Contents
Cover
About the Book
About the Author
Also by Betty MacDonald
Dedication
Title Page
1 Mrs Monday’s Boarding Home
2 Christmas Eve
3 What Was in the Box?
4 Nanela
5 The Sunday-School Picnic
6 A Magic Carpet
7 A Letter to Uncle John
8 Uncle John’s Visit
9 The Escape
10 Looking for Work
11 Back to Mrs Monday’s
12 Chicken Pie and New Shoes
13 ‘Merry Christmas, Everybody in the Whole World!’
Copyright
‘Big snowflakes fluttered slowly through the air like white feathers and made all of Heavenly Valley smooth and white and quiet and beautiful’
So here we are on Christmas Eve, locked up in rotten Mrs Monday’s boarding house with no presents and no Christmas dinner, while all the other children have gone home for the holidays. I’m Nancy, by the way, and this is my sister Plum. Luckily, we’re both pretty good at making up stories about the adventures and pretty dresses that we’d like to have, and that helps us put up with Mrs Monday’s horrible food and chores and her awful niece Marybelle. But one day, we’re going to escape, and then maybe we’ll find a nice home and a family all of our own. Wouldn’t that be just wonderful?
Betty MacDonald was born Anne Elizabeth Campbell Bard in Boulder, Colorado, in 1908. The daughter of an engineer, she spent her early years in the mining towns of Idaho, Montana and Mexico. When she was nine, her father took the family – his wife and five children – to Seattle, where Betty lived until shortly after her marriage. Among her books for children are Nancy and Plum, first published in 1952, and the popular American classic series Mrs Piggle-Wiggle.
The Egg and I
Mrs Piggie-Wiggle
The Plague and I
Mrs Piggie-Wiggle’s Magic
Anybody Can Do Anything
Mrs Piggie-Wiggle’s Farm
Onions in the Stew
Hello, Mrs Piggie-Wiggle
Who, Me?
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Epub ISBN 9781448182640
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Published by Vintage 2014
2 4 6 8 10 9 7 5 3 1
Copyright © Betty MacDonald 1952
Illustrations copyright © Catharina Baltas 2014
Afterword copyright © Jacqueline Wilson 2014
Betty MacDonald has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work
Vintage
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www.vintage-classics.info
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A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 9780099595175
For Anne and Joan
IT WAS CHRISTMAS Eve. Big snowflakes fluttered slowly through the air like white feathers and made all of Heavenly Valley smooth and white and quiet and beautiful. Tall fir trees stood up to their knees in the snow and their outstretched hands were heaped with it. Trees that were bare of leaves wore soft white fur on their scrawny, reaching arms and all the stumps and low bushes had been turned into fat white cupcakes. Mrs Monday’s big brick Boarding Home for Children wore drifts on its window sills, thick frosting on its steep slate roofs, big white tam o’shanters on its cold chimneys and by the light of the lanterns on either side of the big iron gates you could see that each of the gateposts wore a round snow hat. Even the sharp spikes of the high iron fence had been blunted by the snow.
However, in spite of its snowy decorations, in spite of the beauty of its setting, and even in spite of its being Christmas Eve, Mrs Monday’s was a forbidding-looking establishment. The fences were high and strong, the house was like a brick fortress and the windows, with the exception of one small one high up and almost hidden by the bare branches of a large maple tree, were like dark staring eyes. No holly wreath graced the heavy front door, no Christmas-tree lights twinkled through the windows and beckoned in the passer-by, no fragrant boughs nor pine cones were heaped on the mantel of the large cold fireplace, for Mrs Monday, her niece Marybelle Whistle and all but two of her eighteen boarders had gone to the city to spend Christmas. Nancy and Plum Remson (Plum’s real name was Pamela but she had named herself Plum when she was too little to say Pamela), the two boarders who remained, were left behind because they had no mother and father. No other place to go on Christmas Eve.
