Five Children and It
by
E. Nesbit

Part 1 out of 4

FIVE CHILDREN AND IT

E. NESBIT

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!

CONTENTS

1. Beautiful As the Day
2. Golden Guineas
3. Being Wanted
4. Wings
5. No Wings
6. A Castle and No Dinner
7. A Siege and Bed
8. Bigger Than the Baker's Boy
9. Grown Up
10. Scalps
11. The Last Wish

CHAPTER 1
BEAUTIFUL AS THE DAY

The house was three miles from the station, but before the dusty
hired fly had rattled along for five minutes the children began to
put their heads out of the carriage window and to 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 fly 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 the 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 ironwork 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 the theatres, and Maskelyne and
Cook's, 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 so
many children who live in 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, an in white flower, and smelling
like a bottle of the most expensive scent 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 had 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
lump 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
jolly 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 oast-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 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 the others had been a week in the country they had found
a fairy. At least they called it that, because that was what it
called itself; and of course it knew best, but it was not at all
like any fairy you ever saw or heard of or read about.

It was at the gravel-pits. Father had to go away suddenly on
business, and mother had gone away to stay with Granny, who was not
very well. They both went in a great hurry, and when they were
gone the house seemed dreadfully quiet and empty, and the children
wandered from one room to another and looked at the bits of paper
and string on the floors left over from the packing, and not yet
cleared up, and wished they had something to do. It was Cyril who
said:

'I say, let's take our Margate spades and go and dig in the
gravel-pits. We can pretend it's seaside.'

'Father said it was once,' Anthea said; 'he says there are shells
there thousands of years old.'

So they went. Of course they had been to the edge of the
gravel-pit and looked over, but they had not gone down into it for
fear father should say they mustn't play there, and the same with
the chalk-quarry. The gravel-pit is not really dangerous if you
don't try to climb down the edges, but go the slow safe way round
by the road, as if you were a cart.

Each of the children carried its own spade, and took it in turns to
carry the Lamb. He was the baby, and they called him that because
'Baa' was the first thing he ever said. They called Anthea
'Panther', which seems silly when you read it, but when you say it
it sounds a little like her name.

The gravel-pit is very large and wide, with grass growing round the
edges at the top, and dry stringy wildflowers, purple and yellow.
It is like a giant's wash-hand basin. And there are mounds of
gravel, and holes in the sides of the basin where gravel has been
taken out, and high up in the steep sides there are the little
holes that are the little front doors of the little sand-martins'
little houses.

The children built a castle, of course, but castle-building is
rather poor fun when you have no hope of the swishing tide ever
coming in to fill up the moat and wash away the drawbridge, and, at
the happy last, to wet everybody up to the waist at least.

Cyril wanted to dig out a cave to play smugglers in, but the others
thought it might bury them alive, so it ended in all spades going
to work to dig a hole through the castle to Australia. These
children, you see, believed that the world was round, and that on
the other side the little Australian boys and girls were really
walking wrong way up, like flies on the ceiling, with their heads
hanging down into the air.

The children dug and they dug and they dug, and their hands got
sandy and hot and red, and their faces got damp and shiny. The
Lamb had tried to eat the sand, and had cried so hard when he found
that it was not, as he had supposed, brown sugar, that he was now
tired out, and was lying asleep in a warm fat bunch in the middle
of the half-finished castle. This left his brothers and sisters
free to work really hard, and the hole that was to come out in
Australia soon grew so deep that Jane, who was called Pussy for
short, begged the others to Stop.

'Suppose the bottom of the hole gave way suddenly,' she said, 'and
you tumbled out among the little Australians, all the sand would
get in their eyes.'

'Yes,' said Robert; 'and they would hate us, and throw stones at
us, and not let us see the kangaroos, or opossums, or blue-gums, or
Emu Brand birds, or anything.'

Cyril and Anthea knew that Australia was not quite so near as all
that, but they agreed to stop using the spades and go on with their
hands. This was quite easy, because the sand at the bottom of the
hole was very soft and fine and dry, like sea-sand. And there were
little shells in it.

'Fancy it having been wet sea here once, all sloppy and shiny,'
said Jane, 'with fishes and conger-eels and coral and mermaids.'

'And masts of ships and wrecked Spanish treasure. I wish we could
find a gold doubloon, or something,' Cyril said.

'How did the sea get carried away?' Robert asked.

'Not in a pail, silly,' said his brother. 'Father says the earth
got too hot underneath, like you do in bed sometimes, so it just
hunched up its shoulders, and the sea had to slip off, like the
blankets do off us, and the shoulder was left sticking out, and
turned into dry land. Let's go and look for shells; I think that
little cave looks likely, and I see something sticking out there
like a bit of wrecked ship's anchor, and it's beastly hot in the
Australian hole.'

The others agreed, but Anthea went on digging. She always liked to
finish a thing when she had once begun it. She felt it would be a
disgrace to leave that hole without getting through to Australia.

The cave was disappointing, because there were no shells, and the
wrecked ship's anchor turned out to be only the broken end of a
pickaxe handle, and the cave party were just making up their minds
that the sand makes you thirstier when it is not by the seaside,
and someone had suggested going home for lemonade, when Anthea
suddenly screamed:

'Cyril! Come here! Oh, come quick! It's alive! It'll get away!
Quick!'

They all hurried back.

'It's a rat, I shouldn't wonder,' said Robert. 'Father says they
infest old places - and this must be pretty old if the sea was here
thousands of years ago.'

'Perhaps it is a snake,' said Jane, shuddering.

'Let's look,' said Cyril, jumping into the hole. 'I'm not afraid
of snakes. I like them. If it is a snake I'll tame it, and it
will follow me everywhere, and I'll let it sleep round my neck at
night.'

'No, you won't,' said Robert firmly. He shared Cyril's bedroom.
'But you may if it's a rat.'

'Oh, don't be silly!' said Anthea; 'it's not a rat, it's MUCH
bigger. And it's not a snake. It's got feet; I saw them; and fur!
No - not the spade. You'll hurt it! Dig with your hands.'

'And let IT hurt ME instead! That's so likely, isn't it?' said
Cyril, seizing a spade.

'Oh, don't!' said Anthea. 'Squirrel, DON'T. I - it sounds silly,
but it said something. It really and truly did.'

'What?'

'It said, "You let me alone".'

But Cyril merely observed that his sister must have gone off her
nut, and he and Robert dug with spades while Anthea sat on the edge
of the hole, jumping up and down with hotness and anxiety. They
dug carefully, and presently everyone could see that there really
was something moving in the bottom of the Australian hole.

Then Anthea cried out, 'I'M not afraid. Let me dig,' and fell on
her knees and began to scratch like a dog does when he has suddenly
remembered where it was that he buried his bone.

'Oh, I felt fur,' she cried, half laughing and half crying. 'I did
indeed! I did!' when suddenly a dry husky voice in the sand made
them all jump back, and their hearts jumped nearly as fast as they
did.

'Let me alone,' it said. And now everyone heard the voice and
looked at the others to see if they had too.

'But we want to see you,' said Robert bravely.

'I wish you'd come out,' said Anthea, also taking courage.

'Oh, well - if that's your wish,' the voice said, and the sand
stirred and spun and scattered, and something brown and furry and
fat came rolling out into the hole and the sand fell off it, and it
sat there yawning and rubbing the ends of its eyes with its hands.

'I believe I must have dropped asleep,' it said, stretching itself.

The children stood round the hole in a ring, looking at the
creature they had found. It was worth looking at. Its eyes were
on long horns like a snail's eyes, and it could move them in and
out like telescopes; it had ears like a bat's ears, and its tubby
body was shaped like a spider's and covered with thick soft fur;
its legs and arms were furry too, and it had hands and feet like a
monkey's.

'What on earth is it?' Jane said. 'Shall we take it home?'

The thing turned its long eyes to look at her, and said: 'Does she
always talk nonsense, or is it only the rubbish on her head that
makes her silly?'

It looked scornfully at Jane's hat as it spoke.

'She doesn't mean to be silly,' Anthea said gently; we none of us
do, whatever you may think! Don't be frightened; we don't want to
hurt you, you know.'

'Hurt ME!' it said. 'ME frightened? Upon my word! Why, you talk
as if I were nobody in particular.' All its fur stood out like a
cat's when it is going to fight.

'Well,' said Anthea, still kindly, 'perhaps if we knew who you are
in particular we could think of something to say that wouldn't make
you cross. Everything we've said so far seems to have. Who are
you? And don't get angry! Because really we don't know.'

'You don't know?' it said. 'Well, I knew the world had changed -
but - well, really - do you mean to tell me seriously you don't
know a Psammead when you see one?'

'A Sammyadd? That's Greek to me.'

'So it is to everyone,' said the creature sharply. 'Well, in plain
English, then, a SAND-FAIRY. Don't you know a Sand-fairy when you
see one?'

It looked so grieved and hurt that Jane hastened to say, 'Of course
I see you are, now. It's quite plain now one comes to look at
you.'

'You came to look at me, several sentences ago,' it said crossly,
beginning to curl up again in the sand.

