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Jules Verne - "De la Terre  la Lune"

Wilhelm Busch - "Hans Huckebein"

Stewart Edward White - "Arizona Nights"

Richard Harding Davis - "Billy and the Big Stick"

Five Children and It

E >> E. Nesbit >> Five Children and It




'I wish WE were going to the Fair,' said Robert.

'You can't go anywhere that size,' said Cyril.

'Why not?' said Robert. 'They have giants at fairs, much bigger
ones than me.'

'Not much, they don't,' Cyril was beginning, when Jane screamed
'Oh!' with such loud suddenness that they all thumped her on the
back and asked whether she had swallowed a plum-stone.

'No,' she said, breathless from being thumped, 'it's - it's not a
plum-stone. it's an idea. Let's take Robert to the Fair, and get
them to give us money for showing him! Then we really shall get
something out of the old Sammyadd at last!'

'Take me, indeed!' said Robert indignantly. 'Much more likely me
take you!'

And so it turned out. The idea appealed irresistibly to everyone
but Robert, and even he was brought round by Anthea's suggestion
that he should have a double share of any money they might make.
There was a little old pony-trap in the coach-house - the kind that
is called a governess-cart. It seemed desirable to get to the Fair
as quickly as possible, so Robert - who could now take enormous
steps and so go very fast indeed - consented to wheel the others in
this. It was as easy to him now as wheeling the Lamb in the
mail-cart had been in the morning. The Lamb's cold prevented his
being of the party.

It was a strange sensation being wheeled in a pony-carriage by a
giant. Everyone enjoyed the journey except Robert and the few
people they passed on the way. These mostly went into what looked
like some kind of standing-up fits by the roadside, as Anthea said.
just outside Benenhurst, Robert hid in a barn, and the others went
on to the Fair.

There were some swings, and a hooting tooting blaring
merry-go-round, and a shooting-gallery and coconut shies.
Resisting an impulse to win a coconut - or at least to attempt the
enterprise - Cyril went up to the woman who was loading little guns
before the array of glass bottles on strings against a sheet of
canvas.

'Here you are, little gentleman!' she said. 'Penny a shot!'

'No, thank you,' said Cyril, 'we are here on business, not on
pleasure. Who's the master?'

'The what?'

'The master - the head - the boss of the show.'

'Over there,' she said, pointing to a stout man in a dirty linen
jacket who was sleeping in the sun; 'but I don't advise you to wake
him sudden. His temper's contrary, especially these hot days.
Better have a shot while you're waiting.'

'It's rather important,' said Cyril. 'It'll be very profitable to
him. I think he'll be sorry if we take it away.'

'Oh, if it's money in his pocket,' said the woman. 'No kid now?
What is it?'

'It's a GIANT.'

'You ARE kidding?'

'Come along and see,' said Anthea.

The woman looked doubtfully at them, then she called to a ragged
little girl in striped stockings and a dingy white petticoat that
came below her brown frock, and leaving her in charge of the
'shooting-gallery' she turned to Anthea and said, 'Well, hurry up!
But if you ARE kidding, you'd best say so. I'm as mild as milk
myself, but my Bill he's a fair terror and -'

Anthea led the way to the barn. 'It really IS a giant,' she said.
'He's a giant little boy - in Norfolks like my brother's there.
And we didn't bring him up to the Fair because people do stare so,
and they seem to go into kind of standing-up fits when they see
him. And we thought perhaps you'd like to show him and get
pennies; and if you like to pay us something, you can - only, it'll
have to be rather a lot, because we promised him he should have a
double share of whatever we made.'

The woman murmured something indistinct, of which the children
could only hear the words, 'Swelp me!' 'balmy,' and 'crumpet,'
which conveyed no definite idea to their minds.
She had taken Anthea's hand, and was holding it very firmly; and
Anthea could not help wondering what would happen if Robert should
have wandered off or turned his proper size during the interval.
But she knew that the Psammead's gifts really did last till sunset,
however inconvenient their lasting might be; and she did not think,
somehow, that Robert would care to go out alone while he was that
size.

When they reached the barn and Cyril called 'Robert!' there was a
stir among the loose hay, and Robert began to come out. His hand
and arm came first - then a foot and leg. When the woman saw the
hand she said 'My!' but when she saw the foot she said 'Upon my
civvy!' and when, by slow and heavy degrees, the whole of Robert's
enormous bulk was at last completely disclosed, she drew a long
breath and began to say many things, compared with which 'balmy'
and 'crumpet' seemed quite ordinary. She dropped into
understandable English at last.