You see, six years before, when Nancy and Plum were four and two years old, their mother and father had been killed in a train wreck and the children turned over to their only living relative, one Uncle John, an old bachelor who lived in a club in the city, didn’t know anything about children, didn’t want to know anything about children and did not like children. When the telegram from the Remsons’ lawyer came notifying Uncle John of the tragic accident and the fact that he had just inherited two little girls, he was frantic.
‘Dreadful!’ he said, fanning himself with his newspaper. ‘Gallivanting around the country getting killed. Dreadful and careless! Two little children! Heavens! What will I do with them? I’ll have to move from this nice leather chair in this nice comfortable club and will probably wind up washing dishes and making doll clothes. Dreadful! Heavens!’ Beads of sweat sprang out on his forehead like dew and he fanned himself some more. It was while he was folding his newspaper to make a bigger and better fan that he noticed the advertisement. It read:
CHILDREN BOARDED—Beautiful country home with spacious grounds, murmuring brooks, own cows, chickens, pigs, and horses. Large orchard. Delicious home-cooked food. A mother’s tender loving care. Year round boarders welcome. Rates upon request. Address Mrs Marybelle Monday, Box 23, Heavenly Valley.
With trembling hands, Uncle John tore out the advertisement and wrote a letter to Mrs Monday. He received an immediate answer and three days later he was on his way to inspect this delightful boarding home so chock-full of good food and tender loving care for little children.
It was springtime in Heavenly Valley and the fields were golden with dandelions, the slopes were foaming with cherry blossoms, the sky was lazily rolling big white clouds around and meadowlarks trilled in the thickets. Uncle John was entranced. ‘Had forgotten the country was so beautiful!’ he said to his chauffeur. ‘Certainly the place for children. Beautiful, beautiful!’
When they drew up to the imposing entrance of Mrs Monday’s Boarding Home for Children, Uncle John was most impressed. ‘Nice, solid, respectable place,’ he said, noting the very large, sturdily built brick house surrounded by the high spiked iron fence. ‘Well built,’ he said to his chauffeur, who had jumped out to open the heavy iron gates for him.
‘It certainly is,’ the chauffeur said, wondering to himself why a boarding home for little children should have such a wicked-looking fence. Surely not just to keep the rolling lawns from oozing out into the road!
Just then Mrs Monday, who had been watching and waiting behind the curtains in her sitting room, came rushing out the front door, hands outstretched, thin mouth pulled apart in what was supposed to be a smile.
‘My dear, dear, dear Mr Remson,’ she gushed as Uncle John waddled up the walk. ‘Do come in. The dear little children and I have been waiting for you.’
Uncle John shook one of her hands briefly and said, ‘Nice place. Well built.’
Mrs Monday said, ‘Well, I always say, dear Mr Remson, nothing is too good for little children. Now,’ she said, piloting him into her sitting room, the only comfortable room in the large cold house, and settling him in an easy chair in front of the fireplace in which burned a nice cheerful little fire, ‘you must see my little ones. My little family!’ She rang for Katie to bring tea and to summon the children. Happy at the prospect of a cup of hot tea and perhaps toast with raspberry jam, Uncle John waited.
The first to come, however, was not the tea tray but Mrs Monday’s niece, Marybelle Whistle, a most unattractive, doughy child with pale close-set eyes, a mouth like a mail slot and hundreds of grayish-white curls that exploded from her head like sausages. For the occasion she had been carefully dressed in a ruffy pink silk dress, pink silk socks and shiny new black patent-leather slippers. Certain that she looked adorable, Marybelle flounced up to Uncle John and announced in a high squeaky voice, ‘How do you do, Mr Remson? I am Marybelle.’ Uncle John drew back with distaste and said, ‘Really!’ Marybelle said, ‘Yes, and I am very smart and can recite “The Children’s Hour” all the way through, want to hear me?’
‘Heavens, no!’ said Uncle John so loudly and forcefully that Marybelle, who had already opened her mouth to begin, jumped back and almost fell in the fireplace. This naturally caused much merriment among the other children, who though vigorously scrubbed, combed and braided (even if they had curly hair) had been instructed to stay outside the door so that Uncle John wouldn’t see their faded, patched clothing.
