Further Doings of Milly-Molly-Mandy Read online

  “I’ll have to ask Mother first if I may,” said Milly-Molly-Mandy then. So they went round the back way into the kitchen, where Mother and Grandma and Aunty were mixing the Christmas pudding, and Milly-Molly-Mandy asked her question.

  Just at first Mother looked a little doubtful. And then she said, “You know Christmas-time is giving time. If you don’t mean to knock at the doors and sing for money—”

  Milly-Molly-Mandy said, “No, we won’t.”

  “Why, that would be very nice, then,” said Mother, “if you do it as nicely as ever you can.”

  “We’ll do it our very best, just for love,” said Milly-Molly-Mandy; and Billy Blunt nodded. Then Mother gave them some almonds and bits of peel-sugar, and then Billy Blunt had to go back.

  The next day, directly tea was over, Milly-Molly-Mandy, very excited, slipped out of the house in her coat and muffler, and ran down to the gate to look for Billy Blunt.

  It was very dark. Presently she saw a bicycle lamp coming along the road. It was jogging up and down in a queer way for a bicycle. And then as it came near it started waving to and fro, and Milly-Molly-Mandy guessed there must be Billy Blunt with it; and she skipped up and down outside the gate, because it did look so exciting and Christmassy!

  “You ready? Come on,” said Billy Blunt, and the two of them set off down the road.

  Soon they came to the Moggs’ cottage, and began their carols. At the end of the first song little-friend-Susan’s head peered from behind the window curtain and in the middle of the second she came rushing out of the door, saying, “Oh, wait a bit while I get my hat and coat on, and let me join!”

  And Mrs Moggs called from inside, “Susan, bring them in quickly and shut that door, you’re chilling the house!”

  So they hurried inside and shut the door; and there was Mrs Moggs sitting by the fire with Baby Moggs in her lap, and Mr Moggs was fixing a bunch of holly over the mantelpiece. Mrs Moggs gave them each a lump of toffee, and then Milly-Molly-Mandy and Billy Blunt with little-friend-Susan went off to their caroling.

  When they came to the village they meant to sing outside Mr Blunt’s corn-shop, and Miss Muggins’ draper’s shop; but all the little shop-windows were so brightly lit up it made them feel shy.

  People were going in and out of Mr Smale the Grocer’s shop, and Mrs Hubble the Baker’s shop, and sometimes they stopped to look in Miss Muggins’ window (which was showing a lot of gay little penny toys and strings of tinsel balls, as well as gloves and handkerchiefs).

  Milly-Molly-Mandy said, “Let’s wait!” and Billy Blunt said, “Come on!” So they turned into the dark lane by the forge.

  They heard the cling-clang of a hammer banging on the anvil. And Milly-Molly-Mandy said, “Let’s sing to Mr Rudge!” So they went up to the half-open door of the forge.

  Billy Blunt blew a little note on the mouth-organ, and they started on their carol.

  By the end of the first verse the Blacksmith was bringing his hammer down in time to the music, and it sounded just like a big bell chiming; and then he began joining in, in a big humming sort of voice. And when they finished he shouted out, “Come on in and give us some more!”

  So Milly-Molly-Mandy and Billy Blunt and little-friend-Susan came in out of the dark.

  It was lovely in the forge, so warm and full of strange shadows and burnt-leathery sort of smells. They had a warm-up by the fire, and then began another song. And the Blacksmith sang and hammered all to time; and it sounded – as Mr Jakes the Postman popped his head in to say – “real nice and Christmassy!”

  THEY STARTED ON THEIR CAROL

  “Go on, give us some more,” said the Blacksmith, burying his horseshoe in the fire again to make it hot so that he could punch nail-holes in it.

  “We can’t do many more,” said Milly-Molly-Mandy, “because the mouth-organ isn’t quite big enough.”

  “Oh, never mind that,” said the Blacksmith. “Go on, William, give us Hark the Herald Angels Sing!”

  So Billy Blunt grinned and struck up, and everybody joined in so lustily that nobody noticed the missing top notes. While they were in the middle of it the door creaked open a little wider, and Miss Muggins’ Jilly slipped in to join the fun; and later on Mr and Mrs Blunt strolled over (when they had shut up shop); and then Mr Critch the Thatcher. And soon it seemed as if half the village were in and round the old forge, singing away, song after song, while the Blacksmith hammered like big bells on his anvil, and got all his horseshoes finished in good time before the holidays.

  Presently who should come in but Father! He had been standing outside for quite a time, listening with Mother and Uncle and Aunty and Mr Moggs (they had all strolled down to see what their children were up to, and stopped to join the singing).

  But soon Mother beckoned to Milly-Molly-Mandy from behind Father’s shoulder, and Miss Muggins peeped round the door and beckoned to Billy Blunt, and Mr Moggs to little-friend-Susan. They knew that meant bed, but for once they didn’t much mind, because it would make Christmas come all the sooner!

  So the carols came to an end, and the Blacksmith called out, “What about passing the hat for the carollers!”

  But Billy Blunt said with a grin, “You sang, too – louder than we did!”

  And little-friend-Susan said, “Everybody sang!”

  And Milly-Molly-Mandy said, “We did it for love – all of us!”

  And everybody said, “So we did, now!” and wished everybody else “Happy Christmas!”

  And then Milly-Molly-Mandy said, “Goodnight, see you tomorrow!” to Billy Blunt, and went skipping off home to bed, holding on to Father’s hand through the dark.

