THEN LITTLE-FRIEND-SUSAN AND BILLY BLUNT CRAWLED OUT
So, after supper, they all met together again in the meadow, in the sunset. And they shut and tied up the meadow gate. (It was all terribly exciting!)
And Mother came out, with Father and Grandpa and Grandma and Uncle and Aunty, to see that all was right, and their ground-sheets well spread under their bedding.
Then Milly-Molly-Mandy and little-friend-Susan crawled into their tent, and Billy Blunt crawled into his tent. And presently Milly-Molly-Mandy crawled out again in her pyjamas, and ran about with bare feet on the grass with Toby the dog; and then little-friend-Susan and Billy Blunt, in their pyjamas, crawled out and ran about too (because it feels so very nice, and so sort of new, to be running about under the sky in your pyjamas!).
And Father and Mother and Grandpa and Grandma and Uncle and Aunty laughed, and looked on as if they wouldn’t mind doing it too, if they weren’t so grown up.
Then Mother said, “Now I think it’s time you campers popped into bed. Goodnight!” And they went off home.
So Milly-Molly-Mandy and little-friend-Susan called “Goodnight!” and crawled into one tent, and Billy Blunt caught Toby the dog and crawled into the other.
And the trees outside grew slowly blacker and blacker until they couldn’t be seen at all; and the owls hooted; and a far-away cow mooed; and now and then Toby the dog wuffed, because he thought he heard a rabbit; and sometimes Milly-Molly-Mandy or little-friend-Susan squeaked, because they thought they felt a spider walking on them. And once Billy Blunt called out to ask if they were still awake, and they said they were, and was he? and he said of course he was.
And then at last they all fell fast asleep.
And in no time at all the sun was shining through their tents, telling them to wake up and come out, because it was the next day.
And Billy Blunt and Milly-Molly-Mandy and little-friend-Susan DID enjoy that camping-out night!
3
Milly-Molly-Mandy Finds a Train
Once upon a time Milly-Molly-Mandy was playing with Billy Blunt down by the little brook (which, you know, ran through the fields at the back of the nice white cottage with the thatched roof where Milly-Molly-Mandy lived).
They had got their shoes and socks off, and were paddling about in the water, and poking about among the stones and moss, and enjoying themselves very much. Only it was so interesting just about where their feet were that they might have missed seeing something else interesting, a little farther off, if a woodpecker hadn’t suddenly started pecking in an old tree near by, and made Billy Blunt look up.
He didn’t see the woodpecker, but he did see the something else.
“I say – what’s that, there?” said Billy Blunt, standing up and staring.
“What’s what, where?” said Milly-Molly-Mandy, standing up and staring too.
“There,” said Billy Blunt, pointing.
And Milly-Molly-Mandy looked there. And she saw, in the meadow on the farther side of the brook, what looked like a railway train. Only there was no railway near the meadow.
“It looks like a train,” said Milly-Molly-Mandy.
“Um-m,” said Billy Blunt.
“But how did it get there?” said Milly-Molly-Mandy.
“Must have been pulled there,” said Billy Blunt.
“But what for? Who put it there? When did it come?” said Milly-Molly-Mandy.
Billy Blunt didn’t answer. He splashed back to get his boots and socks, and he splashed across the brook with them, and sat on the grass on the other side, and began to dab his feet with his handkerchief. So Milly-Molly-Mandy splashed across with her shoes and began to put them on too. And with her toes scrunched up in the shoes (because they were still damp and wouldn’t straighten out at first) she ran and hopped after Billy Blunt, up the little bank and across the grass to the train.
They walked all round it, staring hard. It hadn’t got an engine, or a guard’s van. It was just a railway carriage, and it stood with its big iron wheels in the grass, looking odd and out-of-place among the daisies and buttercups.
“It’s like a funny sort of house,” said Milly-Molly-Mandy, climbing up to peep in the windows. “I wish we could play in it. Look – that could be the kitchen, and that’s the sitting-room, and that’s the bedroom. I wish we could get in!”
It had several doors either side, each with a big 3 painted on. Billy Blunt tried the handles in turn. They all seemed to be locked. But the last one wasn’t! It opened heavily, and they could get into one compartment.
