Adventure stories; Children -- Conduct of life -- Juvenile fiction; Children's stories; Fantasy literature; Short stories
Saturday was fine. We had hung the greenhouse with evergreens and
paper roses that looked almost like real among the green, and Miss
Blake let us have some Chinesy-looking curtains to cover over the
shelves and staging with. And the gardener let us have a lot of azaleas
and things in pots, so that it was all very bowery and flowery.
Alice's stall was the smartest looking, because Miss Blake had let her
have all the ribbons and things that were over from the other bazaar.
H. O.'s stall was also nice--all on silver tea-trays, so as not to be
stickier than needful.
The poetry stall had more flowers on it than any of the others, to make
up for the poetry looking so dull outside. Of course, you could not see
the sweet inside the packets till you opened them. Red azaleas are
prettier than poetry, I think. I think the tropic lands in 'Westward
Ho!' had great trees with flowers like that.
We got the Goat into the stovehouse. He was to be kept a secret till the
very last. And by half-past two we were all ready, and very clean and
dressed. We had all looked out everything we thought anyone could want
to buy, and that we could spare, and some things we could not, and most
of these were on Oswald's table--among others, several boxes of games
we had never cared about; some bags of marbles, which nobody plays now;
a lot of old books; a pair of braces with wool-work on them, that an
aunt once made for Oswald, and, of course, he couldn't wear them; some
bags of odd buttons for people who like sewing these things on; a lot of
foreign stamps, gardening tools, Dicky's engine, that won't go, and a
stuffed parrot, but he was moth-eaten.
About three our friends began to come, Mrs. Leslie, and Lord Tottenham,
and Albert's uncle, and a lot of others. It was a very grand party, and
they admired the bazaar very much, and all bought things. Mrs. Leslie
bought the engine for ten shillings, though we told her honestly it
would never go again, and Albert's uncle bought the parrot, and would
not tell us what he wanted it for. The money was put on a blue dish, so
that everyone could see how it got on, and our hearts were full of joy
as we saw how much silver there was among the pennies, and two or three
gold pieces too. I know now how the man feels who holds the plate at the
door in church.
Noel's poetry stall was much more paying than I thought it would be. I
believe nobody really likes poetry, and yet everyone pretends they do,
either so as not to hurt Noel's feelings, or because they think
well-brought-up people ought to like poetry, even Noel's. Of course,
Macaulay and Kipling are different. I don't mind them so much myself.
Noel wrote a lot of new poetry for the bazaar. It took up all his time,
and even then he had not enough new stuff to wrap up all the sugar
almonds in. So he made up with old poetry that he'd done before.
Albert's uncle got one of the new ones, and said it made him a proud
man. It was:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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