“Mummy,” said Deborah, “how much did Teddy Robinson cost when he was new?”
“About twenty-nine and eleven, I think,” said Mummy.
“Not as much as that doll?” said Deborah.
“Oh, no,” said Mummy. “That doll is much dearer.”
“Fancy that!” said Teddy Robinson to himself, and he felt half surprised and half cross to think he wasn’t quite the dearest person in the whole world.
“I don’t think it’s much use our looking at dolls any more,” said Mummy. “They’re all so dear.”
“Yes,” said Deborah, “and I’ve just thought what I really would like to buy. Couldn’t I have one of those dolls that are really hot-water bottles?”
“Why, yes,” said Mummy. “What a good idea!”
So they all went along to the chemist’s department, and there they saw three different kinds of hot-water-bottle dolls. There was a hot-water-bottle clown, and a hot-water-bottle Red-Riding-Hood, and a hot-water-bottle dog, bright blue with a pink bow.
Deborah picked up the blue dog.
“That’s the one I want,” she said. “Look, Teddy Robinson – do you like him?”
“Isn’t he rather flat?” said Teddy Robinson.
“Yes, but he won’t be when he’s filled,” said Deborah. “He’s a dear – isn’t he, Mummy?”
“Yes,” said Mummy, “he really is.”
“Everybody in this shop seems to be dear except me,” said Teddy Robinson to himself. And he felt grumpy and sad; but nobody noticed him, because they were so busy looking at the blue dog, and paying for him, and watching him being put into a brown-paper bag.
All the way home Teddy Robinson went on feeling grumpy and sad. He thought about the doll dressed as a bride who was three times as big as he was.
“It isn’t fair,” he said to himself. “She didn’t have to be three times as dear as me as well.”
And he thought about the tiny little doll who hadn’t asked him into the dolls’ house.
“She was a nasty, rude little doll,” he said, “but she told me she was very dear too.”
And he thought about the blue-dog hot-water bottle, who seemed to be coming home with them.
“Deborah and Mummy called him a dear, too. But I don’t think he’s a dear. I don’t like him at all, and I hope he’ll stay always inside that brown-paper bag.”
But when they got home the blue dog was taken out of his brown-paper bag straight away. And when bedtime came something even worse happened. Teddy Robinson and Deborah got into bed as usual, and what should they find but the blue dog already there, lying right in the middle of the bed, and smiling up at them both, just as if he belonged there!
“Look at who’s in our bed!” said Teddy Robinson to Deborah. “Make him get out.”
“Of course he’s in our bed,” said Deborah. “That’s what we bought him for, to keep us warm. Isn’t he a dear?”
Teddy Robinson didn’t say a word, he felt so cross. Deborah put her ear against his furry tummy.
“You’re not growling, are you?” she said.
“Yes, I are!” shouted Teddy Robinson.
“But why?”
“Because I don’t like not being dear,” said Teddy Robinson. “And if I aren’t dear why do people always call me ‘Dear Teddy Robinson’ when they write to me?”
“But you are dear,” said Deborah.
“No, I aren’t,” said Teddy Robinson; “and now I don’t even feel dear any more. I just feel growly and grunty.” And he told her all about what he had been thinking ever since they left the toyshop.
“But those are only dolls,” said Deborah, “and this is only a hot-water bottle. You are my very dear Teddy Robinson, and you’re quite the dearest person in the whole world to me (not counting Daddy and Mummy and grown-ups, I mean).”
Teddy Robinson began to feel much better.
“Push the blue dog down by your feet, then,” he said. “There isn’t room for him up here.”
So Deborah pushed the blue dog down, and Teddy Robinson cuddled beside her and thought how lucky he was not to be just a doll or a hot-water bottle.
Soon the blue dog made the bed so warm and cosy that Deborah fell asleep and Teddy Robinson began to get drowsy. He said, “Dear me, dear me,” to himself, over and over again; and after a while he began to feel as if he loved everybody in the whole world. And soon his “Dear me”s turned into a sleepy little song which went like this:
“Dear me,
dear me,
how nice to be
as dear
a bear
as dear old me.
