STORIES TELLING.
"This is the cock that crowed in the morn."
Late that night, no, very early the next morning, just as dawn was breaking, the peacefully sleeping inhabitants of Mr. Caryll's house were awakened by strange and alarming sounds which seemed to come from the direction of the nursery. The children's mother was one of the first to wake, and yet the sounds which had roused her having been heard indistinctly through her sleep, she was not able to say what they were.
"It must be one of the children with croup—I am sure it sounded like what I have heard croup described, or like that dreadful illness they call the crowing cough," she said to Mr. Caryll, as she rushed out of the room in a fright.
She had only got to the end of the long passage leading to the children's rooms when she ran against Miss King, closely followed by her maid and one, two, three other servants all pale and alarmed.
"What can it be?" each said to the other.
"Martin, Martin," cried Mrs. Caryll, "are you there? What is the matter?"
But before any Martin was to be seen, again the sounds shrilled through the house.
"Kurroo—kurallarrallo-oo-ook!" with a queer sudden sort of pull-up at the end, it seemed to sound.
They all turned to look at each other.
"It must be a real cock," said Miss King, looking less frightened.
"It certainly doesn't sound like croup," said Mrs. Caryll.
"It's just one of them mischievous bantams, ma'am," said the cook, a countrywoman who had made a study of cocks and hens. "They always give that sort of catchy croak at the end of their crows. But, to be sure, what a fright it's gave us all! And where can the creature be?"
As she spoke, Martin appeared at the end of the passage, a basket in her arms, her face pale, leading by the hand a small figure in a white nightgown, a figure that pulled and pushed and kicked valiantly in its extreme reluctance to come any farther.
"I won't be takened to Mamma. I won't, I won't. I'm not naughty. It's zou that's ugly and naughty," it screamed.
Mrs. Caryll gave a despairing glance at her cousin.
"Hoodie again!" she said.
Martin hastened forward as fast as she could, considering the difficulties in her way.
"Oh, ma'am," she exclaimed, looking nearly ready to cry, "I am so sorry, so sorry and ashamed to have such an upset in the house at this time of the night, or morning, I should say. It really must seem with all these troubles as if I wasn't fit to manage the children. And just as Miss King has come, too. But oh dear, ma'am, I don't know what to do with Miss Hoodie and her queer ways."
"But what is it, Martin? What has Hoodie been doing?" said Mrs. Caryll, rather impatiently. "Stop crying, Hoodie. You must," she added sternly, turning to the little girl, who was now regularly set agoing on one of her roars.
Hoodie took not the slightest notice, but roared on. Her mother turned again to Martin, shaking her head.
"No, ma'am," said Martin, "it's not the least use speaking to her. She has wakened all the others, of course—first with that nasty creature and then with her screaming."
"What nasty creature? For goodness' sake explain yourself, Martin."
"The cock, ma'am—the bantam cock," replied Martin, seeming quite astonished that Mrs. Caryll did not know all about it by instinct. "Miss Hoodie fetched it in in her basket, unbeknown to me, last night, and had it hidden under her bed. The creature was quite quiet all night, as is its nature, I suppose, and very likely frightened and not knowing where it was. But this morning all of a sudden it started the most awful screeching; it really sounded much worse than common crowing, or else it was hearing it half in one's sleep like. I thought, to be sure, one of those dear boys had got some awful fit. And to think it was nothing but Miss Hoodie's naughtiness—real mischievous naughtiness." Martin stopped, quite out of breath, and Hoodie's roars increased in violence.
"Had she really no reason for it but mischief?" said Miss King.
Martin hesitated.
"She did begin some nonsense, ma'am, about having brought it in to lay an egg, or something like that."
"Hoodie," said Magdalen, "can't you leave off screaming and tell us about it?"
"No," said Hoodie, stopping at once and with perfect ease, "I can't leave off sc'eaming, and I won't. But I'll tell zou, 'cos it was for zou. I brought the little cock in to lay a egg for zour breakfast, 'cos zou said zou likened zem kite fresh, and now Martin's spoilt it all. Of course it c'owed to tell me it was going to lay the egg, and now it won't. It's all spoilt, and I must sc'eam."
True to her determination she set to work again and roared so that it was almost impossible to hear one's voice.
"What shall we do with her?" said her mother.
"May I take her to my room?" said Cousin Magdalen. "It is farther away from the other children, so she can't disturb them even if she screams all day."
Hoodie stopped again as suddenly as before.
"I won't go to zour room," she said. "I don't like zou now—not one bit."
Magdalen glanced at Mrs. Caryll.
