The Railway Children
very pleasant in the sunshine to lean one's elbows on the warm stone
of the bridge and look down at the blue water of the canal. Bobbie had
never seen any other canal, except the Regent's Canal, and the water of
that is not at all a pretty colour. And she had never seen any river at
all except the Thames, which also would be all the better if its face
was washed.
Perhaps the children would have loved the canal as much as the railway,
but for two things. One was that they had found the railway FIRST--on
that first, wonderful morning when the house and the country and the
moors and rocks and great hills were all new to them. They had not found
the canal till some days later. The other reason was that everyone on
the railway had been kind to them--the Station Master, the Porter, and
the old gentleman who waved. And the people on the canal were anything
but kind.
The people on the canal were, of course, the bargees, who steered the
slow barges up and down, or walked beside the old horses that trampled
up the mud of the towing-path, and strained at the long tow-ropes.
Peter had once asked one of the bargees the time, and had been told
to “get out of that,” in a tone so fierce that he did not stop to say
anything about his having just as much right on the towing-path as the
man himself. Indeed, he did not even think of saying it till some time
later.
Then another day when the children thought they would like to fish in
the canal, a boy in a barge threw lumps of coal at them, and one of
these hit Phyllis on the back of the neck. She was just stooping down to
tie up her bootlace--and though the coal hardly hurt at all it made her
not care very much about going on fishing.
On the bridge, however, Roberta felt quite safe, because she could look
down on the canal, and if any boy showed signs of meaning to throw coal,
she could duck behind the parapet.
Presently there was a sound of wheels, which was just what she expected.
The wheels were the wheels of the Doctor's dogcart, and in the cart, of
course, was the Doctor.
He pulled up, and called out:--
“Hullo, head nurse! Want a lift?”
“I wanted to see you,” said Bobbie.
“Your mother's not worse, I hope?” said the Doctor.
“No--but--”
“Well, skip in, then, and we'll go for a drive.”
Roberta climbed in and the brown horse was made to turn round--which it
did not like at all, for it was looking forward to its tea--I mean its
oats.
“This IS jolly,” said Bobbie, as the dogcart flew along the road by the
canal.
“We could throw a stone down any one of your three chimneys,” said the
Doctor, as they passed the house.
“Yes,” said Bobbie, “but you'd have to be a jolly good shot.”
“How do you know I'm not?” said the Doctor. “Now, then, what's the
trouble?”
Bobbie fidgeted with the hook of the driving apron.
“Come, out with it,” said the Doctor.
“It's rather hard, you see,” said Bobbie, “to out with it; because of
what Mother said.”
“What DID Mother say?”
“She said I wasn't to go telling everyone that we're poor. But you
aren't everyone, are you?”
“Not at all,” said the Doctor, cheerfully. “Well?”
“Well, I know doctors are very extravagant--I mean expensive, and Mrs.
Viney told me that her doctoring only cost her twopence a week because
she belonged to a Club.”
“Yes?”
“You see she told me what a good doctor you were, and I asked her how
she could afford you, because she's much poorer than we are. I've been
in her house and I know. And then she told me about the Club, and I
thought I'd ask you--and--oh, I don't want Mother to be worried! Can't
we be in the Club, too, the same as Mrs. Viney?”
The Doctor was silent. He was rather poor himself, and he had been
pleased at getting a new family to attend. So I think his feelings at
that minute were rather mixed.
“You aren't cross with me, are you?” said Bobbie, in a very small voice.
The Doctor roused himself.
“Cross? How could I be? You're a very sensible little woman. Now look
here, don't you worry. I'll make it all right with your Mother, even if
I have to make a special brand-new Club all for her. Look here, this is
where the Aqueduct begins.”
“What's an Aque--what's its name?” asked Bobbie.
“A water bridge,” said the Doctor. “Look.”
The road rose to a bridge over the canal. To the left was a steep rocky
cliff with trees and shrubs growing in the cracks of the rock. And the
canal here left off running along the top of the hill and started to run
on a bridge of its own--a great bridge with tall arches that went right
across the valley.
Bobbie drew a long breath.
“It IS grand, isn't it?” she said. “It's like pictures in the History of
Rome.”
“Right!” said the Doctor, “that's just exactly what it IS like.
The Romans were dead nuts on aqueducts. It's a splendid piece of
engineering.”
“I thought engineering was making engines.”
“Ah, there are different sorts of engineering--making road and bridges
and tunnels is one kind. And making fortifications is another. Well, we
must be turning back. And, remember, you aren't to worry about doctor's
bills or you'll be ill yourself, and then I'll send you in a bill as
long as the aqueduct.”
When Bobbie had parted from the Doctor at the top of the field that ran
down from the road to Three Chimneys, she could not feel that she had
done wrong. She knew that Mother would perhaps think differently.
But Bobbie felt that for once she was the one who was right, and she
scrambled down the rocky slope with a really happy feeling.
Phyllis and Peter met her at the back door. They were unnaturally clean
and neat, and Phyllis had a red bow in her hair. There was only just
time for Bobbie to make herself tidy and tie up her hair with a blue bow
before a little bell rang.