Uncle John, hearing their laughter and having no idea that he had been the cause of it, said, ‘Happy little things. Laughing children must be happy.’ Marybelle, who wasn’t happy and wasn’t laughing, sulkily left the room, and Uncle John, who didn’t know that she was Mrs Monday’s niece, turned to Mrs Monday, who was glaring at the children, and said, ‘Horrible, forward little creature. Must have dreadful parents. I can’t abide children who recite.’ This, of course, made the other children laugh so hard that Mrs Monday got up and tersely ordered them to be quiet and go to their rooms. She then firmly shut the sitting-room door. Then Katie brought the tea and there were not only toast and raspberry jam but fresh hot cupcakes. Uncle John forgot about Marybelle and concentrated on the food and after a while he looked at Mrs Monday and thought, ‘Fine woman. Taking care of other people’s children. Fine woman!’
If he had had the sense of a rabbit, of course, or had known or cared anything about children, he would have noticed that this ‘fine woman’ had large, cold, close-set eyes, a mouth that snapped shut like a purse, a smile that bared her large yellow teeth but did not light up her eyes, a voice that caused children to flinch and look frightened whenever she spoke to them and a general appearance about as warm and motherly as a pair of pliers. He would also have noticed that although Marybelle Whistle was well dressed, the other little boarders had sad hungry eyes, thin hungry bodies and ill-fitting, worn-out clothes.
But, as I have said, Uncle John didn’t care about children and he was very anxious to get rid of Nancy and Plum, so he saw what he wished to see and didn’t see what he didn’t wish to see, and three days later he delivered his two little nieces and all of their belongings to Mrs Monday. Since that day, as far as Nancy and Plum knew, he had not written or been to see them. He didn’t know if they got his presents, which they didn’t. Or if they were happy, which they weren’t. He paid Mrs Monday handsomely for their board and room and clothing and Mrs Monday wrote and told him how beautifully the children were growing and how happy they were. The two or three times Nancy and Plum had written to Uncle John, Mrs Monday had found and burned the letters.
SO HERE IT was Christmas Eve and Uncle John was sitting in his club in the city drinking from the wassail bowl and talking to his old cronies and if he thought of Nancy and Plum at all, which I doubt, it was only to wonder if they were too old for the dolls he had sent them.
In Heavenly Valley, Nancy and Plum, who hadn’t gotten the dolls, stood at the window of their cold, bare, little room straining their eyes through the snowflakes toward a far-off cluster of lights, like a handful of stars, that marked the schoolhouse where the Christmas Eve entertainment was being held.
Nancy said, ‘I wonder what time it is?’
Plum said, ‘About seven I guess. Mrs Monday and the children took the six o’clock train.’
Nancy said, ‘If it’s seven, then they’ll just be starting the carols at school.’
Plum said, ‘And old Squeaky Swanson will be singing the solo you should be singing. When she gets to the “Oh, Night Deeeeviiiiiine!” part she sounds like a screech owl, and anyway she doesn’t look like an angel. She looks like a mouse in a white nightgown.’
Nancy laughed and said, ‘Oh, Plum, poor old Muriel can’t help the way she looks. Besides, you probably think I sing better because I’m your sister.’
Plum said, ‘Squeaky can’t help the way her face looks but she doesn’t have to wear that long underwear and have those big knobby lumps on her knees and ankles. She knows very well that angels don’t wear long underwear and anyway her mother makes so many mistakes when she plays her accompaniment that it always sounds as though she and Squeaky are on different songs.’
Nancy said, ‘I wish we had a mother, even one like Mrs Swanson.’
Plum said, ‘If we had a mother, do you suppose we’d have to wear long underwear and be lumpy?’
Nancy said, ‘I can remember our mother a little bit and she was beautiful. I don’t think she ever made us wear long underwear.’