THEY WALKED ALL ROUND IT, STARING HARD
“It’s old,” said Billy Blunt, looking about. “I expect they’ve thrown it away.”
“What a waste!” said Milly-Molly-Mandy. “Well, it’s ours now. We found it. We can live in it, and go journeys!”
It was very exciting. They shut the door and they opened the windows. And then they sat down on the two wooden seats, and pretended they were going away for a holiday. When they stood up, or walked to the windows to look out, it was difficult to do it steadily, because the train rushed along so fast! Once it let out a great long whistle, so that Milly-Molly-Mandy jumped; and Billy Blunt grinned and did it again.
“We are just going through a station,” he explained.
The next moment Milly-Molly-Mandy nearly fell over and knocked Billy Blunt.
“We’ve stopped suddenly – the signal must be up,” she explained. So they each hung out of a window to look. “Now it’s down and we’re going on again,” said Milly-Molly-Mandy.
“We’re going into a tunnel now,” said Billy Blunt, pulling up his window by the strap. So Milly-Molly-Mandy pulled up hers – to keep the smoke out!
When the train stopped at last they got out, and everything looked quite different all round. They were by the sea, and the train was a house. One of the seats was a table, and they laid Billy Blunt’s damp handkerchief on it as a tablecloth, and put a rusty tin filled with buttercups in the middle.
But after a while Billy Blunt began to feel hungry, and then, of course, they knew it must be time to think of going home. So at last they shut the door of their wonderful train-house, and planned to meet there again as early as possible the next day.
And then they jumped back over the brook, and Billy Blunt went one way across the field, to his home by the corn-shop; and Milly-Molly-Mandy went the other way across the field, to the nice white cottage with the thatched roof, where she found Father and Mother and Grandpa and Grandma and Uncle and Aunty just ready to sit down to table.
The next day Milly-Molly-Mandy hurried to get all her jobs done – helping to wash up the breakfast things, and make the beds, and do the dusting. And as soon as she was free to play she ran straight out and down to the brook.
Billy Blunt was just coming across the field from the village, so she waited for him, and together they crossed over the brook, planning where they would go for their travels today.
“There it is!” said Milly-Molly-Mandy, almost as if she had expected the train to have run away in the night.
And then she stopped. And Billy Blunt stopped too.
There was a man with a cap on, sitting on the roof of the train, fixing up a sort of chimney. And there was a woman with an apron on, sweeping dust out of one of the doorways. And there was a baby in a shabby old pram near by, squealing. And there was a little dog, guarding a hand-cart piled with boxes and bundles, who barked when he saw Milly-Molly-Mandy and Billy Blunt.
“They’ve got our train!” said Milly-Molly-Mandy, staring.
“ ’Spect it’s their train, really,” said Billy Blunt.
Milly-Molly-Mandy edged a little nearer and spoke to the little dog, who got under the cart and barked again (but he wagged his tail at the same time). The woman in the apron looked up and saw them.
Milly-Molly-Mandy said, “Good morning. Is this your train?”
“Yes, it is,” said the woman, knocking dust out of the broom.
“Are you going to live in it?” asked Milly-Mo
lly-Mandy.
“Yes, we are,” said the woman. “Bought and paid for it, we did, and got it towed here, and it’s going to be our home now.”
“Is this your baby?” asked Billy Blunt, jiggling the pram gently. The baby stopped crying and stared up at him. “What’s its name?”
The woman smiled then. “His name is Thomas Thomas, like his father’s,” she said. “So it don’t matter whether you call either of ’em by surname or given-name, it’s all one.”
Just then the man on the roof dropped his hammer down into the grass, and called out. “Here, mate, just chuck that up, will you?”
So Billy Blunt threw the hammer up, and the man caught it and went on fixing the chimney, while Billy Blunt watched and handed up other things as they were wanted. And the man told him that this end of the carriage was going to be the kitchen (just as Milly-Molly-Mandy had planned!), and the wall between it and the next compartment was to be taken away so as to make it bigger. The other end was the bedroom, with the long seats for beds.
