FIVE CHILDREN
AND IT
BY
E. NESBIT
AUTHOR OF "THE TREASURE-SEEKERS,"
"THE WOULD-BE-GOODS," ETC.
_ILLUSTRATED_
NEW YORK
DODD, MEAD & COMPANY
1905
COPYRIGHT, 1905, BY
DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY
_Published October, 1905_
_TO_
JOHN BLAND
_My Lamb, you are so very small,
You have not learned to read at all;
Yet never a printed book withstands
The urgence of your dimpled hands.
So, though this book is for yourself,
Let mother keep it on the shelf
Till you can read. O days that pass,
That day will come too soon, alas!_
NOTE
Parts of this story have appeared in the _Strand Magazine_ under the
title of
"THE PSAMMEAD."
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I BEAUTIFUL AS THE DAY 1
II GOLDEN GUINEAS 36
III BEING WANTED 70
IV WINGS 108
V NO WINGS 141
VI A CASTLE AND NO DINNER 159
VII A SIEGE AND BED 183
VIII BIGGER THAN THE BAKER'S BOY 203
IX GROWN UP 236
X SCALPS 261
XI THE LAST WISH 287
ILLUSTRATIONS
The Psammead _Frontispiece_
That First Glorious Rush Round the Garden _Facing page_ 2
Cyril Had Nipped His Finger in the Door of a Hutch " " 4
Anthea Suddenly Screamed, "It's Alive!" " " 12
The Baby Did Not Know Them! " " 28
Martha Emptied a Toilet-jug of Cold Water Over Him " " 32
The Rain Fell in Slow Drops on to Anthea's Face " " 36
He Staggered, and Had to Sit Down Again in a Hurry " " 50
Mr. Beale Snatched the Coin, Bit It, and Put It in
His Pocket " " 58
They Had Run Into Martha and the Baby " " 64
He Said, "Now Then!" to the Policeman and Mr.
Peasemarsh " " 66
The Lucky Children Hurriedly Started for the Gravel
Pit " " 78
"Poof, poof, poofy," He Said, and Made a Grab " " 86
At Double-quick Time Ran the Twinkling Legs of the
Lamb's Brothers and Sisters " " 88
The Next Minute the Two Were Fighting " " 90
He Snatched the Baby from Anthea " " 94
He Consented to Let the Two Gypsy Women Feed Him " " 98
The Sand-fairy Blew Himself Out " " 122
They Flew Over Rochester " " 126
The Farmer Sat Down on the Grass, Suddenly and
Heavily " " 128
Everyone Now Turned Out His Pockets " " 132
These Were the Necessaries of Life " " 134
The Children Were Fast Asleep " " 138
The Keeper Spoke Deep-Chested Words through the
Keyhole " " 150
There the Castle Stood, Black and Stately " " 164
Robert Was Dragged Forthwith--by the Reluctant Ear " " 166
He Wiped Away a Manly Tear " " 168
"Oh, Do, Do, Do, _Do_!" Said Robert " " 174
The Man Fell with a Splash Into the Moat-water " " 196
Anthea Tilted the Pot over the Nearest Leadhole " " 198
He Pulled Robert's Hair " " 210
"The Sammyadd's Done Us Again," Said Cyril " " 214
He Lifted Up the Baker's Boy and Set Him on Top of
the Haystack " " 216
It Was a Strange Sensation Being Wheeled in a
Pony-carriage by a Giant " " 220
When the Girl Came Out She Was Pale and Trembling " " 228
"When Your Time's Up Come to Me" " " 230
He Opened the Case and Used the Whole Thing as a
Garden Spade " " 238
She Did It Gently by Tickling His Nose with a Twig of
Honeysuckle " " 244
There, Sure Enough, Stood a Bicycle " " 248
The Punctured State of It Was Soon Evident " " 250
The Grown-up Lamb Struggled " " 258
She Broke Open the Missionary Box with the Poker " " 266
"Ye Seek a Pow-wow?" He Said " " 278
Bright Knives Were Being Brandished All about Them " " 284
She Was Clasped in Eight Loving Arms " " 294
"We Found a Fairy," Said Jane, Obediently " " 298
It Burrowed, and Disappeared, Scratching Fiercely
to the Last " " 308
CHAPTER I
BEAUTIFUL AS THE DAY
The house was three miles from the station, but, before the dusty hired
hack had rattled along for five minutes, the children began to put their
heads out of the carriage window and say, "Aren't we nearly there?" And
every time they passed a house, which was not very often, they all said,
"Oh, _is_ this it?" But it never was, till they reached the very top of
the hill, just past the chalk-quarry and before you come to the
gravel-pit. And then there was a white house with a green garden and an
orchard beyond, and mother said, "Here we are!"
