My mother said, ‘You must wait and see what you are given.’
Then the teachers called out, ‘Back to your seats, everyone, we have a visitor coming.’ So all the children went back to their seats, and sat still and waited and listened.
And, as we waited and listened, we heard a tinkle-tinkle bell noise, and then the schoolroom door opened, and in walked the Father Christmas Man. My naughty little sister had forgotten all about him, so she hadn’t time to close her eyes before he walked in. However, when she saw him, my little sister stopped smiling and began to be stubborn.
The Father Christmas Man was very nice. He said he hoped we were having a good time, and we all said, ‘Yes,’ except my naughty little sister – she didn’t say a thing.
Then he said, ‘Now, one at a time, children; and I will give each one of you a toy.’
So, first of all each school-child went up for a toy, and my naughty little sister still didn’t shut her eyes because she wanted to see who was going to have the specially nice doll in the blue dress. But none of the school-children had it.
Then Father Christmas began to call the little brothers and sisters up for presents, and, as he didn’t know their names, he just said, ‘Come along, sonny,’ if it were a boy, and ‘come along, girlie,’ if it were a girl. The Father Christmas Man let the little brothers and sisters choose their own toys off the tree.
When my naughty little sister saw this, she was so worried about the specially nice doll, that she thought that she would just go up and get it. She said, ‘I don’t like that horrid old beardy man, but I do like that nice doll.’
So, my naughty little sister got up without being asked to, and she went right out to the front where the Father Christmas Man was standing, and she said, ‘That doll, please,’ and pointed to the doll she wanted.
The Father Christmas Man laughed and all the teachers laughed, and the other mothers and the school-children, and all the little brothers and sisters. My mother did not laugh because she was so shocked to see my naughty little sister going out without being asked to.
The Father Christmas Man took the specially nice doll off the tree, and he handed it to my naughty little sister and he said, ‘Well now, I hear you don’t like me very much, but won’t you just shake hands?’ and my naughty little sister said, ‘No.’ But she took the doll all the same.
The Father Christmas Man put out his nice old hand for her to shake and be friends, and do you know what that naughty bad girl did? She bit his hand. She really and truly did. Can you think of anything more dreadful and terrible? She bit Father Christmas’s good old hand, and then she turned and ran and ran out of the school with all the children staring after her, and her doll held very tight in her arms.
The Father Christmas Man was very nice, he said it wasn’t a hard bite, only a frightened one, and he made all the children sing songs together.
When my naughty little sister was brought back by my mother, she said she was very sorry, and the Father Christmas Man said, ‘That’s all right, old lady,’ and because he was so smiley and nice to her, my funny little sister went right up to him, and gave him a big ‘sorry’ kiss, which pleased him very much.
And she hung her stocking up after all, and that kind man remembered to fill it for her.
My naughty little sister kept the specially nice doll until she was quite grown-up. She called it Rosy-Primrose, and although she was sometimes bad-tempered with it, she really loved it very much indeed.
10. My Naughty Little Sister does knitting
One day, when I was a little girl, and my naughty little sister was another little girl, a kind lady came to live next door to us. This kind lady’s really true name was Mrs Jones, but my little sister always called her Mrs Cocoa Jones.
Do you know why she called her that? Shall I tell you? Well, it was because Mrs Cocoa Jones used to give my naughty little sister a cup of cocoa every morning.
Yes, every single morning, when it was eleven o’clock, Mrs Cocoa Jones used to bang hard on her kitchen wall with the handle of her floor-brush, and as our kitchen was right the other side of the wall, my naughty little sister could hear very well, and would bang and bang back to show that she was quite ready.
Then, my little sister would go into Mrs Cocoa Jones’s house to drink cocoa with her. Wasn’t that a nice idea?
My little sister used to go in to see Mrs Cocoa Jones so much that Mr Cocoa Jones made a little low gate between his garden and our father’s garden so that my little sister could pop in without having to go all round the front of the houses each time. Mr Cocoa Jones made a nice little archway over the gate, and planted a little rose-tree to climb over it, especially for her. Wasn’t she a fortunate child?
So you see, Mrs Cocoa Jones was a very great friend.
Well now, Mrs Cocoa Jones was a lady who was always knitting and knitting, and as she hadn’t any little boys and girls of her own, she used to knit a lot of lovely woollies for my naughty little sister, and for me.
She knitted us red jumpers and blue jumpers, and yellow jumpers and red caps and blue caps and yellow caps to match, and she also knitted a blue jumper for Rosy-Primrose, who was my naughty little sister’s favourite doll, and when she had finished all the caps and jumpers, she made us lots of pairs of socks. So, every time we saw Mrs Cocoa, she always had a bag of wool and a lot of clicky needles.
Sometimes, when Mrs Cocoa Jones wanted the wool wound up, she would ask my naughty little sister to hold it for her, and that fidgety child would drop it and tangle it, until Mr Cocoa Jones used to say, ‘It looks to me as if you will be doing knotting not knitting with that lot,’ to Mrs Cocoa. And my funny little sister would laugh and laugh because she thought it was very funny to say ‘knotting’ like that.
