In the afternoon we all drew pictures with our crayons, and my little sister drew a picture with her crayons.
She was very pleased to think she had brought her own crayons to school.
I drew a little house, and a tree and a pond, and some little people. But do you know what my little sister drew? She drew the teacher, and all the school-children! Yes, all of them in the class. The teacher was very pleased to see such a lovely drawing, because my little sister had not forgotten anything – she had even put in her plasticine basket and her ten out of ten writing. So teacher said the drawing must go on the mantelpiece with the other clever things. My little sister drew in her drawing very small next to the plasticine basket, and then the picture was put up for everyone to see.
Then we all went out into the playground and did drill, and my little sister did drill as well, and she stood so straight, and put her arms so nicely that teacher let her do it in front of all the class.
So you see, she was being a very good child.
When we went back into school though, and did reading, my little sister got very quiet, and very still, and do you know what happened? She fell fast asleep on the desk.
She slept and slept right until our mother came to fetch us home, and, because she had been so good and no trouble, our teacher let her take home the lovely drawing, and the plasticine basket, and the ten out of ten paper.
13. When my father minded my Naughty Little Sister
When my sister was a naughty little girl, she had a very cross friend. My little sister’s cross friend was called Mr Blakey, and he was a very grumbly old man.
My little sister’s friend Mr Blakey was the shoe-mender man, and he had a funny little shop with bits of leather all over the floor, and boxes of nails, and boot-polish, and shoe-laces, all over the place. Mr Blakey had a picture in his shop too. It was a very beautiful picture of a dog with boots on all four feet, walking in the rain. My little sister loved that picture very much, but she loved Mr Blakey better than that.
Every time we went in Mr Blakey’s shop with our mother, my naughty little sister would start meddling with things, and Mr Blakey would say, ‘Leave that be, you varmint,’ in a very loud cross voice, and my little sister would stop meddling at once, just like an obedient child, because Mr Blakey was her favourite man, and one day, when we went into his shop, do you know what she did? She went straight behind the counter and kissed him without being asked. Mr Blakey was very surprised because he had a lot of nails in his mouth, but after that, he always gave her a peppermint humbug after he had shouted at her.
Well, that’s about Mr Blakey in case you wonder who he was later on, now this is the real story:
One day, my mother had to go out shopping, so she asked my father if he would mind my naughty little sister for the day. My mother said she would take me shopping because I was a big girl, but my little sister was too draggy and moany to go to the big shops.
My father said he would mind my little sister, but my little sister said, ‘I want to go, I want to go.’ You know how she said that by now, I think. ‘I want to go’ – like that. And she kicked and screamed.
My mother said, ‘Oh, dear, how tiresome you are,’ to my little sister, but my father said, ‘You’ll jolly well do as you’re told, old lady.’
Then my naughty little sister wouldn’t eat her breakfast, but my mother went off shopping with me just the same, and when we had gone, my father looked very fierce, and he said, ‘What about that breakfast?’
So my naughty little sister ate all her breakfast up, every bit, and she said, ‘More milk, please,’ and ‘more bread, please,’ so much that my father got tired getting it for her.
Then, as it was a hot day, my father said, ‘I’ll bring my work into the garden, and give an eye to you at the same time.’
So my father took a chair and a table out into the garden, and my little sister went out into the garden too, and because my father was there she played good child’s games. She didn’t tread on the baby seedlings, or pick the flowers, or steal the blackcurrants, or do anything at all wicked. She didn’t want my father to look fierce again, and my father said she was a good nice child.
My little sister just sat on the lawn and played with Rosy-Primrose, and she made a tea-party with leaves and nasturtium seeds, and when she wanted something she asked my father for it nicely, not going off and finding it for herself at all.
She said, ‘Please, Father, would you get me Rosy-Primrose’s box?’ and my father put down his pen, and his writing-paper, and got out of his chair, and went and got Rosy-Primrose’s box, which was on the top shelf of the toy-cupboard and had all Rosy-Primrose’s tatty old clothes in it.
