If I ever keep a school everything shall be quite different. Nobody shall learn anything they don’t want to. And sometimes instead of having masters and mistresses we will have cats, and we will dress up in cat skins and learn purring. ‘Now, my dears,’ the old cat will say, ‘one, two, three all purr together,’ and we shall purr like anything.
She won’t teach us to mew, but we shall know how without teaching. Children do know some things without being taught.—ALICE.
—————— POETRY
(Translated into French by Dora)
Quand j’etais jeune et j’etais fou
J’achetai un violon pour dix-huit sous
Et tous les airs que je jouai
Etait over the hills and far away.
Another piece of it
Mercie jolie vache qui fait
Bon lait pour mon dejeuner
Tous les matins tous les soirs
Mon pain je mange, ton lait je boire.
—————— RECREATIONS
It is a mistake to think that cats are playful. I often try to get a cat to play with me, and she never seems to care about the game, no matter how little it hurts.—H. O.
Making pots and pans with clay is fun, but do not tell the grown-ups. It is better to surprise them; and then you must say at once how easily it washes off—much easier than ink.—DICKY.
—————— SAM REDFERN, OR THE BUSH RANGER’S BURIAL
By Dicky
‘Well, Annie, I have bad news for you,’ said Mr Ridgway, as he entered the comfortable dining-room of his cabin in the Bush. ‘Sam Redfern the Bushranger is about this part of the Bush just now. I hope he will not attack us with his gang.’
‘I hope not,’ responded Annie, a gentle maiden of some sixteen summers.
Just then came a knock at the door of the hut, and a gruff voice asked them to open the door.
‘It is Sam Redfern the Bushranger, father,’ said the girl.