Have you ever thought about what fiction is? Probably, such a question may seem surprising: and so everything is clear. Every person throughout his life has to repeatedly create the works he needs for specific purposes - statements, autobiographies, dictations - using not gypsum or clay, not musical notes, not paints, but just a word. At the same time, almost every person will be very surprised if he is told that he thereby created a work of fiction, which is very different from visual art, music and sculpture making. However, everyone understands that a student's essay or dictation is fundamentally different from novels, short stories, news that are created by professional writers. In the works of professionals there is the most important difference - excogitation. But, oddly enough, in a school literature course, you donât realize the full power of fiction. So using our website in your free time discover fiction for yourself. The Story of the Treasure Seekers<br />Being the Adventures of the Bastable Children in Search of a by E. Nesbit (reading diary .TXT) đ
- Author: E. Nesbit
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âItâs no good,â Dora was saying, âyou all hate me, and you think Iâm a prig and a busybody, but I do try to do rightâoh, I do! Oswald, go away; donât come here making fun of me!â
So I said, âIâm not making fun, Sissy; donât cry, old girl.â
Mother taught me to call her Sissy when we were very little and before the others came, but I donât often somehow, now we are old. I patted her on the back, and she put her head against my sleeve, holding on to Alice all the time, and she went on. She was in that laughy-cryey state when people say things they wouldnât say at other times.
âOh dear, oh dearâI do try, I do. And when Mother died she said, âDora, take care of the others, and teach them to be good, and keep them out of trouble and make them happy.â She said, âTake care of them for me, Dora dear.â And I have tried, and all of you hate me for it; and to-day I let you do this, though I knew all the time it was silly.â
I hope you will not think I was a muff but I kissed Dora for some time. Because girls like it. And I will never say again that she comes the good elder sister too much. And I have put all this in though I do hate telling about it, because I own I have been hard on Dora, but I never will be again. She is a good old sort; of course we never knew before about what Mother told her, or we wouldnât have ragged her as we did. We did not tell the little ones, but I got Alice to speak to Dicky, and we three can sit on the others if requisite.
This made us forget all about the sherry; but about eight oâclock there was a knock, and Eliza went, and we saw it was poor Jane, if her name was Jane, from the Vicarage. She handed in a brown-paper parcel and a letter. And three minutes later Father called us into his study.
On the table was the brown-paper parcel, open, with our bottle and glass on it, and Father had a letter in his hand. He Pointed to the bottle and sighed, and said, âWhat have you been doing now?â The letter in his hand was covered with little black writing, all over the four large pages.
So Dicky spoke up, and he told Father the whole thing, as far as he knew it, for Alice and I had not told about the dead sailorsâ lady.
And when he had done, Alice said, âHas Mr Mallow written to you to say he will buy a dozen of the sherry after all? It is really not half bad with sugar in it.â
Father said no, he didnât think clergymen could afford such expensive wine; and he said he would like to taste it. So we gave him what there was left, for we had decided coming home that we would give up trying for the two pounds a week in our spare time.
Father tasted it, and then he acted just as H. O. had done when he had his teaspoonful, but of course we did not say anything. Then he laughed till I thought he would never stop.
I think it was the sherry, because I am sure I have read somewhere about âwine that maketh glad the heart of manâ. He had only a very little, which shows that it was a good after-dinner wine, stimulating, and yet ...I forget the rest.
But when he had done laughing he said, âItâs all right, kids. Only donât do it again. The wine trade is overcrowded; and besides, I thought you promised to consult me before going into business?â
âBefore buying one I thought you meant,â said Dicky. âThis was only on commission.â And Father laughed again. I am glad we got the Castilian Amoroso, because it did really cheer Father up, and you cannot always do that, however hard you try, even if you make jokes, or give him a comic paper.
CHAPTER 12. THE NOBLENESS OF OSWALD
The part about his nobleness only comes at the end, but you would not understand it unless you knew how it began. It began, like nearly everything about that time, with treasure-seeking.
Of course as soon as we had promised to consult my Father about business matters we all gave up wanting to go into business. I donât know how it is, but having to consult about a thing with grown-up people, even the bravest and the best, seems to make the thing not worth doing afterwards.
We donât mind Albertâs uncle chipping in sometimes when the thingâs going on, but we are glad he never asked us to promise to consult him about anything. Yet Oswald saw that my Father was quite right; and I daresay if we had had that hundred pounds we should have spent it on the share in that lucrative business for the sale of useful patent, and then found out afterwards that we should have done better to spend the money in some other way. My Father says so, and he ought to know. We had several ideas about that time, but having so little chink always stood in the way.
This was the case with H. O.âs idea of setting up a coconut-shy on this side of the Heath, where there are none generally. We had no sticks or wooden balls, and the greengrocer said he could not book so many as twelve dozen coconuts without Mr Bastableâs written order. And as we did not wish to consult my Father it was decided to drop it. And when Alice dressed up Pincher in some of the dollsâ clothes and we made up our minds to take him round with an organ as soon as we had taught him to dance, we were stopped at once by Dickyâs remembering how he had once heard that an organ cost seven hundred pounds. Of course this was the big church kind, but even the ones on three legs canât be got for one-and-sevenpence, which was all we had when we first thought of it. So we gave that up too.
It was a wet day, I remember, and mutton hash for dinnerâvery tough with pale gravy with lumps in it. I think the others would have left a good deal on the sides of their plates, although they know better, only Oswald said it was a savoury stew made of the red deer that Edward shot. So then we were the Children of the New Forest, and the mutton tasted much better. No one in the New Forest minds venison being tough and the gravy pale.
Then after dinner we let the girls have a dollsâ tea-party, on condition they didnât expect us boys to wash up; and it was when we were drinking the last of the liquorice water out of the little cups that Dicky saidâ
âThis reminds me.â
So we said, âWhat of?â
Dicky answered us at once, though his mouth was full of bread with liquorice stuck in it to look like cake. You should not speak with your mouth full, even to your own relations, and you shouldnât wipe your mouth on the back of your hand, but on your handkerchief, if you have one.
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