The mother, on hearing the proposal, says at once, without waiting for any explanations,
"Oh no, I would not do that. It is a very foolish plan. You will only get yourselves all muddy. Besides, you can't catch any fishes to put into it, and if you do, they won't live. And then the grass is so thick that you could not get it up to make your hole."
But William says that they can dig the grass up with their little spades.
They had tried it, and found that they could do so.
And James says that they have already tried catching the fishes, and found that they could do it by means of a long-handled dipper; and Lucy says that they will all be very careful not to get themselves wet and muddy.
"But you'll get your feet wet standing on the edge of the brook," says the mother. "You can't help it."
"No, mother," replies James, "there is a large flat stone that we can stand upon, and so keep our feet perfectly dry. See!"
So saying, he shows his own feet, which are quite dry.
Thus the discussion goes on; the objections made—being, as usual in such cases, half of them imaginary ones, brought forward only for effect—are one after another disposed of, or at least set aside, until at length the mother, as if beaten off her ground after a contest, gives a reluctant and hesitating consent, and the children go away to commence their work only half pleased, and separated in heart and affection, for the time being, from their mother by not finding in her, as they think, any sympathy with them, or disposition to aid them in their pleasures.
They have, however, by their mother's management of the case, received an excellent lesson in arguing and teasing. They have found by it, what they have undoubtedly often found on similar occasions before, that their mother's first decision is not at all to be taken as a final one; that they have only to persevere in replying to her objections and answering her arguments, and especially in persisting in their importunity, and they will be pretty sure to gain their end at last.
This mode of management, also, has the effect of fixing the position of their mother in their minds as one of antagonism to them in respect to their childish pleasures.