The Wouldbegoods: Being the Further Adventures of the Treasure Seekers by E. Nesbit (best books to read TXT) 📗

as you could wish to see. Martha tried it, but she could not help running kindly beside the rat, as if she was in double harness with it. This is the noble bull-dog’s gentle and affectionate nature coming out. We all enjoyed the ratting that day, but it ended, as usual, in the girls crying because of the poor rats. Girls cannot help this; we must not be waxy with them on account of it, they have their nature, the same as bull-dogs have, and it is this that makes them so useful in smoothing the pillows of the sick-bed and tending wounded heroes.

However, the forts, and Pincher, and the girls crying, and having to be thumped on the back, passed the time very agreeably till dinner. There was roast mutton with onion sauce, and a roly-poly pudding.

Albert’s uncle said we had certainly effaced ourselves effectually, which means we hadn’t bothered.

So we determined to do the same during the afternoon, for he told us his heroine was by no means out of the wood yet.

And at first it was easy. Jam roly gives you a peaceful feeling and you do not at first care if you never play any runabout game ever any more. But after a while the torpor begins to pass away. Oswald was the first to recover from his.

He had been lying on his front part in the orchard, but now he turned over on his back and kicked his legs up, and said—

‘I say, look here; let’s do something.’

Daisy looked thoughtful. She was chewing the soft yellow parts of grass, but I could see she was still thinking about that animal race. So I explained to her that it would be very poor fun without a tortoise and a peacock, and she saw this, though not willingly.

It was H. O. who said—

‘Doing anything with animals is prime, if they only will. Let’s have a circus!’

At the word the last thought of the pudding faded from Oswald’s memory, and he stretched himself, sat up, and said—

‘Bully for H. O. Let’s!’

The others also threw off the heavy weight of memory, and sat up and said ‘Let’s!’ too.

Never, never in all our lives had we had such a gay galaxy of animals at our command. The rabbits and the guinea-pigs, and even all the bright, glass-eyed, stuffed denizens of our late-lamented jungle paled into insignificance before the number of live things on the farm.

(I hope you do not think that the words I use are getting too long. I know they are the right words. And Albert’s uncle says your style is always altered a bit by what you read. And I have been reading the Vicomte de Bragelonne. Nearly all my new words come out of those.)

‘The worst of a circus is,’ Dora said, ‘that you’ve got to teach the animals things. A circus where the performing creatures hadn’t learned performing would be a bit silly. Let’s give up a week to teaching them and then have the circus.’

Some people have no idea of the value of time. And Dora is one of those who do not understand that when you want to do a thing you do want to, and not to do something else, and perhaps your own thing, a week later.

Oswald said the first thing was to collect the performing animals.

‘Then perhaps,’ he said, ‘we may find that they have hidden talents hitherto unsuspected by their harsh masters.’

So Denny took a pencil and wrote a list of the animals required. This is it:

LIST OF ANIMALS REQUISITE FOR THE CIRCUS WE ARE GOING TO HAVE 1 Bull for bull-fight. 1 Horse for ditto (if possible). 1 Goat to do Alpine feats of daring. 1 Donkey to play see-saw. 2 White pigs—one to be Learned, and the other to play with the clown. Turkeys, as many as possible, because they can make a noise that that sounds like an audience applauding The dogs, for any odd parts. 1 Large black pig—to be the Elephant in the procession. Calves (several) to be camels, and to stand on tubs.

Daisy ought to have been captain because it was partly her idea, but she let Oswald be, because she is of a retiring character. Oswald said—

‘The first thing is to get all the creatures together; the paddock at the side of the orchard is the very place, because the hedge is good all round. When we’ve got the performers all there we’ll make a programme, and then dress for our parts. It’s a pity there won’t be any audience but the turkeys.’

We took the animals in their right order, according to Denny’s list. The bull was the first. He is black. He does not live in the cowhouse with the other horned people; he has a house all to himself two fields away. Oswald and Alice went to fetch him. They took a halter to lead the bull by, and a whip, not to hurt the bull with, but just to make him mind.

The others were to try to get one of the horses while we were gone.

Oswald as usual was full of bright ideas.

‘I daresay,’ he said, ‘the bull will be shy at first, and he’ll have to be goaded into the arena.’

‘But goads hurt,’ Alice said.

‘They don’t hurt the bull,’ Oswald said; ‘his powerful hide is too thick.’

‘Then why does he attend to it,’ Alice asked, ‘if it doesn’t hurt?’

‘Properly-brought-up bulls attend because they know they ought,’ Oswald said. ‘I think I shall ride the bull,’ the brave boy went on. ‘A bull-fight, where an intrepid rider appears on the bull, sharing its joys and sorrows. It would be something quite new.’

‘You can’t ride bulls,’ Alice said; ‘at least, not if their backs are sharp like cows.’

But Oswald thought he could. The bull lives in a house made of wood and prickly furze bushes, and he has a yard to his house. You cannot climb on the roof of his house at all comfortably.

When we got there he was half in his house and half out in his yard, and he was swinging his tail because of the flies which bothered. It was a very hot day.

‘You’ll see,’ Alice said, ‘he won’t want a goad. He’ll be so glad to get out for a walk he’ll drop his head in my hand like a tame fawn, and follow me lovingly all the way.’

Oswald called to him. He said, ‘Bull! Bull! Bull! Bull!’ because we did not know the animal’s real name. The bull took no notice; then Oswald picked up a stone and threw it at the bull, not angrily, but just to make it pay attention. But the bull did not pay a farthing’s worth of it. So then Oswald leaned over the iron gate of the bull’s yard and just flicked the bull with the whiplash. And then