Milly-Molly-Mandy stayed jiggling the pram to keep the baby quiet, and making friends with the little dog. And the woman told her she had got some stuff for window-curtains in the hand-cart there; and that they planned to make a bit of a garden round, to grow potatoes and cabbages in, so the house would soon look more proper. She said her husband was a tinker, and he hoped to get work mending pots and kettles in the villages near, instead of tramping about the country looking for it, as they had been doing.
She asked Milly-Molly-Mandy if she didn’t think the baby would have quite a nice home, after a bit? And Milly-Molly-Mandy said she DID!
Presently the woman brought out from the hand-cart a frying-pan, and a newspaper parcel of sausages, and a kettle (which Milly-Molly-Mandy filled for her at the brook). So then Milly-Molly-Mandy and Billy Blunt knew it was time to be going.
They said goodbye to the man and woman, and stroked the little dog. (The baby was asleep.) And as they were crossing back over the brook the man called after them:
“If you’ve got any pots, pans, and kettles to mend, you know where to come to find Thomas Tinker!”
So after that Milly-Molly-Mandy and Billy Blunt were always on the look-out for anyone who had a saucepan, frying-pan, or kettle which leaked or had a loose handle, and offered at once to take it to Thomas Tinker’s to be mended. And people were very pleased, because Thomas Tinker mended small things quicker than Mr Rudge the blacksmith did, not being so busy making horse-shoes and mending ploughs and big things. Thomas Tinker and his wife were very grateful to Milly-Molly-Mandy and Billy Blunt.
But as Milly-Molly-Mandy said, “If we can get them plenty of work then they can go on living here. And if we can’t have that train for ourselves I like next best for Mr Tinker and Mrs Tinker and Baby Tinker to have it – don’t you, Billy?”
And Billy Blunt did.
4
Milly-Molly-Mandy and Dum-dum
Once upon a time Milly-Molly-Mandy was wandering past the Big House down by the crossroads where the little girl Jessamine, and her mother, Mrs Green, lived (only they were away just now).
There was always a lot of flowers in the garden of the Big House, so it was nice to peep through the gate when you passed. Besides, Mr Moggs, little-friend-Susan’s father, worked there (he was the gardener), and Milly-Molly-Mandy could see him now, weeding with a long-handled hoe.
“Hello, Mr Moggs,” Milly-Molly-Mandy called through the gate (softly, because you don’t like to shout in other people’s gardens, even when you know the people are away). “Could I come in, do you think?”
Mr Moggs looked up and said, “Well, now, I shouldn’t wonder but that you could!”
So Milly-Molly-Mandy pushed open the big iron gate and slipped through.
“Isn’t it pretty here!” she said, looking about her. “What do you weed it for, when there’s nobody to see?”
“Ah,” said Mr Moggs, “you learn it doesn’t do to let things go, in a garden, or anywhere else. Weeds and all such like, they get to thinking they own the place if you let ’em alone awhile.”
He went on scratching out weeds, so Milly-Molly-Mandy gathered them into his big wheelbarrow for him.
Presently Mr Moggs scratched out a worm along with a tuft of dandelion, and Milly-Molly-Mandy squeaked because she nearly took hold of it without noticing (only she just didn’t).
“Don’t you like worms?” asked Mr Moggs.
“No,” said Milly-Molly-Mandy, “I don’t!”
“Ah,” said Mr Moggs. “I know someone who does, though.”
“Who?” asked Milly-Molly-Mandy, sitting back on her heels.
“Old Dum-dum’s very partial to a nice fat worm,” said Mr Moggs. “Haven’t you met old Dum-dum?”
“No,” said Milly-Molly-Mandy. “Who’s old Dum-dum?”
“You come and see,” said Mr Moggs. “I’ve got to feed him before I go off home.”
He trundled the barrow to the back garden and emptied it on the rubbish heap, and Milly-Molly-Mandy followed, carrying the worm on a trowel.
Mr Moggs got a little tin full of grain from the tool-shed, and pulled a lettuce from the vegetable bed, and then he went to the end of the garden, Milly-Molly-Mandy following.
There was a little square of grass fenced off with wire netting in which was a little wooden gate. And in the middle of the square of grass was a little round pond. And standing at the edge of the little round pond, looking very solemn, hunched up in his feathers, was Dum-dum.
“Oh!” said Milly-Molly-Mandy. “Dum-dum is a duck!”
