Another girl of eleven writes:—
“My lady took me to Windsor Castle. The first thing I saw was the Thames. I went and had a paddled and then I went in the Castle and saw a lot of apple trees.”
The visits to Windsor are modern-day versions of the old story of the Cat who went to see the King and saw only “Mousey sitting under the Chair,” for another child records:—
“There were plenty of orchards with apple trees in it. But we would not pick them, or else we would be locked up but I went in the Castle and I saw a very large table with fifty chairs all round it and a piano and a looking glass covered up on the wall.”
One boy who was taken to the lighthouse, though only ten, was evidently eager for useful information. He writes:—
“I asked the man how many candlepowers it was but I forgot what he said——”
an experience not unknown to his elders and betters!
This child records that “when playing on the beach I made Buckingham Palace but a big boy came along and trod it and so we went home to bed”—an unconscious repetition of the often-recorded conclusion of Pepys’ eventful days.
One of the small excursionists was taken by her hostess to see Tonbridge, and writes: “We went to the muzeam wear we saw jitnoes of different people”.
The hospitality of the clergymen and their families and the goodness of doctors is also often mentioned. Some of the children write so vividly that the country vicarage and its sweet-smelling flowers, the hot curate and the active ladies, rise up as a picture, the “atmosphere” of which is kindness and “the values” incalculable. Other children merely record the facts—in some cases anticipating time and establishing an order of clergywomen.