Mary-Mary

by Joan G. Robinson

“I know,” said Mary-Mary. “I had Father’s boots on. That’s why I was being a snow giant, and I did sit down in the middle of the lawn and I did eat some snow.”

  “Well, you might have told us!” said Martyn.

  “Well, really,” said Mother. “I do think you’re all rather silly. Mary-Mary tried to tell you over and over again, but you just wouldn’t listen.”

  “Yes, but she kept on talking about a snow giant,” they said; “and we knew there was no such thing.”

  “But there is,” said Mary-Mary, “and if you don’t believe me go into the sitting-room and have a look.”

  “Into the sitting-room!” said Mother. “Oh, Mary-Mary, what have you been doing? Surely you haven’t brought a whole lot of snow into the house! Oh, dear! Oh, dear!”

  And she ran along the passage, with the others all following, and opened the door into the sitting-room. Then Mary-Mary heard Mother laughing and laughing, and she heard the others all saying, “Oh, my goodness!” “How did she do it?” “Isn’t it huge?” and “ I bet some one helped her!”

  Then Mary-Mary began laughing too, and ran after them all. And when she saw her snow giant smiling in at the window with his twiggy mouth and his pebble eyes and his green-leaf hair sticking out from under the woolly cap she laughed more than ever, because he really did look so splendid and surprising.

  “Well,” said Mother, “I think you’ll all have to agree that Mary-Mary’s snow giant is quite the best thing in the garden!”

  And they all had to agree that he was, and Mary-Mary was so pleased with herself that she turned head over heels nine times running, all round the sitting-room floor.

  “The trouble with Mary-Mary is she’s much too big for her boots,” said Martyn.

  “Oh, no!” said Mary-Mary, surprised. “The boots were much too big for me.”

  So there was a snow giant in Mary-Mary’s garden, after all, and that is the end of the story.

  3

  Mary-Mary Finds a Primrose

  ONE day Mary-Mary had nothing special to do. So she went all round the house to see what everyone else was doing.

  Mother was looking inside a trunk in the box-room.

  “What are you looking for?” said Mary-Mary.

  “I’m looking for dust-sheets,” said Mother. “I need them to cover the furniture to keep it clean while I’m sweeping.”

  Mary-Mary thought that was rather dull; so she said, “Oh,” and went away to find out what Miriam was doing.

  Miriam was in the bedroom, looking at her face very hard in the looking-glass. She looked first this way and then that way, squinting down her nose.

  “What are you looking for?” said Mary-Mary.

  Miriam said crossly, “I’m not looking for anything. I can see it, and it looks awful.”

  “What does?” said Mary-Mary.

  “This spot on my nose,” said Miriam. “I must ask Mother what to do about it.”

  Mary-Mary thought that was rather dull too; so she said, “Oh,” and went away to find out what Martyn was doing.

  Martyn was scrabbling about in the cupboard under the stairs.

  “What are you looking for?” said Mary-Mary.

  “I’m looking for a piece of rope,” said Martyn. “I want to practise jumping.”

  “Oh, yes,” said Mary-Mary. “I’ll jump with you.”

  “No,” said Martyn. “I want to do high-jumping. I’m going to practise for the school sports. You can’t jump, but you can watch.”

  Mary-Mary thought that would be very dull too; so she went away to find out what Mervyn was doing.

  Mervyn was searching through the toy cupboard.

  ‘What are you looking for?” said Mary-Mary.

  “I’m looking for my motor-boat,” said Mervyn. “Now the ice has melted on the pond I want to mend it so that I can sail it.”

  Mary-Mary thought it would be dull watching Mervyn look for his boat; so she went away to find out what Meg was doing.

  Meg was playing the piano downstairs.

  “That’s nice,” thought Mary-Mary, “I can dance and sing to the music and pretend I’m a theatre lady.”

  So she opened the door and danced into the room on tiptoe, with her arms spread out very gracefully on either side of her and her eyes closed, so as to look as if she thought the music was very sweet and beautiful. But because her eyes were shut she didn’t see where she was going; so she tripped over the hearthrug and fell in the middle of the floor with a big bump.