'Oh - don't go away again! Do talk some more,' Robert cried. 'I
didn't know you were a Sand-fairy, but I knew directly I saw you
that you were much the wonderfullest thing I'd ever seen.'

The Sand-fairy seemed a shade less disagreeable after this.

'It isn't talking I mind,' it said, 'as long as you're reasonably
civil. But I'm not going to make polite conversation for you. If
you talk nicely to me, perhaps I'll answer you, and perhaps I
won't. Now say something.'

Of course no one could think of anything to say, but at last Robert
thought of 'How long have you lived here?' and he said it at once.

'Oh, ages - several thousand years,' replied the Psammead.

'Tell us all about it. Do.'

'It's all in books.'

'You aren't!' Jane said. 'Oh, tell us everything you can about
yourself! We don't know anything about you, and you are so nice.'

The Sand-fairy smoothed his long rat-like whiskers and smiled
between them.

'Do please tell!' said the children all together.

It is wonderful how quickly you get used to things, even the most
astonishing. Five minutes before, the children had had no more
idea than you that there was such a thing as a sand-fairy in the
world, and now they were talking to it as though they had known it
all their lives. It drew its eyes in and said:

'How very sunny it is - quite like old times. Where do you get
your Megatheriums from now?'

'What?' said the children all at once. It is very difficult always
to remember that 'what' is not polite, especially in moments of
surprise or agitation.

'Are Pterodactyls plentiful now?' the Sand-fairy went on.

The children were unable to reply.

'What do you have for breakfast?' the Fairy said impatiently, 'and
who gives it you?'

'Eggs and bacon, and bread-and-milk, and porridge and things.
Mother gives it us. What are Mega-what's-its-names and
Ptero-what-do-you-call-thems? And does anyone have them for
breakfast?'

'Why, almost everyone had Pterodactyl for breakfast in my time!
Pterodactyls were something like crocodiles and something like
birds - I believe they were very good grilled. You see it was like
this: of course there were heaps of sand-fairies then, and in the
morning early you went out and hunted for them, and when you'd
found one it gave you your wish. People used to send their little
boys down to the seashore early in the morning before breakfast to
get the day's wishes, and very often the eldest boy in the family
would be told to wish for a Megatherium, ready jointed for cooking.
It was as big as an elephant, you see, so there was a good deal of
meat on it. And if they wanted fish, the Ichthyosaurus was asked
for - he was twenty to forty feet long, so there was plenty of him.
And for poultry there was the Plesiosaurus; there were nice
pickings on that too. Then the other children could wish for other
things. But when people had dinner-parties it was nearly always
Megatheriums; and Ichthyosaurus, because his fins were a great
delicacy and his tail made soup.'

'There must have been heaps and heaps of cold meat left over,' said
Anthea, who meant to be a good housekeeper some day.

'Oh no,' said the Psammead, 'that would never have done. Why, of
course at sunset what was left over turned into stone. You find
the stone bones of the Megatherium and things all over the place
even now, they tell me.'

'Who tell you?' asked Cyril; but the Sand-fairy frowned and began
to dig very fast with its furry hands.

'Oh, don't go!' they all cried; 'tell us more about it when it was
Megatheriums for breakfast! Was the world like this then?'

It stopped digging.

'Not a bit,' it said; 'it was nearly all sand where I lived, and
coal grew on trees, and the periwinkles were as big as tea-trays -
you find them now; they're turned into stone. We sand-fairies used
to live on the seashore, and the children used to come with their
little flint-spades and flint-pails and make castles for us to live
in. That's thousands of years ago, but I hear that children still
build castles on the sand. It's difficult to break yourself of a
habit.'

'But why did you stop living in the castles?' asked Robert.

'It's a sad story,' said the Psammead gloomily. 'It was because
they WOULD build moats to the castles, and the nasty wet bubbling
sea used to come in, and of course as soon as a sand-fairy got wet
it caught cold, and generally died. And so there got to be fewer
and fewer, and, whenever you found a fairy and had a wish, you used
to wish for a Megatherium, and eat twice as much as you wanted,
because it might be weeks before you got another wish.'

'And did YOU get wet?' Robert inquired.

The Sand-fairy shuddered. 'Only once,' it said; 'the end of the
twelfth hair of my top left whisker - I feel the place still in
damp weather. It was only once, but it was quite enough for me.
I went away as soon as the sun had dried my poor dear whisker. I
scurried away to the back of the beach, and dug myself a house deep
in warm dry sand, and there I've been ever since. And the sea
changed its lodgings afterwards. And now I'm not going to tell you
another thing.'

'Just one more, please,' said the children. 'Can you give wishes
now?'

'Of course,' said it; 'didn't I give you yours a few minutes ago?
You said, "I wish you'd come out," and I did.'

'Oh, please, mayn't we have another?'

'Yes, but be quick about it. I'm tired of you.'

I daresay you have often thought what you would do if you had three
wishes given you, and have despised the old man and his wife in the
black-pudding story, and felt certain that if you had the chance
you could think of three really useful wishes without a moment's
hesitation. These children had often talked this matter over, but,
now the chance had suddenly come to them, they could not make up
their minds.

'Quick,' said the Sand-fairy crossly. No one could think of
anything, only Anthea did manage to remember a private wish of her
own and jane's which they had never told the boys. She knew the
boys would not care about it - but still it was better than
nothing.

'I wish we were all as beautiful as the day,' she said in a great
hurry.

The children looked at each other, but each could see that the
others were not any better-looking than usual. The Psammead pushed
out its long eyes, and seemed to be holding its breath and swelling
itself out till it was twice as fat and furry as before. Suddenly
it let its breath go in a long sigh.

'I'm really afraid I can't manage it,' it said apologetically; 'I
must be out of practice.'

The children were horribly disappointed.

'Oh, DO try again!' they said.

'Well,' said the Sand-fairy, 'the fact is, I was keeping back a
little strength to give the rest of you your wishes with. If
you'll be contented with one wish a day amongst the lot of you I
daresay I can screw myself up to it. Do you agree to that?'

'Yes, oh yes!' said Jane and Anthea. The boys nodded. They did
not believe the Sand-fairy could do it. You can always make girls
believe things much easier than you can boys.

It stretched out its eyes farther than ever, and swelled and
swelled and swelled.

'I do hope it won't hurt itself,' said Anthea.

'Or crack its skin,' Robert said anxiously.

Everyone was very much relieved when the Sand-fairy, after getting
so big that it almost filled up the hole in the sand, suddenly let
out its breath and went back to its proper size.

'That's all right,' it said, panting heavily. 'It'll come easier
to-morrow.'

'Did it hurt much?' asked Anthea.

'Only my poor whisker, thank you,' said he, 'but you're a kind and
thoughtful child. Good day.'

It scratched suddenly and fiercely with its hands and feet, and
disappeared in the sand. Then the children looked at each other,
and each child suddenly found itself alone with three perfect
strangers, all radiantly beautiful.

They stood for some moments in perfect silence. Each thought that
its brothers and sisters had wandered off, and that these strange
children had stolen up unnoticed while it was watching the swelling
form of the Sand-fairy. Anthea spoke first -

'Excuse me,' she said very politely to Jane, who now had enormous
blue eyes and a cloud of russet hair, 'but have you seen two little
boys and a little girl anywhere about?'

'I was just going to ask you that,' said Jane. And then Cyril
cried:

'Why, it's YOU! I know the hole in your pinafore! You ARE Jane,
aren't you? And you're the Panther; I can see your dirty
handkerchief that you forgot to change after you'd cut your thumb!
Crikey! The wish has come off, after all. I say, am I as handsome
as you are?'

'If you're Cyril, I liked you much better as you were before,' said
Anthea decidedly. 'You look like the picture of the young
chorister, with your golden hair; you'll die young, I shouldn't
wonder. And if that's Robert, he's like an Italian organ-grinder.
His hair's all black.'

'You two girls are like Christmas cards, then - that's all - silly
Christmas cards,' said Robert angrily. 'And jane's hair is simply
carrots.'

It was indeed of that Venetian tint so much admired by artists.

'Well, it's no use finding fault with each other,' said Anthea;
'let's get the Lamb and lug it home to dinner. The servants will
admire us most awfully, you'll see.'

Baby was just waking when they got to him, and not one of the
children but was relieved to find that he at least was not as
beautiful as the day, but just the same as usual.

'I suppose he's too young to have wishes naturally,' said Jane.
'We shall have to mention him specially next time.'

Anthea ran forward and held out her arms.

'Come to own Panther, ducky,' she said.

The Baby looked at her disapprovingly, and put a sandy pink thumb
in his mouth, Anthea was his favourite sister.

'Come then,' she said.

'G'way long!' said the Baby.

'Come to own Pussy,' said Jane.

'Wants my Panty,' said the Lamb dismally, and his lip trembled.

'Here, come on, Veteran,' said Robert, 'come and have a yidey on
Yobby's back.'

'Yah, narky narky boy,' howled the Baby, giving way altogether.
Then the children knew the worst. THE BABY DID NOT KNOW THEM!

They looked at each other in despair, and it was terrible to each,
in this dire emergency, to meet only the beautiful eyes of perfect
strangers, instead of the merry, friendly, commonplace, twinkling,
jolly little eyes of its own brothers and sisters.

