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in the sun like burnished silver."
The captain laughed and grasped the hilt of his good blade. But Oswald said, hurriedly:
"Don't. Not yet. We sha'n't ever have a chance like this. If you'd only show us the pursuing practice! Albert's uncle knows it; but he only does it on an arm-chair, because he hasn't a horse."
And that brave and swagger captain did really do it. He rode his horse right into our gate when we opened it, and showed us all the cuts, thrusts, and guards. There are four of each kind. It was splendid. The morning sun shone on his flashing blade, and his good steed stood with all its legs far apart and stiff on the lawn. Then we opened the paddock gate and he did it again, while the horse galloped as if upon the bloody battle-field among the fierce foes of his native land, and this was far more ripping still.
Then we thanked him very much, and he went away, taking his men with him. And the guns, of course.
Then we wrote to my father, and he said "Yes," as we knew he would, and next time the soldiers came by—but they had no guns this time, only the captive Arabs of the desert—we had the keepsakes ready in a wheelbarrow, and we were on the church-yard wall.
And the bold captain called an immediate halt.
Then the girls had the splendid honor and pleasure of giving a pipe and four whole ounces of tobacco to each soldier.
Then we shook hands with the captain and the sergeant and the corporals, and the girls kissed the captain—I can't think why girls will kiss everybody—and we all cheered for the Queen.
It was grand. And I wish my father had been there to see how much you can do with £12 if you order the things from the Stores.
We have never seen those brave soldiers again.
I have told you all this to show you how we got so keen about soldiers, and why we sought to aid and abet the poor widow at the white cottage in her desolate and oppressedness.
Her name was Simpkins, and her cottage was just beyond the church-yard, on the other side from our house. On the different military occasions which I have remarked upon this widow woman stood at her garden gate and looked on. And after the cheering she rubbed her eyes with her apron. Alice noticed this slight but signifying action.
We feel quite sure Mrs. Simpkins liked soldiers, and so we felt friendly to her. But when we tried to talk to her she would not. She told us to go along with us, do, and not bother her. And Oswald, with his usual delicacy and good breeding, made the others do as she said.
But we were not to be thus repulsed with impunity. We made complete but cautious inquiries, and found out that the reason she cried when she saw soldiers was that she had only one son, a boy. He was twenty-two, and he had gone to the war last April. So that she thought of him when she saw the soldiers, and that was why she cried. Because when your son is at the wars you always think he is being killed. I don't know why. A great many of them are not. If I had a son at the wars I should never think he was dead till I heard he was, and perhaps not then, considering everything.
After we had found this out we held a council.
Dora said, "We must do something for the soldier's widowed mother."
We all agreed, but added, "What?"
Alice said, "The gift of money might be deemed an insult by that proud, patriotic spirit. Besides, we haven't more than eighteenpence among us."
We had put what we had to father's £12 to buy the baccy and pipes.
The Mouse then said, "Couldn't we make her a flannel petticoat and leave it without a word upon her doorstep?"
But every one said, "Flannel petticoats in this weather?" so that was no go.
Noël said he would write her a poem, but Oswald had a deep, inward feeling that Mrs. Simpkins would not understand poetry. Many people do not.
H. O. said, "Why not sing 'Rule Britannia' under her window after she had gone to bed, like waits," but no one else thought so.
Denny thought we might get up a subscription for her among the wealthy and affluent, but we said again that we knew money would be no balm to the haughty mother of a brave British soldier.
"What we want," Alice said, "is something that will be a good deal of trouble to us and some good to her."
"A little help is worth a deal of poetry," said Denny. I should not have said that myself. Noël did look sick.
"What does she do that we can help in?" Dora asked. "Besides, she won't let us help."
H. O. said, "She does nothing but work in the garden. At least if she does anything inside you can't see it, because she keeps the door shut."
Then at once we saw. And we agreed to get up the very next day, ere yet the rosy dawn had flushed the east, and have a go at Mrs. Simpkins's garden.
We got up. We really did. But too often when you mean to, over night, it seems so silly to do it when you come to waking in the dewy morn. We crept down-stairs with our boots in our hands. Denny is rather unlucky, though a most careful boy. It was he who dropped his boot, and it went blundering down the stairs, echoing like thunder-bolts, and waking up Albert's uncle. But when we explained to him that we were going to do some gardening he let us, and went back to bed.
Everything is very pretty and different in the early morning, before people are up. I have been told this is because the shadows go a different way from what they do in the awake part of the day. But I don't know. Noël says the fairies have just finished tidying up then. Anyhow it all feels quite otherwise.
We put on our boots in the porch, and we got our gardening tools and we went down to the white cottage. It is a nice cottage, with a thatched roof, like in the drawing-copies you get at girls' schools, and you do the thatch—if you can—with a B.B. pencil. If you cannot, you just leave it. It looks just as well, somehow, when it is mounted and framed.
We looked at the garden. It was very neat. Only one patch was coming up thick with weeds. I could see groundsell and chickweed, and others that I did not know. We set to work with a will. We used all our tools—spades, forks, hoes, and rakes—and Dora worked with the trowel, sitting down, because her foot was hurt. We cleared the weedy patch beautifully, scraping off all the nasty weeds and leaving the nice clean brown dirt. We worked as hard as ever we could. And we were happy, because it was unselfish toil, and no one thought then of putting it in the Book of Golden Deeds, where we had agreed to write down our virtuous actions and the good doings of each other, when we happen to notice them.
We had just done, and we were looking at the beautiful production of our honest labor, when the cottage door burst open, and the soldier's widowed mother came out like a wild tornado, and her eyes looked like upas-trees—death to the beholder.
"You wicked, meddlesome, nasty children!" she said, "ain't you got enough of your own good ground to runch up and spoil but you must come into my little lot?"
Some of us were deeply alarmed, but we stood firm.
"We have only been weeding your garden," Dora said; "we wanted to do something to help you."
"Dratted little busybodies," she said. It was indeed hard, but every one in Kent says "dratted" when they are cross. "It's my turnips," she went on, "you've hoed up, and my cabbages. My turnips that my boy sowed afore he went. There, get along with you, do, afore I come at you with my broom-handle."
She did come at us with her broom-handle as she spoke, and even the boldest turned and fled. Oswald was even the boldest.
"They looked like weeds right enough," he said.
And Dicky said, "It all comes of trying to do golden deeds."
This was when we were out in the road.
As we went along, in a silence full of gloomy remorse, we met the postman. He said:
"Here's the letters for