Pamela), the two boarders who remained, were left behind because they had no mother and father. No other place to go on Christmas Eve.

  You see, six years before, when Nancy and Plum were four and two years old, their mother and father had been killed in a train wreck and the children turned over to their only living relative, one Uncle John, an old bachelor who lived in a club in the city, didn’t know anything about children, didn’t want to know anything about children and did not like children. When the telegram from the Remsons’ lawyer came notifying Uncle John of the tragic accident and the fact that he had just inherited two little girls, he was frantic.

  “Dreadful!” he said, fanning himself with his newspaper. “Gallivanting around the country getting killed. Dreadful and careless! Two little children! Heavens! What will I do with them? I’ll have to move from this nice leather chair in this nice comfortable club and will probably wind up washing dishes and making doll clothes. Dreadful! Heavens!” Beads of sweat sprang out on his forehead like dew and he fanned himself some more. It was while he was folding his newspaper to make a bigger and better fan that he noticed the advertisement. It read:

  CHILDREN BOARDED—Beautiful country home with spacious grounds, murmuring brooks, own cows, chickens, pigs, and horses. Large orchard. Delicious home-cooked food. A mother’s tender loving care. Year round boarders welcome. Rates upon request. Address Mrs. Marybelle Monday, Box 23, Heavenly Valley.

  With trembling hands, Uncle John tore out the advertisement and wrote a letter to Mrs. Monday. He received an immediate answer and three days later he was on his way to inspect this delightful boarding home so chock-full of good food and tender loving care for little children.

  It was springtime in Heavenly Valley and the fields were golden with dandelions, the slopes were foaming with cherry blossoms, the sky was lazily rolling big white clouds around and meadowlarks trilled in the thickets. Uncle John was entranced. “Had forgotten the country was so beautiful!” he said to his chauffeur. “Certainly the place for children. Beautiful, beautiful!”

  When they drew up to the imposing entrance of Mrs. Monday’s Boarding Home for Children, Uncle John was most impressed. “Nice, solid, respectable place,” he said, noting the very large, sturdily built brick house surrounded by the high spiked iron fence. “Well built,” he said to his chauffeur, who had jumped out to open the heavy iron gates for him.

  “It certainly is,” the chauffeur said, wondering to himself why a boarding home for little children should have such a wicked-looking fence. Surely not just to keep the rolling lawns from oozing out into the road!

  Just then Mrs. Monday, who had been watching and waiting behind the curtains in her sitting room, came rushing out the front door, hands outstretched, thin mouth pulled apart in what was supposed to be a smile.

  “My dear, dear, dear Mr. Remson,” she gushed as Uncle John waddled up the walk. “Do come in. The dear little children and I have been waiting for you.”

  Uncle John shook one of her hands briefly and said, “Nice place. Well built.”

  Mrs. Monday said, “Well, I always say, dear Mr. Remson, nothing is too good for little children. Now,” she said, piloting him into her sitting room, the only comfortable room in the large cold house, and settling him in an easy chair in front of the fireplace in which burned a nice cheerful little fire, “you must see my little ones. My little family!” She rang for Katie to bring tea and to summon the children. Happy at the prospect of a cup of hot tea and perhaps toast with raspberry jam, Uncle John waited.

  The first to come, however, was not the tea tray but Mrs. Monday’s niece, Marybelle Whistle, a most unattractive, doughy child with pale close-set eyes, a mouth like a mail slot and hundreds of grayish-white curls that exploded from her head like sausages. For the occasion she had been carefully dressed in a ruffly pink silk dress, pink silk socks and shiny new black patent-leather slippers. Certain that she looked adorable, Marybelle flounced up to Uncle John and announced in a high squeaky voice, “How do you do, Mr. Remson? I am Marybelle.” Uncle John drew back with distaste and said, “Really!” Marybelle said, “Yes, and I am very smart and can recite ‘The Children’s Hour’ all the way through, want to hear me?”

  “Heavens, no!” said Uncle John so loudly and forcefully that Marybelle, who had already opened her mouth to begin, jumped back and almost fell in the fireplace. This naturally caused much merriment among the other children, who though vigorously scrubbed, combed and braided (even if they had curly hair) had been instructed to stay outside the door so that Uncle John wouldn’t see their faded, patched clothing.

  Uncle John, hearing their laughter and having no idea that he had been the cause of it, said, “Happy little things. Laughing children must be happy.” Marybelle, who wasn’t happy and wasn’t laughing, sulkily left the room, and Uncle John, who didn’t know that she was Mrs. Monday’s niece, turned to Mrs. Monday, who was glaring at the children, and said, “Horrible, forward little creature. Must have dreadful parents. I can’t abide children who recite.” This, of course, made the other children laugh so hard that Mrs. Monday got up and tersely ordered them to be quiet and go to their rooms. She then firmly shut the sitting-room door. Then Katie brought the tea and there were not only toast and raspberry jam but fresh hot cupcakes. Uncle John forgot about Marybelle and concentrated on the food and after a while he looked at Mrs. Monday and thought, “Fine woman. Taking care of other people’s children. Fine woman!”