'This is most truly awful,' said Cyril when he had tried to lift up
the Lamb, and the Lamb had scratched like a cat and bellowed like
a bull. 'We've got to MAKE FRIENDS with him! I can't carry him
home screaming like that. Fancy having to make friends with our
own baby! - it's too silly.'

That, however, was exactly what they had to do. It took over an
hour, and the task was not rendered any easier by the fact that the
Lamb was by this time as hungry as a lion and as thirsty as a
desert.

At last he consented to allow these strangers to carry him home by
turns, but as he refused to hold on to such new acquaintances he
was a dead weight and most exhausting.

'Thank goodness, we're home!' said Jane, staggering through the
iron gate to where Martha, the nursemaid, stood at the front door
shading her eyes with her hand and looking out anxiously. 'Here!
Do take Baby!'

Martha snatched the Baby from her arms.

'Thanks be, HE'S safe back,' she said. 'Where are the others, and
whoever to goodness gracious are all of you?'

'We're US, of course,' said Robert.

'And who's US, when you're at home?' asked Martha scornfully.

'I tell you it's US, only we're beautiful as the day,' said Cyril.
'I'm Cyril, and these are the others, and we're jolly hungry. Let
us in, and don't be a silly idiot.'

Martha merely dratted Cyril's impudence and tried to shut the door
in his face.

'I know we LOOK different, but I'm Anthea, and we're so tired, and
it's long past dinner-time.'

'Then go home to your dinners, whoever you are; and if our children
put you up to this playacting you can tell them from me they'll
catch it, so they know what to expect!' With that she did bang the
door. Cyril rang the bell violently. No answer. Presently cook
put her head out of a bedroom window and said:

'If you don't take yourselves off, and that precious sharp, I'll go
and fetch the police.' And she slammed down the window.

'It's no good,' said Anthea. 'Oh, do, do come away before we get
sent to prison!'

The boys said it was nonsense, and the law of England couldn't put
you in prison for just being as beautiful as the day, but all the
same they followed the others out into the lane.

'We shall be our proper selves after sunset, I suppose,' said Jane.

'I don't know,' Cyril said sadly; 'it mayn't be like that now -
things have changed a good deal since Megatherium times.'

'Oh,' cried Anthea suddenly, 'perhaps we shall turn into stone at
sunset, like the Megatheriums did, so that there mayn't be any of
us left over for the next day.'

She began to cry, so did Jane. Even the boys turned pale. No one
had the heart to say anything.

It was a horrible afternoon. There was no house near where the
children could beg a crust of bread or even a glass of water. They
were afraid to go to the village, because they had seen Martha go
down there with a basket, and there was a local constable. True,
they were all as beautiful as the day, but that is a poor comfort
when you are as hungry as a hunter and as thirsty as a sponge.

Three times they tried in vain to get the servants in the White
House to let them in and listen to their tale. And then Robert
went alone, hoping to be able to climb in at one of the back
windows and so open the door to the others. But all the windows
were out of reach, and Martha emptied a toilet-jug of cold water
over him from a top window, and said:

'Go along with you, you nasty little Eyetalian monkey."

It came at last to their sitting down in a row under the hedge,
with their feet in a dry ditch, waiting for sunset, and wondering
whether, when the sun did set, they would turn into stone, or only
into their own old natural selves; and each of them still felt
lonely and among strangers, and tried not to look at the others,
for, though their voices were their own, their faces were so
radiantly beautiful as to be quite irritating to look at.

'I don't believe we SHALL turn to stone,' said Robert, breaking a
long miserable silence, 'because the Sand-fairy said he'd give us
another wish to-morrow, and he couldn't if we were stone, could
he?'

The others said 'No,' but they weren't at all comforted.

Another silence, longer and more miserable, was broken by Cyril's
suddenly saying, 'I don't want to frighten you girls, but I believe
it's beginning with me already. My foot's quite dead. I'm turning
to stone, I know I am, and so will you in a minute.'

'Never mind,' said Robert kindly, 'perhaps you'll be the only stone
one, and the rest of us will be all right, and we'll cherish your
statue and hang garlands on it.'

But when it turned out that Cyril's foot had only gone to sleep
through his sitting too long with it under him, and when it came to
life in an agony of pins and needles, the others were quite cross.

'Giving us such a fright for nothing!' said Anthea.

The third and miserablest silence of all was broken by Jane. She
said: 'If we DO come out of this all right, we'll ask the Sammyadd
to make it so that the servants don't notice anything different, no
matter what wishes we have.'

The others only grunted. They were too wretched even to make good
resolutions.

At last hunger and fright and crossness and tiredness - four very
nasty things - all joined together to bring one nice thing, and
that was sleep. The children lay asleep in a row, with their
beautiful eyes shut and their beautiful mouths open. Anthea woke
first. The sun had set, and the twilight was coming on.

Anthea pinched herself very hard, to make sure, and when she found
she could still feel pinching she decided that she was not stone,
and then she pinched the others. They, also, were soft.

'Wake up,' she said, almost in tears of joy; 'it's all right, we're
not stone. And oh, Cyril, how nice and ugly you do look, with your
old freckles and your brown hair and your little eyes. And so do
you all!' she added, so that they might not feel jealous.

When they got home they were very much scolded by Martha, who told
them about the strange children.

'A good-looking lot, I must say, but that impudent.'

'I know,' said Robert, who knew by experience how hopeless it would
be to try to explain things to Martha.

'And where on earth have you been all this time, you naughty little
things, you?'

'In the lane.'

'Why didn't you come home hours ago?'

'We couldn't because of THEM,' said Anthea.

'Who?'

'The children who were as beautiful as the day. They kept us there
till after sunset. We couldn't come back till they'd gone. You
don't know how we hated them! Oh, do, do give us some supper - we
are so hungry.'

'Hungry! I should think so,' said Martha angrily; 'out all day
like this. Well, I hope it'll be a lesson to you not to go picking
up with strange children - down here after measles, as likely as
not! Now mind, if you see them again, don't you speak to them -
not one word nor so much as a look - but come straight away and
tell me. I'll spoil their beauty for them!'

'If ever we DO see them again we'll tell you,' Anthea said; and
Robert, fixing his eyes fondly on the cold beef that was being
brought in on a tray by cook, added in heartfelt undertones -

'And we'll take jolly good care we never DO see them again.'

And they never have.

CHAPTER 2
GOLDEN GUINEAS

Anthea woke in the morning from a very real sort of dream, in which
she was walking in the Zoological Gardens on a pouring wet day
without any umbrella. The animals seemed desperately unhappy
because of the rain, and were all growling gloomily. When she
awoke, both the growling and the rain went on just the same. The
growling was the heavy regular breathing of her sister Jane, who
had a slight cold and was still asleep. The rain fell in slow
drops on to Anthea's face from the wet corner of a bath-towel which
her brother Robert was gently squeezing the water out of, to wake
her up, as he now explained.

'Oh, drop it!' she said rather crossly; so he did, for he was not
a brutal brother, though very ingenious in apple-pie beds,
booby-traps, original methods of awakening sleeping relatives, and
the other little accomplishments which make home happy.

'I had such a funny dream,' Anthea began.

'So did I,' said Jane, wakening suddenly and without warning. 'I
dreamed we found a Sand-fairy in the gravel-pits, and it said it
was a Sammyadd, and we might have a new wish every day, and -'

'But that's what I dreamed,' said Robert. 'I was just going to
tell you - and we had the first wish directly it said so. And I
dreamed you girls were donkeys enough to ask for us all to be
beautiful as the day, and we jolly well were, and it was perfectly
beastly.'

'But CAN different people all dream the same thing?' said Anthea,
sitting up in bed, 'because I dreamed all that as well as about the
Zoo and the rain; and Baby didn't know us in my dream, and the
servants shut us out of the house because the radiantness of our
beauty was such a complete disguise, and -'

The voice of the eldest brother sounded from across the landing.

'Come on, Robert,' it said, 'you'll be late for breakfast again -
unless you mean to shirk your bath like you did on Tuesday.'

'I say, come here a sec,' Robert replied. 'I didn't shirk it; I
had it after brekker in father's dressing-room, because ours was
emptied away.'

Cyril appeared in the doorway, partially clothed.

'Look here,' said Anthea, 'we've all had such an odd dream. We've
all dreamed we found a Sand-fairy.'

Her voice died away before Cyril's contemptuous glance. 'Dream?'
he said, 'you little sillies, it's TRUE. I tell you it all
happened. That's why I'm so keen on being down early. We'll go up
there directly after brekker, and have another wish. Only we'll
make up our minds, solid, before we go, what it is we do want, and
no one must ask for anything unless the others agree first. No
more peerless beauties for this child, thank you. Not if I know
it!'

The other three dressed, with their mouths open. If all that dream
about the Sand-fairy was real, this real dressing seemed very like
a dream, the girls thought. Jane felt that Cyril was right, but
Anthea was not sure, till after they had seen Martha and heard her
full and plain reminders about their naughty conduct the day
before. Then Anthea was sure. 'Because,' said she, 'servants
never dream anything but the things in the Dream-book, like snakes
and oysters and going to a wedding - that means a funeral, and
snakes are a false female friend, and oysters are babies.'

