Milly-Molly-Mandy’s Spring

by Joyce Lankester Brisley

So then Billy Blunt said: “No, ma’am. I’m very much obliged to you, ma’am.” And he thanked Aunty too.

  Then he went off home in his nice clean things, sure that his mother would never dream what he had been up to.

  But when Mrs Blunt saw him come in (rather late for dinner, but looking so clean and tidy) she guessed he had been up to something. And when she saw his muddy shoes, and found he hadn’t caught any tadpoles and didn’t know what he had done with his jam-jar, she pretty well guessed everything.

  But Mrs Blunt never dreamed what grand bubble-baths Billy Blunt and Milly-Molly-Mandy had had, out in the garden of the nice white cottage with the thatched roof that beautiful fine morning!

  Milly-Molly-Mandy Writes Letters

  Once upon a time Milly-Molly-Mandy heard the postman’s knock, bang-BANG! on the front door; so she ran hop-skip down the passage to look in the letter-box, because she always sort of hoped there might be a letter for her!

  But there wasn’t.

  “I do wish the postman would bring me a letter sometimes,” said Milly-Molly-Mandy, coming slowly back into the kitchen. “He never does. There’s only a business-looking letter for Father and an advertisement for Uncle.”

  And then Milly-Molly-Mandy noticed that the business-looking letter was from Holland (where Father got his flower bulbs) and had a Dutch stamp on it, so that was more interesting. Milly-Molly-Mandy was collecting foreign stamps. She had collected one Irish one already, and it was stuck in Billy Blunt’s new stamp album. (Billy Blunt had just started collecting stamps, so Milly-Molly-Mandy was collecting for him.)

  “If you want the postman to bring you letters you’ll have to write them to other people first,” said Mother, putting the letters upon the mantelshelf till Father and Uncle should come in.

  “But I haven’t got any stamps,” said Milly-Molly-Mandy.

  “I’ll give you one when you want it,” said Grandma, pulling the kettle forward on the stove.

  “But I don’t know who to write to,” said Milly-Molly-Mandy.

  “You’ll have to think round a little,” said Aunty, clearing her sewing off the table.

  “There’s only Billy Blunt and little-friend-Susan, and it would be silly to write to them when I see them every day,” said Milly-Molly-Mandy.

  “We must just think,” said Mother, spreading the cloth on the table for tea. “There are sure to be lots of people who would like to have letters by post, as well as you.”

  Milly-Molly-Mandy hadn’t thought of that. “Do you suppose they’d run like anything to the letter-box because they thought there might be a letter from me?” she said. “What fun! I’ve got the fancy notepaper that Aunty gave me at Christmas – they’ll like that, won’t they? Who can I write to?”

  And then she helped to lay the table, and made a piece of toast at the fire for Grandma; and presently Father and Uncle and Grandpa came in to tea, and Milly-Molly-Mandy was given the Dutch stamp off Father’s letter. She put it in her pencil-box, ready for Billy Blunt in the morning.

  And then she had an idea. “If I could write to someone not in England they’d stick foreign stamps on their letters when they wrote back, wouldn’t they?”

  And then Aunty had an idea. “Why, there are my little nieces in America!” she said. (For Aunty had a brother who went to America when he was quite young, and now he had three little children, whom none of them had seen or knew hardly anything about, for “Tom”, as Aunty called him, wasn’t a very good letter writer, and only wrote to her sometimes at Christmas.)

  “Ooh, yes!” said Milly-Molly-Mandy,” and I don’t believe Billy has an American stamp yet. What are their names, Aunty? I forget.”

  “Sally and Lallie,” said Aunty, “and the boy is Tom, after my brother, but they call him Buddy. They would like to have a letter from their cousin in England, I’m sure.”

  So Milly-Molly-Mandy looked out the box of fancy notepaper that Aunty had given her, and kept it by her side while she did her home-lessons after tea. And then, when she had done them all, she wrote quite a long letter to her cousin Sallie (at least it looked quite a long letter, because the pink notepaper was rather small), telling about her school, and her friends, and Billy Blunt’s collection, and about Toby the dog, and Topsy the cat, and what Father and Mother and Grandpa and Grandma and Uncle and Aunty were all doing at that moment in the kitchen, and outside in the barn; so that Sallie should get to know them all. And then there was just room to send her love to Lallie and Buddy, and to sign her name.

