That made a lot of brothers, didn't it? Five, counting baby, and to match them, or rather not to match them—for five and one are not a match at all—only one little girl! She wondered about it a good deal, when she had nothing else more interesting to wonder about. It seemed so very badly managed that she should have five brothers, and that the five brothers should only have one sister each. It wasn't always so, she knew. The children at the back had plenty of both brothers and sisters; she had found that out already. But I must not begin just yet about the children at the back; you will hear about them in good time.
There was a nice bowl of bread-and-milk at each child's place, and as bread-and-milk is much better hot than cold, it was generally eaten up quickly. But this morning, even after the grace was said, and the four brothers who weren't baby had got on very well with theirs, Peggy sat, spoon in hand, gazing before her and not eating at all.
"What's the matter, Miss Peggy?" said nurse, when she had at last made Baby understand that he really wasn't to try to put his toes into her tea-cup, which had struck him suddenly as a very beautiful thing to do; "you've not begun to eat. Are you waiting for the sugar or the salt, or can't you fix which you want this morning?"
For there was a very nice and interesting rule in that nursery that every morning each child might choose whether he or she would have salt or sugar in the bread and milk. The only thing was that they had to be quick about choosing, and that was not always very easy.
Peggy looked up when nurse spoke to her.
"Peggy wasn't 'toosing," she said. Then she grew a little red. "I wasn't 'toosing," she went on. For Peggy was five—five a good while ago—and she wanted to leave off baby ways of talking. "I was wondering."
"Well, eat your breakfast, and when you've got half-way down the bowl you can tell us what you were wondering about," said nurse.
Peggy's spoon, already laden, continued its journey to her mouth. But when it got there, and its contents were safely deposited between her two red lips, she gave a little cry.
"Oh!" she said, "it doesn't taste good. There's no salt or sugar."
"'Cos you didn't put any in, you silly girl," said Thor. "I saw, but I thought it'd be a good lesson. People shouldn't wonder when they're eating."