Elizabeth Von Arnim

“ June was a short, thick baby, and couldn't reach up to the windows as comfortably as the other two; and besides, April had scratched lovely big eye-holes with her nails in the ice on the pane, and June coveted them. Do you know what covet means? It is a dreadful feeling that seizes people when they see somebody else with the things they would like and haven't got, and makes them feel as though they were going to burst. ”

“ And as no one can respect a person they have knocked down and jumped on, and as the conclusion was that all boys must be alike, the babies, especially June, thought them a decidedly inferior set.
'Tuck up your dress, April,' said the mother. 'You shall be the young man, and June the pretty maid. Come, we'll go to the piano and I'll teach you to act it. May can look on and clap.'
The babies wore blue dresses with blue knickerbockers underneath to match, and April had only to tuck up her skirt to look just like a boy whose curls haven't been cut off. ”

“ Séraphine was nowhere to be seen, and indeed the lullabies were very maddening. May, however, seemed to like them, and lay on the sofa quite comfortable, and pleased at doing nothing; and though she sneezed a good deal, was otherwise enjoying herself.
'That child's ears can't be very sensitive,' thought the mother, getting away as quickly as possible; and she shut all the doors between the schoolroom and the drawing-room, and, as lullabies were the fashion, wrote a tune for Hush-a-bye Baby. ”

“ Then Séraphine, their French nurse, came in, and threw up her hands aghast at what she saw,—the room all littered with bran and doll's hair, the table covered with the remains of the feast, the sofa strewn with saucepans, and the two babies rolling over and over each other on the floor. ”

“ But you leave off being a prodigy after a certain age, and this mother was much too old to be one, and had never shown the least symptoms of being one at any time; and when she was left alone to write the tune, and knew it had somehow got to be done, she felt as uncomfortable as you would if you were shut up in a room alone with a piano and told to compose music. But what will not mothers do for their children? You ask your mother to write tunes for you, and see if she will not do it at once! ”

“ Séraphine couldn't teach them, because she didn't know anything herself, which was the best of reasons; all she could do was to sing French songs without any tune in them over and over again till the babies had learnt them, by which time the mother in the next room was almost distracted. They had cooked their dolls, they had no lessons, they couldn't get out and run in the garden,—I don't believe any baby in the world could keep long-14- out of a corner under such conditions, or any mother, knowing its difficulties, be happy. ”

“ This boy had come to tea with his mother on his first introduction into their midst, and after tea, and while the two mothers sat on a sofa watching their children, and each one thinking how much nicer hers were, the babies said, 'Now we shall play.'
'Come, boy,' said June, seizing his arm as he showed no signs of moving, 'come—does you hear? We shall play.'
'I never play with little girls,' said the boy.
The babies stared. 'Why not?' they asked.
'They're much too stupid. They can't be soldiers when they grow up, and can't fight. ”

“ The babies had themselves possessed kittens that they had loved and lost. Directly they were big enough they took to tree-climbing and bird-nesting, and finally stayed away altogether. It was in their blood,—the blood of ancient German cats, passed on through rows and rows of fathers and mothers who also had had stones thrown at them, and had climbed trees and eaten birds; and what is a poor cat to do? Rose, the black cat in the kitchen, had developed such strange and unpleasant habits of spitting and biting, and clawing, that it had been banished from the playroom. ”

“ For two days, then, the babies played contentedly enough with their dolls. But dolls are but mortal, and how can you expect a doll you have had given you at Christmas to be anything but mangled by Easter? What they were playing with could hardly be called dolls at all, for although there was a great abundance of arms, and legs, and heads, and dresses, and wigs, and eyes, there was not one single complete doll in all the heap. June went about rattling half a dozen eyes in her pocket as grown-up people rattle their money ”

“ The mother watched them go off with their skates after lunch, jumping and running down the path that had been shovelled in the snow, and even Séraphine, the moment she got out of the house into the blessed sunshine, began to look happy, and as though life, after all, were a very pleasant thing. ”

“ I don't know whether she was trying not-39- to cry at the spoilt carpet, or trying not to laugh at the spoilt babies, who looked pitiable objects now with their heads all over chocolate, while April stood staring at them in consternation, the empty jug in her hand.
After you have been very excited and happy there is always a horrible time that comes when you feel so flat, and dull, and stale, that you are more like ginger-beer without the ginger and the froth than anything else. ”

“ And so they did learn it the next day, and have sung it ever since on English prayer nights; and they look so good and angelic while they do it, kneeling in a row in their long nightgowns, with bowed heads and folded hands, that the mother sitting in the midst is sure they must be the dearest babies in the world. But as that is exactly what other mothers think of their babies, and as everybody can't be right, I don't suppose they can really be the dearest, although I know that they are very dear. ”

“ Sometimes it is so cold that for days you are shut up in the house, especially if you happen to be a baby. The babies' mother very nearly decided to oil them all over, as the people do who live more or less at the North Pole, so that they should not feel the cold so much; but then she remembered that babies are sent into the world chiefly that mothers may have something to kiss all the time, and how can you kiss oiled babies? ”

“ I don't think the sort of hare that is called Easter ever goes to England, but in Germany they are supposed to bring all the eggs and presents at Easter in a basket, just as Father Christmas brings the presents at Christmas. The babies had often seen hares in the garden, but they never had baskets, and it was only the mother who was lucky enough to meet the real Easter hare, basket and all. ”