"May I take my own way with her!" her glance seemed to say. Mrs. Caryll nodded her head, and notwithstanding Martin's whispered warning, "Oh, Miss King, you don't know what a work you'll have with her," Magdalen turned to Hoodie, and before the child in the least understood what she was about, she had picked her up in her strong young arms and was half way down the passage before Hoodie's surprise had given her breath to begin her roars again.
She was opening her mouth to do so, when her cousin stopped for a moment.
"Now, Hoodie," she said, "listen. It was kind of you to want to get me a quite fresh egg for my breakfast, but it isn't kind of you at all to make that disagreeable noise, and to kick and fight so because I want to take you to my room."
"I don't care," said Hoodie, "I don't like zou, and I will cry if I like. I don't like any people."
"I am very sorry to find you are so silly," said Cousin Magdalen. "If you were older and understood better you would not talk like that."
"I would if I liked," persisted Hoodie. "Big peoples can do whatever zey likes, and if I was big I could too."
"Big people can't do whatever they like," said Miss King, "and nice big people never like to do things that other people don't like too."
"Don't zey?" said Hoodie, meditatively. By this time they were safely shut into Miss King's room and Hoodie was plumped down into the middle of her cousin's bed—"Don't zey? Zen I don't want to be a nice big people. I want to be the kind that does whatever zey likes zerselves."
Miss King gave a slight sigh—half of amusement, half of despair. She was beginning to understand that Hoodie's reformation was indeed no easy matter.
"Very well, then. You had better go on screaming if you like it so much," she said, sitting down on the side of the bed and wondering to herself what would become of the world, if all the children in it were as tiresome to manage as Hoodie. In at the window the daylight was creeping timidly; all kinds of pretty colours were to be seen in the sky, and the birds were beginning their cheerful chatter. Still it was very early, and poor cousin Magdalen was sleepy. Was there anything that could make Hoodie go to sleep for an hour or two?
"The little birds in the nests are kind to each other. They don't wake each other up in the night and scream so that there is no peace. I wonder why children can't be good too," she said.
"I'm not sc'eaming," said Hoodie indignantly. "I've stoppened."
"I'm glad to hear it. But if I get into bed and lie down and try to go to sleep, perhaps you'll begin again, as you don't care for what other people like."
Hoodie was silent for a minute.
"Does you want to go to sleep?"
"Yes," said Magdalen. "I'm very tired."
"Zen I won't sc'eam."
Her cousin felt inclined to clap her hands, but wisely forbore.
"Thank you," she said quietly, as she lay down.
Hoodie wriggled.
"No, zou isn't to say zank zou," she said. "I don't like zou. I don't like any people, 'cos they stopped my getting zat nice fresh egg. I won't get zou eggs no more. I don't like zou."
"Very well," said her cousin.
Some minutes' quiet followed. Then Hoodie's voice again.
"When will zou tell us that story?" she inquired coolly.
"What story?"
"Zat story about oldwashion fairies, or some'sing like zat."
"Oh, I said I'd try to think of a story for you," said Miss King, sleepily. "Well, I won't forget."
"Zou must get it ready quick," said Hoodie. "Zou must tell it me, zou know, 'cos I've been so good about not sc'eaming."
"But not now. You don't want me to tell you stories now," said her cousin in alarm.
"No, zou may go to sleep now," replied Hoodie, condescendingly, adding after a moment's pause, "I can tell stories, lovely stories."
"Can you? well, you had better think of one, and have it all ready," said Magdalen in fresh alarm.
"Mine's is always zeady, but zou may go to sleep now," was the reply, to her great relief, the truth being that Hoodie herself was as sleepy as she could be, for in two minutes her soft even breathing told that for a while her fidgety little spirit was at rest.
Magdalen lay awake some time longer. In a half-dreamy way she was thinking over in her own mind the old fairy tales she had loved as a little girl—with them there mingled in her fancy the scenes and memories of her own childhood. She was glad to find Hoodie so eager for stories, it might be one way of winning the strange-tempered little creature's confidence, and she tried to call to mind some of the tales most likely to interest her. And somehow, "between sleeping and waking," there came back to her mind the shadow of a fanciful little story she had either read or heard or imagined long ago, and as she fell asleep she said to herself, "Yes, that will do. I will tell them the story of 'The Chintz Curtains.'"
When Magdalen awoke again that morning it was, as might have been expected, a good deal later than usual. Hoodie was still sleeping soundly. Magdalen got up and dressed quietly. She was nearly quite ready when Hoodie awoke. A little movement in the bed caught Miss King's notice: she turned round. There was Hoodie, staring at her with wide-open eyes.
"Well, Hoodie," she said, "how are you this morning?"
Hoodie did not reply, but continued staring, so her cousin went on fastening up her hair. In a minute or two there came a remark, or question rather.
"Has zou had a nice sleep?"
