After tea, Father romps with them, or reads to them from one of their own books or magazines; or perhaps they roast chestnuts on the hearth, or sing or recite to the "company." Too, they are allowed to sit up an hour or so later, and in this last hour every kind of pagan amusement is set going for their delight, so that they tumble at last to bed flushed with laughter, and longing for the six days to pass so that Sunday shall come again.
That is one domestic Sunday. But there are others. I like to think that there are only about three others, but unfortunately I know that there are over two thousand Sundays just like the one which I describe below.
Here Father and Mother are very successful, so successful that they live in a big house near Queen's Gate, and keep five servants as well as a motor-car. Sunday is a little different here from week-days, in that the children are allowed to spend the day outside the nursery, with their parents. They go to church in the morning with Mother and Father. They dine at midday with Mother and Father. In the afternoon they go to The Children's Service. They have tea in the drawing-room with Mother and Father. Father and Mother are Calvinists.
In the evening, Father and Mother sit, one on either side of the hearth; Father reading a weekly religious paper devoted to the creed of Calvin; Mother reading another religious paper devoted to the creed of Calvin. Throughout the day the children are never allowed to sing or hum any tune that may be called profane. They are never allowed to hop, skip, or jump. They are told that Jesus will not be pleased with them if they do. They are not allowed to read secular books or look at pagan pictures. In the afternoon, they are given Doré's Bible and an illustrated "Paradise Lost" or "Pilgrim's Progress." In the evening, after tea (which carries with it one piece of seed-cake as a special treat), they are seated, with injunctions to silence, at the table, away from the fire, and set to finding Bible texts from one given keyword. The one who finds most texts gets a cake to go to bed with; the other gets nothing.
So Ethel and Johnnie are at work, from six in the evening until nine o'clock, scratching through a small-type Bible for flavourless aphorisms. Ethel is set to find six texts, and finds four of them, when she perceives something funny in one of them. She shows it to Johnnie, and they both giggle. Father looks up severely, and warns her. Then Johnnie, not to be outdone, remembers something he has heard about at school, and hunts through the Book of Kings to find it. He finds it. It is funnier still; and he shows it to Ethel. She giggles again. Father looks up reprovingly at her. She tries to maintain composure of face, but just then Johnnie pinches her knee, so that she squeals with long-pent-up laughter.
Father and Mother get up. Her Bible is taken from her. Her pencil and paper are taken from her. She is made to stand on the hearthrug, with her hands behind her, while Mother and Father lecture her on Blasphemy. The bell is then rung, and Nurse is sent for. She is handed over to Nurse, with pitiless instructions. Nurse then takes her to her room, where she is undressed, put to bed, and severely slapped.
It is Sunday.... Over her little bed is a text in letters of flame: "Thou God seest me!" After burning with indignation and humiliation for some time, she falls at last to sleep, with an unspoken prayer of thanksgiving to her Heavenly Father that to-morrow is Monday.