Plum said, ‘One thing about mothers, they might make you wear long underwear but they force the teachers to give you the best parts in the Christmas play.’
Nancy said, ‘Our mother wouldn’t have to. Miss Waverly likes us and she wanted us both in the play until Mrs Monday told her we couldn’t.’
Plum said, ‘Miss Waverly thinks you sing a million, billion times better than old Squeaky Swanson, she told me so and she said that you’d make a beautiful angel with your red hair combed out and hanging down your back all bright and shining…’
‘And probably one of Mrs Monday’s gray flannel nightgowns flapping around my old worn-out shoes. Oh, Plum, wouldn’t it be wonderful if we were in the Christmas play and we had white satin angel dresses with filmy white wings?’
Plum said, ‘I guess we’ll have to wait until we get to heaven and are real angels. Didn’t the Christmas tree look beautiful? I think Miss Waverly feels sorry for us and that is why she let us decorate it.’
Nancy said, ‘As long as we are the only children who have no place to go for Christmas, I don’t see why Mrs Monday wouldn’t let us go to the school entertainment. We could have walked and every child in the Valley is getting an orange, some candy and a gift.’
Plum said, ‘Speaking of candy, I’m hungry. Let’s go down to the kitchen and see if we can find anything to eat besides oatmeal.’
Nancy said, ‘Oh, don’t worry, she locked up everything but the prunes and the oatmeal. Oh, look down the road there, Plum. Two little lights and they’re moving. It must be a sleigh. Someone going to the Christmas entertainment.’
Plum said, ‘Quick, help me open the window so we can hear the bells.’
They pushed open the window and leaned out into the still, cold night air. Far off down the road, through the lazily drifting snowflakes, they could hear the merry sound of sleigh bells. Their gay little tinkling flying ahead of the sleigh and lighting up the night with sparks. ‘Oh, what a Christmasy sound!’ Nancy said, her red braids bobbing excitedly.
Plum said, ‘Let’s run out to the gate and watch the sleigh pass.’
‘Oh, yes,’ Nancy said. ‘Here, I’ll shut the window. Come on, hurry!’
Like little ghosts, they ran from their room, down the long, cold, dark corridor, down the long, dark winding stairway, across the drafty hall, out the front door and down the walk to the great iron gates.
Breathless and laughing, they grabbed the bars of the gates and turned their faces in the direction of the sleigh bells. Snowflakes lit on their eyelashes and made them blink. Snowflakes lit on their hair and turned them into white-haired old ladies. Snowflakes lit on their tongues when they stuck them out; and they swallowed the drop of icy water they left.
Nancy said, ‘Snowflakes are like tiny pieces of clouds. Maybe a cloud exploded and caused this snowstorm.’
Plum said, ‘Everything is so soft tonight. The darkness, the air, the snow, everything. I’d like to throw myself down and make an angel.’ Above their heads the snow hit the lanterns on the gateposts and dissolved with a gentle hissing sound. The gate groaned sadly as they leaned against it.
Then, from down the road, came the shrill trilling of the sleigh bells, the thud of hooves, the shshsh of runners on snow, peals of laughter. Then suddenly as though they had leapt through a black curtain, the horses burst out of the snowy darkness, manes and forelocks crested with snow, heads high, eyes glowing like hot coals. For a moment they were so close the children could see their white breath and could smell their warm, horsy smell.
‘Merry Christmas!’ Plum called out excitedly.
‘Merry Christmas!’ Nancy echoed her, and voices in the sleigh answered, ‘Merry Christmas!’ Then they were gone into the blackness again and nothing was left but the tinkling of the bells and the hiss of the snowflakes as they hit the lanterns.
‘Oh, Plum,’ Nancy said, ‘imagine going to the Christmas Eve entertainment in a sleigh!’
Plum said, ‘Someday we’ll go in a sleigh and I’ll drive.’
Nancy said, shivering, ‘Not tonight though, and I’m cold. Let’s go back in the house.’