Then my father did writing again, and then my little sister said, ‘Please can I have a drink of water?’ She said it nicely, ‘Please,’ she said.
That was very good of her to ask, because she sometimes used to drink germy water out of the water-butt, but Father wasn’t pleased at all, he said, ‘Bother!’ because he was being a busy man, and he stamped and stamped to the kitchen to get the water for my polite little sister.
But my father didn’t know about Rosy-Primrose’s water. You see, when my little sister had a drink she always gave Rosy-Primrose a drink too in a blue doll’s cup. So when my father brought back the water, my little sister said, ‘Where is Rosy-Primrose’s water?’ and my cross father said, ‘Bother Rosy-Primrose,’ like that, cross and grumbly.
And my father was crosser and grumblier when my little sister asked him to put Rosy-Primrose’s box back in the toy-cupboard, he said, ‘That wretched doll again?’ and he took Rosy-Primrose and shut her in the box too, and put it on top of the bookcase, to show how firm he was going to be. So then my little sister stopped being good.
She started to yell and stamp, and make such a noise that people going by looked over the hedge to see what the matter was. Wouldn’t you have been ashamed if it were you stamping and yelling with people looking at you? My naughty little sister wasn’t ashamed. She didn’t care about the people at all, she was a stubborn bad child.
My father was a stubborn man too. He took his table and his chair and his writing things indoors and shut himself away in his study. ‘You’ll jolly well stay there till you behave,’ he said to my naughty little sister.
My naughty little sister cried and cried until my father looked out of the window and said, ‘Any more of that, and off to bed you go.’ Then she was quiet, because she didn’t want to go to bed.
She only peeped in once after that, but my father said, ‘Go away, do,’ and went on writing and writing, and he was so interested in his writing, he forgot all about my little sister, and it wasn’t until he began to get hungry that he remembered her at all.
Then my father went out into the kitchen, and there was a lot of nice salad-stuff in the kitchen that our mother had left for lunch, there was junket too, and stewed pears, and biscuits for my father and my little sister’s lunches. My father remembered my little sister then, and he went to call her for lunch, because it was quite late. It was so late it was four o’clock.
But my little sister wasn’t in the garden. My father looked and looked. He looked among the marrows, and behind the runner-bean rows, and under the hedge. He looked in the shed and down the cellar-hole, but there was no little girl.
Then my father went indoors again and looked all over the house, and all the time he was calling and calling, but there was still no little girl at all.
Then my father got worried. He didn’t stop to change his slippers or eat his lunch. He went straight out of the gate, and down the road to look for my little sister. But he couldn’t see her at all. He asked people, ‘Have you seen a little girl with red hair?’ and people said, ‘No.’
My father was just coming up the road again, looking so hot and so worried, when my mother and I got off the bus. When my mother saw him, she said, ‘He’s lost that child,’ because she knows my father and my little sister rather well.
When
we got indoors my mother said, ‘Why haven’t you eaten your lunch?’ and then my father told her all about the writing, and my bad sister. So my mother said, ‘Well, if she’s anywhere, she’s near food of some kind, have you looked in the larder?’ My father said he had. So Mother said, ‘Well, I don’t know –’
Then I said something clever, I said, ‘I expect she is with old Mr Blakey.’ So we went off to Mr Blakey’s shop, and there she was. Fast asleep on a pile of leather bits.
Mr Blakey seemed quite cross with us for having lost her, and my naughty little sister was very cross when we took her away because she said she had had a lovely time with Mr Blakey. Mr Blakey had boiled her an egg in his tea-kettle, and given her some bread and cheese out of newspaper, and let her cut it for herself with one of his nice leathery knives. Mother was cross because she had been looking forward to a nice cup of tea after the bus journey, and I was cross because my little sister had had such a fine time in Mr Blakey’s shop.
