The Greatest Fantasy Tales of Edith Nesbit (Illustrated Edition). Ðдит ÐеÑбит
the house. None of the children will ever forget that picture. The neat grey-flannel-suited grown-up young man with the green necktie and the little black mustache—fortunately, he was slightly built, and not tall—struggling in the sturdy arms of Martha, who bore him away helpless, imploring him, as she went, to be a good boy now, and come and have his nice bremmink! Fortunately, the sun set as they reached the doorstep, the bicycle disappeared, and Martha was seen to carry into the house the real live darling sleepy two-year-old Lamb. The grown-up Lamb (nameless henceforth) was gone for ever.
"For ever," said Cyril, "because, as soon as ever the Lamb's old enough to be bullied, we must jolly well begin to bully him, for his own sake—so that he mayn't grow up like that."
"You shan't bully him," said Anthea stoutly,—"not if I can stop it."
"We must tame him by kindness," said Jane.
"You see," said Robert, "if he grows up in the usual way, there'll be plenty of time to correct him as he goes along. The awful thing to-day was his growing up so suddenly. There was no time to improve him at all."
"He doesn't want any improving," said Anthea as the voice of the Lamb came cooing through the open door, just as she had heard it in her heart that afternoon—
"Me loves Panty—wants to come to own Panty!"
Chapter X.
Scalps
Probably the day would have been a greater success if Cyril had not been reading The Last of the Mohicans. The story was running in his head at breakfast, and as he took his third cup of tea he said dreamily, "I wish there were Red Indians in England—not big ones, you know, but little ones, just about the right size for us to fight."
Everyone disagreed with him at the time and no one attached any importance to the incident. But when they went down to the sand-pit to ask for a hundred pounds in two-shilling pieces with Queen Victoria's head on, to prevent mistakes—which they had always felt to be a really reasonable wish that must turn out well—they found out that they had done it again! For the Psammead, which was very cross and sleepy, said—
"Oh, don't bother me. You've had your wish."
"I didn't know it," said Cyril.
"Don't you remember yesterday?" said the Sand-fairy, still more disagreeably. "You asked me to let you have your wishes wherever you happened to be, and you wished this morning, and you've got it."
"Oh, have we?" said Robert. "What is it?"
"So you've forgotten?" said the Psammead, beginning to burrow. "Never mind; you'll know soon enough. And I wish you joy of it! A nice thing you've let yourselves in for!"
"We always do somehow," said Jane sadly.
And now the odd thing was that no one could remember anyone's having wished for anything that morning. The wish about the Red Indians had not stuck in anyone's head. It was a most anxious morning. Everyone was trying to remember what had been wished for, and no one could, and everyone kept expecting something awful to happen every minute. It was most agitating; they knew, from what the Psammead had said, that they must have wished for something more than usually undesirable, and they spent several hours in most agonizing uncertainty. It was not till nearly dinner-time that Jane tumbled over The Last of the Mohicans,—which had of course, been left face downwards on the floor,—and when Anthea had picked her and the book up she suddenly said, "I know!" and sat down flat on the carpet.
"Oh, Pussy, how awful! It was Indians he wished for— Cyril—at breakfast, don't you remember? He said, 'I wish there were Red Indians in England,'—and now there are, and they're going about scalping people all over the country, as likely as not."
"Perhaps they're only in Northumberland and Durham," said Jane soothingly. It was almost impossible to believe that it could really hurt people much to be scalped so far away as that.
"Don't you believe it!" said Anthea. "The Sammyadd said we'd let ourselves in for a nice thing. That means they'll come here. And suppose they scalped the Lamb!"
"Perhaps the scalping would come right again at sunset," said Jane; but she did not speak so hopefully as usual.
"Not it!" said Anthea. "The things that grow out of the wishes don't go. Look at the fifteen shillings! Pussy, I'm going to break something, and you must let me have every penny of money you've got. The Indians will come here, don't you see? That Spiteful Psammead as good as said so. You see what my plan is? Come on!"
Jane did not see at all. But she followed her sister meekly into mother's bedroom.
Anthea lifted down the heavy water-jug—it had a pattern of storks and long grasses on it, which Anthea never forgot. She carried it into the dressing-room, and carefully emptied the water out of it into the bath. Then she took the jug back into the bedroom and dropped it on the floor. You know how a jug always breaks if you happen to drop it by accident. If you happen to drop it on purpose, it is quite different. Anthea dropped that jug three times, and it was as unbroken as ever. So at last she had to take her father's boot-tree and break the jug with that in cold blood. It was heartless work.
Next she broke open the missionary-box with the poker. Jane told her that it was wrong, of course, but Anthea shut her lips very tight and then said—
"Don't be silly—it's a matter of life and death."
There was not very much in the missionary-box,—only seven-and-fourpence,—but the girls between them had nearly four shillings. This made over eleven shillings, as you will easily see.
Anthea tied up the money in a corner of her pocket-handkerchief. "Come on, Jane!" she said, and ran down to the farm. She knew that the farmer was going into Rochester that afternoon. In fact it had been arranged that he was to take the four children with him. They had planned this in the happy hour when they believed that they we're going to get that hundred pounds, in two-shilling pieces, out of the Psammead. They had arranged to pay the farmer two shillings each for the ride. Now Anthea hastily explained to him that they could not go, but would he take Martha and the Baby instead? He agreed, but he was not pleased to get only half-a-crown instead of eight shillings.
Then the girls ran home again. Anthea was agitated, but not flurried. When she came to think it over afterwards, she could not help seeing that she had acted with the most far-seeing promptitude, just like a born general. She fetched a little box from her corner drawer, and went to find Martha, who was laying the cloth and not in the best of tempers.
"Look here," said Anthea. "I've broken the water jug in mother's room."
"Just like you—always up to some mischief," said Martha, dumping down a salt-cellar with a bang.
"Don't be cross, Martha dear," said Anthea.
She broke open the missionary-box with the poker.
"I've got enough money to pay for a new one—if only you'll be a dear and go and buy it for us. Your cousins keep a china-shop, don't they? And I would like you to get it to-day, in case mother comes home to-morrow. You know she said she might perhaps."
"But you're all going into town yourselves," said Martha.
"We can't afford to, if we get the new jug," said Anthea; "but we'll pay for you to go, if you'll take the Lamb. And I say, Martha, look here—I'll give you my Liberty box, if you'll go. Look, it's most awfully pretty—all inlaid with real silver and ivory and ebony, like King Solomon's temple."
"I see," said Martha,—"no, I don't want your box, miss. What you want is to get the precious Lamb off your hands for the afternoon. Don't you go