'Talking of babies,' said Cyril, 'where's the Lamb?'
'Martha's going to take him to Rochester to see her cousins.
Mother said she might. She's dressing him now,' said Jane, 'in his
very best coat and hat. Bread-and-butter, please.'

'She seems to like taking him too,' said Robert in a tone of
wonder.

'Servants do like taking babies to see their relations,' Cyril
said. 'I've noticed it before - especially in their best things.'

'I expect they pretend they're their own babies, and that they're
not servants at all, but married to noble dukes of high degree, and
they say the babies are the little dukes and duchesses,' Jane
suggested dreamily, taking more marmalade. 'I expect that's what
Martha'll say to her cousin. She'll enjoy herself most
frightfully-'

'She won't enjoy herself most frightfully carrying our infant duke
to Rochester,' said Robert, 'not if she's anything like me - she
won't.'

'Fancy walking to Rochester with the Lamb on your back! Oh,
crikey!' said Cyril in full agreement.

'She's going by carrier,' said Jane. 'Let's see them off, then we
shall have done a polite and kindly act, and we shall be quite sure
we've got rid of them for the day.'

So they did.

Martha wore her Sunday dress of two shades of purple, so tight in
the chest that it made her stoop, and her blue hat with the pink
cornflowers and white ribbon. She had a yellow-lace collar with a
green bow. And the Lamb had indeed his very best cream-coloured
silk coat and hat. It was a smart party that the carrier's cart
picked up at the Cross Roads. When its white tilt and red wheels
had slowly vanished in a swirl of chalk-dust -

'And now for the Sammyadd!' said Cyril, and off they went.

As they went they decided on the wish they would ask for. Although
they were all in a great hurry they did not try to climb down the
sides of the gravel-pit, but went round by the safe lower road, as
if they had been carts. They had made a ring of stones round the
place where the Sand-fairy had disappeared, so they easily found
the spot. The sun was burning and bright, and the sky was deep
blue - without a cloud. The sand was very hot to touch.

'Oh - suppose it was only a dream, after all,' Robert said as the
boys uncovered their spades from the sand-heap where they had
buried them and began to dig.

'Suppose you were a sensible chap,' said Cyril; 'one's quite as
likely as the other!'
'Suppose you kept a civil tongue in your head,' Robert snapped.

'Suppose we girls take a turn,' said Jane, laughing. 'You boys
seem to be getting very warm.'

'Suppose you don't come shoving your silly oar in,' said Robert,
who was now warm indeed.

'We won't,' said Anthea quickly. 'Robert dear, don't be so grumpy
- we won't say a word, you shall be the one to speak to the Fairy
and tell him what we've decided to wish for. You'll say it much
better than we shall.'

'Suppose you drop being a little humbug,' said Robert, but not
crossly. 'Look out - dig with your hands, now!'

So they did, and presently uncovered the spider-shaped brown hairy
body, long arms and legs, bat's ears and snail's eyes of the
Sand-fairy himself. Everyone drew a deep breath of satisfaction,
for now of course it couldn't have been a dream.

The Psammead sat up and shook the sand out of its fur.

'How's your left whisker this morning?' said Anthea politely.

'Nothing to boast of,' said it, 'it had rather a restless night.
But thank you for asking.'

'I say,' said Robert, 'do you feel up to giving wishes to-day,
because we very much want an extra besides the regular one? The
extra's a very little one,' he added reassuringly.

'Humph!' said the Sand-fairy. (If you read this story aloud,
please pronounce 'humph' exactly as it is spelt, for that is how he
said it.) 'Humph! Do you know, until I heard you being
disagreeable to each other just over my head, and so loud too, I
really quite thought I had dreamed you all. I do have very odd
dreams sometimes.'

'Do you?'Jane hurried to say, so as to get away from the subject of
disagreeableness. 'I wish,' she added politely, 'you'd tell us
about your dreams - they must be awfully interesting.'

'Is that the day's wish?' said the Sand-fairy, yawning.

Cyril muttered something about 'just like a girl,' and the rest
stood silent. If they said 'Yes,' then good-bye to the other
wishes they had decided to ask for. If they said 'No,' it would be
very rude, and they had all been taught manners, and had learned a
little too, which is not at all the same thing. A sigh of relief
broke from all lips when the Sand-fairy said:

'If I do I shan't have strength to give you a second wish; not even
good tempers, or common sense, or manners, or little things like
that.'

'We don't want you to put yourself out at all about these things,
we can manage them quite well ourselves,' said Cyril eagerly; while
the others looked guiltily at each other, and wished the Fairy
would not keep all on about good tempers, but give them one good
rowing if it wanted to, and then have done with it.

'Well,' said the Psammead, putting out his long snail's eyes so
suddenly that one of them nearly went into the round boy's eyes of
Robert, 'let's have the little wish first.'

'We don't want the servants to notice the gifts you give us.'

'Are kind enough to give us,' said Anthea in a whisper.

'Are kind enough to give us, I mean,' said Robert.

The Fairy swelled himself out a bit, let his breath go, and said -

'I've done THAT for you - it was quite easy. People don't notice
things much, anyway. What's the next wish?'

'We want,' said Robert slowly, 'to be rich beyond the dreams of
something or other.'

'Avarice,' said Jane.

'So it is,' said the Fairy unexpectedly. 'But it won't do you much
good, that's one comfort,' it muttered to itself. 'Come - I can't
go beyond dreams, you know! How much do you want, and will you
have it in gold or notes?'

'Gold, please - and millions of it.'

'This gravel-pit full be enough?' said the Fairy in an off-hand
manner.

'Oh YES!'

'Then get out before I begin, or you'll be buried alive in it.'

It made its skinny arms so long, and waved them so frighteningly,
that the children ran as hard as they could towards the road by
which carts used to come to the gravel-pits. Only Anthea had
presence of mind enough to shout a timid 'Good-morning, I hope your
whisker will be better to-morrow,' as she ran.

On the road they turned and looked back, and they had to shut their
eyes, and open them very slowly, a little bit at a time, because
the sight was too dazzling for their eyes to be able to bear it.
It was something like trying to look at the sun at high noon on
Midsummer Day. For the whole of the sand-pit was full, right up to
the very top, with new shining gold pieces, and all the little
sand-martins' little front doors were covered out of sight. Where
the road for the carts wound into the gravel-pit the gold lay in
heaps like stones lie by the roadside, and a great bank of shining
gold shelved down from where it lay flat and smooth between the
tall sides of the gravel-pit. And all the gleaming heap was minted
gold. And on the sides and edges of these countless coins the
midday sun shone and sparkled, and glowed and gleamed till the
quarry looked like the mouth of a smelting furnace, or one of the
fairy halls that you see sometimes in the sky at sunset.

The children stood with their mouths open, and no one said a word.

At last Robert stopped and picked up one of the loose coins from
the edge of the heap by the cart-road, and looked at it. He looked
on both sides. Then he said in a low voice, quite different to his
own, 'It's not sovereigns.'

'It's gold, anyway,' said Cyril. And now they all began to talk at
once. They all picked up the golden treasure by handfuls, and let
it run through their fingers like water, and the chink it made as
it fell was wonderful music. At first they quite forgot to think
of spending the money, it was so nice to play with. Jane sat down
between two heaps of gold and Robert began to bury her, as you bury
your father in sand when you are at the seaside and he has gone to
sleep on the beach with his newspaper over his face. But Jane was
not half buried before she cried out, 'Oh, stop, it's too heavy!
It hurts!

Robert said 'Bosh!' and went on.

'Let me out, I tell you,' cried Jane, and was taken out, very
white, and trembling a little.

'You've no idea what it's like,' said she; 'it's like stones on you
- or like chains.'

'Look here,' Cyril said, 'if this is to do us any good, it's no
good our staying gasping at it like this. Let's fill our pockets
and go and buy things. Don't you forget, it won't last after
sunset. I wish we'd asked the Sammyadd why things don't turn to
stone. Perhaps this will. I'll tell you what, there's a pony and
cart in the village.'

'Do you want to buy that?' asked Jane.

'No, silly - we'll HIRE it. And then we'll go to Rochester and buy
heaps and heaps of things. Look here, let's each take as much as
we can carry. But it's not sovereigns. They've got a man's head
on one side and a thing like the ace of spades on the other. Fill
your pockets with it, I tell you, and come along. You can jaw as
we go - if you must jaw.'

Cyril sat down and began to fill his pockets.
'You made fun of me for getting father to have nine pockets in my
Norfolks,' said he, 'but now you see!'

They did. For when Cyril had filled his nine pockets and his
handkerchief and the space between himself and his shirt front with
the gold coins, he had to stand up. But he staggered, and had to
sit down again in a hurry-

'Throw out some of the cargo,' said Robert. 'You'll sink the ship,
old chap. That comes of nine pockets.'

And Cyril had to.

Then they set off to walk to the village. It was more than a mile,
and the road was very dusty indeed, and the sun seemed to get
hotter and hotter, and the gold in their pockets got heavier and
heavier.