  Meg stopped playing the piano and looked round crossly without saying anything. Then she looked back at the music on the piano and stared at it hard.

  Mary-Mary got up and stood ready to dance again, with her skirt held out on each side and her right foot pointed in front of her. But Meg just went on staring hard at the music.

  “What are you looking for?” said Mary-Mary.

  “I’m looking for the place,” said Meg.

  “What place?” said Mary-Mary.

  “The place I’d got to when you came in and interrupted me,” said Meg. “Now, go away. You can see I’m busy, and I’ve still got to do my scales.”

  Mary-Mary thought that even a theatre lady would find it rather dull to try to dance to scales; so she went away and found Moppet, who was sitting on her pillow, looking over the top of the eiderdown with bright beady black eyes.

  “Everyone seems to be looking for something,” said Mary-Mary to Moppet. “We’d better go and look for something too.”

  “What shall we look for?” she asked in Moppet’s tiny, squeaky voice.

  “Anything,” said Mary-Mary. “It doesn’t matter what. If we don’t know what we’re looking for we might find something really nice.”

  So she carried Moppet downstairs and out into the garden. They walked all the way round the garden, but couldn’t see anything special at all; so then Mary-Mary said in Moppet’s voice, “Don’t let’s look for anything big; let’s look for something very, very small—about my size.”

  “All right,” she said. And she put Moppet in her pocket and crawled along the flower-bed on her hands and knees, trying to make herself as small as Moppet.

  And that was how she found the primrose.

  It was growing all by itself, half hidden under dead leaves, one pretty little pale-yellow primrose.

  “I do believe it’s the only flower in the garden,” said Mary-Mary. “And I found it! I must go and tell the others.”

  She found Mother in the sitting-room, covering the tables and chairs with white dust-sheets. Mary-Mary ran in and said, “Mother, guess what I’ve found!”

  But Mother said, “Not now, darling. Run away, there’s a good girl. I’m busy this morning.” And she climbed up on top of a ladder and started dusting the picture-rail.

  Mary-Mary crawled under a little table and began to play tents. She pulled the sheet this way and that, trying to make a nice opening for her tent, and then, because she pulled too hard, the whole table fell over on its side with a clatter and Mary-Mary was quite covered up in the dust-sheet.

  Mother looked down from the top of the ladder and said, “Now, Mary-Mary, you really must run away. This isn’t a game. This is spring cleaning.”

  So Mary-Mary climbed out from under the dust-sheet and went away to tell someone else about her primrose.

  She found Miriam still in the bedroom looking in the looking-glass and putting white cream on her nose.

  “Miriam,” said Mary-Mary, “shall I tell you what I’ve just found?”

  “No,” said Miriam, “not now. You can see I’m busy.”

  Mary-Mary went up to the dressing-table and looked at the cream jar.

  “That’s fun,” she said. “You look like a circus clown. I’ll be a clown too.” And she put her fingers in the cream jar.

  Miriam grabbed it from her. “No, not you,” she said. “You don’t need cream on. What you need is a good wash. You’re all covered in earth.”

  “Why do you need it, then?” said Mary-Mary.
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  “Because of this spot on my nose,” said Miriam. “Mother says it’s the spring. Now, do go away, Mary-Mary.”

  So Mary-Mary went away to find Martyn. He had fixed up a rope in the dining-room. One end was tied to the table-leg, and the other end hung over the door-handle. Mary-Mary opened the door just as Martyn was going to jump over the rope.

  “Guess what I’ve found, Martyn!” said Mary-Mary.

  “Oh, bother!” said Martyn. “Why must you come and interrupt me? Now, do be quiet. You can stay and watch if you like, but don’t talk.”

  So Mary-Mary went in and sat in the big armchair and watched Martyn. But she soon got tired of this; so she climbed up on to the back of the big chair and began jumping down into the seat every time Martyn jumped over the rope.

  Suddenly there was a loud whamm!

  “What was that?” said Mary-Mary.

  “You naughty girl,” said Martyn. “That was the spring.”

  “What do you mean?” said Mary-Mary.

  “The spring of the chair,” said Martyn. “It sounds as if you’ve broken it by jumping on it. You’d better go away quickly before you break anything else.”