  It was quite a nice letter.

  Milly-Molly-Mandy showed it to Mother and Aunty, and then (just to make it more interesting) she put in a piece of coloured silver paper and two primroses (the first she had found that year), and stuck down the flap of the pink envelope.

  The next morning she posted her letter in the red pillar-box on the way to school (little-friend-Susan was quite interested when she showed her the address); and then she tried to forget all about it, because she knew it would take a long while to get there and a longer while still for an answering letter to come back.

  After morning school she gave the Dutch stamp to Billy Blunt for his collection. He said he had got one, as they were quite common, but that it might come in useful for exchanging with some other fellow. And after school that very afternoon he told her he had exchanged it for a German stamp; so it was very useful.

  “Have you got an American stamp?” asked Milly-Molly-Mandy.

  “No,” said Billy Blunt. “What I want to get hold of is a Czechoslovakian one. Ted Smale’s just got one. His uncle gave it to him.”

  Milly-Molly-Mandy didn’t think she could ever collect such a stamp as that for Billy Blunt, but she was glad he hadn’t got an American one yet.

  All that week and the next Milly-Molly-Mandy rushed to the letter-box every time she heard the postman, although she knew there wouldn’t be an answer for about three weeks, anyhow. But the postman’s knock, bang-BANG! sounded so exciting she always forgot to remember in time.

  A whole month went by, and Milly-Molly-Mandy began almost to stop expecting a letter at all, or at least one from abroad.

  And then one day she came home after school a bit later than usual, because she and little-friend-Susan had been picking wind-flowers and primroses under a hedge, very excited to think spring had really come. But when she did get in what DO you think she found waiting for her, on her plate at the table?

  Why, three letters, just come by post! One from Sallie, one from Lallie, and one from Buddy!

  They sat and wrote letters together

  They were so pleased at having a letter from England that they had all written back, hoping she would write again. And they sent some snapshots of themselves, and Buddy enclosed a Japanese stamp for Billy Blunt’s collection.

  The next Saturday Billy Blunt came to tea with Milly-Molly-Mandy and she gave him the four stamps, three American and one Japanese. And, though he said they were not really valuable ones, he was pleased as anything to have them!

  And when the table was cleared they sat and wrote letters together – Milly-Molly-Mandy to Sallie and Lallie, and Billy Blunt to Buddy (to thank him for the stamp), with a little P.S. from Milly-Molly-Mandy (to thank him for his letter).

  Milly-Molly-Mandy does like letter-writing because now she has got three more friends!

  Milly-Molly-Mandy Has a New Dress

  Once upon a time Milly-Molly-Mandy was playing hide-and-seek with Toby the dog.

  First Milly-Molly-Mandy threw a stone as far as she could, and then while Toby the dog was fetching it Milly-Molly-Mandy ran the other way and hid in among the gooseberry and currant bushes or behind the wall. And then Toby the dog came to look for her. He was so clever he always found her almost at once – even when she hid in the stable where Twinkletoes the pony lived (only he was out in the meadow eating grass now).

  She shut the lower half of the stable door and kept quite quiet, but Toby the dog barked and scratched outside, and wouldn’t go away till Mi
lly-Molly-Mandy pushed open the door and came out.

  Then Toby the dog was so pleased to see her, and so pleased with himself for finding her, that he jumped up and down on his hind legs, pawing and scratching at her skirt.

  And suddenly – rrrrrip! – there was a great big tear all the way down the front of Milly-Molly-Mandy’s pink-and-white striped cotton frock.

  “Oh dear, oh dear!” said Milly-Molly-Mandy. “Oh, Toby, just see what you’ve done now!”

  Then Toby the dog stopped jumping up and down, and he looked very sorry and ashamed of himself. So Milly-Molly-Mandy said, “All right, then! Poor Toby! You didn’t mean to do it. But whatever will Mother say? I’ll have to go and show her.”