The only happy one was my father. He said, ‘Thank goodness I can work again without having to concentrate on a disagreeable baby.’ However, that made my little sister cry again, so he wasn’t happy for long.
14. My Naughty Little Sister and the good polite child
Once, a long time ago, when I was little, my mother said to my naughty little sister, ‘I have a little girl coming to tea this afternoon. I hope you will be good and kind to her, because I am going to mind her while her mother goes out.’
My little sister was very interested about this little girl, and my mother said, ‘Her name is Winnie and she is a good polite child, I hear.’
So my little sister got all her toys out and put them in the garden to show Winnie when she came, and my mother made some cherry cakes and jam-tarts, and some ginger biscuits for tea.
Wasn’t my mother a kind woman, making those nice things for tea? Do you know, because Winnie was coming, my mother said, ‘We will have tea in the garden, with the best bluebird tablecloth.’
My little sister liked this, because the bluebird tablecloth was very special. It had bluebirds on it, and trees on it, and little funny men walking on bridges on it, and little boats with men fishing on it, and they were all blue as blue. My little sister said, ‘I shall like that.’
When it was time for Winnie to come, my mother changed my little sister’s dress, and put on her a pair of nice blue socks. My little sister was very proud of those blue socks, and when she heard the knock on the front door she ran to show them to the good polite Winnie.
But what do you think? Winnie had blue socks too! And a blue silky dress, and blue shiny shoes, and when she came in, her mother put her a frilly white silky apron on to keep her dress clean. My little sister was so pleased to see how pretty Winnie looked that she forgot to say, ‘How do you do?’ She said, ‘Blue socks too!’ instead.
But do you know, that Winnie didn’t say anything! She just stood and stood, and she didn’t look at our mother, or my little sister, she just peeped. She made her eyes all peepy and small, because she didn’t like to look at anyone, and when her mother went away, she didn’t scream for her, or shout, ‘Goodbye,’ to her, or make any noise and fuss of any kind. She just went on being thoroughly peepy, and she went quietly, quietly into the garden with my little sister without saying anything at all.
My little sister showed Winnie all her toys. She showed her Rosy-Primrose first. Rosy-Primrose wasn’t very beautiful that day, because it was a time when she had lost her hair and her eyes, and Winnie just peeped at Rosy-Primrose and didn’t say anything.
So my little sister showed her the bricks, and the story-books and the teddies and the patty tins, and the teaset and the jigsaws, and all the other toys, and the good polite child didn’t say anything at all.
So my funny little sister said, ‘Can you talk?’ and then Winnie said, ‘Yes,’ to show she could speak, so my little sister said, ‘Would you like to make mud-pies?’
That good Winnie said, ‘Oh, no, I might get dirty.’ She didn’t say ‘Yes’ because she didn’t want to get her beautiful dress and her beautiful apron dirty, so my little sister said, ‘Well, shall we go down the garden and eat gooseberries?’ even though she knew that was naughty.
But good Winnie said, ‘No, I might get tummy-ache.’
So my little sister said, ‘Shall we have a race round the lawn?’ and Winnie said, ‘Oh, no, it’s so hot,’ in a quiet good voice.
And she didn’t want to climb up the apple trees in case she tore her frock, and she didn’t want to sit on the grass in case there were ants, and she didn’t want to shout over the front gate to the school-children because it was rude, and all the time she just looked peepy, peepy at my little sister.
So then my little sister said, ‘What would you like to do?’ And the polite good Winnie said she would like to take a story-book indoors to read. So she took one of the story-books indoors and read it on her own.
My naughty little sister didn’t want to read story-books indoors, so she went and made a dirt pie, and ate some gooseberries, and raced round the lawn, and climbed the apple trees, and sat on the grass, and then she shouted over the gate at the school-children, just to show how bad she could be.