'What'll you take for him?' she said excitedly. 'Anything in
reason. We'd have a special van built - leastways, I know where
there's a second-hand one would do up handsome - what a baby
elephant had, as died. What'll you take? He's soft, ain't he?
Them giants mostly is - but I never see - no, never! What'll you
take? Down on the nail. We'll treat him like a king, and give him
first-rate grub and a doss fit for a bloomin' dook. He must be
dotty or he wouldn't need you kids to cart him about. What'll you
take for him?'

'They won't take anything,' said Robert sternly. 'I'm no more soft
than you are - not so much, I shouldn't wonder. I'll come and be
a show for to-day if you'll give me' - he hesitated at the enormous
price he was about to ask - 'if you'll give me fifteen shillings.'

'Done,' said the woman, so quickly that Robert felt he had been
unfair to himself, and wished he had asked thirty. 'Come on now -
and see my Bill - and we'll fix a price for the season. I dessay
you might get as much as two quid a week reg'lar. Come on - and
make yourself as small as you can, for gracious' sake!'

This was not very small, and a crowd gathered quickly, so that it
was at the head of an enthusiastic procession that Robert entered
the trampled meadow where the Fair was held, and passed over the
stubbly yellow dusty grass to the door of the biggest tent. He
crept in, and the woman went to call her Bill. He was the big
sleeping man, and he did not seem at all pleased at being awakened.
Cyril, watching through a slit in the tent, saw him scowl and shake
a heavy fist and a sleepy head. Then the woman went on speaking
very fast. Cyril heard 'Strewth,' and 'biggest draw you ever, so
help me!' and he began to share Robert's feeling that fifteen
shillings was indeed far too little. Bill slouched up to the tent
and entered. When he beheld the magnificent proportions of Robert
he said but little - 'Strike me pink!' were the only words the
children could afterwards remember - but he produced fifteen
shillings, mainly in sixpences and coppers, and handed it to
Robert.

'We'll fix up about what you're to draw when the show's over
to-night,' he said with hoarse heartiness. 'Lor' love a duck!
you'll be that happy with us you'll never want to leave us. Can
you do a song now - or a bit of a breakdown?'

'Not to-day,' said Robert, rejecting the idea of trying to sing 'As
once in May', a favourite of his mother's, and the only song he
could think of at the moment.

'Get Levi and clear them bloomin' photos out. Clear the tent.
Stick up a curtain or suthink,' the man went on. 'Lor', what a
pity we ain't got no tights his size! But we'll have 'em before
the week's out. Young man, your fortune's made. It's a good thing
you came to me, and not to some chaps as I could tell you on. I've
known blokes as beat their giants, and starved 'em too; so I'll
tell you straight, you're in luck this day if you never was afore.
'Cos I'm a lamb, I am - and I don't deceive you.'

'I'm not afraid of anyone's beating ME,' said Robert, looking down
on the 'lamb'. Robert was crouched on his knees, because the tent
was not big enough for him to stand upright in, but even in that
position he could still look down on most people. 'But I'm awfully
hungry I wish you'd get me something to eat.'

'Here, 'Becca,' said the hoarse Bill. 'Get him some grub - the
best you've got, mind!' Another whisper followed, of which the
children only heard, 'Down in black and white - first thing
to-morrow.'

Then the woman went to get the food - it was only bread and cheese
when it came, but it was delightful to the large and empty Robert;
and the man went to post sentinels round the tent, to give the
alarm if Robert should attempt to escape with his fifteen
shillings.

'As if we weren't honest,' said Anthea indignantly when the meaning
of the sentinels dawned on her.

Then began a very strange and wonderful afternoon.

Bill was a man who knew his business. In a very little while, the
photographic views, the spyglasses you look at them through, so
that they really seem rather real, and the lights you see them by,
were all packed away. A curtain - it was an old red-and-black
carpet really - was run across the tent. Robert was concealed
behind, and Bill was standing on a trestle-table outside the tent
making a speech. It was rather a good speech. It began by saying
that the giant it was his privilege to introduce to the public that
day was the eldest son of the Emperor of San Francisco, compelled
through an unfortunate love affair with the Duchess of the Fiji
Islands to leave his own country and take refuge in England - the
land of liberty - where freedom was the right of every man, no
matter how big he was. It ended by the announcement that the first
twenty who came to the tent door should see the giant for
threepence apiece. 'After that,' said Bill, 'the price is riz, and
I don't undertake to say what it won't be riz to. So now's yer
time.'

A young man squiring his sweetheart on her afternoon out was the
first to come forward. For that occasion his was the princely
attitude - no expense spared - money no object. His girl wished to
see the giant? Well, she should see the giant, even though seeing
the giant cost threepence each and the other entertainments were
all penny ones.