It was Jane who said, 'I don't see how we're to spend it all.
There must be thousands of pounds among the lot of us. I'm going
to leave some of mine behind this stump in the hedge. And directly
we get to the village we'll buy some biscuits; I know it's long
past dinner-time.' She took out a handful or two of gold and hid
it in the hollows of an old hornbeam. 'How round and yellow they
are,' she said. 'Don't you wish they were gingerbread nuts and we
were going to eat them?'

'Well, they're not, and we're not,' said Cyril. 'Come on!'

But they came on heavily and wearily. Before they reached the
village, more than one stump in the hedge concealed its little
hoard of hidden treasure. Yet they reached the village with about
twelve hundred guineas in their pockets. But in spite of this
inside wealth they looked quite ordinary outside, and no one would
have thought they could have more than a half-crown each at the
outside. The haze of heat, the blue of the wood smoke, made a sort
of dim misty cloud over the red roofs of the village. The four sat
down heavily on the first bench they came to- It happened to be
outside the Blue Boar Inn.

It was decided that Cyril should go into the Blue Boar and ask for
ginger-beer, because, as Anthea said, 'It is not wrong for men to
go into public houses, only for children. And Cyril is nearer to
being a man than us, because he is the eldest.' So he went. The
others sat in the sun and waited.

'Oh, hats, how hot it is!' said Robert. 'Dogs put their tongues
out when they're hot; I wonder if it would cool us at all to put
out ours?'

'We might try,'Jane said; and they all put their tongues out as far
as ever they could go, so that it quite stretched their throats,
but it only seemed to make them thirstier than ever, besides
annoying everyone who went by. So they took their tongues in
again, just as Cyril came back with the ginger-beer.

'I had to pay for it out of my own two-and-sevenpence, though, that
I was going to buy rabbits with,' he said. 'They wouldn't change
the gold. And when I pulled out a handful the man just laughed and
said it was card-counters. And I got some sponge-cakes too, out of
a glass jar on the bar-counter. And some biscuits with caraways
in.'

The sponge-cakes were both soft and dry and the biscuits were dry
too, and yet soft, which biscuits ought not to be. But the
ginger-beer made up for everything.

'It's my turn now to try to buy something with the money,' Anthea
said, 'I'm next eldest. Where is the pony-cart kept?'

It was at The Chequers, and Anthea went in the back way to the
yard, because they all knew that little girls ought not to go into
the bars of public-houses. She came out, as she herself said,
'pleased but not proud'.

'He'll be ready in a brace of shakes, he says,' she remarked, 'and
he's to have one sovereign - or whatever it is - to drive us in to
Rochester and back, besides waiting there till we've got everything
we want. I think I managed very well.'

'You think yourself jolly clever, I daresay,' said Cyril moodily.
'How did you do it?'

'I wasn't jolly clever enough to go taking handfuls of money out of
my pocket, to make it seem cheap, anyway,' she retorted. 'I just
found a young man doing something to a horse's leg with a sponge
and a pail. And I held out one sovereign, and I said, "Do you know
what this is?" He said, "No," and he'd call his father. And the
old man came, and he said it was a spade guinea; and he said was it
my own to do as I liked with, and I said "Yes"; and I asked about
the pony-cart, and I said he could have the guinea if he'd drive us
in to Rochester. And his name is S. Crispin. And he said, "Right
oh".'

It was a new sensation to be driven in a smart pony-trap along
pretty country roads, it was very pleasant too (which is not always
the case with new sensations), quite apart from the beautiful plans
of spending the money which each child made as they went along,
silently of course and quite to itself, for they felt it would
never have done to let the old innkeeper hear them talk in the
affluent sort of way they were thinking. The old man put them down
by the bridge at their request.

'If you were going to buy a carriage and horses, where would you
go?' asked Cyril, as if he were only asking for the sake of
something to say.

'Billy Peasemarsh, at the Saracen's Head,' said the old man
promptly. 'Though all forbid I should recommend any man where it's
a question of horses, no more than I'd take anybody else's
recommending if I was a-buying one. But if your pa's thinking of
a turnout of any sort, there ain't a straighter man in Rochester,
nor a civiller spoken, than Billy, though I says it.'

'Thank you,' said Cyril. 'The Saracen's Head.'

And now the children began to see one of the laws of nature turn
upside down and stand on its head like an acrobat. Any grown-up
persons would tell you that money is hard to get and easy to spend.
But the fairy money had been easy to get, and spending it was not
only hard, it was almost impossible. The tradespeople of Rochester
seemed to shrink, to a trades-person, from the glittering fairy
gold ('furrin money' they called it, for the most part). To begin
with, Anthea, who had had the misfortune to sit on her hat earlier
in the day, wished to buy another. She chose a very beautiful one,
trimmed with pink roses and the blue breasts of peacocks. It was
marked in the window, 'Paris Model, three guineas'.

'I'm glad,' she said, 'because, if it says guineas, it means
guineas, and not sovereigns, which we haven't got.'

But when she took three of the spade guineas in her hand, which was
by this time rather dirty owing to her not having put on gloves
before going to the gravel-pit, the black-silk young lady in the
shop looked very hard at her, and went and whispered something to
an older and uglier lady, also in black silk, and then they gave
her back the money and said it was not current coin.

'It's good money,' said Anthea, 'and it's my own.'

'I daresay,' said the lady, 'but it's not the kind of money that's
fashionable now, and we don't care about taking it.'

'I believe they think we've stolen it,' said Anthea, rejoining the
others in the street; 'if we had gloves they wouldn't think we were
so dishonest. It's my hands being so dirty fills their minds with
doubts.'

So they chose a humble shop, and the girls bought cotton gloves,
the kind at sixpence three-farthings, but when they offered a
guinea the woman looked at it through her spectacles and said she
had no change; so the gloves had to be paid for out of Cyril's
two-and-sevenpence that he meant to buy rabbits with, and so had
the green imitation crocodile-skin purse at ninepence-halfpenny
which had been bought at the same time. They tried several more
shops, the kinds where you buy toys and scent, and silk
handkerchiefs and books, and fancy boxes of stationery, and
photographs of objects of interest in the vicinity. But nobody
cared to change a guinea that day in Rochester, and as they went
from shop to shop they got dirtier and dirtier, and their hair got
more and more untidy, and Jane slipped and fell down on a part of
the road where a water-cart had just gone by. Also they got very
hungry, but they found no one would give them anything to eat for
their guineas. After trying two pastrycooks in vain, they became
so hungry, perhaps from the smell of the cake in the shops, as
Cyril suggested, that they formed a plan of campaign in whispers
and carried it out in desperation. They marched into a third
pastrycook's - Beale his name was - and before the people behind
the counter could interfere each child had seized three new penny
buns, clapped the three together between its dirty hands, and taken
a big bite out of the triple sandwich. Then they stood at bay,
with the twelve buns in their hands and their mouths very full
indeed. The shocked pastrycook bounded round the corner.

'Here,' said Cyril, speaking as distinctly as he could, and holding
out the guinea he got ready before entering the shop, 'pay yourself
out of that.'

Mr Beale snatched the coin, bit it, and put it in his pocket.

'Off you go,' he said, brief and stern like the man in the song.

'But the change?' said Anthea, who had a saving mind.

'Change!' said the man. 'I'll change you! Hout you goes; and you
may think yourselves lucky I don't send for the police to find out
where you got it!'

In the Castle Gardens the millionaires finished the buns, and
though the curranty softness of these were delicious, and acted
like a charm in raising the spirits of the party, yet even the
stoutest heart quailed at the thought of venturing to sound Mr
Billy Peasemarsh at the Saracen's Head on the subject of a horse
and carriage. The boys would have given up the idea, but Jane was
always a hopeful child, and Anthea generally an obstinate one, and
their earnestness prevailed.

The whole party, by this time indescribably dirty, therefore betook
itself to the Saracen's Head. The yard-method of attack having
been successful at The Chequers was tried again here. Mr
Peasemarsh was in the yard, and Robert opened the business in these
terms -

'They tell me you have a lot of horses and carriages to sell.' It
had been agreed that Robert should be spokesman, because in books
it is always the gentlemen who buy horses, and not ladies, and
Cyril had had his go at the Blue Boar.

'They tell you true, young man,' said Mr Peasemarsh. He was a long
lean man, with very blue eyes and a tight mouth and narrow lips.

'We should like to buy some, please,' said Robert politely.

'I daresay you would.'

'Will you show us a few, please? To choose from.'
'Who are you a-kiddin of?' inquired Mr Billy Peasemarsh. 'Was you
sent here of a message?'

'I tell you,' said Robert, 'we want to buy some horses and
carriages, and a man told us you were straight and civil spoken,
but I shouldn't wonder if he was mistaken.'

'Upon my sacred!' said Mr Peasemarsh. 'Shall I trot the whole
stable out for your Honour's worship to see? Or shall I send round
to the Bishop's to see if he's a nag or two to dispose of?'

'Please do,' said Robert, 'if it's not too much trouble. It would
be very kind of you.'

Mr Peasemarsh put his hands in his pockets and laughed, and they
did not like the way he did it. Then he shouted 'Willum!'

A stooping ostler appeared in a stable door.