So they ran up to the front door but when they turned the handle they found it locked. Locked tight.
‘The night latch must have been on,’ Plum said, ‘and the rest of the house is locked up like a safe.’
‘What will we do?’ Nancy asked through chattering teeth.
Plum said, ‘We’ll sleep in the barn.’
Nancy said, ‘But what about Old Tom?’
Plum said, ‘He’s gone to the MacGregors’ for supper. He told me he was going yesterday when I was helping him feed the chickens. He’s not coming back till milking time tomorrow morning. Come on, let’s run. I’ve got snow down my neck and my feet are like ice.’
They ran around the house, unlatched the lattice gate that shut off the kitchen gardens and stables from the front lawns, ran across the barnyard to the big red-brick barn, rolled back the door and slipped inside. The barn was very dark but not as cold as the house. They closed the door quickly and began to grope around for matches and a lantern. As they carefully felt along the shelves, they could hear Buttercup and Clover, the milk cows, chewing their cuds, the plow horses shifting their weight on their big feet, the pigs grunting in the box stall and mice scuttling around in the granary stealing the grain. They were friendly, comforting sounds, and Nancy said, ‘Even in the dark, the barn isn’t nearly as lonely as the house.’
Plum said, ‘I should say it isn’t. I think I just grabbed hold of a mouse. Oh, here we are. Here’s an old candle stub and some matches.’
She struck a match and lit the candle. As the candle flame reached up and cast a circle of light, a black mother cat and three black kittens filed out of Buttercup’s stall and came over to the little girls. ‘Mrooow,’ said the mother cat and the kittens squeaked, ‘Mrrow.’ Plum knelt down and stroked the mother, who rubbed against her legs and purred. Nancy went over and scratched Buttercup behind her horns and she licked Nancy’s hand with her sandpaper tongue. Clover leaned out of her stall to see what was going on and as Nancy scratched her head, she stuck her tongue out about a foot and searched with the tip of it in the corners of her feed box for stray oats. Then Plum called out, ‘I found the lantern and it’s full of coal oil. Here, hold the candle while I light it.’
Both girls knelt down and worked with the lantern until they finally got the wick adjusted and the smoky chimney wiped off. The lantern gave quite a lot of light and they hung it on a nail while they patted the horses, poked the pigs and played with the kittens. Then Plum had an idea. She said, ‘Let’s go in the harness room. There’s a stove in there and we can build a fire and roast potatoes.’
Nancy said, ‘Where’ll we get the potatoes?’
Plum said, ‘From the root cellar. I know where it is and it’s not locked because I helped Old Tom get apples one time!’
Nancy, who was shaking with the cold and very hungry, thought this sounded like a wonderful idea until they went into the harness room and found it tight against the storm but very harnessy smelling and quite chilly. ‘It’s really nicer in the barn,’ she said.
But Plum, who had already opened up the door of the big black stove and was busily poking around in the ashes, said, ‘You just wait until I get this fire going. Oh, boy, here’s some hot coals from Old Tom’s milking-time fire. Hand me some of those shavings, will you, Nancy?’
Nancy did and Plum threw them in, tossed in some kindling and some lumps of coal and in no time had a bright crackling fire that blew its warm breath into the little girls’ eager faces.
‘Now that the fire’s going,’ Plum said, rubbing her cold hands together, ‘let’s go out to the root cellar.’
‘And,’ Nancy said, ‘then we can go to the milk room and get some milk and butter. Oh, this is going to be fun, Plum, and I’m so hungry.’
‘So am I,’ Plum said. ‘I’m starving and freezing. Let’s hurry.’
So, carefully shutting the door on the cat and her kittens, who had followed them into the harness room and intended to follow them everywhere they went, they ran through the barn and across the snowy barnyard to the root cellar. The root cellar, a little low house built into a bank by the back of the house, had a thick heavy door that was very hard to open but finally, after both girls had almost pulled their arms out of the sockets, they were able to squeeze through. It was very dark until Plum lit her candle stub and the air was pungent with the smells of the apples, carrots, potatoes, cabbages, squashes and rutabagas that were stored in the bins and shelves that lined the walls. The girls filled their aprons with four big potatoes, four dark red apples, some pears and a jar of peaches.