“There!” said Phyllis, “that's to show the surprise is ready. Now
you wait till the bell rings again and then you may come into the
dining-room.”
So Bobbie waited.
“Tinkle, tinkle,” said the little bell, and Bobbie went into the
dining-room, feeling rather shy. Directly she opened the door she found
herself, as it seemed, in a new world of light and flowers and singing.
Mother and Peter and Phyllis were standing in a row at the end of the
table. The shutters were shut and there were twelve candles on the
table, one for each of Roberta's years. The table was covered with a
sort of pattern of flowers, and at Roberta's place was a thick wreath of
forget-me-nots and several most interesting little packages. And Mother
and Phyllis and Peter were singing--to the first part of the tune of St.
Patrick's Day. Roberta knew that Mother had written the words on purpose
for her birthday. It was a little way of Mother's on birthdays. It
had begun on Bobbie's fourth birthday when Phyllis was a baby. Bobbie
remembered learning the verses to say to Father 'for a surprise.' She
wondered if Mother had remembered, too. The four-year-old verse had
been:--
Daddy dear, I'm only four
And I'd rather not be more.
Four's the nicest age to be,
Two and two and one and three.
What I love is two and two,
Mother, Peter, Phil, and you.
What you love is one and three,
Mother, Peter, Phil, and me.
Give your little girl a kiss
Because she learned and told you this.
The song the others were singing now went like this:--
Our darling Roberta,
No sorrow shall hurt her
If we can prevent it
Her whole life long.
Her birthday's our fete day,
We'll make it our great day,
And give her our presents
And sing her our song.
May pleasures attend her
And may the Fates send her
The happiest journey
Along her life's way.
With skies bright above her
And dear ones to love her!
Dear Bob! Many happy
Returns of the day!
When they had finished singing they cried, “Three cheers for our
Bobbie!” and gave them very loudly. Bobbie felt exactly as though she
were going to cry--you know that odd feeling in the bridge of your nose
and the pricking in your eyelids? But before she had time to begin they
were all kissing and hugging her.
“Now,” said Mother, “look at your presents.”
They were very nice presents. There was a green and red needle-book that
Phyllis had made herself in secret moments. There was a darling little
silver brooch of Mother's shaped like a buttercup, which Bobbie had
known and loved for years, but which she had never, never thought would
come to be her very own. There was also a pair of blue glass vases from
Mrs. Viney. Roberta had seen and admired them in the village shop. And
there were three birthday cards with pretty pictures and wishes.
Mother fitted the forget-me-not crown on Bobbie's brown head.
“And now look at the table,” she said.
There was a cake on the table covered with white sugar, with 'Dear
Bobbie' on it in pink sweets, and there were buns and jam; but
the nicest thing was that the big table was almost covered with
flowers--wallflowers were laid all round the tea-tray--there was a ring
of forget-me-nots round each plate. The cake had a wreath of white lilac
round it, and in the middle was something that looked like a pattern all
done with single blooms of lilac or wallflower or laburnum.
“It's a map--a map of the railway!” cried Peter. “Look--those lilac
lines are the metals--and there's the station done in brown wallflowers.
The laburnum is the train, and there are the signal-boxes, and the road
up to here--and those fat red daisies are us three waving to the old
gentleman--that's him, the pansy in the laburnum train.”
“And there's 'Three Chimneys' done in the purple primroses,” said
Phyllis. “And that little tiny rose-bud is Mother looking out for us
when we're late for tea. Peter invented it all, and we got all the
flowers from the station. We thought you'd like it better.”
“That's my present,” said Peter, suddenly dumping down his adored
steam-engine on the table in front of her. Its tender had been lined
with fresh white paper, and was full of sweets.
“Oh, Peter!” cried Bobbie, quite overcome by this munificence, “not your
own dear little engine that you're so fond of?”
“Oh, no,” said Peter, very promptly, “not the engine. Only the sweets.”
Bobbie couldn't help her face changing a little--not so much because she
was disappointed at not getting the engine, as because she had thought
it so very noble of Peter, and now she felt she had been silly to think
it. Also she felt she must have seemed greedy to expect the engine as
well as the sweets. So her face changed. Peter saw it. He hesitated a
minute; then his face changed, too, and he said: “I mean not ALL the
engine. I'll let you go halves if you like.”
“You're a brick,” cried Bobbie; “it's a splendid present.” She said no
more aloud, but to herself she said:--
“That was awfully jolly decent of Peter because I know he didn't mean
to. Well, the broken half shall be my half of the engine, and I'll get
it mended and give it back to Peter for his birthday.”--“Yes, Mother
dear, I should like to cut the cake,” she added, and tea began.
It was a delightful birthday. After tea Mother played games with
them--any game they liked--and of course their first choice was
blindman's-buff, in the course of which Bobbie's forget-me-not wreath
twisted itself crookedly over one of her ears and stayed there. Then,
when it was near bed-time and time to calm down, Mother had a lovely new
story to read to them.
“You won't sit up late working, will you, Mother?” Bobbie asked as they
said good night.
And Mother said no, she wouldn't--she would only just write to Father
and then go to bed.
But when Bobbie crept down later to bring up her presents--for she felt
she really could not be separated from them all night--Mother was not