'Here, Willum, come and look at this 'ere young dook! Wants to buy
the whole stud, lock, stock, and bar'l. And ain't got tuppence in
his pocket to bless hisself with, I'll go bail!'

Willum's eyes followed his master's pointing thumb with
contemptuous interest.

'Do 'e, for sure?' he said.

But Robert spoke, though both the girls were now pulling at his
jacket and begging him to 'come along'. He spoke, and he was very
angry; he said:

'I'm not a young duke, and I never pretended to be. And as for
tuppence - what do you call this?' And before the others could
stop him he had pulled out two fat handfuls of shining guineas, and
held them out for Mr Peasemarsh to look at. He did look. He
snatched one up in his finger and thumb. He bit it, and Jane
expected him to say, 'The best horse in my stables is at your
service.' But the others knew better. Still it was a blow, even
to the most desponding, when he said shortly:

'Willum, shut the yard doors,' and Willum grinned and went to shut
them.

'Good-afternoon,' said Robert hastily; 'we shan't buy any of your
horses now, whatever you say, and I hope it'll be a lesson to you.'
He had seen a little side gate open, and was moving towards it as
he spoke. But Billy Peasemarsh put himself in the way.

'Not so fast, you young off-scouring!' he said. 'Willum, fetch the
pleece.'

Willum went. The children stood huddled together like frightened
sheep, and Mr Peasemarsh spoke to them till the pleece arrived. He
said many things. Among other things he said:

'Nice lot you are, aren't you, coming tempting honest men with your
guineas!'

'They ARE our guineas,' said Cyril boldly.

'Oh, of course we don't know all about that, no more we don't - oh
no - course not! And dragging little gells into it, too. 'Ere -
I'll let the gells go if you'll come along to the pleece quiet.'

'We won't be let go,' said Jane heroically; 'not without the boys.
It's our money just as much as theirs, you wicked old man.'

'Where'd you get it, then?' said the man, softening slightly, which
was not at all what the boys expected when Jane began to call
names.

Jane cast a silent glance of agony at the others.

'Lost your tongue, eh? Got it fast enough when it's for calling
names with. Come, speak up! Where'd you get it?'

'Out of the gravel-pit,' said truthful Jane.

'Next article,' said the man.

'I tell you we did,' Jane said. 'There's a fairy there - all over
brown fur - with ears like a bat's and eyes like a snail's, and he
gives you a wish a day, and they all come true.'

'Touched in the head, eh?' said the man in a low voice, 'all the
more shame to you boys dragging the poor afflicted child into your
sinful burglaries.'

'She's not mad; it's true,' said Anthea; 'there is a fairy. If I
ever see him again I'll wish for something for you; at least I
would if vengeance wasn't wicked - so there!'

'Lor' lumme,' said Billy Peasemarsh, 'if there ain't another on
'em!'

And now Willum came -back with a spiteful grin on his face, and at
his back a policeman, with whom Mr Peasemarsh spoke long in a
hoarse earnest whisper.

'I daresay you're right,' said the policeman at last. 'Anyway,
I'll take 'em up on a charge of unlawful possession, pending
inquiries. And the magistrate will deal with the case. Send the
afflicted ones to a home, as likely as not, and the boys to a
reformatory. Now then, come along, youngsters! No use making a
fuss. You bring the gells along, Mr Peasemarsh, sir, and I'll
shepherd the boys.'

Speechless with rage and horror, the four children were driven
along the streets of Rochester. Tears of anger and shame blinded
them, so that when Robert ran right into a passer-by he did not
recognize her till a well--known voice said, 'Well, if ever I did!
Oh, Master Robert, whatever have you been a doing of now?' And
another voice, quite as well known, said, 'Panty; want go own
Panty!'

They had run into Martha and the baby!

Martha behaved admirably. She refused to believe a word of the
policeman's story, or of Mr Peasemarsh's either, even when they
made Robert turn out his pockets in an archway and show the
guineas.

'I don't see nothing,' she said. 'You've gone out of your senses,
you two! There ain't any gold there - only the poor child's hands,
all over crock and dirt, and like the very chimbley. Oh, that I
should ever see the day!'

And the children thought this very noble of Martha, even if rather
wicked, till they remembered how the Fairy had promised that the
servants should never notice any of the fairy gifts. So of course
Martha couldn't see the gold, and so was only speaking the truth,
and that was quite right, of course, but not extra noble.

It was getting dusk when they reached the police-station. The
policeman told his tale to an inspector, who sat in a large bare
room with a thing like a clumsy nursery-fender at one end to put
prisoners in. Robert wondered whether it was a cell or a dock.

'Produce the coins, officer,' said the inspector.

'Turn out your pockets,' said the constable.

Cyril desperately plunged his hands in his pockets, stood still a
moment, and then began to laugh - an odd sort of laugh that hurt,
and that felt much more like crying. His pockets were empty. So
were the pockets of the others. For of course at sunset all the
fairy gold had vanished away.

'Turn out your pockets, and stop that noise,' said the inspector.

Cyril turned out his pockets, every one of the nine which enriched
his Norfolk suit. And every pocket was empty.

'Well!' said the inspector.

'I don't know how they done it - artful little beggars! They
walked in front of me the 'ole way, so as for me to keep my eye on
them and not to attract a crowd and obstruct the traffic.'

'It's very remarkable,' said the inspector, frowning.

'If you've quite done a-browbeating of the innocent children,' said
Martha, 'I'll hire a private carriage and we'll drive home to their
papa's mansion. You'll hear about this again, young man! - I told
you they hadn't got any gold, when you were pretending to see it in
their poor helpless hands. It's early in the day for a constable
on duty not to be able to trust his own eyes. As to the other one,
the less said the better; he keeps the Saracen's Head, and he knows
best what his liquor's like.'

'Take them away, for goodness' sake,' said the inspector crossly.
But as they left the police-station he said, 'Now then!' to the
policeman and Mr Pease- marsh, and he said it twenty times as
crossly as he had spoken to Martha.

Martha was as good as her word. She took them home in a very grand
carriage, because the carrier's cart was gone, and, though she had
stood by them so nobly with the police, she was so angry with them
as soon as they were alone for 'trapseing into Rochester by
themselves', that none of them dared to mention the old man with
the pony-cart from the village who was waiting for them in
Rochester. And so, after one day of boundless wealth, the children
found themselves sent to bed in deep disgrace, and only enriched by
two pairs of cotton gloves, dirty inside because of the state of
the hands they had been put on to cover, an imitation
crocodile-skin purse, and twelve penny buns long since digested.

The thing that troubled them most was the fear that the old
gentleman's guinea might have disappeared at sunset with all the
rest, so they went down to the village next day to apologize for
not meeting him in Rochester, and to see. They found him very
friendly. The guinea had NOT disappeared, and he had bored a hole
in it and hung it on his watch-chain. As for the guinea the baker
took, the children felt they could not care whether it had vanished
or not, which was not perhaps very honest, but on the other hand
was not wholly unnatural. But afterwards this preyed on Anthea's
mind, and at last she secretly sent twelve stamps by post to 'Mr
Beale, Baker, Rochester'. Inside she wrote, 'To pay for the buns.'
I hope the guinea did disappear, for that pastrycook was really not
at all a nice man, and, besides, penny buns are seven for sixpence
in all really respectable shops.

CHAPTER 3
BEING WANTED

The morning after the children had been the possessors of boundless
wealth, and had been unable to buy anything really useful or
enjoyable with it, except two pairs of cotton gloves, twelve penny
buns, an imitation crocodile-skin purse, and a ride in a pony-cart,
they awoke without any of the enthusiastic happiness which they had
felt on the previous day when they remembered how they had had the
luck to find a Psammead, or Sand-fairy; and to receive its promise
to grant them a new wish every day. For now they had had two
wishes, Beauty and Wealth, and neither had exactly made them happy.
But the happening of strange things, even if they are not
completely pleasant things, is more amusing than those times when
nothing happens but meals, and they are not always completely
pleasant, especially on the days when it is cold mutton or hash.

There was no chance of talking things over before breakfast,
because everyone overslept itself, as it happened, and it needed a
vigorous and determined struggle to get dressed so as to be only
ten minutes late for breakfast. During this meal some efforts were
made to deal with the question of the Psammead in an impartial
spirit, but it is very difficult to discuss anything thoroughly and
at the same time to attend faithfully to your baby brother's
breakfast needs. The Baby was particularly lively that morning.
He not only wriggled his body through the bar of his high chair,
and hung by his head, choking and purple, but he collared a
tablespoon with desperate suddenness, hit Cyril heavily on the head
with it, and then cried because it was taken away from him. He put
his fat fist in his bread-and-milk, and demanded 'nam', which was
only allowed for tea. He sang, he put his feet on the table - he
clamoured to 'go walky'. The conversation was something like this:

'Look here - about that Sand-fairy - Look out! - he'll have the
milk over.'

Milk removed to a safe distance.

'Yes - about that Fairy - No, Lamb dear, give Panther the narky
poon.'

Then Cyril tried. 'Nothing we've had yet has turned out - He
nearly had the mustard that time!'