“ The babies sat looking into the fire. A contented, amiable, affectionate cat was an animal they had never yet met. Where they lived, the poor cats were forced to be wild and spend their lives hunting in the fields and forests, because if they ever appeared within reach of a stone and a person to throw it, they were certain to have a bit of themselves broken or bruised. If a man with a gun met a cat he naturally shot it. ”

“ Fascinating pussies with cheerful faces, unclipped ears, and ribbons round their necks, creatures who were often more spoilt than anybody else in the house, who rubbed themselves, confident and purring, against the legs of strangers, who spent their days deliciously snoozing before the fire, who walked about with their untweaked tails straight up in the air in the excess of their contentment? The babies could hardly imagine such a happy state of things ”

“ This mother went over to the piano and sat down, and first of all wished she had never heard of Polly Flinders and her toes. Then she wished that, having heard of them, she had kept the knowledge of them from her children. And then she began to agonise over a tune. You know there are some people who can loftily-23- write down tunes ten miles away from the nearest piano; but this mother wasn't one of that sort, and she sat and agonised, with the soft pedal on so that the babies should not hear the bones of Polly's musical skeleton rattling before the skin had been produced. ”

“ The babies' hair couldn't stand on end because it was too long, and besides, it was safely wrapped up in curl papers; but even if it could have it wouldn't have, for happily they were tough babies, and refused to be anything but amused by Séraphine's bears. I suppose nearly every baby has to pass through the stage of having to listen to the results in bears and black men of their nurse's fruitful imaginings, and it is a mercy if the victim is tough-52- enough not to mind. ”

“ On Easter eve the egg-basket comes, and each one will be busy hiding her eggs. On Easter Sunday they will go to church again, and in the afternoon look for the eggs. And then perhaps the snow will be gone, and lessons will begin again, and the garden grow greener and greener every day, and never, never, never need I make any more tunes!' And she gave a deep sigh of relief, for you see she had only made the tunes to please the babies when they had nothing else to please them, and wouldn't have done so for any other person or reason in the world. ”

“ When the wind blows the cradle will rock;
When the bough breaks the cradle will fall,
And down comes baby and cradle and all.
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By lunch time things were looking brighter. Séraphine had been so deafened by the singing that she had kept out of the way and left the babies alone; the mother was exhausted but pleased, for she had managed to write three tunes; the thermometer had gone up several degrees, the sun was shining gaily, and the babies would be able to go and skate on the stream at the end of the garden. ”

“ She soon found out in the sleigh that this was one of the days when people who are not oiled are better at home, and she turned back and sent April and May in again. June begged so hard to be allowed to stay that she took her a little further, giving in because June was the fattest, and fat babies are never so cold as lean ones. That is why, I suppose, everybody who lives up in those forests where the babies did, are so fat. They eat and drink a great deal all the summer, so that when the long, bitter winter-13- comes they may be nicely protected against the cold, and needn't buy so many furs ”

“ Where these babies lived, when you drive in winter you sit in fur bags up to your waist, and the rest of you is so covered up that nothing but your eyes can be seen. If you don't do that you are frost-bitten, which is a very disagreeable thing to be, and may end in your nose crumbling away, and your beauty crumbling away with it. It is no use my telling you how cold the thermometer showed it to be, for children who live in London and-12- go for walks every day in the Park or Kensington Gardens needn't bother much about thermometers, so you wouldn't understand. ”

“ Oh such a very lot of times!' And seeing that May had got her arms outside the cushion she had put on her chest, she pounced on them, dragged them underneath again, smoothed the cushion with resounding pats, and, bending down, shouted schlaf, Kindlein, schlaf, into her ear. ”

“ The Strains of ‘Polly Flinders’
Well, the mother had found out how to amuse her babies. Till Easter, with its fresh supply of presents, should come, she would teach them the English nursery rhymes, and make up tunes so that they might sing them. At least it would be something new to them, for they had been brought up on German chorales, varied latterly by Séraphine's tra-la-la's. Their mother had sung little German songs to them as babies, dear little songs about-26- Sternleins, and Engeleins, and Kindleins, and they knew all those by heart ”

“ There was such a tangle of arms and legs that the mother found it difficult to sort them out, and set each baby on the feet that belonged to it again; and besides, she was laughing, and you know what your thumbs feel like when you laugh, and how weak they get, and how they won't pull. 'Miss Muffet's too hard to act,' she said, comforting them,-37- 'because of that tiresome tuffet. Try Mary, Mary. One can be Mary, and the other two the row of pretty maids. Two are just enough for a row.'
'And if one went away from that row—then?' inquired June. ”

“ Here was a thing—Polly Flinders, apparently so harmless, turning on her and rending her!
'You will have to go away, then, while I try,' she said, feeling very wretched, though with a faint hope that they would prefer to stay and play games, and let her off making a tune rather than-22- be banished. But they made for the schoolroom door with the greatest alacrity. 'And then you calls us when it is ready,' they cried cheerfully, as they disappeared. ”

“ But June and the other two babies thought all male beings inferior creatures, because they had only met one boy in their lives, and they had been able to knock him down. Of course they saw distant boys from time to time, when they passed the end of the village street or were at the seaside, but there was only one boy for them to play with, the families within reach-68- happening to be made up of girls. ”

“ There are some days, you know, when the best of people get out of bed the wrong side, and can't get right again the whole day, and set other people wrong too, and it was perfectly clear from Séraphine's face that that was what she had done that morning. Corners would await the babies that day at every turn if they were much with Séraphine, however carefully they might climb the narrow path of being good ”