Читать книгу The Thirteen Little Black Pigs and other Stories - Mary Louisa Molesworth - Страница 4

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"There are thirteen," repeated Dolly again. "Look, Max, begin at the side of the field nearest the gate—there are three close together, and then—oh dear, two have run back to the others, and—no, I can't count aloud, but I'm sure—" and she went on to herself, "one, two, three, four,"—"there are thirteen, I'm as sure as sure."

"And I'm as sure as sure, or surer than sure, that there are only twelve," said Max, aggravatingly.

"Master Max and Miss Dorothy, come to your tea," said nurse's voice from the table. "And it's getting chilly—the evenings aren't like the middle of the day—you mustn't stand at the windows any more. It's draughty, and it would never do for you to be getting stiff necks or swollen glands or anything like that on the top of all there's been."

The two came slowly to the tea-table, but their looks were not very amiable.

"You're so rude," said Dolly to her brother, "contradicting like that. I never saw anybody so persisting."

"How can you help persisting when you know you're right?" said Max. "I can't tell stories to please you."

But I must say his tone was more good-natured than Dolly's.

"Well," said she, "can I tell stories to please you? I know there are thirteen."

"And I know there are only twelve," retorted Max, more doggedly.

After that they did not speak to each other all through tea-time. Nurse, who often complained of the chatter-chatter "going through her head," should have been pleased at the unusual quiet, but somehow she wasn't. She had a kind heart, and she did not like to see the little couple looking gloomy and cross.

"Come, cheer up, my dears," she said, "what does it matter? Twelve or thirteen, though I don't know what it is you were talking about—call it twelve-and-a-half and split the difference, won't that settle it?"

It was rather difficult not to smile at this suggestion—the idea of chopping one of the poor little pigs in two to settle their dispute was too absurd. But Dolly pinched up her lips; she wasn't going to give in, and smiling would have been a sort of beginning of giving in, you see. And Max, to save himself from any weakness of the kind, started whistling, which nurse promptly put a stop to, telling him that whistling at table was not "manners" at all!

This did not increase Master Max's good temper, especially as Dolly looked very virtuous, and as if her "manners" could never call for any reproof. And a quarter-of-an-hour or so later, when mamma came up to pay them a little visit, it was very plain to her that there was a screw, and rather a big screw, loose somewhere in the nursery machinery. For Max was sitting in one corner pretending to read, and Dolly was sitting in another corner—the two furthest-off-from-each-other corners they could possibly find—pretending to sew, and on both little faces the expression was one which mammas are always very sorry indeed to see.

But mammas learn by experience to be wise. And all wise people know that when other people are "upset" or "put out," or, to say it quite plainly, "in a bad temper," it is no use, even though it is rather difficult not to do so, to go "bang at them," with some such questions as these: "What is the matter with you?" "What are you looking so cross about?" "Have you been quarrelling, you tiresome children?" and so on. Especially if, as these children's mamma just now was clever enough to find out, the angry feelings are beginning to soften down into unhappiness, and the first little whisper of "wishing I hadn't been so cross"—or "so unkind," is faintly making its way into the foolish, troubled little hearts. At that moment a sharp or severe word is sadly apt to drown the gentle fairy voice, and to open the door again to all the noisy, ugly imps of obstinacy and pride and unkind resentment, who were just beginning to think they had best slink off.

So this loving and wise—wise because she was loving, and loving because she was wise!—mother said nothing, except—

"I am so sorry not to have come up before, dears, but I have been very busy. Has it been a very dull afternoon for my poor little prisoners?"

"Not so very," said Dolly, slipping off her seat, and sidling up to her mother, who had settled herself on the old rocking-chair by the fire, with a nice comfortable look, as if she were not in a hurry. "Not so very—we read some stories, and I did six rows of my knitting, and Max cut out some more paper animals for poor little Billy Stokes—and—then we went to our windows and began looking out," but here Dolly's voice dropped suspiciously.

"Well," said her mother, "that all sounds very nice. But what happened when you were looking out at your windows?"

"Nothing happened," said Max, slowly.

"Well—what did you see? And what did you say? I can tell from your faces that things haven't gone cheerfully with you all the afternoon—now have they?" said mamma.

"No," Dolly replied eagerly, "they haven't. Only p'r'aps we'd better say nothing more about it. I don't want it all to begin again. If Max likes I'll try to forget all about it, and be friends again."

"I don't mind being friends again," said Max, "I'd rather. But I don't see how we can forget about it—they're sure to be there again to-morrow, and then we couldn't forget about them. Oh, I wonder if they're there still, if it's not too dark to see them," he went on, suddenly darting to the window. "Then mamma could count them, and that would settle it."

"This is very mysterious," said mamma, smiling, "Dolly, you must explain."

But Max was back from the window before Dolly could begin, and his first words were part of the explanation.

"They're gone in," he said in a disappointed tone, "but I don't know that it matters much. For it would have been too dark for you to count them properly, mamma. It was a lot of little pigs, mamma, in Farmer Wilder's field; little black pigs—twelve of them."

"Thirteen," said Dolly.

"No, no!" began Max, but he stopped. "That's it, you see, mamma," he said, in a melancholy tone.

"That's what?" asked mamma.

"The—the quarrel. Dolly will have it there were thirteen, and I'm sure there were only twelve."

"And," said Dolly, laughing a little—though I must say I think it was mischievous of her to have snapped in with that "thirteen"—"nurse heard about 'twelve' and 'thirteen,' but she didn't know what it was about, so she asked us if we couldn't split the difference. Fancy splitting up a poor little pig."

"There isn't one to split, not a thirteen one," said Max, rather surlily.

"Yes there is," retorted Dolly.

Mamma looked at them both.

"My dear children," she said. "You really must be at a loss for something to quarrel about. And after all, you remind me of——"

"What do we remind you of, mamma?" asked both, eagerly, "something about when you were a little girl?"

"No, only of an old story I have heard," said mamma.

"Oh, do tell it," said Max and Dolly.