The flap of the tent was raised - the couple entered. Next moment
a wild shriek from the girl thrilled through all present. Bill
slapped his leg. 'That's done the trick!' he whispered to 'Becca.
It was indeed a splendid advertisement of the charms of Robert.
When the girl came out she was pale and trembling, and a crowd was
round the tent.


'What was it like?' asked a bailiff.

'Oh! - horrid! - you wouldn't believe,' she said. 'It's as big as
a barn, and that fierce. It froze the blood in my bones. I
wouldn't ha' missed seeing it for anything.'

The fierceness was only caused by Robert's trying not to laugh.
But the desire to do that soon left him, and before sunset he was
more inclined to cry than to laugh, and more inclined to sleep than
either. For, by ones and twos and threes, people kept coming in
all the afternoon, and Robert had to shake hands with those who
wished it, and allow himself to be punched and pulled and patted
and thumped, so that people might make sure he was really real.

The other children sat on a bench and watched and waited, and were
very bored indeed. It seemed to them that this was the hardest way
of earning money that could have been invented. And only fifteen
shillings! Bill had taken four times that already, for the news of
the giant had spread, and tradespeople in carts, and gentlepeople
in carriages, came from far and near. One gentleman with an
eyeglass, and a very large yellow rose in his buttonhole, offered
Robert, in an obliging whisper, ten pounds a week to appear at the
Crystal Palace. Robert had to say 'No'.

'I can't,' he said regretfully. 'It's no use promising what you
can't do.'

'Ah, poor fellow, bound for a term of years, I suppose! Well,
here's my card; when your time's up come to me.'

'I will - if I'm the same size then,' said Robert truthfully.

'If you grow a bit, so much the better,' said the gentleman.
When he had gone, Robert beckoned Cyril and said:

'Tell them I must and will have an easy. And I want my tea.'

Tea was provided, and a paper hastily pinned on the tent. It said:

CLOSED FOR HALF AN HOUR
WHILE THE GIANT GETS HIS TEA

Then there was a hurried council.

'How am I to get away?' said Robert. 'I've been thinking about it
all the afternoon.'

'Why, walk out when the sun sets and you're your right size. They
can't do anything to us.'

Robert opened his eyes. 'Why, they'd nearly kill us,' he said,
'when they saw me get my right size. No, we must think of some
other way. We MUST be alone when the sun sets.'

'I know,' said Cyril briskly, and he went to the door, outside
which Bill was smoking a clay pipe and talking in a low voice to
'Becca. Cyril heard him say - 'Good as havin' a fortune left you.'

'Look here,' said Cyril, 'you can let people come in again in a
minute. He's nearly finished his tea. But he must be left alone
when the sun sets. He's very queer at that time of day, and if
he's worried I won't answer for the consequences.'

'Why - what comes over him?' asked Bill.

'I don't know; it's - it's a sort of a change,' said Cyril
candidly. 'He isn't at all like himself - you'd hardly know him.
He's very queer indeed. Someone'll get hurt if he's not alone
about sunset.' This was true.

'He'll pull round for the evening, I s'pose?'

'Oh yes - half an hour after sunset he'll be quite himself again.'

'Best humour him,' said the woman.

And so, at what Cyril judged was about half an hour before sunset,
the tent was again closed 'whilst the giant gets his supper'.

The crowd was very merry about the giant's meals and their coming
so close together.

'Well, he can pick a bit,' Bill owned. 'You see he has to eat
hearty, being the size he is.'

Inside the tent the four children breathlessly arranged a plan of
retreat.
'You go NOW,' said Cyril to the girls, 'and get along home as fast
as you can. Oh, never mind the beastly pony-cart; we'll get that
to-morrow. Robert and I are dressed the same. We'll manage
somehow, like Sydney Carton did. Only, you girls MUST get out, or
it's all no go. We can run, but you can't - whatever you may
think. No, Jane, it's no good Robert going out and knocking people
down. The police would follow him till he turned his proper size,
and then arrest him like a shot. Go you must! If you don't, I'll
never speak to you again. It was you got us into this mess really,
hanging round people's legs the way you did this morning. Go, I
tell you!'

And Jane and Anthea went.

'We're going home,' they said to Bill. 'We're leaving the giant
with you. Be kind to him.' And that, as Anthea said afterwards,
was very deceitful, but what were they to do?

When they had gone, Cyril went to Bill.

'Look here,' he said, 'he wants some ears of corn - there's some in
the next field but one. I'll just run and get it. Oh, and he says
can't you loop up the tent at the back a bit? He says he's
stifling for a breath of air. I'll see no one peeps in at him.
I'll cover him up, and he can take a nap while I go for the corn.
He WILL have it - there's no holding him when he gets like this.'

