Racketty-Packetty House and Other Stories Read online

  Cynthia played nearly all day and the Duchess and Lady Gwendolen and Lady Muriel and Lady Doris and Lord Hubert and Lord Francis and Lord Rupert got worse and worse.

  By evening they were all raging in delirium and Lord Francis and Lady Gwendolen had strong mustard plasters on their chests. And right in the middle of their agony Cynthia suddenly got up and went away and left them to their fate—just as if it didn’t matter in the least. Well in the middle of the night Meg and Peg and Lady Patsy wakened all at once.

  “Do you hear a noise?” said Meg, lifting her head from her ragged old pillow.

  “Yes, I do,” said Peg, sitting up and holding her ragged old blanket up to her chin.

  Lady Patsy jumped up with feathers sticking up all over her hair, because they had come out of the holes in the ragged old bed. She ran to the window and listened.

  “Oh! Meg and Peg!” she cried out. “It comes from the Castle. Cynthia has left them all raving in delirium and they are all shouting and groaning and screaming.”

  Meg and Peg jumped up too.

  “Let’s go and call Kilmanskeg and Ridiklis and Gustibus and Peter Piper,” they said, and they rushed to the staircase and met Kilmanskeg and Ridiklis and Gustibus and Peter Piper coming scrambling up panting because the noise had wakened them as well.

  They were all over at Tidy Castle in a minute. They just tumbled over each other to get there—the kind-hearted things. The servants were every one fast asleep, though the noise was awful. The loudest groans came from Lady Gwendolen and Lord Francis because their mustard plasters were blistering them frightfully.

  Ridiklis took charge, because she was the one who knew the most about illness. She sent Gustibus to waken the servants and then ordered hot water and cold water, and ice, and brandy, and poultices, and shook the trained nurse for not attending to her business—and took off the mustard plasters and gave gruel and broth and cough syrup and castor oil and ipecacuanha, and every one of the Racketty-Packettys massaged, and soothed, and patted, and put wet cloths on heads, until the fever was gone and the Castle dolls all lay back on their pillows pale and weak, but smiling faintly at every Racketty-Packetty they saw, instead of turning up their noses and tossing their heads and sniffing loudly, and just scorning them.

  Lady Gwendolen spoke first and instead of being haughty and disdainful, she was as humble as a newborn kitten.

  “Oh! You dear, shabby, disrespectable darling things!” she said. “Never, never, will I scorn you again. Never, never!”

  “That’s right!” said Peter Piper in his cheerful, rather slangy way. “You take my tip—never you scorn any one again. It’s a mistake. Just you watch me stand on my head. It’ll cheer you up.”

  And he turned six somersaults—just like lightning—and stood on his head and wiggled his ragged legs at them until suddenly they heard a snort from one of the beds and it was Lord Hubert beginning to laugh and then Lord Francis laughed and then Lord Hubert shouted, and then Lady Doris squealed, and Lady Muriel screamed, and Lady Gwendolen and the Duchess rolled over and over in their beds, laughing as if they would have fits.

  “Oh! You delightful, funny, shabby old loves!” Lady Gwendolen kept saying. “To think that we scorned you.”

  “They’ll be all right after this,” said Peter Piper. “There’s nothing cures scarlet fever like cheering up. Let’s all join hands and dance ’round and ’round once for them before we go back to bed. It’ll throw them into a nice light perspiration and they’ll drop off and sleep like tops.” And they did it, and before they had finished, the whole lot of them were perspiring gently and snoring as softly as lambs.

  When they went back to Racketty-Packetty House they talked a good deal about Cynthia and wondered and wondered why she had left her scarlet fever so suddenly. And at last Ridiklis made up her mind to tell them something she had heard.