“Well, he’s a drake, really,” said Mr Moggs. “See the little curly feathers on his tail? That shows he’s a gentleman. Lady ducks don’t have curls on their tails.” He leaned over the netting and emptied the grain into a feeding-pan lying on the grass. “Come on, quack-quack!” said Mr Moggs. “Here’s your supper.”
Dum-dum looked round at him, and at Milly-Molly-Mandy. Then he waddled slowly over on his yellow webbed feet, and shuffled his beak in the pan for a moment. Then he waddled slowly back to his pond, dipped down and took a sip, and stood as before, looking very solemn, hunched up in his feathers, with a drop of water hanging from his flat yellow beak.
“He doesn’t want any supper!” said Milly-Molly-Mandy. “Why doesn’t he?”
“Feels lonely, that’s what. Misses the folk up at the Big House. They used to come and talk to him sometimes and give him bits. He’s the little girl Jessamine’s pet.”
“Poor Dum-dum!” said Milly-Molly-Mandy. “He does look miserable. Would you like a worm, Dum-dum?”
He came waddling over again, and stretched up his beak. And down went the worm, snip-snap.
“Doesn’t he make a funny husky noise? Has he lost his quack?” asked Milly-Molly-Mandy.
“No,” said Mr Moggs, “gentlemen ducks never talk so loud as lady ducks.”
“Huh! Huh! Huh!” quacked Dum-dum, asking for more worms as loudly as he could.
So Milly-Molly-Mandy dug with the trowel and found another, a little one, and threw it over the netting.
“Do you suppose worms mind very much?” she asked, watching Dum-dum gobbling.
“Well, I don’t suppose they think a great deal about it, one way or t’other,” said Mr Moggs.
He dug over a bit of ground with his spade, and Milly-Molly-Mandy found eight more worms. So Dum-dum had quite a good supper after all.
Then Milly-Molly-Mandy leaned over the wire-netting and tried stroking the shiny green feathers on Dum-dum’s head and neck. And though he edged away a bit at first, after a few tries he stood quite still, holding his head down while she stroked as if he rather liked it.
And then suddenly he turned and pushed his beak into Milly-Molly-Mandy’s warm hand and left it there, so that she was holding his beak as if she were shaking hands with it! It startled her at first, it felt so funny and cold.
“Ah, he likes you,” said Mr Moggs, wiping his spade with a bunch of grass. “He’s a funny old
bird; some he likes and some he doesn’t. Well, we must be going.”
“Mr Moggs,” begged Milly-Molly-Mandy, still holding Dum-dum’s beak gently in her hand, “don’t you think I might come in sometimes to cheer him up, while his people are away? He’s so lonely!”
“Well,” said Mr Moggs, “I don’t see why not – if you don’t go bringing your little playmates running around in here too. Look, if I’m not about you can get in by the side gate there.” And he showed her how to unfasten it and lock it up again. “But mind, I’m trusting you,” said Mr Moggs.
So Milly-Molly-Mandy promised to be very careful indeed.
After that she went into the Big House garden every day after school, to cheer up poor Dum-dum. And he got so cheerful he would run to his fence to meet her, saying “Huh! Huh! Huh!” directly he heard her coming. She used to go into his enclosure to play with him, and pour water on to the earth for him to make mud with. (He loved mud!)
One day Milly-Molly-Mandy thought it would be nice if Dum-dum could have a change from that narrow run, so she asked Mr Moggs if she might let him out for a little walk. And Mr Moggs said she might try it, if she watched that he didn’t eat the flowers and vegetables or get out into the road. So Milly-Molly-Mandy opened his little wooden gate, and Dum-dum stepped out on his yellow feet, looking at everything with great interest.
He was so good and obedient, he followed her along the garden paths and came where she called, like a little dog. So she often let him out after that. She turned over stones and things for him to hunt slugs and woodlice underneath. Sometimes she took him in the front garden too, and showed him to Billy Blunt through the gate.
One morning Milly-Molly-Mandy was very early for school, because the clock at home was fast. At first, when she found no-one round the school gate, she thought it was late; but when she found it wasn’t she knew why little-friend-Susan hadn’t been ready when she passed the Moggs’s cottage!
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