The giant was made comfortable with a heap of sacks and an old
tarpaulin. The curtain was looped up, and the brothers were left
alone. They matured their plan in whispers. Outside, the
merry-go-round blared out its comic tunes, screaming now and then
to attract public notice.

Half a minute after the sun had set, a boy in a Norfolk suit came
out past Bill.

'I'm off for the corn,' he said, and mingled quickly with the
crowd.

At the same instant a boy came out of the back of the tent past
'Becca, posted there as sentinel.

'I'm off after the corn,' said this boy also. And he, too, moved
away quietly and was lost in the crowd. The front-door boy was
Cyril; the back-door was Robert - now, since sunset, once more his
proper size. They walked quickly through the field, and along the
road, where Robert caught Cyril up. Then they ran. They were home
as soon as the girls were, for it was a long way, and they ran most
of it. It was indeed a very long way, as they found when they had
to go and drag the pony-trap home next morning, with no enormous
Robert to wheel them in it as if it were a mail-cart, and they were
babies and he was their gigantic nursemaid.


I cannot possibly tell you what Bill and 'Becca said when they
found that the giant had gone. For one thing, I do not know.



CHAPTER 9
GROWN UP


Cyril had once pointed out that ordinary life is full of occasions
on which a wish would be most useful. And this thought filled his
mind when he happened to wake early on the morning after the
morning after Robert had wished to be bigger than the baker's boy,
and had been it. The day that lay between these two days had been
occupied entirely by getting the governess-cart home from
Benenhurst.

Cyril dressed hastily; he did not take a bath, because tin baths
are so noisy, and he had no wish to rouse Robert, and he slipped
off alone, as Anthea had once done, and ran through the dewy
morning to the sand-pit. He dug up the Psammead very carefully and
kindly, and began the conversation by asking it whether it still
felt any ill effects from the contact with the tears of Robert the
day before yesterday. The Psammead was in a good temper. It
replied politely.

'And now, what can I do for you?' it said. 'I suppose you've come
here so early to ask for something for yourself, something your
brothers and sisters aren't to know about eh? Now, do be persuaded
for your own good! Ask for a good fat Megatherium and have done
with it.'

'Thank you - not to-day, I think,' said Cyril cautiously. 'What I
really wanted to say was - you know how you're always wishing for
things when you're playing at anything?'

'I seldom play,' said the Psammead coldly.

'Well, you know what I mean,' Cyril went on impatiently. 'What I
want to say is: won't you let us have our wish just when we think
of it, and just where we happen to be? So that we don't have to
come and disturb you again,' added the crafty Cyril.

'It'll only end in your wishing for something you don't really
want, like you did about the castle,' said the Psammead, stretching
its brown arms and yawning. 'It's always the same since people
left off eating really wholesome things. However, have it your own
way. Good-bye.'

'Good-bye,' said Cyril politely.

'I'll tell you what,' said the Psammead suddenly, shooting out its
long snail's eyes - 'I'm getting tired of you - all of you. You
have no more sense than so many oysters. Go along with you!'
And Cyril went.

'What an awful long time babies STAY babies,' said Cyril after the
Lamb had taken his watch out of his pocket while he wasn't
noticing, and with coos and clucks of naughty rapture had opened
the case and used the whole thing as a garden spade, and when even
immersion in a wash-hand basin had failed to wash the mould from
the works and make the watch go again. Cyril had said several
things in the heat of the moment; but now he was calmer, and had
even consented to carry the Lamb part of the way to the woods.
Cyril had persuaded the others to agree to his plan, and not to
wish for anything more till they really did wish it. Meantime it
seemed good to go to the woods for nuts, and on the mossy grass
under a sweet chestnut-tree the five were sitting. The Lamb was
pulling up the moss by fat handfuls, and Cyril was gloomily
contemplating the ruins of his watch.

'He does grow,' said Anthea. 'Doesn't oo, precious?'

'Me grow,' said the Lamb cheerfully - 'me grow big boy, have guns
an' mouses - an' - an' ...' Imagination or vocabulary gave out
here. But anyway it was the longest speech the Lamb had ever made,
and it charmed everyone, even Cyril, who tumbled the Lamb over and
rolled him in the moss to the music of delighted squeals.

'I suppose he'll be grown up some day,' Anthea was saying, dreamily
looking up at the blue of the sky that showed between the long
straight chestnut-leaves. But at that moment the Lamb, struggling
gaily with Cyril, thrust a stoutly-shod little foot against his
brother's chest; there was a crack! - the innocent Lamb had broken
the glass of father's second-best Waterbury watch, which Cyril had
borrowed without leave.