  So Mary-Mary went away to find Mervyn (because she still hadn’t told anybody about her primrose). Mervyn was sitting on the floor by the toy cupboard with his motor-boat on his knee.

  “Guess what I’ve found!” said Mary-Mary.

  “No, not now,” said Mervyn. “I’m busy trying to mend this.”

  “What’s the matter with it?” said Mary-Mary.

  “I think the spring’s broken,” said Mervyn.

  Mary-Mary didn’t want to hear any more about broken springs; so she went away to find Meg.

  Meg was still playing the piano. Mary-Mary went and stood beside her, waiting for her to finish so that she could tell her about the primrose. But Meg didn’t finish. She went on and on, playing the same notes over and over again, and playing them wrong nearly every time. Mary-Mary thought it was a very loud and lumpy sort of piece, and wondered what it could be called.

  Soon she grew tired of waiting for Meg to stop playing; so she began playing herself, very softly, on the low notes.

  “Stop it,” said Meg, still playing hard.

  So Mary-Mary went round to the other side and began playing very softly on the high notes.

  “Go away,” said Meg, and stopped playing.

  “Would you like to hear what I’ve found?” said Mary-Mary.

  “No, I wouldn’t,” said Meg. “Can’t you see I’m practising?”

  “What are you practising for?” said Mary-Mary.

  “For the school concert,” said Meg. “And it’s jolly hard.”

  “It sounds it,” said Mary-Mary. “Is it about a giant? Or is it elephants playing ball?”

  “Don’t be silly,” said Meg. “It’s called Spring Song. Now do go away and stop bothering.”

  So Mary-Mary did go away; and, because there was no one else to tell about the primrose, she went out of the front door and down the front path, and started swinging on the front gate. It was warm and sunny, and some birds in the tree close by were chirping and twittering loudly.

  Mr Bassett came along the road, whistling to himself. He smiled when he saw Mary-Mary, and said, “Hallo.”

  “Hallo,” said Mary-Mary. “Why are you whistling?”

  “Because it’s such a lovely day,” said Mr Bassett. “Spring is coming, Mary-Mary.”

  “I know,” said Mary-Mary. “It’s come already in our house.”

  “How do you mean?” said Mr Bassett.

  “Well,” said Mary-Mary, “Mother’s spring-cleaning, and Miriam’s got a spot on her nose (and she says that’s the spring), and I jumped on a chair and it made a funny noise (and Martyn said that was the spring, too), and Mervyn’s putting a new spring in his motor-boat, and Meg’s playing a piece like elephants dancing on the piano (and she said that was a Spring Song), so I think we’ve got a lot more spring than we need in our house.”

  “Oh, dear,” said Mr Bassett, “I didn’t mean spring-cleaning and things like that. I was thinking about the birds all nesting in the trees, and the ice being melted on the pond, and the spring flowers that will soon be coming up in the garden.”

  Then Mary-Mary said, “Guess what I’ve found!”

  And Mr Bassett said, “A crocus?”

  And Mary-Mary said, “No. A primrose.”

  And Mr Bassett said, “Well, that really is a bit of spring! They must all be coming up in Bramley Woods too.”

  “The others are all too busy to come and see my primrose,” said Mary-Mary; “so they don’t know about it yet.”

  “Then you’ll have to take it to them,” said Mr Bassett.

  So Mary-Mary went and picked her primrose, and, as she hadn’t got a vase, she put it in a jam-jar filled with water. Then, when it was dinner-time, while Mother was fetching the plates in from the kitchen, Mary-Mary put the primrose in the jar on the table in front of Mother’s place.

  “Whatever’s that?” said Miriam.

  “One flower,” said Martyn.

  “In a great big jam-jar,” said Mervyn.

  “It looks silly all by itself,” said Meg.

  Then they all said together, “Don’t put it there, Mary-Mary.” “Mother won’t have room to put the plates down.” “You’re spilling the water on the cloth.” “The jar’s too big for it.”

  Then Mary-Mary suddenly began shouting out in a loud, cross voice, “I think you’re all jolly silly. If you weren’t so cross and busy and beastly, bothering about spring-cleaning and spring spots and broken chair-springs and motor-boat springs and lumpy old Spring Songs on the piano you might have found this primrose yourselves, and then you might have remembered that it was really spring.”