Dear you,
dear him,
dear them,
dear we,
dear every one,
and dear,
dear
me.”
And then he fell fast asleep.
And that is the end of the story about how Teddy Robinson went to the toyshop.
3
Teddy Robinson Keeps House
One day Teddy Robinson sat on the kitchen table and watched everyone being very busy. Mummy was cutting bread, Deborah was putting some flowers in a vase of water, and Daddy was looking for a newspaper that had something in it that he specially wanted to read.
Teddy Robinson wished he could look busy too, but he couldn’t think of anything to be looking busy about. He stared up at the ceiling. One or two flies were crawling about up there. Teddy Robinson began counting them; but every time he got as far as “Three” one of them would suddenly fly away and land somewhere quite different, so it was difficult to know if he had counted it before or not.
“What’s the matter, Teddy Robinson?” said Deborah.
“Nothing’s the matter,” he said. “I’m busy. I’m counting flies, but they keep flying away.”
“Silly boy,” said Deborah.
“No,” said Mummy, “he’s not silly at all. He’s reminded me that I must get some fly-papers from the grocer today. We don’t want flies crawling about in the kitchen.”
Teddy Robinson felt rather pleased.
“I like being busy,” he said. “What else can I do?”
Deborah put the vase of flowers on the table beside him.
“You can smell these flowers for me,” she said.
Teddy Robinson leaned forward with his nose against the flowers and smelled them.
When Daddy had found his newspaper and gone off to work, Mummy put some slices of bread under the grill on the cooker.
“We will have some toast,” she said.
“And you can watch it, Teddy Robinson,” said Deborah.
Just then the front-door bell rang, and Mummy went out to see who it was. Teddy Robinson and Deborah could hear Andrew’s voice. He was saying something about a picnic this afternoon, and could Deborah come too?
“Oh!” said Deborah. “I must go and find out about this!” And she ran out into the hall.
Teddy Robinson stayed sitting on the kitchen table watching the toast. He could hear the others talking by the front door, and then he heard Mummy saying, “I think I’d better come over and talk to your mummy about it now.” And after that everything was quiet.
Teddy Robinson felt very happy to be so busy. He stared hard at the toast and sang to himself as he watched it turning from white to golden brown and then from golden brown to black.
In a minute he heard a little snuffling noise coming from the half-open back door. The Puppy from over the Road was peeping into the kitchen. When he saw Teddy Robinson sitting on the table he wagged his tail and smiled, with his pink tongue hanging out.
“What’s cooking?” he said.
“Toast,” said Teddy Robinson. “Won’t you come in? There’s nobody at home but me.”
“Oh, no, I mustn’t,” said the puppy. “I’m not house-trained yet. Are you?”
“Oh, yes,” said Teddy Robinson. “I can do quite a lot of useful things in the house.”
He began thinking quickly of all the useful thin
gs he could do; then he said, “I can watch toast, keep people company, smell flowers, time eggs, count flies, or sit on things to keep them from blowing away. Just at the minute I’m watching the toast.”
“It makes an interesting smell, doesn’t it?” said the puppy, sniffing the air.
“Yes,” said Teddy Robinson. “It makes a lot of smoke too. That’s what makes it so difficult to watch. You can’t see the toast for the smoke, but I’ve managed to keep my eye on it nearly all the time. I’ve been making up a little song about it:
“I’m watching the toast.
I don’t want to boast,
but I’m better than most
at watching the toast.
It can bake, it can boil,
it can smoke, it can roast,
but I stick to my post.
I’m watching the toast.”
“Jolly good song,” said the puppy. “But, you know, it’s really awfully smoky in here. If you don’t mind I think I’ll just go and practise barking at a cat or two until you’ve finished. Are you sure you won’t come out too? Come and have a breath of fresh air.”