  “The Duchess told me,” she said, rather slowly because it was bad news—“The Duchess said that Cynthia went away because her Mama had sent for her—and her Mama had sent for her to tell her that a little girl princess is coming to see her tomorrow. Cynthia’s Mama used to be a maid of honor to the Queen and that’s why the little girl Princess is coming. The Duchess said—” and here Ridiklis spoke very slowly indeed, “that the nurse was so excited she said she did not know whether she stood on her head or her heels, and she must tidy up the nursery and have that Racketty-Packetty old dolls’ house carried downstairs and burned, early tomorrow morning. That’s what the Duchess said—”

  Meg and Peg and Kilmanskeg clutched at their hearts and gasped and Gustibus groaned and Lady Patsy caught Peter Piper by the arm to keep from falling. Peter Piper gulped—and then he had a sudden cheerful thought.

  “Perhaps she was raving in delirium,” he said.

  “No, she wasn’t,” said Ridiklis shaking her head. “I had just given her hot water and cold, and gruel, and broth, and castor oil, and ipecacuanha and put ice almost all over her. She was as sensible as any of us. Tomorrow morning we shall not have a house over our heads,” and she put her ragged old apron over her face and cried.

  “If she wasn’t raving in delirium,” said Peter Piper, “we shall not have any heads. You had better go back to the Castle tonight, Patsy. Racketty-Packetty House is no place for you.”

  Then Lady Patsy drew herself up so straight that she nearly fell over backwards.

  “I—will—never—leave you!” she said, and Peter Piper couldn’t make her.

  You can just imagine what a doleful night it was. They went all over the house together and looked at every hole in the carpet and every piece of stuffing sticking out of the dear old shabby sofas, and every broken window and chairleg and table and ragged blanket—and the tears ran down their faces for the first time in their lives. About six o’clock in the morning Peter Piper made a last effort.

  “Let’s all join hands in a circle,” he said quite faintly, “and dance ‘round and ’round once more.”

  But it was no use. When they joined hands they could not dance, and when they found they could not dance they all tumbled down in a heap and cried instead of laughing and Lady Patsy lay with her arms ’round Peter Piper’s neck.

  Now here is where I come in again—Queen Crosspatch-who is telling you this story. I always come in just at the nick of time when people like the Racketty-Packettys are in trouble. I walked in at seven o’clock.

  “Get up off the floor,” I said to them all and they got up and stared at me. They actually thought I did not know what had happened.

  “A little girl Princess is coming this morning,” said Peter Piper, “and our house is going to be burned over our heads. This is the end of Racketty-Packetty House.”

  “No, it isn’t!” I said. “You leave this to me. I told the Princess to come here, though she doesn’t know it in the least.”

  A whole army of my Working Fairies began to swarm in at the nursery window. The nurse was working very hard to put things in order and she had not sense enough to see Fairies at all. So she did not see mine, though there were hundreds of them. As soon as she made one corner tidy, they ran after her and made it untidy. They held her back by her dress and hung and swung on her apron until she could scarcely move and kept wondering why she was so slow. She could not make the nursery tidy and she was so flurried she forgot all about Racketty-Packetty House again—especially as my Working Fairies pushed the armchair close up to it so that it was quite hidden. And there it was when the little girl Princess came with her Ladies in Waiting. My Fairies had only just allowed the nurse to finish the nursery.

  Meg and Peg and Kilmanskeg and Ridiklis and Gustibus and Peter Piper and Lady Patsy were huddled up together looking out of one window. They could not bear to be parted. I sat on the arm of the big chair and ordered my Working Fairies to stand ready to obey me the instant I spoke.

  The Princess was a nice child and was very polite to Cynthia when she showed her all her dolls, and last but not least, Tidy Castle itself. She looked at all the roo
ms and the furniture and said polite and admiring things about each of them. But Cynthia realized that she was not so much interested in it as she had thought she would be. The fact was that the Princess had so many grand dolls’ houses in her palace that Tidy Castle did not surprise her at all. It was just when Cynthia was finding this out that I gave the order to my Working Fairies.

  “Push the armchair away,” I commanded, “very slowly, so that no one will know it is being moved.”

  So they moved it away—very, very slowly—and no one saw that it had stirred. But the next minute the little girl Princess gave a delightful start.

  “Oh! What is that!” she cried out, hurrying towards the unfashionable neighborhood behind the door.