  Just then Mother came in with the plates, and when she saw the primrose in the jam-jar she said, “Oh, it’s a lovely little primrose! The first I’ve seen this year. Who found it?”

  But Mary-Mary was still talking to the others (though she wasn’t shouting quite so loudly now) “—and if one primrose can grow in our garden,” she said, “when everyone’s cross and busy and beastly and not bothering about it at all, then there must be hundreds and hundreds of primroses growing in Bramley Woods where nobody’s cross and busy and beastly. And if I were a mother with a whole lot of cross and busy and beastly children I’d go to Bramley Woods and have a picnic there and pick primroses!”

  Then Miriam and Martyn and Mervyn and Meg all started talking at once. But Mother said, “No, hush. Mary-Mary is quite right. I think we really had forgotten it was spring, and I’d quite forgotten about the primroses in Bramley Woods. They must be lovely there just now. Shall we do as Mary-Mary says and all have a picnic?

  Then everyone said, “Oh, yes!” “Hooray!” “A picnic!” “How clever of Mary-Mary to have thought of it!”

  And Mother said, “Yes, it shall be Mary-Mary’s own picnic, because she is the only person who remembered it was really spring!

  So they all went for a picnic to Bramley Woods because Mary-Mary had found the very first primrose, and that is the end of the story.

  4

  Mary-Mary and Miss Muffin

  ONE day Mary-Mary was bored. All her big brothers and sisters were reading or writing or drawing or knitting, but Mary-Mary was doing nothing.

  She tried talking to them, she tried jumping up and down in front of them, she tried making faces at them; but all they said was, “Oh, stop bothering, Mary-Mary!”

  So Mary-Mary stopped bothering. Instead, she said in a dreamy voice, “I think it’s time Miss Muffin came again.”

  When Mary-Mary said this everybody groaned, because they knew what it meant.

  It meant that Mary-Mary, dressed in some of Mother’s old clothes, was going to come knocking at the front door, saying she was Miss Muffin and had come to tea. Then everyone had to be polite to her and ask her in and treat her as if she were a real visitor. If they didn’t Miss Muffin made such a scene,
marching up and down in front of the gate and shouting that “some people had no manners”, that they were all ashamed of her and had to hurry out and bring her indoors before a crowd collected.

  The first time Mary-Mary had come knocking on the door, saying she was Miss Muffin, it had been a great success. Father had been at home, and he had invited her in most politely and never shown that he guessed it might really be Mary-Mary. And when the others had started to say, “Don’t be silly—we know who you are really,” Father had looked quite shocked and said, “Hush! It’s all right for you to be rude to each other or to Mary-Mary; but Miss Muffin is a visitor and must be treated politely.”

  Mary-Mary had loved this, of course, and Miriam, Martyn, Mervyn, and Meg were afraid she would want to be Miss Muffin every day. But Father had said, quite definitely, as he was showing her out of the door, “Good-bye, Miss Muffin. It has been nice having you. We shall look forward to your coming again, but that won’t be for a long while, of course.”

  Mary-Mary had started to say, “Oh, but I could come again tomorrow … ”

  But Father had put his finger on his lips and said, “No—not if you are really Miss Muffin, because Miss Muffin is a lady, and ladies know that they can’t come to tea very often without being invited.”

  “Yes, of course,” said Mary-Mary in Miss Muffin’s voice. “I shall only come very sometimes, not at all very often. Thank you for such a nice afternoon. Your children have been most polite to me.”

  For a while Mary-Mary had been quite good about only being Miss Muffin sometimes and not very often. But soon she took to being Miss Muffin oftener and oftener, and once Miss Muffin had even invited herself to tea two days running. Miriam, Martyn, Mervyn, and Meg had shut the door in her face, and it was then that Miss Muffin had made the dreadful scene outside the front gate.

  So today, when Mary-Mary said, “I think it’s time Miss Muffin came again,” everybody groaned.

  Then Mother said quickly, “No, I can’t do with any visitors to-day—I’m too busy. Miss Muffin must come another day.”