â
âI daresay you arenât so very blessed as you think. Whatâs it to do with you, anyway, eh, Tommy?â
Of course Oswald knew from Kipling that an infantry soldier is called that. The soldier said â
âTommy yourself, young man. Thatâs
me
!â and he pointed to the tombstone.
We stood rooted to the spot. Alice spoke first.
âThen youâre Bill, and youâre not dead,â she said. âOh, Bill, I am so glad! Do let
me
tell your mother.â
She started running, and so did we all. Bill had to go slowly because of his leg, but I tell you he went as fast as ever he could.
We all hammered at the soldierâs motherâs door, and shouted â
âCome out! come out!â and when she opened the door we were going to speak, but she pushed us away, and went tearing down the garden path like winking. I never saw a grown-up woman run like it, because she saw Bill coming.
She met him at the gate, running right into him, and caught hold of him, and she cried much more than when she thought he was dead.
And we all shook his hand and said how glad we were.
The soldierâs mother kept hold of him with both hands, and I couldnât help looking at her face. It was like wax that had been painted on both pink cheeks, and the eyes shining like candles. And when we had all said how glad we were, she said â
âThank the dear Lord for His mercies,â and she took her boy Bill into the cottage and shut the door.
We went home and chopped up the tombstone with the wood axe and had a blazing big bonfire, and cheered till we could hardly speak.
The postcard was a mistake; he was only missing. There was a pipe and a whole pound of tobacco left over from our keepsake to the other soldiers. We gave it to Bill. Father is going to have him for under-gardener when his wounds get well. Heâll always be a bit lame, so he cannot fight any more.
chapter four
the tower of mystery
It was very rough on Dora having her foot bad, but we took it in turns to stay in with her, and she was very decent about it. Daisy was most with her. I do not dislike Daisy, but I wish she had been taught how to play. Because Dora is rather like that naturally, and sometimes I have thought that Daisy makes her worse.
I talked to Albert’s uncle about it one day, when the others had gone to church, and I did not go because of earache, and he said it came from reading the wrong sort of books partly – she has read
Ministering Children
, and
Anna Ross
, or
The Orphan of Waterloo
, and
Ready Work for Willing Hands
, and
Elsie
, or
Like a Little Candle
, and even a horrid little blue book about the something or other of Little Sins. After this conversation Oswald took care she had plenty of the right sort of books to read, and he was surprised and pleased when she got up early one morning to finish
Monte Cristo
. Oswald felt that he was really being useful to a suffering fellow-creature when he gave Daisy books that were not all about being good.
A few days after Dora was laid up, Alice called a council of the Wouldbegoods, and Oswald and Dicky attended with darkly clouded brows. Alice had the minute book, which was an exercise-book that had notmuch written in it. She had begun at the other end. I hate doing that myself, because there is so little room at the top compared with right way up.
Dora and a sofa had been carried out on to the lawn, and we were on the grass. It was very hot and dry. We had sherbet. Alice read:
SOCIETY OF THE WOULDBEGOODS.
We have not done much. Dicky mended a window, and we got the milk pan out of the moat that dropped through where he mended it. Dora, Oswald, Dicky and me got upset in the moat. This was not goodness. Dora’s foot was hurt. We hope to do better next time.
Then came Noel’s poem:
We are the Wouldbegoods Society,
We are not good yet, but we mean to try,
And if we try, and if we don’t succeed,
It must mean we are very bad
âI daresay you arenât so very blessed as you think. Whatâs it to do with you, anyway, eh, Tommy?â
Of course Oswald knew from Kipling that an infantry soldier is called that. The soldier said â
âTommy yourself, young man. Thatâs
me
!â and he pointed to the tombstone.
We stood rooted to the spot. Alice spoke first.
âThen youâre Bill, and youâre not dead,â she said. âOh, Bill, I am so glad! Do let
me
tell your mother.â
She started running, and so did we all. Bill had to go slowly because of his leg, but I tell you he went as fast as ever he could.
We all hammered at the soldierâs motherâs door, and shouted â
âCome out! come out!â and when she opened the door we were going to speak, but she pushed us away, and went tearing down the garden path like winking. I never saw a grown-up woman run like it, because she saw Bill coming.
She met him at the gate, running right into him, and caught hold of him, and she cried much more than when she thought he was dead.
And we all shook his hand and said how glad we were.
The soldierâs mother kept hold of him with both hands, and I couldnât help looking at her face. It was like wax that had been painted on both pink cheeks, and the eyes shining like candles. And when we had all said how glad we were, she said â
âThank the dear Lord for His mercies,â and she took her boy Bill into the cottage and shut the door.
We went home and chopped up the tombstone with the wood axe and had a blazing big bonfire, and cheered till we could hardly speak.
The postcard was a mistake; he was only missing. There was a pipe and a whole pound of tobacco left over from our keepsake to the other soldiers. We gave it to Bill. Father is going to have him for under-gardener when his wounds get well. Heâll always be a bit lame, so he cannot fight any more.
chapter four
the tower of mystery
It was very rough on Dora having her foot bad, but we took it in turns to stay in with her, and she was very decent about it. Daisy was most with her. I do not dislike Daisy, but I wish she had been taught how to play. Because Dora is rather like that naturally, and sometimes I have thought that Daisy makes her worse.
I talked to Albert’s uncle about it one day, when the others had gone to church, and I did not go because of earache, and he said it came from reading the wrong sort of books partly – she has read
Ministering Children
, and
Anna Ross
, or
The Orphan of Waterloo
, and
Ready Work for Willing Hands
, and
Elsie
, or
Like a Little Candle
, and even a horrid little blue book about the something or other of Little Sins. After this conversation Oswald took care she had plenty of the right sort of books to read, and he was surprised and pleased when she got up early one morning to finish
Monte Cristo
. Oswald felt that he was really being useful to a suffering fellow-creature when he gave Daisy books that were not all about being good.
A few days after Dora was laid up, Alice called a council of the Wouldbegoods, and Oswald and Dicky attended with darkly clouded brows. Alice had the minute book, which was an exercise-book that had notmuch written in it. She had begun at the other end. I hate doing that myself, because there is so little room at the top compared with right way up.
Dora and a sofa had been carried out on to the lawn, and we were on the grass. It was very hot and dry. We had sherbet. Alice read:
SOCIETY OF THE WOULDBEGOODS.
We have not done much. Dicky mended a window, and we got the milk pan out of the moat that dropped through where he mended it. Dora, Oswald, Dicky and me got upset in the moat. This was not goodness. Dora’s foot was hurt. We hope to do better next time.
Then came Noel’s poem:
We are the Wouldbegoods Society,
We are not good yet, but we mean to try,
And if we try, and if we don’t succeed,
It must mean we are very bad
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