'I wonder whether we'd better wish - Hullo! you've done it now, my
boy!' And, in a flash of glass and pink baby-paws, the bowl of
golden carp in the middle of the table rolled on its side, and
poured a flood of mixed water and goldfish into the Baby's lap and
into the laps of the others.

Everyone was almost as much upset as the goldfish: the Lamb only
remaining calm. When the pool on the floor had been mopped up, and
the leaping, gasping goldfish had been collected and put back in
the water, the Baby was taken away to be entirely redressed by
Martha, and most of the others had to change completely. The
pinafores and jackets that had been bathed in goldfish-and-water
were hung out to dry, and then it turned out that Jane must either
mend the dress she had torn the day before or appear all day in her
best petticoat. It was white and soft and frilly, and trimmed with
lace, and very, very pretty, quite as pretty as a frock, if not
more so. Only it was NOT a frock, and Martha's word was law. She
wouldn't let Jane wear her best frock, and she refused to listen
for a moment to Robert's suggestion that Jane should wear her best
petticoat and call it a dress.

'It's not respectable,' she said. And when people say that, it's
no use anyone's saying anything. You will find this out for
yourselves some day.

So there was nothing for it but for Jane to mend her frock. The
hole had been torn the day before when she happened to tumble down
in the High Street of Rochester, just where a water-cart had passed
on its silvery way. She had grazed her knee, and her stocking was
much more than grazed, and her dress was cut by the same stone
which had attended to the knee and the stocking. Of course the
others were not such sneaks as to abandon a comrade in misfortune,
so they all sat on the grass-plot round the sundial, and Jane
darned away for dear life. The Lamb was still in the hands of
Martha having its clothes changed, so conversation was possible.

Anthea and Robert timidly tried to conceal their inmost thought,
which was that the Psammead was not to be trusted; but Cyril said:

'Speak out - say what you've got to say - I hate hinting, and
"don't know", and sneakish ways like that.'

So then Robert said, as in honour bound: 'Sneak yourself - Anthea
and me weren't so goldfishy as you two were, so we got changed
quicker, and we've had time to think it over, and if you ask me -'

'I didn't ask you,' said Jane, biting off a needleful of thread as
she had always been strictly forbidden to do.

'I don't care who asks or who doesn't,' said Robert, but Anthea and
I think the Sammyadd is a spiteful brute. If it can give us our
wishes I suppose it can give itself its own, and I feel almost sure
it wishes every time that our wishes shan't do us any good. Let's
let the tiresome beast alone, and just go and have a jolly good
game of forts, on our own, in the chalk-pit.'

(You will remember that the happily situated house where these
children were spending their holidays lay between a chalk-quarry
and a gravel-pit.)

Cyril and Jane were more hopeful - they generally were.

'I don't think the Sammyadd does it on purpose,' Cyril said; 'and,
after all, it WAS silly to wish for boundless wealth. Fifty pounds
in two-shilling pieces would have been much more sensible. And
wishing to be beautiful as the day was simply donkeyish. I don't
want to be disagreeable, but it was. We must try to find a really
useful wish, and wish it.'

Jane dropped her work and said:

'I think so too, it's too silly to have a chance like this and not
use it. I never heard of anyone else outside a book who had such
a chance; there must be simply heaps of things we could wish for
that wouldn't turn out Dead Sea fish, like these two things have.
Do let's think hard, and wish something nice, so that we can have
a real jolly day - what there is left of it.'

Jane darned away again like mad, for time was indeed getting on,
and everyone began to talk at once. If you had been there you
could not possibly have made head or tail of the talk, but these
children were used to talking 'by fours', as soldiers march, and
each of them could say what it had to say quite comfortably, and
listen to the agreeable sound of its own voice, and at the same
time have three-quarters of two sharp ears to spare for listening
to what the others said. That is an easy example in multiplication
of vulgar fractions, but, as I daresay you can't do even that, I
won't ask you to tell me whether 3/4 X 2 = 1 1/2, but I will ask
you to believe me that this was the amount of ear each child was
able to lend to the others. Lending ears was common in Roman
times, as we learn from Shakespeare; but I fear I am getting too
instructive.

When the frock was darned, the start for the gravel-pit was delayed
by Martha's insisting on everybody's washing its hands - which was
nonsense, because nobody had been doing anything at all, except
Jane, and how can you get dirty doing nothing? That is a difficult
question, and I cannot answer it on paper. In real life I could
very soon show you - or you me, which is much more likely.

During the conversation in which the six ears were lent (there were
four children, so THAT sum comes right), it had been decided that
fifty pounds in two-shilling pieces was the right wish to have.
And the lucky children, who could have anything in the wide world
by just wishing for it, hurriedly started for the gravel-pit to
express their wishes to the Psammead. Martha caught them at the
gate, and insisted on their taking the Baby with them.

'Not want him indeed! Why, everybody 'ud want him, a duck! with
all their hearts they would; and you know you promised your ma to
take him out every blessed day,' said Martha.

'I know we did,' said Robert in gloom, 'but I wish the Lamb wasn't
quite so young and small. It would be much better fun taking him
out.'

'He'll mend of his youngness with time,' said Martha; 'and as for
his smallness, I don't think you'd fancy carrying of him any more,
however big he was. Besides he can walk a bit, bless his precious
fat legs, a ducky! He feels the benefit of the new-laid air, so he
does, a pet!' With this and a kiss, she plumped the Lamb into
Anthea's arms, and went back to make new pinafores on the
sewing-machine. She was a rapid performer on this instrument.

The Lamb laughed with pleasure, and said, 'Walky wif Panty,' and
rode on Robert's back with yells of joy, and tried to feed Jane
with stones, and altogether made himself so agreeable that nobody
could long be sorry that he was of the party.

The enthusiastic Jane even suggested that they should devote a
week's wishes to assuring the Baby's future, by asking such gifts
for him as the good fairies give to Infant Princes in proper
fairy-tales, but Anthea soberly reminded her that as the
Sand-fairy's wishes only lasted till sunset they could not ensure
any benefit to the Baby's later years; and Jane owned that it would
be better to wish for fifty pounds in two-shilling pieces, and buy
the Lamb a three-pound-fifteen rocking-horse, like those in the
Army and Navy Stores list, with part of the money.

It was settled that, as soon as they had wished for the money and
got it, they would get Mr Crispin to drive them into Rochester
again, taking Martha with them, if they could not get out of taking
her. And they would make a list of the things they really wanted
before they started. Full of high hopes and excellent resolutions,
they went round the safe slow cart-road to the gravel-pits, and as
they went in between the mounds of gravel a sudden thought came to
them, and would have turned their ruddy cheeks pale if they had
been children in a book. Being real live children, it only made
them stop and look at each other with rather blank and silly
expressions. For now they remembered that yesterday, when they had
asked the Psammead for boundless wealth, and it was getting ready
to fill the quarry with the minted gold of bright guineas -
millions of them - it had told the children to run along outside
the quarry for fear they should be buried alive in the heavy
splendid treasure. And they had run. And so it happened that they
had not had time to mark the spot where the Psammead was, with a
ring of stones, as before. And it was this thought that put such
silly expressions on their faces.

'Never mind,' said the hopeful Jane, 'we'll soon find him.'

But this, though easily said, was hard in the doing. They looked
and they looked, and though they found their seaside spades,
nowhere could they find the Sand-fairy.

At last they had to sit down and rest - not at all because they
were weary or disheartened, of course, but because the Lamb
insisted on being put down, and you cannot look very carefully
after anything you may have happened to lose in the sand if you
have an active baby to look after at the same time. Get someone to
drop your best knife in the sand next time you go to the seaside,
and then take your baby brother with you when you go to look for
it, and you will see that I am right.

The Lamb, as Martha had said, was feeling the benefit of the
country air, and he was as frisky as a sandhopper. The elder ones
longed to go on talking about the new wishes they would have when
(or if) they found the Psammead again. But the Lamb wished to
enjoy himself.

He watched his opportunity and threw a handful of sand into
Anthea's face, and then suddenly burrowed his own head in the sand
and waved his fat legs in the air. Then of course the sand got
into his eyes, as it had into Anthea's, and he howled.

The thoughtful Robert had brought one solid brown bottle of
ginger-beer with him, relying on a thirst that had never yet failed
him. This had to be uncorked hurriedly - it was the only wet thing
within reach, and it was necessary to wash the sand out of the
Lamb's eyes somehow. Of course the ginger hurt horribly, and he
howled more than ever. And, amid his anguish of kicking, the
bottle was upset and the beautiful ginger-beer frothed out into the
sand and was lost for ever.

It was then that Robert, usually a very patient brother, so far
forgot himself as to say:

'Anybody would want him, indeed! Only they don't; Martha doesn't,
not really, or she'd jolly well keep him with her. He's a little
nuisance, that's what he is. It's too bad. I only wish everybody
DID want him with all their hearts; we might get some peace in our
lives.'

The Lamb stopped howling now, because Jane had suddenly remembered
that there is only one safe way of taking things out of little
children's eyes, and that is with your own soft wet tongue. It is
quite easy if you love the Baby as much as you ought to.

Then there was a little silence. Robert was not proud of himself
for having been so cross, and the others were not proud of him
either. You often notice that sort of silence when someone has
said something it ought not to - and everyone else holds its tongue
and waits for the one who oughtn't to have said it is sorry.