Now, one day Mrs Cocoa Jones said, ‘Would you like to learn to knit?’ to my naughty little sister.
‘Would you like to learn to knit?’ she asked my little sister, and my little sister said, ‘Not very much.’
Then Mrs Cocoa Jones said, ‘Well, but think of all the nice things you could make for everyone. You could knit Christmas presents and birthday presents all by yourself.’
Then my naughty little sister thought it would be rather nice to learn to knit, so she said, ‘All right then, Mrs Cocoa Jones, would you please teach me?’
So Mrs Cocoa Jones lent her a pair of rather bendy needles and she gave her some wool, and she showed her how to knit. So, carefully, carefully my little sister learned to put the wool round the needle, and carefully, carefully
to bring it out and make a stitch, and carefully, carefully to make another until she could really truly knit.
Then my naughty little sister was very pleased, because she had a good idea. She thought that as Mr Cocoa Jones had made her such a nice little gate, she would knit him a new scarf for his birthday, because his old scarf had got all moth-holey. The naughty little baby moths had eaten bits of scarf and made holes in it, so my little sister thought he would like a new one very much.
She didn’t tell anyone about it. Not even Mrs Cocoa Jones, she wanted it to be a real secret.
Well now, Mrs Cocoa had given my little sister all her odds and endsy bits of wool, and the red bits and the blue bits and the yellow bits from our jumpers, and some grey and purple and white and black and brown bits as well, so my little sister thought she would make a beautiful scarf.
She went secretly, secretly into corners to knit this beautiful scarf for Mr Cocoa Jones’s birthday. Wasn’t she a clever child?
She kept it carefully hidden all the time she wasn’t making it. She hid it in lots of funny places too. She hid it under her pillow, and in the coalshed and behind the settee, and in the flour-tub. But most of the time she was knitting and knitting to have it made in time. So that, when Mr Cocoa Jones’s birthday did come, it was quite ready and quite finished.
It was a very pretty scarf because of all the pretty colours my little sister had used, and although it was a bit coaly and a bit floury here and
there, it still looked very lovely, and Mr Cocoa Jones was very pleased with it.
He said, ‘It’s the best scarf I have ever had!’
Then my little sister told him all about how she had knitted it, and she showed him some holes in it too, where the stitches had dropped, and Mr Cocoa Jones said they would make nice homes for the baby moths to live in anyway, so my little sister was glad she had dropped the stitches.
Then Mr Cocoa Jones said that as it was the very nicest scarf he had ever had knitted for him, it would be a shame to waste it by wearing it every day. So he said he would get Mrs Cocoa to put it away for him for High Days and Holidays.
So Mrs Cocoa wrapped it up very neatly and nicely in blue laundry paper, and she let my little sister put it away in Mr Cocoa’s drawer for him, and Mr Cocoa wore his old scarf for every day until Mrs Cocoa had time to knit him another one.
11. My Naughty Little Sister goes to the pantomime
A long time ago, when I was a little girl, and my little sister was a little girl too, my mother took us to see the Christmas Pantomime.
The Pantomime was in a Theatre, which was a very beautiful place with red tippy-up seats and a lot of ladies and gentlemen playing music in front of the curtains.
My little sister was a very good quiet child at first, because she had never been to the Pantomime before. She sat very still and mousy. She didn’t say anything. She just looked and looked.
She looked at the lights, and the lots and lots of seats, and the music-people, and the other boys and girls. She didn’t even fidget at first, because she wasn’t quite sure about the tippy-up seat.
When we were in the Theatre, our mother gave us a bag of sweets each. I had chocolate-creams, and my little sister had toffee-drops, because she liked them so much, but she was so quiet that she didn’t eat even a single one of them before the Pantomime started.
She just held the sweeties on her lap, so that when the music man who plays the cymbals suddenly made them go ‘Rish-tish a-tish!’ and the curtains came back, she was so surprised that she dropped them all over the floor, and my mother had to pick them up for her.
My little sister was so surprised because she hadn’t known that Pantomime was people dancing and singing and falling over things, but when she saw that it was, she was very excited, and when the other children clapped their hands, she clapped hers very hard too.
At first, my little sister was so surprised that she liked every bit of it, but after a while she said her favourite was the fat funny man. The play was all about the Babes in the Wood, and the fat funny man was called Humpty Dumpty. He was very very funny indeed, and when he came on, he always said, ‘Hallo, boys and girls.’
And the boys and girls said, ‘Hallo, Humpty Dumpty.’
And he said, ‘How are you tomorrow?’ and we said, ‘We are very well today.’ He told us to say this every time, and we never forgot. Once, my little sister shouted so loud, ‘Hallo, Humpty Dumpty,’ – she shouted ‘HALLO, HUMPTY DUMPTY,’ – like that, that Humpty Dumpty heard her, and he waved specially to her. My goodness, wasn’t she a proud girl then.
The other thing my little sister liked was the fairies dancing. There were lots of fairies in the Pantomime, and they had lovely sparkly dresses, and
when they danced the lights went red and blue and green, and some of them really flew right up in the air!
Humpty Dumpty tried to fly too, but he fell right over and bumped his nose. My naughty little sister was so sorry for him, that she began to cry and cry, really true tear-crying, not just howling.
