The Wouldbegoods Read Online Free PDF Page B

out, ‘That’s the very thing!’ Then the girls went off to write out the rules, and took H.O. with them, andNoel went to write some poetry to put in the minute book. That’s what you call the book that a society’s secretary writes what it does in. Denny went with him to help. He knows a lot of poetry. I think he went to a lady’s school where they taught nothing but that. He was rather shy of us, but he took to Noel. I can’t think why. Dicky and Oswald walked round the garden and told each other what they thought of the new society.
    ‘I’m not sure we oughtn’t to have put our foot down at the beginning,’ Dicky said. ‘I don’t see much in it, anyhow.’
    ‘It pleases the girls,’ Oswald said, for he is a kind brother.
    ‘But we’re not going to stand jaw, and “words in season”, and “loving sisterly warnings”. I tell you what it is, Oswald, we’ll have to run this thing our way, or it’ll be jolly beastly for everybody.’
    Oswald saw this plainly.
    ‘We must do something,’ Dicky said; ‘it’s very very hard, though. Still, there must be
some
interesting things that are not wrong.’
    ‘I suppose so,’ Oswald said, ‘but being good is so much like being a muff, generally. Anyhow I’m not going to smooth the pillows of the sick, or read to the aged poor, or any rot out of Ministering Children.’
    ‘No more am I,’ Dicky said. He was chewing a straw like the head had in its mouth, ‘but I suppose we must play the game fair. Let’s begin by looking out for something useful to do – something like mending things or cleaning them, not just showing off.’
    ‘The boys in books chop kindling wood and save their pennies to buy tea and tracts.’
    ‘Little beasts!’ said Dick. ‘I say, let’s talk about something else.’ And Oswald was glad to, for he was beginning to feel jolly uncomfortable.
    We were all rather quiet at tea, and afterwards Oswald played draughts with Daisy and the others yawned. I don’t know when we’ve had such a gloomy evening. And everyone was horribly polite, and said ‘Please’ and ‘Thank you’ far more than requisite.
    Albert’s uncle came home after tea. He was jolly, and told us stories, but he noticed us being a little dull, and asked what blight had fallen on our young lives. Oswald could have answered and said, ‘It is the Society of the Wouldbegoods that is the blight,’ but of course he didn’t and Albert’s uncle said no more, but he went up and kissed the girls when they were in bed, and asked them if there was anything wrong. And they told him no, on their honour.
    The next morning Oswald awoke early. The refreshing beams of the morning sun shone on his narrow white bed and on the sleeping forms of his dear little brothers and Denny, who had got the pillow on top of his head and was snoring like a kettle when it sings. Oswald could not remember at first what was the matter with him, and then he remembered the Wouldbegoods, and wished he hadn’t. He felt at first as if there was nothing you could do, and even hesitated to buzz a pillow at Denny’s head. But he soon saw that this could not be. So he chucked his boot and caught Denny right in the waistcoat part, and thus the day began more brightly than he had expected.
    Oswald had not done anything out of the way good the night before, except that when no one was lookinghe polished the brass candlestick in the girls’ bedroom with one of his socks. And he might just as well have let it alone, for the servants cleaned it again with the other things in the morning, and he could never find the sock afterwards. There were two servants. One of them had to be called Mrs Pettigrew instead of Jane and Eliza like others. She was cook and managed things.
    After breakfast Albert’s uncle said –
    ‘I now seek the retirement of my study. At your peril violate my privacy before 1.30 sharp. Nothing short of bloodshed will warrant the intrusion, and nothing short of man- or rather boy-slaughter