The silence was broken by a sigh - a breath suddenly let out. The
children's heads turned as if there had been a string tied to each
nose, and someone had pulled all the strings at once.

And everyone saw the Sand-fairy sitting quite close to them, with
the expression which it used as a smile on its hairy face.

'Good-morning,' it said; 'I did that quite easily! Everyone wants
him now.'

'It doesn't matter,' said Robert sulkily, because he knew he had
been behaving rather like a pig. 'No matter who wants him -
there's no one here to - anyhow.'

'Ingratitude,' said the Psammead, 'is a dreadful vice.'

'We're not ungrateful,'Jane made haste to say, 'but we didn't
REALLY want that wish. Robert only just said it. Can't you take
it back and give us a new one?'

'No - I can't,' the Sand-fairy said shortly; 'chopping and changing
- it's not business. You ought to be careful what you do wish.
There was a little boy once, he'd wished for a Plesiosaurus instead
of an Ichthyosaurus, because he was too lazy to remember the easy
names of everyday things, and his father had been very vexed with
him, and had made him go to bed before tea-time, and wouldn't let
him go out in the nice flint boat along with the other children -
it was the annual school-treat next day - and he came and flung
himself down near me on the morning of the treat, and he kicked his
little prehistoric legs about and said he wished he was dead. And
of course then he was.'

'How awful!' said the children all together.

'Only till sunset, of course,' the Psammead said; 'still it was
quite enough for his father and mother. And he caught it when he
woke up - I can tell you. He didn't turn to stone - I forget why
- but there must have been some reason. They didn't know being
dead is only being asleep, and you're bound to wake up somewhere or
other, either where you go to sleep or in some better place. You
may be sure he caught it, giving them such a turn. Why, he wasn't
allowed to taste Megatherium for a month after that. Nothing but
oysters and periwinkles, and common things like that.'

All the children were quite crushed by this terrible tale. They
looked at the Psammead in horror. Suddenly the Lamb perceived that
something brown and furry was near him.

'Poof, poof, poofy,' he said, and made a grab.

'It's not a pussy,' Anthea was beginning, when the Sand-fairy
leaped back.

'Oh, my left whisker!' it said; 'don't let him touch me. He's
wet.'

Its fur stood on end with horror - and indeed a good deal of the
ginger-beer had been spilt on the blue smock of the Lamb.

The Psammead dug with its hands and feet, and vanished in an
instant and a whirl of sand.

The children marked the spot with a ring of stones.

'We may as well get along home,' said Robert. 'I'll say I'm sorry;
but anyway if it's no good it's no harm, and we know where the
sandy thing is for to-morrow.'

The others were noble. No one reproached Robert at all. Cyril
picked up the Lamb, who was now quite himself again, and off they
went by the safe cart-road.

The cart-road from the gravel-pits joins the road almost directly.

At the gate into the road the party stopped to shift the Lamb from
Cyril's back to Robert's. And as they paused a very smart open
carriage came in sight, with a coachman and a groom on the box, and
inside the carriage a lady - very grand indeed, with a dress all
white lace and red ribbons and a parasol all red and white - and a
white fluffy dog on her lap with a red ribbon round its neck. She
looked at the children, and particularly at the Baby, and she
smiled at him. The children were used to this, for the Lamb was,
as all the servants said, a 'very taking child'. So they waved
their hands politely to the lady and expected her to drive on. But
she did not. Instead she made the coachman stop. And she beckoned
to Cyril, and when he went up to the carriage she said:

'What a dear darling duck of a baby! Oh, I SHOULD so like to adopt
it! Do you think its mother would mind?'

'She'd mind very much indeed,' said Anthea shortly.

'Oh, but I should bring it up in luxury, you know. I am Lady
Chittenden. You must have seen my photograph in the illustrated
papers. They call me a beauty, you know, but of course that's all
nonsense. Anyway -'

She opened the carriage door and jumped out. She had the
wonderfullest red high-heeled shoes with silver buckles. 'Let me
hold him a minute,' she said. And she took the Lamb and held him
very awkwardly, as if she was not used to babies.

Then suddenly she jumped into the carriage with the Lamb in her
arms and slammed the door and said, 'Drive on!'

The Lamb roared, the little white dog barked, and the coachman
hesitated.

'Drive on, I tell you!' cried the lady; and the coachman did, for,
as he said afterwards, it was as much as his place was worth not
to.

The four children looked at each other, and then with one accord
they rushed after the carriage and held on behind. Down the dusty
road went the smart carriage, and after it, at double-quick time,
ran the twinkling legs of the Lamb's brothers and sisters.

The Lamb howled louder and louder, but presently his howls changed
by slow degree to hiccupy gurgles, and then all was still and they
knew he had gone to sleep.

The carriage went on, and the eight feet that twinkled through the
dust were growing quite stiff and tired before the carriage stopped
at the lodge of a grand park. The children crouched down behind
the carriage, and the lady got out. She looked at the Baby as it
lay on the carriage seat, and hesitated.

'The darling - I won't disturb it,' she said, and went into the
lodge to talk to the woman there about a setting of Buff Orpington
eggs that had not turned out well.

The coachman and footman sprang from the box and bent over the
sleeping Lamb.

'Fine boy - wish he was mine,' said the coachman.

'He wouldn't favour YOU much,' said the groom sourly; 'too
'andsome.'

The coachman pretended not to hear. He said:

'Wonder at her now - I do really! Hates kids. Got none of her
own, and can't abide other folkses'.'

The children, crouching in the white dust under the carriage,
exchanged uncomfortable glances.

'Tell you what,' the coachman went on firmly, 'blowed if I don't
hide the little nipper in the hedge and tell her his brothers took
'im! Then I'll come back for him afterwards.'

'No, you don't,' said the footman. 'I've took to that kid so as
never was. If anyone's to have him, it's me - so there!'

'Stow your gab!' the coachman rejoined. 'You don't want no kids,
and, if you did, one kid's the same as another to you. But I'm a
married man and a judge of breed. I knows a first-rate yearling
when I sees him. I'm a-goin' to 'ave him, an' least said soonest
mended.'

'I should 'a' thought,' said the footman sneeringly, you'd a'most
enough. What with Alfred, an' Albert, an' Louise, an' Victor
Stanley, and Helena Beatrice, and another -'

The coachman hit the footman in the chin - the foot- man hit the
coachman in the waistcoat - the next minute the two were fighting
here and there, in and out, up and down, and all over everywhere,
and the little dog jumped on the box of the carriage and began
barking like mad.

Cyril, still crouching in the dust, waddled on bent legs to the
side of the carriage farthest from the battlefield. He unfastened
the door of the carriage - the two men were far too much occupied
with their quarrel to notice anything - took the Lamb in his arms,
and, still stooping, carried the sleeping baby a dozen yards along
the road to where a stile led into a wood. The others followed,
and there among the hazels and young oaks and sweet chestnuts,
covered by high strong-scented bracken, they all lay hidden till
the angry voices of the men were hushed at the angry voice of the
red-and-white lady, and, after a long and anxious search, the
carriage at last drove away.

'My only hat!' said Cyril, drawing a deep breath as the sound of
wheels at last died away. 'Everyone DOES want him now - and no
mistake! That Sammyadd has done us again! Tricky brute! For any
sake, let's get the kid safe home.'

So they peeped out, and finding on the right hand only lonely white
road, and nothing but lonely white road on the left, they took
courage, and the road, Anthea carrying the sleeping Lamb.

Adventures dogged their footsteps. A boy with a bundle of faggots
on his back dropped his bundle by the roadside and asked to look at
the Baby, and then offered to carry him; but Anthea was not to be
caught that way twice. They all walked on, but the boy followed,
and Cyril and Robert couldn't make him go away till they had more
than once invited him to smell their fists. Afterwards a little
girl in a blue-and-white checked pinafore actually followed them
for a quarter of a mile crying for 'the precious Baby', and then
she was only got rid of by threats of tying her to a tree in the
wood with all their pocket-handkerchiefs. 'So that the bears can
come and eat you as soon as it gets dark,' said Cyril severely.
Then she went off crying. It presently seemed wise, to the
brothers and sisters of the Baby, who was wanted by everyone, to
hide in the hedge whenever they saw anyone coming, and thus they
managed to prevent the Lamb from arousing the inconvenient
affection of a milkman, a stone-breaker, and a man who drove a cart
with a paraffin barrel at the back of it. They were nearly home
when the worst thing of all happened. Turning a corner suddenly
they came upon two vans, a tent, and a company of gipsies encamped
by the side of the road. The vans were hung all round with wicker
chairs and cradles, and flower-stands and feather brushes. A lot
of ragged children were industriously making dust-pies in the road,
two men lay on the grass smoking, and three women were doing the
family washing in an old red watering-can with the top broken off.

In a moment all the gipsies, men, women, and children, surrounded
Anthea and the Baby.

'Let me hold him, little lady,' said one of the gipsy women, who
had a mahogany-coloured face and dust-coloured hair; 'I won't hurt

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Five Children and ItbyE. Nesbit

Part 1 out of 4

Five Children and It
by
E. Nesbit