Oswald Bastable and Others. Nesbit Edith
and about the hateful fives ball, and everything. And my father was awfully decent about it, so that Oswald was glad he had told.
The girls wrote the invitations to all our friends that very day. We boys went down to look in the shops and see what we could buy for the bazaar. And we went to ask how Mr. Augustus Victor Plunkett's arm was getting on, and to see the Goat.
The others liked the Goat almost as much as Oswald, and even Dicky agreed that it was our clear duty to buy the Goat for the sake of poor Mr. Plunkett.
Because, as Oswald said, if it was worth one pound two and six, we could easily sell it again for that, and we should have gained fifteen shillings for the sufferer.
So we bought the Goat, and changed the ten shillings to do it. The man untied the other end of the Goat's rope, and Oswald took hold of it, and said he hoped we were not robbing the man by taking his Goat from him for such a low price. And he said:
'Not at all, young gents. Don't you mention it. Pleased to oblige a friend any day of the week.'
So we started to take the Goat home. But after about half a street he would not come any more. He stopped still, and a lot of boys and people came round, just as if they had never seen a Goat before. We were beginning to feel quite uncomfortable, when Oswald remembered the Goat liked cocoanut ice, so Noël went into a shop and got threepenn'orth, and then the cheap animal consented to follow us home. So did the street boys. The cocoanut ice was more for the money than usual, but not so nice.
My father was not pleased when he saw the Goat. But when Alice told him it was for the bazaar, he laughed, and let us keep it in the stableyard.
It got out early in the morning, and came right into the house, and butted the cook in her own back-kitchen, a thing even Oswald himself would have hesitated before doing. So that showed it was a brave Goat.
The groom did not like the Goat, because it bit a hole in a sack of corn, and then walked up it like up a mountain, and all the oats ran out and got between the stones of the stableyard, and there was a row. But we explained it was not for long, as the bazaar was in three days. And we hurried to get things ready.
We were each to have a stall. Dora took the refreshment stall. The uncle made Miss Blake get all that ready.
Alice had a stall for pincushions and brush-and-comb bags, and other useless things that girls make with stuff and ribbons.
Noël had a poetry stall, where you could pay twopence and get a piece of poetry and a sweet wrapped up in it. We chose sugar almonds, because they are not so sticky.
H. O.'s stall was to be sweets, if he promised on his word of honour as a Bastable only to eat one of each kind.
Dicky wished to have a stall for mechanical toys and parts of clocks. He has a great many parts of clocks, but the only mechanical toy was his clockwork engine, that was broken ages ago, so he had to give it up, and he couldn't think of anything else. So he settled to help Oswald, and keep an eye on H. O.
Oswald's stall was meant to be a stall for really useful things, but in the end it was just a lumber stall for the things other people did not want. But he did not mind, because the others agreed he should have the entire selling of the Goat, and he racked his young brains to think how to sell it in the most interesting and unusual way. And at last he saw how, and he said:
'He shall be a lottery, and we'll make people take tickets, and then draw a secret number out of a hat, and whoever gets the right number gets the Goat. I wish it was me.'
'We ought to advertise it, though,' Dicky said. 'Have handbills printed, and send out sandwich-men.'
Oswald inquired at the printers in Greenwich, and handbills were an awful price, and sandwich-men a luxury far beyond our means. So he went home sadly; and then Alice thought of the printing-press. We got it out, and cleaned it where the ink had been upset into it, and mended the broken parts as well as we could, and got some more printers' ink, and wrote the circular and printed it. It was:
'It ought to be object of virtue,' said Dicky. 'I saw it in the old iron and china and picture shop. It was a carved ivory ship, and there was a ticket on it: "Rare Object of Virtue."'
'The Goat's an object, certainly,' Alice said, 'and it's valuable. As for virtue, I'm not so sure.'
But Oswald thought the two V's looked well, and being virtuous is different to being valuable; but, all the same, the Goat might be both when you got to know him really well. So we put it in.
will be lotteried for on Saturday next, at four o'clock. Tickets one or two shillings each, according to how many people want them. The object is not disclosed till after the Lottery, but it cost a lot of money, and is honestly worth three times as much. If you win it, it is the same as winning money. Apply at Morden House, Blackheath, at 3 o'clock next Saturday. Take tickets early to prevent disappointment.
We printed these, and though they looked a bit rum, we had not time to do them again, so we went out about dusk and dropped them in people's letter-boxes. Then next day Oswald, who is always very keen on doing the thing well, got two baking-boards out of the kitchen and bored holes in them with an auger I had, and pasted paper on them, and did on them with a paint-brush and ink the following lines:
And he slung the boards round his neck, and tied up his mouth in one of those knitted comforters he despises so much at other times, and, pulling a cap of father's over his bold ears, he got Dicky to let him out of the side-door. And then the brave boy went right across the heath and three times up and down the village, till those boys that followed him and the Goat home went for him near the corner of Wemyss Road, and he made a fight for it, taking off the boards and using them as shields. But at last, being far outnumbered, which is no disgrace, he had to chuck the boards and run for it.
Saturday was fine. We had hung the greenhouse with evergreens and paper roses that looked almost like real among the green, and Miss Blake let us have some Chinesy-looking curtains to cover over the shelves and staging with. And the gardener let us have a lot of azaleas and things in pots, so that it was all very bowery and flowery.
Alice's stall was the smartest looking, because Miss Blake had let her have all the ribbons and things that were over from the other bazaar.
H. O.'s stall was also nice – all on silver tea-trays, so as not to be stickier than needful.
The poetry stall had more flowers on it than any of the others, to make up for the poetry looking so dull outside. Of course, you could not see the sweet inside the packets till you opened them. Red azaleas are prettier than poetry, I think. I think the tropic lands in 'Westward Ho!' had great trees with flowers like that.
We got the Goat into the stovehouse. He was to be kept a secret till the very last. And by half-past two we were all ready, and very clean and dressed. We had all looked out everything we thought anyone could want to buy, and that we could spare, and some things we could not, and most of these were on Oswald's table – among others, several boxes of games we had never cared about; some bags of marbles, which nobody plays now; a lot of old books; a pair of braces with wool-work on them, that an aunt once made for Oswald, and, of course, he couldn't wear them; some bags of odd buttons for people who like sewing these things on; a lot of foreign stamps, gardening tools, Dicky's engine, that won't go, and a stuffed parrot, but he was moth-eaten.
About three our friends began to come, Mrs. Leslie, and Lord Tottenham, and Albert's uncle, and a lot of others. It was a very grand party, and they admired the bazaar very much, and all bought things. Mrs. Leslie bought the engine for ten shillings, though we told her honestly it would never go again, and Albert's uncle bought the parrot, and would not tell us what he wanted it for. The money was put on a blue dish, so that everyone could see how it got on, and our hearts were full of joy as we saw how much silver