But when Humpty Dumpty jumped up and said, ‘Hallo, boys and girls,’ and we all said, ‘Hallo, Humpty Dumpty,’ and when he began to dance again, she knew he wasn’t really hurt so she laughed and laughed.
And presently, what do you think? My little sister had a really exciting thing happen.
Humpty Dumpty came on the stage and he sang a little song for all the boys and girls, and then he made all the children sing too. After that he said, ‘Would any little boy or girl like to come up on the stage and dance with me?’ And do you know what, my little sister said, ‘Yes. I will. I will.’ And she ran out of her seat and up the stage steps and right on to the big theatre stage before my mother could do anything about it.
All the people cheered and clapped when my little sister ran up on to the stage, and a lot of other boys and girls went up too then, and soon they were all dancing with Humpty Dumpty. Round and round and up and down, until two ladies dressed like men came on the stage.
Then Humpty Dumpty said, ‘All right, children, down you go,’ and all the boys and girls went down again, off the stage and back to their mothers.
All except my bad little sister. Because she wasn’t there. She’d vanished! And what do you think?
While the two ladies dressed like men were singing on the stage, the funny man came back, with my little sister sitting on his shoulder. And he came right off the stage and down the steps and brought her back to Mother, and my little sister looked very pleased and smiley.
All the people stared and stared to see my naughty little sister carried back by Humpty Dumpty. Even the singing ladies dressed like men stared.
And do you know where she had been?
The bad child had slipped round the side of the stage while the other children were dancing, to see if she could find the fairies!
And she did find them too. She said they were drinking lemonade and they gave her some as well. It wasn’t very fairyish lemonade, she said, it was the fizzy nose-tickle sort.
She told us another thing too, a secret thing. She said they weren’t real true fairies, only little girls like herself, and she said that when she was a bit older, she was going to be a stage fairy like those little girls.
12. My Naughty Little Sister goes to school
One day, when I was a little girl, my mother had a letter from my grannie, to say that she was ill in bed, and would Mother come over for a day to see her?
So my mother wrote a letter to my school-teacher to ask if my little sister could come to school with me next day, as Grannie was ill. My teacher said, ‘Yes, she can come if she will be good.’ And wasn’t my funny little sister pleased.
Do you know what she did? She found an old case belonging to my father, and she put in it all the things she thought she would want for school next day. She put in a pencil and rubber, and some crayons and some story-books, and an apple and a matchbox, and Rosy-Primrose who was her doll.
Then she went to bed very quickly like a good girl. She didn’t splash about in the bath, or scream when she had her hair done, or grumble about her supper, or say her prayers naughtily, or worry and worry for lots of stories in bed. No. She shut her eyes quickly so as to go to sleep and make tomorrow come as soon as soon. That’s what the sensible child did.
And in the morning, she got up early, and she dressed herself. Yes! Even the buttons, and her socks! To show the teacher how nicely she could do it. Then, while our mother was getting the breakfast ready, she went out into the garden, and she picked a nice bunch of flowers out of her own garden for the teacher. So for once in a while she was my good little sister.
Well now, when my little sister got to school, she was still being very good. She said, ‘Good morning,’ to everyone and she came nicely into school, and because she looked so good and special the teacher said she could sit next to me all day.
So my little sister sat down right next to me, and stared and stared at all the other children in the room, and when she saw them opening their bags and cases and getting out their books and pencil-boxes, she opened her case and took out all her things too. She took out the pencil and the rubber, and the crayons and the story-books but she left the apple and the matchbox and Rosy-Primrose in the case because she wanted them for play-time.
When school started, my little sister stood up very straight to sing the school hymns, and she shut her eyes very tight for the school prayers, and then she sat down as good as good, nice and straight l
ike the teacher told us to.
Then the teacher called all the children’s names, and when each child’s name was called, the child said, ‘Present’. My naughty little sister was very surprised, and when my name was called I said, ‘Present’ too. But the teacher didn’t call my little sister’s name, because she wasn’t a real school-child, and do you know what my naughty little sister did?
She forgot to be a good child, and she started to shout, ‘I want a present, I want a present.’ Wasn’t she silly?
But after that my little sister was very good again, and the teacher let her play with some plasticine. My little sister made a red basket with the plasticine, and the teacher said it was very good, and put it on the mantelpiece for everyone to see.
Then our teacher read us a story, and my little sister was very interested, and when our teacher asked questions about the story, and all the children put their hands up, my little sister put her hand up too, and all the children laughed.
But our teacher said they mustn’t laugh, and she asked my little sister a real big-child’s question about the story, and my little sister gave the right answer. Then our teacher said, as my little sister was such a clever child she could have ten out of ten. You know ten out of ten is a very big thing to have at school.
So our teacher wrote, ‘Ten out of ten’ on a piece of paper for my little sister and put it on the mantelpiece for her with the plasticine basket, and my little sister was a very proud child.
When dinner-time came, our teacher let my little sister sit with her, and my little sister was so good that the teacher said all the other children should try to be like her. Wasn’t she behaving well?
My Naughty Little Sister Page 4