“No, no,” said Teddy Robinson. “I’ll stick to my post until the others come back.”
And at that moment the others did come back.
“Oh, dear!” cried Mummy. “Whatever’s happened? Oh, of course – it’s the toast! I’d forgotten all about it.”
“But I didn’t,” said Teddy Robinson proudly. “I’ve been watching it all the time.”
“It was because Andrew came and asked us to a picnic this afternoon,” said Deborah. “Would you like to come too?”
“I’d much rather stay at home and keep house,” said Teddy Robinson. “I like being busy. Isn’t there something I could do that would be useful?”
“Yes,” said Mummy, when Deborah asked her. “The grocery order is coming this afternoon. If Teddy Robinson likes to stay he can look after it for us until we come home. We’ll ask the man to leave it on the step and risk it.”
So it was decided that Deborah and Mummy should go to the picnic and Teddy Robinson should stay at home and keep house.
When they were all ready to go, Mummy wrote a notice which said, PLEASE LEAVE GROCERIES ON THE STEP, and Deborah wrote underneath it, TEDDY ROBINSON WILL LOOK AFTER THEM. Then they put the notice on the back-door step, and Teddy Robinson sat on it so that it wouldn’t blow away.
Deborah kissed him goodbye, and Mummy shut the back door behind him. Teddy Robinson felt very pleased and important, and thought how jolly it was to be so busy that he hadn’t even time to go to a picnic.
“I don’t care how many people come and ask me to picnics or parties today,” he said to himself. “I just can’t go to any of them. I’m far too busy.”
Nobody did come to ask Teddy Robinson to a party or a picnic, so after a while he settled down to have a nice, quiet think. His think was all about how lovely it would be if he had a little house all of his own, where he could be as busy as he liked. He had a picture in his mind of how he would open the door to the milkman, and ask the baker to leave one small brown, and invite people in for cups of tea. And he would leave his Wellington boots just outside the door (so as not to make the house muddy), and then say to people, “Excuse my boots, won’t you?” So everybody would notice them, but nobody would think he was showing off about them. (Teddy Robinson hadn’t got any Wellington boots, but he was always thinking how nice it would be if he had.)
He began singing to himself in a dreamy sort of way:
“Good morning, baker. One small brown.
How much is that to pay?
Good morning, milkman. Just one pint,
and how’s your horse today?
Good afternoon. How nice of you
to come and visit me.
Step right inside (excuse my boots).
I’ll make a pot of tea.”
A blackbird flew down and perched on the garden fence. He whistled once or twice, looked at Teddy Robinson with his head on one side, and then flew away again.
A minute later the grocer’s boy opened the side gate and came up to the back door. He had a great big cardboard box in his arms.
When he had read the notice he put the big box on the step. Then he picked Teddy Robinson up and sat him on top of it. He grinned at him, then he walked off, whistling loudly and banging the side gate behind him.
The blackbird flew down on to the fence again.
“Was that you whistling?” he asked.
“No,” said Teddy Robinson, “it was the grocer’s boy.”
“Did you hear me whistle just now?” asked the blackbird.
“Yes,” said Teddy Robinson.
“I did it to see if you were real or not,” said the blackbird. “You were sitting so still I thought you couldn’t be, so I whistled to find out. Why didn’t you answer me?”
“I can’t whistle,” said Teddy Robinson, “and, anyway, I was thinking.’’
“What’s in that box?” asked the blackbird. “Any breadcrumbs?”
Just then there was a scrambling, scuffling noise, and the Puppy from over the Road came lolloping round the corner. The blackbird flew away.
“Hallo,” said the puppy. “What are you doing here?”
“I’m guarding the groceries,” said Teddy Robinson.
“Well, I never!” said the puppy. “You were making toast last time I saw you. You do work hard. Do you have to make beds as well?”
“No,” said Teddy Robinson, “I couldn’t make beds. I haven’t got a hammer and nails. But I am very busy today.”
“Why don’t they take the groceries in?” asked the puppy.