"How white the house is," said Robert.
"And look at the roses," said Anthea.
"And the plums," said Jane.
"It is rather decent," Cyril admitted.
The Baby said, "Wanty go walky;" and the hack stopped with a last rattle
and jolt.
Everyone got its legs kicked or its feet trodden on in the scramble to
get out of the carriage that very minute, but no one seemed to mind.
Mother, curiously enough, was in no hurry to get out; and even when she
had come down slowly and by the step, and with no jump at all, she
seemed to wish to see the boxes carried in, and even to pay the driver,
instead of joining in that first glorious rush round the garden and
orchard and the thorny, thistly, briery, brambly wilderness beyond the
broken gate and the dry fountain at the side of the house. But the
children were wiser, for once. It was not really a pretty house at all;
it was quite ordinary, and mother thought it was rather inconvenient,
and was quite annoyed at there being no shelves, to speak of, and hardly
a cupboard in the place. Father used to say that the iron-work on the
roof and coping was like an architect's nightmare. But the house was
deep in the country, with no other house in sight, and the children had
been in London for two years, without so much as once going to the
seaside even for a day by an excursion train, and so the White House
seemed to them a sort of Fairy Palace set down in an Earthly Paradise.
For London is like prison for children, especially if their relations
are not rich.
Of course there are the shops and theatres, and entertainments and
things, but if your people are rather poor you don't get taken to the
theatres, and you can't buy things out of the shops; and London has none
of those nice things that children may play with without hurting the
things or themselves--such as trees and sand and woods and waters. And
nearly everything in London is the wrong sort of shape--all straight
lines and flat streets, instead of being all sorts of odd shapes, like
things are in the country. Trees are all different, as you know, and I
am sure some tiresome person must have told you that there are no two
blades of grass exactly alike. But in streets, where the blades of grass
don't grow, everything is like everything else. This is why many
children who live in the towns are so extremely naughty. They do not
know what is the matter with them, and no more do their fathers and
mothers, aunts, uncles, cousins, tutors, governesses, and nurses; but I
know. And so do you, now. Children in the country are naughty sometimes,
too, but that is for quite different reasons.
The children had explored the gardens and the outhouses thoroughly
before they were caught and cleaned for tea, and they saw quite well
that they were certain to be happy at the White House. They thought so
from the first moment, but when they found the back of the house covered
with jasmine, all in white flower, and smelling like a bottle of the
most expensive perfume that is ever given for a birthday present; and
when they had seen the lawn, all green and smooth, and quite different
from the brown grass in the gardens at Camden Town; and when they found
the stable with a loft over it and some old hay still left, they were
almost certain; and when Robert had found the broken swing and tumbled
out of it and got a bump on his head the size of an egg, and Cyril had
nipped his finger in the door of a hutch that seemed made to keep
rabbits in, if you ever had any, they had no longer any doubts
whatever.
The best part of it all was that there were no rules about not going to
places and not doing things. In London almost everything is labelled
"You mustn't touch," and though the label is invisible it's just as bad,
because you know it's there, or if you don't you very soon get told.
The White House was on the edge of a hill, with a wood behind it--and
the chalk-quarry on one side and the gravel-pit on the other. Down at
the bottom of the hill was a level plain, with queer-shaped white
buildings where people burnt lime, and a big red brewery and other
houses; and when the big chimneys were smoking and the sun was setting,
the valley looked as if it was filled with golden mist, and the
limekilns and hop-drying houses glimmered and glittered till they were
like an enchanted city out of the _Arabian Nights_.
Now that I have begun to tell you about the place, I feel that I could
go on and make this into a most interesting story about all the
ordinary things that the children did,--just the kind of things you do
yourself, you know, and you would believe every word of it; and when I
told about the children's being tiresome, as you are sometimes, your
aunts would perhaps write in the margin of the story with a pencil, "How
true!" or "How like life!" and you would see it and would very likely be
annoyed. So I will only tell you the really astonishing things that
happened, and you may leave the book about quite safely, for no aunts
and uncles either are likely to write "How true!" on the edge of the
story. Grown-up people find it very difficult to believe really
wonderful things, unless they have what they call proof. But children
will believe almost anything, and grown-ups know this. That is why they
tell you that the earth is round like an orange, when you can see
perfectly well that it is flat and lumpy; and why they say that the
earth goes round the sun, when you can see for yourself any day that the
sun gets up in the morning and goes to bed at night like a good sun as
it is, and the earth knows its place, and lies as still as a mouse. Yet
I daresay you believe all that about the earth and the sun, and if so
you will find it quite easy to believe that before Anthea and Cyril and