When tea-time came, with all the nice cherry cakes and jam-tarts and ginger biscuits, the good polite Winnie came out and sat in the garden. When my little sister showed her the bluebird tablecloth Winnie only peeped and said, ‘My mother has a tablecloth with roses and pansies and forget-me-nots on.’
And when my mother asked her to have a cake, she said, ‘No, thank you, bread and butter, please,’ and she wouldn’t have a jam-tart, she had one little ginger biscuit, and then she said she wasn’t hungry any more. Wasn’t she polite?
My little sister wasn’t polite like that. She had four cakes and three jam-tarts, and eight ginger biscuits. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, like that – and she ate them all, all up.
After tea good polite Winnie’s mother came to fetch her home. She took off Winnie’s apron and Winnie said, ‘Good-bye, and thank you for minding me,’ in a quiet good voice like that, ‘Good afternoon,’ she said.
And when she had gone, my mother said, ‘What a quiet child.’ But what do you think my funny little sister said? She said, ‘I’m glad I’m not as good as all that.’
And my mother said, ‘Oh, well, you are not so bad, I suppose.’
15. My Naughty Little Sister and the workmen
When my sister was a naughty little girl, she was a very, very inquisitive child. She was always looking and peeping into things that didn’t belong to her. She used to open other people’s cupboards and boxes just to find out what was inside.
Aren’t you glad you aren’t inquisitive like that?
Well now, one day a lot of workmen came to dig up all the roads near our house, and my little sister was very interested in them. They were very nice men, but some of them had rather loud shouty voices sometimes. There were shovelling men, and picking men, and men with jumping-about things that went ‘Ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-aha-aaa’, and men who drank tea out of jampots, and men who cooked sausages over fires, and there was an old, old man who sat up all night when the other men had gone home, and who had a lot of coats and scarves to keep him warm.
There were lots of things for my little inquisitive sister to see, there were heaps of earth, and red lanterns for the old, old man to light at night-time,
and long pole-y things to keep people from falling down the holes in the road, and the workmen’s huts, and many other things.
When the workmen were in our road, my little sister used to watch them every day. She used to lean over the gate and stare and stare, but when they went off to the next road she didn’t see so much of them.
Well now, I will tell you about the inquisitive thing my naughty little sister did one day, shall I?
Yes. Well, do you remember Bad Harry who was my little sister’s best boy-friend. Do you? I thought you did. Now this Bad Harry came one day to ask my mothe
r if my little sister could go round to his house to play with him, and as Bad Harry’s house wasn’t far away, and as there were no roads to cross, my mother said my little sister could go.
So my little sister put on her hat and her coat, and her scarf and her gloves, because it was a cold nasty day, and went off with her best boy-friend to play with him.
They hurried along like good children until they came to the workmen in the next road, and then they went slow as slow, because there were so many things to see. They looked at this and at that, and when they got past the workmen they found a very curious thing.
By the road there was a tall hedge, and under the tall hedge there was a mackintoshy bundle.
Now this mackintoshy bundle hadn’t anything to do with Bad Harry, and it hadn’t anything to do with my naughty little sister, yet, do you know they were so inquisitive that they stopped and looked at it.
They had such a good look at it that they had to get right under the hedge to see, and when they got very near it they found it was an old mackintosh wrapped round something or other inside.
Weren’t they naughty? They should have gone straight home to Bad Harry’s mother’s house, shouldn’t they? But they didn’t. They stayed and looked at the mackintoshy bundle.
And they opened it. They really truly did. It wasn’t their bundle, but they opened it wide under the hedge, and do you know what was inside it? I know you aren’t an inquisitive meddlesome child, but would you like to know?
Well, inside the bundle there were lots and lots of parcels and packages tied up in red handkerchiefs, and brown paper, and newspaper, and instead of putting them back again like nice children, those little horrors started to open all those parcels, and inside those parcels there were lots of things to eat!
My Naughty Little Sister Page 5