CHAPTER I _The Way It All Began_ “I hate eggs!” said Meg, and smashed hers viciously with a spoon. “There, now, Miss Meg,” exclaimed Nurse, reprovingly, “you’ll never be able to eat it prettily out of the shell now!” “I don’t want to eat it prettily,” declared Meg. “I’m going to mix it up in a mess!” Bab made a face at hers, and did not even break the shell. Dick, being a boy and always hungry, ate his, but grumbled all the time. “Why do we always have eggs for tea?” demanded Meg. “I hate ’em!” “You oughtn’t to hate poor Humpty Dumpty!” said Nurse, smiling and shaking her finger at her. “Humpty Dumpty!” scoffed Meg. “So silly!” “Nursery rot!” cried Dick. “Nurse, what an old goose you are!” said Bab, eating bread and jam as fast as she possibly could. From all this you will see just what disagreeable children Dick and Meg and Bab were. If they had not been, this story would never have been written, for they would not have had to be taught better by being summoned to—But that comes later on! Our three children found fault with everything, particularly their food, and were discontented and quarrelsome most of the time. Poor Nurse loved them dearly, but found them very trying to take care of, and the children only laughed at her mild scoldings, and made fun of the fat finger which she shook at them as she sighed, “My dears, my dears!” They were quite pretty children. Meg had yellow hair, Bab black, and Dick brown; and they looked far too nice to be so horrid. And as a matter of fact, they were really, down in their hearts, much nicer than they seemed. The whole trouble with them was that—and this is a dreadful thing to say of any child!—they would have nothing to do with Make Believe Land! They did not believe in elves or goblins or giants or brownies, or anything really important and sensible, and they thought fairy tales silly! “Tell us a story, Nurse,” said Bab, when they had finished their tea. But Nurse shook her head. “You don’t care for my stories,” she said. “I only know the old ones, about the Fairy Queen—” “Silly!” said Meg. “And Santa Claus—” went on Nurse. “Rubbish!” cried Bab. “And Mother Goose—” Nurse continued. “Stuff and nonsense!” exclaimed Dick. Nurse looked really very sad and shocked. “My dears, my dears!” she said solemnly. “Some day, if you are not careful, you will be sorely punished for the things you have said about the friends of all the children of the world! Why, it’s downright wicked for a child not to love the Fairy Queen and Santa Claus and Mother Goose!” “If there ever was a Fairy Queen,” said Meg, scornfully, “she was a disagreeable thing,—turning people into spiders and toads and things!” “If there ever _had_ been a Santa Claus, he would have been an awful bore!” remarked Bab. “If there ever _could_ be a Mother Goose,” declared Dick, “she’d be a regular goose, and no mistake!”