  If he had had the sense of a rabbit, of course, or had known or cared anything about children, he would have noticed that this “fine woman” had large, cold, close-set eyes, a mouth that snapped shut like a purse, a smile that bared her large yellow teeth but did not light up her eyes, a voice that caused children to flinch and look frightened whenever she spoke to them and a general appearance about as warm and motherly as a pair of pliers. He would also have noticed that although Marybelle Whistle was well dressed, the other little boarders had sad hungry eyes, thin hungry bodies and ill-fitting, worn-out clothes.

  But, as I have said, Uncle John didn’t care about children and he was very anxious to get rid of Nancy and Plum, so he saw what he wished to see and didn’t see what he didn’t wish to see, and three days later he delivered his two little nieces and all of their belongings to Mrs. Monday. Since that day, as far as Nancy and Plum knew, he had not written or been to see them. He didn’t know if they got his presents, which they didn’t. Or if they were happy, which they weren’t. He paid Mrs. Monday handsomely for their board and room and clothing and Mrs. Monday wrote and told him how beautifully the children were growing and how happy they were. The two or three times Nancy and Plum had written to Uncle John, Mrs. Monday had found and burned the letters.

  2

  Christmas Eve

  SO HERE IT WAS CHRISTMAS EVE and Uncle John was sitting in his club in the city drinking from the wassail bowl and talking to his old cronies and if he thought of Nancy and Plum at all, which I doubt, it was only to wonder if they were too old for the dolls he had sent them.

  In Heavenly Valley, Nancy and Plum, who hadn’t gotten the dolls, stood at the window of their cold, bare, little room straining their eyes through the snowflakes toward a far-off cluster of lights, like a handful of stars, that marked the schoolhouse where the Christmas Eve entertainment was being held.

  Nancy said, “I wonder what time it is?”

  Plum said, “About seven I guess. Mrs. Monday and the children took the six o’clock train.”

  Nancy said, “If it’s seven, then they’ll just be starting the carols at school.”

  Plum said, “And old Squeaky Swanson will be singing the solo you should be singing. When she gets to the ‘Oh, Night Deeeeviiiiiine!’ part she sounds like a screech owl, and anyway she doesn’t look like an angel. She looks like a mouse in a white nightgown.”

  Nancy laughed and said, “Oh, Plum, poor old Muriel can’t help the way she looks. Besides, you probably think I sing better because I’m your sister.”<
br />
  Plum said, “Squeaky can’t help the way her face looks but she doesn’t have to wear that long underwear and have those big knobby lumps on her knees and ankles. She knows very well that angels don’t wear long underwear and anyway her mother makes so many mistakes when she plays her accompaniment that it always sounds as though she and Squeaky were on different songs.”

  Nancy said, “I wish we had a mother, even one like Mrs. Swanson.”

  Plum said, “If we had a mother, do you suppose we’d have to wear long underwear and be lumpy?”

  Nancy said, “I can remember our mother a little bit and she was beautiful. I don’t think she ever made us wear long underwear.”

  Plum said, “One thing about mothers, they might make you wear long underwear but they force the teachers to give you the best parts in the Christmas play.”

  Nancy said, “Our mother wouldn’t have to. Miss Waverly likes us and she wanted us both in the play until Mrs. Monday told her we couldn’t.”

  Plum said, “Miss Waverly thinks you sing a million, billion times better than old Squeaky Swanson, she told me so and she said that you’d make a beautiful angel with your red hair combed out and hanging down your back all bright and shining.…”

  “And probably one of Mrs. Monday’s gray flannel nightgowns flapping around my old worn-out shoes. Oh, Plum, wouldn’t it be wonderful if we were in the Christmas play and we had white satin angel dresses with filmy white wings?”

  Plum said, “I guess we’ll have to wait until we get to heaven and are real angels. Didn’t the Christmas tree look beautiful? I think Miss Waverly feels sorry for us and that is why she let us decorate it.”

  Nancy said, “As long as we are the only children who have no place to go for Christmas, I don’t see why Mrs. Monday wouldn’t let us go to the school entertainment. We could have walked and every child in the Valley is getting an orange, some candy and a gift.”

  Plum said, “Speaking of candy, I’m hungry. Let’s go down to the kitchen and see if we can find anything to eat besides oatmeal.”