Five Children and It
House or nowhere--the farmer's cart would not come back till after
sunset, so she could afford to cry a little. It was partly with joy that
she cried, because she had done what she meant to do. She cried for
about three minutes, while Jane hugged her miserably and said at
five-second intervals, "Don't cry, Panther dear!"
Then she jumped up, rubbed her eyes hard with the corner of her
pinafore, so that they kept red for the rest of the day, and started to
tell the boys. But just at that moment cook rang the dinner-bell, and
nothing could be said till they had been helped to minced beef. Then
cook left the room, and Anthea told her tale. But it is a mistake to
tell a thrilling tale when people are eating minced beef and boiled
potatoes. There seemed somehow to be something about the food that made
the idea of Red Indians seem flat and unbelievable. The boys actually
laughed, and called Anthea a little silly.
"Why," said Cyril, "I'm almost sure it was before I said that, that Jane
said she wished it would be a fine day."
"It wasn't," said Jane briefly.
"Why, if it was Indians," Cyril went on,--"salt, please, and mustard--I
must have something to make this mush go down,--if it was Indians,
they'd have been infesting the place long before this--you know they
would. I believe it's the fine day."
"Then why did the Sammyadd say we'd let ourselves in for a nice thing?"
asked Anthea. She was feeling very cross. She knew she had acted with
nobility and discretion, and after that it was very hard to be called a
little silly, especially when she had the weight of a burglared
missionary-box and about seven-and-fourpence, mostly in coppers, lying
like lead upon her conscience.
There was a silence, during which cook took away the mincy plates and
brought in the pudding. As soon as she had retired, Cyril began again.
"Of course I don't mean to say," he admitted, "that it wasn't a good
thing to get Martha and the Lamb out of the way for the afternoon; but
as for Red Indians--why, you know jolly well the wishes always come that
very minute. If there was going to be Red Indians, they'd be here now."
"I expect they are," said Anthea; "they're lurking amid the undergrowth,
for anything you know. I do think you're most unkind."
"Indians almost always _do_ lurk, really, though, don't they?" put in
Jane, anxious for peace.
"No, they don't," said Cyril tartly. "And I'm not unkind, I'm only
truthful. And I say it was utter rot breaking the water-jug; and as for
the missionary-box, I believe it's a treason-crime, and I shouldn't
wonder if you could be hanged for it, if any of us was to split"--
"Shut up, can't you?" said Robert; but Cyril couldn't. You see, he felt
in his heart that if there _should_ be Indians they would be entirely
his own fault, so he did not wish to believe in them. And trying not to
believe things when in your heart you are almost sure they are true, is
as bad for the temper as anything I know.
"It's simply idiotic," he said, "talking about Indians, when you can see
for yourself that it's Jane who's got her wish. Look what a fine day it
is----_OH!_--"
He had turned towards the window to point out the fineness of the
day--the others turned too--and a frozen silence caught at Cyril, and
none of the others felt at all like breaking it. For there, peering
round the corner of the window, among the red leaves of the Virginia
creeper, was a face--a brown face, with a long nose and a tight mouth
and very bright eyes. And the face was painted in coloured patches. It
had long black hair, and in the hair were feathers!
Every child's mouth in the room opened, and stayed open. The pudding was
growing white and cold on their plates. No one could move.
Suddenly the feathered head was cautiously withdrawn, and the spell was
broken. I am sorry to say that Anthea's first words were very like a
girl.
"There, now!" she said. "I told you so!"
The pudding had now definitely ceased to charm. Hastily wrapping their
portions in a _Spectator_ of the week before the week before last, they
hid them behind the crinkled paper stove-ornament, and fled upstairs to
reconnoitre and to hold a hurried council.
"Pax," said Cyril handsomely when they reached their mother's bedroom.
"Panther, I'm sorry if I was a brute."
"All right," said Anthea; "but you see now!"
No further trace of Indians, however, could be discerned from the
windows.
"Well," said Robert, "what are we to do?"
"The only thing I can think of," said Anthea, who was now generally
admitted to be the heroine of the day, "is--if we dressed up as like
Indians as we can, and looked out of the windows, or even went out. They
might think we were the powerful leaders of a large neighbouring tribe,
and--and not do anything to us, you know, for fear of awful vengeance."
"But Eliza, and the cook?" said Jane.
"You forget--they can't notice anything," said Robert. "They wouldn't
notice anything out of the way, even if they were scalped or roasted at
a slow fire."
"But would they come right at sunset?"
"Of course. You can't be really scalped or burned to death without
noticing it, and you'd be sure to notice it next day, even if it escaped
your attention at the time," said Cyril. "I think Anthea's right, but we
shall want a most awful lot of feathers."
"I'll go down to the hen-house," said Robert. "There's one of the
turkeys in there--it's not very well. I could cut its feathers without
it minding much. It's very bad--doesn't seem to care what happens to it.
Get me the cutting-out scissors."
Earnest reconnoitring convinced them all that no Indians were in the
poultry-yard. Robert went. In five minutes he came back--pale, but with
many feathers.
"Look here," he said, "this is jolly serious. I cut off the feathers,
and when I turned to come out there was an Indian squinting at me from
under the old hen-coop. I just brandished the feathers and yelled, and
got away before he could get the coop off top of himself. Panther, get
the coloured blankets off our beds, and look slippy, can't you?"