  Cynthia blushed all over and the nurse actually turned pale. The Racketty-Packettys tumbled down in a heap beneath their window and began to say their prayers very fast.

  “It is only a shabby old dolls’ house, your Highness,” Cynthia stammered out. “It belonged to my Grandmamma, and it ought not to be in the nursery. I thought you had had it burned, Nurse!”

  “Burned!” the little girl Princess cried out in the most shocked way. “Why if it was mine, I wouldn’t have it burned for worlds! Oh! Please push the chair away and let me look at it. There are no dolls’ houses like it anywhere in these days.” And when the armchair was pushed aside she scrambled down on to her knees just as if she was not a little girl Princess at all.

  “Oh! Oh! Oh!” she said. “How funny and dear! What a darling old dolls’ house. It is shabby and wants mending, of course, but it is almost exactly like one my Grandmamma had—she kept it among her treasures and only let me look at it as a great, great treat.”

  Cynthia gave a gasp, for the little girl Princess’s Grandmamma had been the Queen and people had knelt down and kissed her hand and had been obliged to go out of the room backwards before her.

  The little girl Princess was simply filled with joy. She picked up Meg and Peg and Kilmanskeg and Gustibus and Peter Piper as if they had been really a Queen’s dolls.

  “Oh! The darling dears,” she said. “Look at their nice, queer faces and their funny clothes. Just—just like Grandmamma’s dollies’ clothes. Only these poor things do so want new ones. Oh! How I should like to dress them again just as they used to be dressed, and have the house all made just as it used to be when it was new.”

  “That old Racketty-Packetty House,” said Cynthia, losing her breath.

  “If it were mine I should make it just like Grandmamma’s and I should love it more than any dolls’ house I have. I never—never—never saw anything as nice and laughing and good-natured as these dolls’ faces. They look as if they had been having fun ever since they were born. Oh! If you were to burn them and their home I—I could never forgive you!”

  “I never—never—will, your Highness,” stammered Cynthia, quite overwhelmed. Suddenly she started forward.

  “Why, there is the lost doll!” she cried out. “There is Lady Patsy. How did she get into Racketty-Packetty House?”

  “Perhaps she went there to see them because they were so poor and shabby,” said the little girl Princess. “Perhaps she likes this one,” and she pointed to Peter Piper. “Do you know when I picked him up their arms were about each other. Please let her stay with him. Oh!” she cried out the next instant and jumped a little. “I felt as if the boy one kicked his leg.”

  And it was actually true, because Peter Piper could not help it and he had kicked out his ragged leg for joy. He had to be very careful not to kick any more when he heard what happened next.

  As the Princess liked Racketty-Packetty House so much, Cynthia gave it to her for a present—and the Princess was really happy—and before she went away she made a little speech to the whole Racketty-Packetty family, whom she had set all in a row in the ragged old, dear old, shabby old drawing room where they had had so much fun.

  “You are going to come and live with me, funny, good-natured loves,” she said. “And you shall all be dressed beautifully again and your house shall be mended and papered and painted and made as lovely as ever it was. And I am going to like you better than all my other dolls’ houses—just as Grandmamma said she liked hers.” And then she was gone.

  And every bit of it came true. Racketty-Packetty House was carried to a splendid Nursery in a Palace, and Meg and Peg and Kilmanskeg and Ridiklis and Gustibus and Peter Piper were made so gorgeous that if they had not been so nice they would have grown proud. But they didn’t. They only grew jollier and jollier and Peter Piper married Lady Patsy, and Ridiklis’s left leg was mended and she was painted into a beauty again—but she always remained the useful one. And the dolls in the other dolls’ houses used to make deep curtsies when a Racketty-Packetty House doll passed them, and Peter Piper could scarcely stand it because it always made him want to stand on his head and laugh—and so when they were curtsied at—because they were related to the Royal Dolls’ House—they used to run into their drawing room and fall into fits of giggles and they could only stop them by all joining hands together in a ring and dancing ’round and ’round and ’round and kicking up their heels and laughing until they tumbled down in a heap.

