Hugh Walpole

“ It was all sentiment with Mary. What she wanted was that some one (any one) should love her and therefore give her something. She knew that Uncle Samuel did not love her, and she suffered not, therefore, the slightest unhappiness did he forget her natal day; but she would have cried for a week had Jeremy forgotten it. She did not mind did Jeremy only spend sixpence on his gift (but he was a generous boy and always spent everything that, at the moment, he had) so that she might be sure that he had taken a little trouble in the buying of it. ”

“ Yes, Mary’s birthday marked the beginning of the end, and, in addition to that, there was the desperate, urgent question of present-giving. Mary took her present-giving (or rather present-getting) with the utmost seriousness. No one in the whole world minded quite so desperately as she what she got, who gave it her, and how it was given. Not that she was greedy; indeed, no. She was not like Helen, who guessed the price of everything that she received, and had what Uncle Samuel called “a regular shop mind.” ”

“ We all know the truth of the familiar proverb that “Distance lends enchantment to the view,” and it was never more true of anything in the world than of parcels.
All the way back in the ’bus the book grew and grew in magnificence simply because Jeremy could not see it. He clutched the parcel tightly on his knees and resisted all Miss Jones’s attempts to discover its contents. Back in the rectory, he rushed up to his bedroom, locked the door, and then, with trembling fingers, undid the paper. ”

“ The first glimpse of “Robinson Crusoe and the Footmark on the Sand” thrilled him so that the white-washed walls of his room faded away and the thin pale evening glow passed into a sky of burning blue, and a scarlet cockatoo flew screaming above his head and the sand lay hot and sugar-brown at his feet. Mystery was there—the footprint in the sand, and Crusoe with his shaggy beard and peaked hat, staring. ... ”

“ The days that followed could hardly help but be jolly because the weather was so lovely—still, breathless days, when the world seemed to be painted in purple and blue on a wall of ivory, when the sea came over the sand with a ripple of utter content, when the moon appeared early in the evening, a silver bow, and mounted gently into a sky thick with stars, when every sound, the rattle of carts, the barks of dogs, the cries of men, struck the air sharply like blows upon iron. ”

“ Aunt Amy gave her a muff, soft and furry, and Helen gave her a red leather blotter, and Uncle Samuel sent her a book, the very “Dynevon Terrace” that she wanted—how did he know? And Miss Jones gave her a work basket with the prettiest silk lining inside you ever saw, and a pair of gloves from Barbara and—a glass bottle with a silver stopper from Jeremy!
It seemed that she liked this last present best of all. She rushed up to Jeremy and kissed him in the wettest possible way.
“Oh, Jeremy! I am so glad. That’s just what I wanted! I’ve never seen such a darling. ”

“ Then, as though she were ashamed of what she had done, she took the parcel to the bed and undid the paper with clumsy fingers.
“There,” she said, “I got it for you because I thought you’d like it.”
He looked at it; it was a book: it was “Swiss Family Robinson”: it was a companion to his “Robinson Crusoe.” He stared at it: he could say nothing.
“You do like it, don’t you?” she asked, gazing at him anxiously. “It’s got lots and lots of pictures. There was a funny shop at the end of the street and I went in with Miss Jones and the man was very nice. And I thought it was just what you’d like. ”

“ That night his dreams were all of Crusoe, of burning sands and flaming skies, of the crimson cockatoo and Man Friday. When he woke he jumped at once out of bed and ran on naked feet to the book. As a rule the next morning is the testing time, and too often we find that the treasure that we bought the day before has already lost some of its glitter and shine. Now it was not so; the pictures had grown better and better, richer and ever more rich. The loveliest pictures. ...
Just the book for Mary. ”

“ He stood staring at her. “Am I as beastly as that?” he asked.
“Oh, you’re not beastly,” she reassured him. “Never—you’re not,” forgetting her grammar in her eagerness; “but I’m afraid of you, and I’m fonder of you than any body—lots fonder—and I always say to myself, ‘Now I’m not going to be silly this time,’ and then I am. I don’t know why,” she sighed. “But I’m not nearly as silly as I seem,” she ended. ”

“ Miss Jones, who was a good woman and by now thoroughly appreciated by all the members of the Cole family, including Jeremy himself, who always took her under his especial protection when they went out anywhere, had in all her years never learnt that first of all social laws, “Never try to talk in a noisy vehicle,” and had a long story about one Edmund Spencer, from whose mother she had that morning received a letter. She treated Jeremy as a friend and contemporary (one of the reasons for his liking of her) , and he was always deeply interested in her histories ”

“ This was flying rather too high, and so Jeremy, somewhat precipitately, asked her what she would do were she given fifteen shillings and sixpence. She considered, and being that morning in a very Christian frame of mind, decided that she would give it to Miss Jones to buy a new hat with. Mentally cursing girls and their tiresome ways, Jeremy, outwardly polite, altered his demand to: “No; but suppose you were given five shillings and threepence halfpenny” (the exact sum saved at that moment by him) , “and had to spend it for yourself, Mary, what would you get with it?” ”

“ Jeremy asked rather crossly.
She looked at him pleadingly, as though begging him to save her from the difficulties of emotion and explanation that crowded in upon her.
“Oh, Jeremy, St. Mary’s was lovely, and there was a man with an organ and a monkey, and I gave the monkey a penny and it took it in its hand and took off its cap. ... Miss Jones has got a cold,” she added, “and sneezed all the way home.”
“She always has a cold,” he said, “or something.” ”

“ She would like something else just as much; she would like something else more. After all, “Robinson Crusoe” was a book for boys. But the trouble was that he had now no money. He would receive threepence on Saturday, the last Saturday before Mary’s birthday, but what could you get with threepence? Five shillings of the sum with which he had bought Mary’s present had been given him by Uncle Samuel—and Uncle Samuel’s next present would be the tip before he went to school. ”