It is wonderful how like an Indian you can make yourself with blankets
and feathers and coloured scarves. Of course none of the children
happened to have long black hair, but there was a lot of black calico
that had been bought to cover school-books with. They cut strips of this
into a sort of fine fringe, and fastened it round their heads with the
amber-coloured ribbons off the girls' Sunday dresses. Then they stuck
turkeys' feathers in the ribbons. The calico looked very like long black
hair, especially when the strips began to curl up a bit.
"But our faces," said Anthea, "they're not at all the right colour.
We're all rather pale, and I'm sure I don't know why, but Cyril is the
colour of putty."
"I'm not," said Cyril.
"The real Indians outside seem to be brownish," said Robert hastily. "I
think we ought to be really _red_--it's sort of superior to have a red
skin, if you are one."
The red ochre cook uses for the kitchen bricks seemed to be about the
reddest thing in the house. The children mixed some in a saucer with
milk, as they had seen cook do for the kitchen floor. Then they
carefully painted each other's faces and hands with it, till they were
quite as red as any Red Indian need be--if not redder.
They knew at once that they must look very terrible when they met Eliza
in the passage, and she screamed aloud. This unsolicited testimonial
pleased them very much. Hastily telling her not to be a goose, and that
it was only a game, the four blanketed, feathered, really and truly
Redskins went boldly out to meet the foe. I say boldly. That is because
I wish to be polite. At any rate, they went.
Along the hedge dividing the wilderness from the garden was a row of
dark heads, all highly feathered.
"It's our only chance," whispered Anthea. "Much better than to wait for
their blood-freezing attack. We must pretend like mad. Like that game of
cards where you pretend you've got aces when you haven't. Fluffing they
call it, I think. Now then. Whoop!"
With four wild war-whoops--or as near them as white children could be
expected to go without any previous practice--they rushed through the
gate and struck four war-like attitudes in face of the line of Red
Indians. These were all about the same height, and that height was
Cyril's.
"I hope to goodness they can talk English," said Cyril through his
attitude.
Anthea knew they could, though she never knew how she came to know it.
She had a white towel tied to a walking-stick. This was a flag of truce,
and she waved it, in the hope that the Indians would know what it was.
Apparently they did--for one who was browner than the others stepped
forward.
"Ye seek a pow-wow?" he said in excellent English. "I am Golden Eagle,
of the mighty tribe of Rock-dwellers."
"And I," said Anthea, with a sudden inspiration, "am the Black
Panther--chief of the--the--the--Mazawattee tribe. My brothers--I don't
mean--yes, I do--the tribe--I mean the Mazawattees--are in ambush below
the brow of yonder hill."
"And what mighty warriors be these?" asked Golden Eagle, turning to the
others.
Cyril said he was the great chief Squirrel, of the Moning Congo tribe,
and, seeing that Jane was sucking her thumb and could evidently think of
no name for herself, he added, "This great warrior is Wild Cat--Pussy
Ferox we call it in this land--leader of the vast Phiteezi tribe."
"And thou, valorous Redskin?" Golden Eagle inquired suddenly of Robert,
who, taken unawares, could only reply that he was Bobs--leader of the
Cape Mounted Police.
"And now," said Black Panther, "our tribes, if we just whistle them up,
will far outnumber your puny forces; so resistance is useless. Return,
therefore, to your land, O brother, and smoke pipes of peace in your
wampums with your squaws and your medicine-men, and dress yourselves in
the gayest wigwams, and eat happily of the juicy fresh-caught
moccasins."
"You've got it all wrong," murmured Cyril angrily. But Golden Eagle only
looked inquiringly at her.
"Thy customs are other than ours, O Black Panther," he said. "Bring up
thy tribe, that we may hold pow-wow in state before them, as becomes
great chiefs."
"We'll bring them up right enough," said Anthea, "with their bows and
arrows, and tomahawks and scalping-knives, and everything you can think
of, if you don't look sharp and go."
She spoke bravely enough, but the hearts of all the children were
beating furiously, and their breath came in shorter and shorter gasps.
For the little real Red Indians were closing up round them--coming
nearer and nearer with angry murmurs--so that they were the centre of a
crowd of dark cruel faces.
"It's no go," whispered Robert. "I knew it wouldn't be. We must make a
bolt for the Psammead. It might help us. If it doesn't--well, I suppose
we shall come alive again at sunset. I wonder if scalping hurts as much
as they say."
"I'll wave the flag again," said Anthea. "If they stand back, we'll run
for it."
She waved the towel, and the chief commanded his followers to stand
back. Then, charging wildly at the place where the line of Indians was
thinnest, the four children started to run. Their first rush knocked
down some half-dozen Indians, over whose blanketed bodies the children
leaped, and made straight for the sand-pit. This was no time for the
safe easy way by which carts go down--right over the edge of the
sand-pit they went, among the yellow and pale purple flowers and dried
grasses, past the little bank martins' little front doors, skipping,
clinging, bounding, stumbling, sprawling, and finally rolling.
Yellow Eagle and his followers came up with them just at the very spot
where they had seen the Psammead that morning.