  About the Author

  Joyce Lankester Brisley was born over a hundred years ago, on 6 February 1896. She had two sisters: an elder one, Ethel, and Nina, who was just a year younger than Joyce. The family lived in Bexhill-on-Sea in Sussex, in a house so close to the sea that when there was a very high tide the waves would come right into the garden. Joyce’s father ran a chemist’s shop in the town. Her mother enjoyed drawing and painting, but had to spend most of her time looking after the home and her children.

  Joyce and her sisters were all good at art, like their mother, and went to evening classes at Hastings School of Art, taking the train there and back along the coast. By the time they were teenagers, “Eth” (as Ethel was always known in the family) was having her pictures accepted for exhibitions at the Royal Academy in London and was soon selling paintings as a result. Then, through a friend, the girls were invited to meet Miss Brown of the magazine Home Chat. They quickly began to do illustrations for this magazine, so for the first time all three sisters started to earn money for themselves.

  This money was soon to become very important for the family. In 1912, when Joyce was sixteen, her parents separated. In her diary (writing in French as if to keep it a secret) she recorded that her father wanted his family to leave the house. They stayed until Joyce and Nina had finished their term at art school, then the three girls moved with their mother to South London, where Eth had found them a tiny flat.

  In London, Joyce and Nina enrolled at the Lambeth School of Art in 1912 – an uncle kindly agreed to pay the fees for both girls. They studied there five days a week for two years. In 1913 they moved to a house with a large room that the three girls could use as a studio.

  The outbreak of the First World War in 1914 meant that food was scarce. Their mother had to spend a lot of time searching for meat and vegetables she could afford, while the girls worked hard earning money from illustrations for magazines, newspapers and advertisements. Joyce writes in her diary about drawing advertisements for Cherry Blossom boot polish and Mansion floor polish. She also writes about the German bombing raids on London – describing how, in September 1916, the sister had to get up in the middle of the night and go downstairs for safety, still in their nightclothes and bedtime plaits.

  Despite the war and constant worries about money, family life continued happily throughout this time. In 1
917 Joyce records in her diary that Nina (daringly) wanted to cut her hair short, and Eth longed to do the same, but Joyce felt “I couldn’t – it wouldn’t suit me well at all”. The sisters obviously got along very well together, but nevertheless Joyce wished she had some privacy. She was delighted when, shortly after her twenty-first birthday, she was able to have a room of her own – “My longing, for years and years.”

  In 1918 they all moved again, to a house with a larger studio. Joyce went with her mother and sisters to the local Christian Science Church. There they met an artist who worked for The Christian Science Monitor. As a result, both Joyce and Nina began submitting stories and drawings to the paper, and it was on the Children’s Page in October 1925 that the first story about Milly-Molly-Mandy appeared. The idea had come into Joyce’s mind one day when “the sun was shining and I longed to be out in the country instead of sitting indoors all day, earning a living . . .”

  Milly-Molly-Mandy was an immediate success and soon began to gain a strong following among readers. Joyce records that:

  “. . . boys and girls began writing letters to the paper, to the editors and to Milly-Molly-Mandy herself, wanting to know more about her, asking, Could she come for a holiday by the sea? Could she have a baby sister to take out riding in the pram? (She couldn’t, as she was an ‘only’ child, but little-friend-Susan could, and did.) Some of the letters enclosed foreign stamps for Billy Blunt’s collection (so generous!). One boy wrote all the way from Australia to tell me that ‘Father’ was shown digging with his wrong foot on the spade (for it seems the left foot is the right foot for digging with!). I wrote back to thank him and promised to alter the drawing before it went into a book – as you may see I did, for it’s nice to get things quite correct.”

  Joyce went on writing stories about Milly-Molly-Mandy for the rest of her life, but she wrote about other characters too, in books such as Marigold in Godmother’s House (1934) and Adventures of Purl and Plain (1941). She also illustrated stories by other authors and was specially chosen by her publisher, George Harrap, to draw the pictures for the first edition of Ursula Moray Williams’ Adventures of the Little Wooden Horse (1938).

  Joyce always remained close to her sisters. Nina, who became the first and much-loved illustrator of the Chalet School stories by Elinor M. Brent-Dyer, was the only one to marry. Ethel died in 1961, and Nina and Joyce died within a few months of each other, in 1978.

  Joyce Lankester Brisley seems to have been rather a shy person and she obviously didn’t like publicity. Once, after two of her pictures had been accepted by the Royal Academy and a journalist wanted to interview her, she telegraphed at once that she “would be out”. Maybe she was a bit like Milly-Molly-Mandy herself – happy to be busily getting on with whatever task or errand she’d set herself for the day, and content with whatever good fortune life might bring her.

  Have you read

  Have you read

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  Books about Milly-Molly-Mandy from Macmillan Children’s Books

  Milly-Molly-Mandy Stories

  More of Milly-Molly-Mandy

  Further Doings of Milly-Molly-Mandy

  Milly-Molly-Mandy Again

  First published by George G. Harrap 1932

  This edition published 2018 by Macmillan Children’s Books

  This electronic edition published 2018 by Macmillan Children’s Books

  an imprint of Pan Macmillan

  20 New Wharf Road, London N1 9RR

  Associated companies throughout the world

  www.panmacmillan.com

  ISBN 978-1-5098-4506-4

  Copyright © Joyce Lankester Brisley 1932

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  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

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