  And what do you think of that for a story. And doesn’t it prove to you what a valuable Friend a Fairy is—particularly a Queen one?

  Sara Crewe or What Happened at Miss Minchin’s

  In the first place, Miss Minchin lived in London. Her home was a large, dull, tall one, in a large, dull square, where all the houses were alike, and all the sparrows were alike, and where all the door-knockers made the same heavy sound, and on still days—and nearly all the days were still—seemed to resound through the entire row in which the knock was knocked. On Miss Minchin’s door there was a brass plate. On the brass plate there was inscribed in black letters,

  MISS MINCHIN’S

  SELECT SEMINARY FOR YOUNG LADIES

  Little Sara Crewe never went in or out of the house without reading that door-plate and reflecting upon it. By the time she was twelve, she had decided that all her trouble arose because, in the first place, she was not “Select,” and in the second, she was not a “Young Lady.” When she was eight years old, she had been brought to Miss Minchin as a pupil, and left with her. Her papa had brought her all the way from India. Her mamma had died when she was a baby, and her papa had kept her with him as long as he could. And then, finding the hot climate was making her very delicate, he had brought her to England and left her with Miss Minchin, to be part of the Select Seminary for Young Ladies. Sara, who had always been a sharp little child, who remembered things, recollected hearing him say that he had not a relative in the world whom he knew of, and so he was obliged to place her at a boarding-school, and he had heard Miss Minchin’s establishment spoken of very highly. The same day, he took Sara out and bought her a great many beautiful clothes—clothes so grand and rich that only a very young and inexperienced man would have bought them for a mite of a child who was to be brought up in a boarding-school. But the fact was that he was a rash, innocent young man, and very sad at the thought of parting with his little girl, who was all he had left to remind him of her beautiful mother, whom he had dearly loved. And he wished her to have everything the most fortunate little girl could have; and so, when the polite saleswomen in the shops said, “Here is our very latest thing in hats, the plumes are exactly the same as those we sold to Lady Diana Sinclair yesterday,” he immediately bought what was offered to him, and paid whatever was asked. The consequence was that Sara had a most extraordinary wardrobe. Her dresses were silk and velvet and India cashmere, her hats and bonnets were covered with bows and plumes, her small undergarments were adorned with real lace, and she returned in the cab to Miss Minchin’s with a doll almost as large as herself, dressed quite as grandly as herself, too.

  Then her papa gave Miss Minchin some money and went away, and for several days Sara would neither touch the doll, nor her breakfast, nor her dinner, nor her tea, and would do nothing but crouch in a sm
all corner by the window and cry. She cried so much, indeed, that she made herself ill. She was a queer little child, with old-fashioned ways and strong feelings, and she had adored her papa, and could not be made to think that India and an interesting bungalow were not better for her than London and Miss Minchin’s Select Seminary. The instant she had entered the house, she had begun promptly to hate Miss Minchin, and to think little of Miss Amelia Minchin, who was smooth and dumpy, and lisped, and was evidently afraid of her older sister. Miss Minchin was tall, and had large, cold, fishy eyes, and large, cold hands, which seemed fishy, too, because they were damp and made chills run down Sara’s back when they touched her, as Miss Minchin pushed her hair off her forehead and said:

  “A most beautiful and promising little girl, Captain Crewe. She will be a favorite pupil; quite a favorite pupil, I see.”

  For the first year she was a favorite pupil; at least she was indulged a great deal more than was good for her. And when the Select Seminary went walking, two by two, she was always decked out in her grandest clothes, and led by the hand, at the head of the genteel procession, by Miss Minchin herself. And when the parents of any of the pupils came, she was always dressed and called into the parlor with her doll; and she used to hear Miss Minchin say that her father was a distinguished Indian officer, and she would be heiress to a great fortune. That her father had inherited a great deal of money, Sara had heard before; and also that some day it would be hers, and that he would not remain long in the army, but would come to live in London. And every time a letter came, she hoped it would say he was coming, and they were to live together again.