'Grow up some day!' said Cyril bitterly, plumping the Lamb down on
the grass. 'I daresay he will when nobody wants him to. I wish to
goodness he would -'

'OH, take care!' cried Anthea in an agony of apprehension. But it
was too late - like music to a song her words and Cyril's came out
together - Anthea - 'Oh, take care!' Cyril - 'Grow up now!'

The faithful Psammead was true to its promise, and there, before
the horrified eyes of its brothers and sisters, the Lamb suddenly
and violently grew up. It was the most terrible moment. The
change was not so sudden as the wish-changes usually were. The
Baby's face changed first. It grew thinner and larger, lines came
in the forehead, the eyes grew more deep-set and darker in colour,
the mouth grew longer and thinner; most terrible of all, a little
dark moustache appeared on the lip of one who was still - except as
to the face - a two-year-old baby in a linen smock and white
open-work socks.

'Oh, I wish it wouldn't! Oh, I wish it wouldn't! You boys might
wish as well!' They all wished hard, for the sight was enough to
dismay the most heartless. They all wished so hard, indeed, that
they felt quite giddy and almost lost consciousness; but the
wishing was quite vain, for, when the wood ceased to whirl round,
their dazzled eyes were riveted at once by the spectacle of a very
proper-looking young man in flannels and a straw hat - a young man
who wore the same little black moustache which just before they had
actually seen growing upon the Baby's lip. This, then, was the
Lamb - grown up! Their own Lamb! It was a terrible moment. The
grown-up Lamb moved gracefully across the moss and settled himself
against the trunk of the sweet chestnut. He tilted the straw hat
over his eyes. He was evidently weary. He was going to sleep.
The Lamb - the original little tiresome beloved Lamb often went to
sleep at odd times and in unexpected places. Was this new Lamb in
the grey flannel suit and the pale green necktie like the other
Lamb? or had his mind grown up together with his body?

That was the question which the others, in a hurried council held
among the yellowing bracken a few yards from the sleeper, debated
eagerly.

'Whichever it is, it'll be just as awful,' said Anthea. 'If his
inside senses are grown up too, he won't stand our looking after
him; and if he's still a baby inside of him how on earth are we to
get him to do anything? And it'll be getting on for dinner-time in
a minute 'And we haven't got any nuts,' said Jane.

'Oh, bother nuts!' said Robert; 'but dinner's different - I didn't
have half enough dinner yesterday. Couldn't we tie him to the tree
and go home to our dinners and come back afterwards?'

'A fat lot of dinner we should get if we went back without the
Lamb!' said Cyril in scornful misery. 'And it'll be just the same
if we go back with him in the state he is now. Yes, I know it's my
doing; don't rub it in! I know I'm a beast, and not fit to live;
you can take that for settled, and say no more about it. The
question is, what are we going to do?'

'Let's wake him up, and take him into Rochester or Maidstone and
get some grub at a pastrycook's,' said Robert hopefully.

'Take him?' repeated Cyril. 'Yes - do! It's all MY fault - I
don't deny that - but you'll find you've got your work cut out for
you if you try to take that young man anywhere. The Lamb always
was spoilt, but now he's grown up he's a demon - simply. I can see
it. Look at his mouth.'

'Well then,' said Robert, 'let's wake him up and see what HE'LL do.
Perhaps HE'LL take us to Maidstone and stand Sam. He ought to have
a lot of money in the pockets of those extra-special bags. We MUST
have dinner, anyway.'

They drew lots with little bits of bracken. It fell to jane's lot
to waken the grown-up Lamb.

She did it gently by tickling his nose with a twig of wild
honeysuckle. He said 'Bother the flies!' twice, and then opened
his eyes.

'Hullo, kiddies!' he said in a languid tone, 'still here? What's
the giddy hour? You'll be late for your grub!'

'I know we shall,' said Robert bitterly.

'Then cut along home,' said the grown-up Lamb.

'What about your grub, though?' asked Jane.

'Oh, how far is it to the station, do you think? I've a sort of
notion that I'll run up to town and have some lunch at the club.'

Blank misery fell like a pall on the four others. The Lamb - alone
- unattended - would go to town and have lunch at a club! Perhaps
he would also have tea there. Perhaps sunset would come upon him
amid the dazzling luxury of club-land, and a helpless cross sleepy
baby would find itself alone amid unsympathetic waiters, and would
wail miserably for 'Panty' from the depths of a club arm-chair!
The picture moved Anthea almost to tears.

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