“Bubbles!” cried Ginger dancing up and down. “You’re going to blow bubbles!”
“God bless the child, no!” said Mrs. Green. “Balloons.”
“Are balloons blown too?” asked Ginger.
“How else did you suppose they was made?” asked Mrs. Green.
“I never did suppose,” said Ginger meekly. “I’ve always taken balloons for granted until something happened, and they weren’t there to be taken for anything.”
Mrs. Green put the bowl of the pipe in the liquid, and the stem of it in her mouth, and puffed. In a moment a flame-coloured balloon had risen like the sun out of the sea. Everybody clapped. Before she took it off the pipe Mrs. Green secured it with a string, and added it to the bundle on her apron. Then she blew a purple one like a plum, then a peach-coloured one, then half-a-dozen pale green ones, like a cluster of grapes. It was prettier than fireworks, and more wonderful than Indian Mangoes that bloom in thirty seconds and die in fifty-nine.
“What a lovely life you have!” breathed Ginger. “I wish I were a balloon girl.”
“There’s no rest in it,” said Mrs. Green. “It’s like cooking and housework—has to be done all over again next day. The children are that demanding and that destructive. You can’t make these things to last like the pawnbroker’s balls or the Dome of Saint Paul’s.”
“What lungs Sir Christopher Wren must have had,” said Gypsy.
“And Mr. Attenborough,” said Ginger.