  So Milly-Molly-Mandy, looking very solemn and holding her dress together with both hands, walked back through the barnyard where the cows were milked (only they, too, were out in the meadow eating grass now).

  Uncle was throwing big buckets of water over the floor of the cowshed, to wash it.

  “Now what have you been up to?” he asked, as Milly-Molly-Mandy, looking very solemn and holding her dress together with both hands, passed by.

  “I tore my dress playing with Toby, and I’m going to show Mother,” said Milly-Molly-Mandy.

  “Well, well,” said Uncle, sending another big bucketful of water swashing along over the brick floor. “Now you’ll catch it. Tell Mother to send you out to me if she wants you to get a good spanking. I’ll give you a proper one!”

  “Mother won’t let you spank me!” said Milly-Molly-Mandy (she knew Uncle was only joking). “But she won’t like having to mend such a great big tear, I expect. She mended this dress only a little while ago, and now it’s got to be done all over again. Come on, Toby.”

  So they went through the gate into the kitchen garden (where Father grew the vegetables) and in by the back door of the nice white cottage with the thatched roof where Father and Mother and Grandpa and Grandma and Uncle and Aunty and, of course, Milly-Molly-Mandy all lived together.

  “Now what’s the matter with little Millicent Margaret Amanda?” said Grandma, who was shelling peas for dinner, as Milly-Molly-Mandy came in, looking very solemn and holding her dress together with both hands.

  “I’m looking for Mother,” said Milly-Molly-Mandy.

  “She’s in the larder,” said Aunty, who was patching sheets with her machine at the kitchen table. “What have you been up to?”

  But Milly-Molly-Mandy went over to the door of the larder, where Mother was washing the shelves.

  “Mother,” said Milly-Molly-Mandy, looking very solemn and holding her dress together with both hands, “I’m dreadfully sorry, but I was playing hide-and-seek with Toby, and we tore my dress. Badly.”

  “Dear, dear, now!” said Grandma.

  “Whatever next!” said Aunty.

  “Let me have a look,” said Mother. She put down her wash-cloth and came out into the kitchen.

  Milly-Molly-Mandy took her hands away and showed her frock, with the great big tear all down the front of it.

  Mother looked at it. And then she said:

  “Well, Milly-Molly-Mandy! That just about finishes that frock! But I was afraid it couldn’t last much longer when I mended it before.”

  And Grandma said, “She had really outgrown it.”

  And Aunty said, “It was very faded.”

  And Mother said, “You will have to have a new one.”

  Milly-Molly-Mandy was pleased to think that was all they said about it. (So was Toby the dog!)

  Mother said, “You can go out in the garden and tear it all you like now, Milly-Molly-Mandy. But don’t you go tearing anything else!”

  So Milly-Molly-Mandy and Toby the dog had a fine time tearing her old dress to ribbons, so that she looked as if she had been dancing in a furze bush, Grandpa said. And then Mother sent her upstairs to change into her better frock (which was pink-and-white striped, too).

  During dinner Mother said, “I’m going to take Milly-Molly-Mandy down to the village this afternoon, to buy her some stuff for a new dress.”

  Father said, “I suppose that means you want some more money.” And he took some out of his trousers’ pocket and handed it over to Mother.

  Grandma said, “What about getting her something that isn’t pink-and-white striped, just for a change?”

  Grandpa said, “Let’s have flowers instead of stripes this time.”

  Aunty said, “Something with daisies on would look nice.”

  Uncle said, “Oh, let’s go gay while we are about it, and have magenta roses and yellow sunflowers – eh, Milly-Molly-Mandy?”

  But Milly-Molly-Mandy said, “I don’t ’spect Miss Muggins keeps that sort of stuff in her shop, so then I can’t have it!”

  After dinner Milly-Molly-Mandy helped Mother to wash up the plates and things, and then Mother changed her dress, and they put on their hats, and Mother took her handbag, and they went together down the road with the hedges each side towards the village.

  Milly-Molly-Mandy showed her dress with the tear all down the front

  They passed the Moggses’ cottage, where little-friend-Susan lived. Little-friend-Susan was helping her baby sister to make mud pies on the step.

  “Hullo, Susan,” said Milly-Molly-Mandy. “We’re going to buy me some different new dress stuff at Miss Muggins’s shop, because I tore my other one!”

