The Ameliorator,
Market Square,
City of Birds.
The words seemed to Bertram too good to be true, and he read them again slowly. '"Sad faces brightened with the utmost despatch." "Tears dried." That's for girls of course,' he remarked (but why he was so emphatic it is difficult to say, since it was only last night that——but that's of no importance). '"Bad governesses punished." Hooroo! "Hard lessons made easy." Now this,' said Bertram, 'is the right kind of fellow, this A-M-E-L-I-O-R-A-T-O-R, this Ameliorator!' and so saying, he pushed the card into his pocket and looked out of the window to whistle good-morning to his robin. But the bird was not there. His face fell again. 'Pooh,' he said, 'they're all against me now, but I don't care,' and as he walked downstairs to breakfast, he made up his mind to be thoroughly fractious.
V
THE CROSS-GRAINED MORNING
In the City of Birds there were several large green gardens set aside for children. These gardens were the finest places in the world in which to play hide-and-seek, because of the summer-houses and grottoes and winding paths; also there were ponds to sail boats on, and trees to climb, and caves for robbers, and a little circle of wet grass in the midst of rhododendron bushes for fairies to plot and plan in; and for very hot afternoons a soft bank where you could lie in the shade of a cedar which seemed to bless the earth with its broad hands.
Every morning after lessons the four children used to meet in one of these gardens and play till dinner-time. Sometimes they would play cricket until they were too tired to run another yard, and then lean over the rim of the fountain and watch the goldfish gliding silently through the water, or they would sail their boats on the pond, or join in the marriage ceremonies of two of the blue ants that lived in the bark of the cedar. There was always plenty of excitement at a blue ant's wedding, on account of the bad behaviour of the company. The bridegroom had a way of ignoring the solemnity of the occasion and trying to walk to church with one of the bridesmaids, or even the bride's mother, while sometimes the bride would forget all about her duties, and leave the procession in order to pick up and stagger away with a ridiculous piece of wood which she could not possibly really need. Very often the bride had to be changed as often as six times before the church was reached, where Bertram, who always insisted on being the clergy-man, was waiting to perform the service. Ants, it must be confessed, are not good at games: they are too busy, or, as Bertram put it, too selfish. Neither are wood-lice. Just at important moments wood-lice turn sulky and roll themselves into little balls. Worms are most trust-worthy, although never eager for sensible play; but worms are slimy, and Beryl always refused to touch them. Spiders, too, have a way of getting down one's neck. Perhaps frogs are best of all. Frogs are quite satisfactory; they always jump when you touch them up. Toads, on the other hand, are sulky; but their eyes are good to look into.
On this particular morning, Bertram and Beryl, Bobus and Aline met as usual, but for some reason or other they found it impossible to have a really good game; whatever they tried appeared flat and tiresome. They began with cricket and were fairly successful until Bobus hit the ball into the pond, where it immediately sank. Hitherto it always had floated. Cricket, therefore, was over. Hide-and-seek took its place and was going pretty well until Aline fell and hurt her knee. So no more hide-and-seek. They tried the blue ants, and then the lizards that lived under the leaves in the violet bed; but met with nothing but unsociableness. The ants were quite nasty at being interfered with, and one of them crawled up Beryl's arm.
At last the children made up their minds to try no longer, and instead they lay on their backs on the grass and grumbled. It was clear that the world was against them, and what is the good of fighting in the face of such opposition? Bertram began the grumbling. 'Old Tabby,' he said,—that being the way in which he spoke of Miss Tabitha, his governess,—'is a beast. She makes me learn heaps of things which nobody can ever need to know.'
'And I mayn't have a new doll,' said Beryl.