Anne's terrible good nature, and other stories for children

by E. V. Lucas

And thus everything was settled, and Matilda was sent home with Frederick the page boy, the happiest and most responsible Little Mother in London, with an armful of good things for the family.

VI

Meanwhile Pembroke had been to Houndsditch buying quantities of new toys: for every Little Mother a large doll and a work-basket, and smaller dolls and other toys for the others, together with sweets and oranges and all kinds of other things, and everything was ready by the day before Christmas Eve, and all the tickets were distributed.

The tickets were Pembroke’s idea, because one difficulty about opening a free toy-shop in a poor district of London for one day only is that even the invited children, not having had your opportunities of being brought up nicely and learning good manners, are apt to push and struggle to get in out of their turn, and perhaps even to try to get in twice, while there would be trouble, too, from the children who did not belong to the district. Pembroke knew this, and thought a good deal about the way to manage it so that there should be no crowding or difficulty. In the end Sir Franklin engaged a large hall, to which all the children were to come with their tickets, and from this hall they were to visit the shop in little companies of ten, make their choice of toys, and then go straight home. Of course, a certain number of other children would gather round the shop, but that could not be helped, and perhaps at the close of the afternoon, when all the others had been looked after, they might be let in to choose what was left. And in this state were the things the night before Christmas Eve.

VII

Pembroke managed everything so well that the great day went off without a hitch. At half-past two the Little Mothers with their families began to arrive, and they were sent off to the shop in companies of ten or thereabouts, two or three families at once. A couple of friendly policemen kept the crowd away from the shop, so that the children had plenty of time and quiet to choose what they wanted.

All the Little Mothers, as I have said, had each a doll and a work-basket; but the younger children might make their choice of two things each, and take two things for any little brother or sister who could not come—Clerkenwell being full of little boys and girls who are not very well.

When they were chosen, Artie Gillam wrapped them up, and off the children went to make room for others.

Matilda was a splendid shopkeeper. She helped the smaller children to choose things in a way that might be a real lesson to real keepers of toy-shops, who always seem tired.

“Now then, Lizzie Hatchett,” she said, “you don’t want that jack-in-the-box. What’s the good of a jack-in-the-box to you if your brother’s got one? One in a family’s plenty. Better have this parasol: it lasts longer and is much more useful.