  “Are you? How nice! What colour are you going to have this time?” asked little-friend-Susan.

  “We don’t know yet, but it will be something quite different,” said Milly-Molly-Mandy.

  They passed the Forge, where Mr Rudge the Blacksmith and his new boy were making a big fire over an iron hoop which, when it was red-hot, they were going to fit round a broken cart-wheel to mend it. Milly-Molly-Mandy wanted to stay and watch, but Mother said she hadn’t time.

  So Milly-Molly-Mandy just called out to Mr Rudge, “We’re going to buy some different coloured dress stuff, because I tore my other one!”

  And Mr Rudge stopped to wipe his hot face on his torn shirt sleeve, and said, “Well, if they’d buy us different-coloured shirts every time we tear ours, you’d see us going about like a couple of rainbows! Eh, Reginald?”

  And the new boy grinned as he piled more brushwood on the fire. (He’d got a tear in his shirt too.)

  They passed Mr Blunt’s corn-shop, where Billy Blunt was polishing up his new second-hand bicycle, which his father had just given him, on the pavement outside.

  Milly-Molly-Mandy and Mother stopped a minute to admire its shininess (which was almost like new). And then Milly-Molly-Mandy said, “We’re going to buy me some different-coloured dress stuff, because I tore my other!”

  But Billy Blunt wasn’t very interested (he was just testing his front brake).

  Then they came to Miss Muggins’s shop.

  And just as they got up to the door so did two other people, coming from the other way. One was an old lady in a black cloak and bonnet, and one was a little girl in a faded flowered dress, with a ribbon round her hair. Mother pushed open the shop door for the old lady and set the little bell jangling above, and they all went in together, so that the shop seemed quite full of people, with Miss Muggins behind the counter too.

  Miss Muggins didn’t know quite whom to serve first. She looked towards the old lady, and the old lady looked towards Mother, and Mother said, “No, you first.”

  So then the old lady said, “I would like to see something for a dress for a little girl, if you please – something light and summery.”

  And Mother said, “That is exactly what I am wanting, too.”

  So then Miss Muggins brought out the different stuffs from her shelves for both her customers to choose from together.

  Milly-Molly-Mandy looked at the little girl. She thought she had seen her before. Surely it was the new little girl who had lately come to Milly-Molly-Mandy’s school. Only she was in the “baby class”, so they hadn’t talked together yet.

  The little girl looked at
Milly-Molly-Mandy. And presently she pulled at the old lady’s arm and whispered something, whereupon the old lady turned and smiled at Milly-Molly-Mandy, so Milly-Molly-Mandy smiled back.

  Milly-Molly-Mandy whispered up at Mother (looking at the little girl). “She comes to our school!”

  So then Mother smiled at the little girl. And the old lady and Mother began to talk together as they looked at Miss Muggins’s stuffs. And Milly-Molly-Mandy and the little girl began to talk too, as they waited.

  Milly-Molly-Mandy found out that the little girl was called Bunchy, and the old lady was her grandmother, and they lived together in a little cottage quite a long way from the school and the crossroads, in the other direction from Milly-Molly-Mandy’s.

  Bunchy hadn’t come to school before because she couldn’t walk so far. But now she was bigger, and Granny walked with her half the way and she ran the rest by herself.

  She liked coming to school, but she had never played with other little girls and boys before, and it all felt very strange and rather frightening. So then Milly-Molly-Mandy said they should look out for each other at school next Monday, and play together during play-time. And she told her about little-friend-Susan, and Billy Blunt, and Miss Muggins’s Jilly, and other friends at school.

  Then Mother said to Miss Muggins, “And this is all you have in the way of printed cottons? Well, now, I wonder, Milly-Molly-Mandy.”

  And Bunchy’s grandmother said, “Look here, Bunchy, my dear.”

  So they both went up to the counter.

  There was a light blue silky stuff which Mother and Bunchy’s grandmother said was “not serviceable”. And a stuff with scarlet poppies and cornflowers all over it which they said was “not suitable”. And there was a green chintz stuff which they said was too thick. And a yellow muslin which they said was too thin.