“They’ve gone to a picnic,” said Teddy Robinson. “I stayed behind to keep house. They decided to let the boy leave the groceries on the step and risk it.”
“What’s ‘risk-it’?” said the puppy.
“I don’t know,” said Teddy Robinson, “but I like saying it, because it goes so nicely with biscuit.”
“Got any biscuits in there?” asked the puppy, sniffing round the box.
“I’m not sure,” said Teddy Robinson, “but you mustn’t put your nose in the box.”
“I was only sniffing,” said the puppy.
“You mustn’t sniff either,” said Teddy Robinson. “It’s a bad habit.”
“What’s ‘habit’?” said the puppy.
“I don’t know,” said Teddy Robinson. “But it goes very nicely with rabbit.”
Suddenly the back door opened behind him. The puppy scuttled away, and Teddy Robinson found that Deborah and Mummy had come home again.
“You did keep house well,” said Mummy, as she carried him into the kitchen with the box of groceries.
“Don’t you think he ought to have a present,” said Deborah, “for being so good at housekeeping?”
“He really ought to have a house of his own,” said Mummy. “Look – what about this?” She pointed to the big box. “You could make him a nice house out of that when it’s empty. I’ll help you to cut the windows out.”
“Oh, yes,” said Deborah, “that is exactly what he wants.”
So after tea Deborah and Mummy got busy making a beautiful little house for Teddy Robinson. They made a door and two windows (one at the front and one at the back) and painted them green. Then Deborah made a hole in the lid of the box and stuck a cardboard chimney in it. Mummy painted a rambler-rose climbing up the wall. It looked very pretty.
“What would you like to call your house?” said Deborah. “Do you think Rose Cottage would be a nice name?”
“I’d rather it had my own name on it,” said Teddy Robinson.
So Deborah painted TEDDY ROBINSON’S HOUSE over the door, and then it was all ready.
The next day Teddy Robinson’s house was put out in the garden in the sunshine. He chose to have it close to the flower-bed at the edge of the lawn, and all day long he sat inside and waited for people to call on him. Deborah came to see him quite often, and every time she looked in at
the window and said, “What are you doing now, Teddy Robinson?” he would say, “I’m just thinking about what to have for dinner,” or “I’m just having a rest before getting tea.”
The Puppy from over the Road came and called on him too. He sniffed at Teddy Robinson through the open window and admired him more than ever now that he had a house of his own.
And the garden tortoise came tramping out of the flower-bed and looked up at the house, saying, “Well, well, I never knew there was a house there!”
Then the Next Door Kitten came walking round on tiptoe. At first she didn’t quite believe it was real. She was sniffing at the rambler-rose painted on the wall when Teddy Robinson looked out of the window and said, “Good afternoon.”
The kitten purred with pleasure at seeing him.
“What a purr-r-rfect little house!” she said. “Is it really yours? You are a lucky purr-r-rson.”
Teddy Robinson nodded and smiled at her from the window.
“Yes,” he said, “it’s my very own house. Aren’t I lucky? It’s just what I’ve always wanted – a little place all of my own.”
And that is the end of the story about how Teddy Robinson kept house.
4
Teddy Robinson Has a Birthday Party
One day Teddy Robinson said to Deborah, “You know, I’ve lived with you for years and years and years, and yet I’ve never had a birthday. Why haven’t I?”
“I suppose it’s because you came at Christmas,” said Deborah, “so we’ve never thought about it. Would you like to have a birthday?”
“Oh, yes, please,” said Teddy Robinson, “if you can spare one. And can I have a party?”
“Yes, I think it’s a lovely idea,” said Deborah. “When would you like your birthday to be?”
“Today?” said Teddy Robinson.
“No, not today,” said Deborah. “There wouldn’t be time to get a party ready. I shall have to ask Mummy about it. Besides, I haven’t got a present for you.”
“Tomorrow, then,” said Teddy Robinson.
The Teddy Robinson Storybook Page 2
