Five Children and It E. Nesbit (uplifting books for women TXT) đ
- Author: E. Nesbit
Book online «Five Children and It E. Nesbit (uplifting books for women TXT) đ». Author E. Nesbit
âHear, hear!â said Robert.
ââ âof the beholder, however stupid he is,â Cyril went on. âWhy, even Robert might happen to think of a really useful wish if he didnât injure his poor little brains trying so hard to think.â âShut up, Bobs, I tell you!â âYouâll have the whole show over.â
A struggle on the edge of a water-butt is exciting, but damp. When it was over, and the boys were partially dried, Anthea saidâ â
âIt really was you began it, Bobs. Now honour is satisfied, do let Squirrel go on. Weâre wasting the whole morning.â
âWell then,â said Cyril, still wringing the water out of the tails of his jacket, âIâll call it pax if Bobs will.â
âPax then,â said Robert sulkily. âBut Iâve got a lump as big as a cricket ball over my eye.â
Anthea patiently offered a dust-coloured handkerchief, and Robert bathed his wounds in silence. âNow, Squirrel,â she said.
âWell thenâ âletâs just play bandits, or forts, or soldiers, or any of the old games. Weâre dead sure to think of something if we try not to. You always do.â
The others consented. Bandits was hastily chosen for the game. âItâs as good as anything else,â said Jane gloomily. It must be owned that Robert was at first but a halfhearted bandit, but when Anthea had borrowed from Martha the red-spotted handkerchief in which the keeper had brought her mushrooms that morning, and had tied up Robertâs head with it so that he could be the wounded hero who had saved the bandit captainâs life the day before, he cheered up wonderfully. All were soon armed. Bows and arrows slung on the back look well; and umbrellas and cricket stumps stuck through the belt give a fine impression of the wearerâs being armed to the teeth. The white cotton hats that men wear in the country nowadays have a very brigandish effect when a few turkeyâs feathers are stuck in them. The Lambâs mail-cart was covered with a red-and-blue checked tablecloth, and made an admirable baggage-wagon. The Lamb asleep inside it was not at all in the way. So the banditti set out along the road that led to the sandpit.
âWe ought to be near the Sammyadd,â said Cyril, âin case we think of anything suddenly.â
It is all very well to make up your minds to play banditsâ âor chess, or ping-pong, or any other agreeable gameâ âbut it is not easy to do it with spirit when all the wonderful wishes you can think of, or canât think of, are waiting for you round the corner. The game was dragging a little, and some of the bandits were beginning to feel that the others were disagreeable things, and were saying so candidly, when the bakerâs boy came along the road with loaves in a basket. The opportunity was not one to be lost.
âStand and deliver!â cried Cyril.
âYour money or your life!â said Robert.
And they stood on each side of the bakerâs boy. Unfortunately, he did not seem to enter into the spirit of the thing at all. He was a bakerâs boy of an unusually large size. He merely saidâ â
âChuck it now, dâye hear!â and pushed the bandits aside most disrespectfully.
Then Robert lassoed him with Janeâs skipping-rope, and instead of going round his shoulders, as Robert intended, it went round his feet and tripped him up. The basket was upset, the beautiful new loaves went bumping and bouncing all over the dusty chalky road. The girls ran to pick them up, and all in a moment Robert and the bakerâs boy were fighting it out, man to man, with Cyril to see fair play, and the skipping-rope twisting round their legs like an interested snake that wished to be a peacemaker. It did not succeed; indeed the way the boxwood handles sprang up and hit the fighters on the shins and ankles was not at all peace-making. I know this is the second fightâ âor contestâ âin this chapter, but I canât help it. It was that sort of day. You know yourself there are days when rows seem to keep on happening, quite without your meaning them to. If I were a writer of tales of adventure such as those which used to appear in The Boys of England when I was young, of course I should be able to describe the fight, but I cannot do it. I never can see what happens during a fight, even when it is only dogs. Also, if I had been one of these Boys of England writers, Robert would have got the best of it. But I am like George Washingtonâ âI cannot tell a lie, even about a cherry-tree, much less about a fight, and I cannot conceal from you that Robert was badly beaten, for the second time that day. The bakerâs boy blacked his other eye, and, being ignorant of the first rules of fair play and gentlemanly behaviour, he also pulled Robertâs hair, and kicked him on the knee. Robert always used to say he could have licked the butcher if it hadnât been for the girls. But I am not sure. Anyway, what happened was this, and very painful it was to self-respecting boys.
Cyril was just tearing off his coat so as to help his brother in proper style, when Jane threw her arms round his legs and began to cry and ask him not to go and be beaten too. That âtooâ was very nice for Robert, as you can imagineâ âbut it was nothing to what he felt when Anthea rushed in between him and the bakerâs boy, and caught that unfair and degraded fighter round the waist, imploring him not to fight any more.
âOh, donât hurt my brother any more!â she said in floods of tears. âHe didnât mean itâ âitâs only play. And Iâm sure heâs very sorry.â
You see how unfair this was to Robert. Because, if the bakerâs boy had had any right and chivalrous instincts, and had yielded
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