As she reached up to the high shelf where the canned fruit was kept, Nancy said, ‘I don’t feel that it’s wrong to take these peaches without asking because it is Christmas and everybody should have something special for Christmas dinner.’
Plum said, ‘Of course Mrs Monday’s idea of something special is fried mush or boiled beans with rocks in them. Say, let’s take some carrots and apples for the animals. They’d like to have something special for Christmas, too.’
So they added more things to their already bulging aprons. Apples for the horses, carrots for the cows and rutabagas for the pigs.
When they got back to the harness room the stove was blazing merrily and giving off so much heat that the cat and her kittens were stretched out on the floor in great comfort. Nancy and Plum washed the potatoes in the snow and put them in to roast, fed the animals their Christmas dinner, got butter and milk from the milk room, then settled down to enjoy themselves. First they took off their shoes and stockings and put them to dry, then sat down in front of the stove to thaw out their icy toes and fingers. Outside a wind had come up. It blew snow against the window and moaned and sighed in the eaves but the children played with the kittens and thought how cozy the wind sounded.
After the potatoes had been in about ten minutes, Plum began poking them with a sharp stick to test them and the minute she could pierce the skin she took the coal shovel and the poker and got out the first ones. They were really quite raw but they were hot and when covered with fresh butter and washed down with gulps of cold sweet milk they were simply delicious. The second potatoes were only raw in the middle and tasted even better than the first ones. For dessert the girls opened the jar of peaches with an old jackknife of Plum’s and ate the peaches in their fingers in big bites.
‘No wonder Mrs Monday and Marybelle have peaches so often,’ Nancy said as she reached down inside the jar for the last one. ‘They are the best things I’ve ever tasted.’
Plum said, in an imitation of Mrs Monday, ‘My deah child, surely you don’t prefer peaches to my delicious soggy bread pudding with glue sauce or my special kind of stewed prunes with sticks in them?’
Nancy said, ‘It isn’t that I prefer the peaches, dear Mrs Monday, it is just that after I have eaten your soggy, tasteless, lumpy, doughy lead, oh, I’m sorry, I mean bread pudding, I have to walk bent over for the rest of the day.’
Plum said, ‘Would you like the recipe for my special prunes?’
Nancy said, ‘Oh, please.’
Plum said, ‘Well, first you buy the tiniest, most dried up, most solid pit and skin prunes you can find, then you dump them into a huge kettle of water, about two prunes to a gallon of water, you never wash them first, of course, because the sticks and sand give them such a good flavor. Then you boil and boil and boil and boil them, add one teaspoon of sugar to each enormous kettle of juice and there you are. Stewed prunes à la Marybelle.’
Nancy said, ‘Oh, look at the kittens. I think they are hungry.’
Plum said, ‘Their saucer is in the barn. Hand me my shoes and I’ll go get it.’
After they had fed the kittens and picked up their own mess, Nancy and Plum made themselves a nice bed of straw spread over with empty feed sacks, stoked the fire, turned the lantern down and lay down side by side in front of the stove. The only sounds were the clunks and hisses made by coals breaking open and bursting into flame, the moaning of the wind and the rustling of the straw when they moved.
Nancy was watching the round glow of the lantern on the ceiling and thinking about the school entertainment when she heard a little sniff and a hot tear fell on her arm. She said, ‘Why, Plum, you’re crying. That’s not like you.’
Plum said, ‘It’s Christmas Eve and I hate Uncle John. He’s supposed to take care of us and he never writes to us and he never comes to see us and he never even sends us Christmas presents. I wonder how he’d like to spend Christmas Eve eating raw potatoes and sleeping in a barn?’
Nancy said, ‘Never mind, Plum, dear. At least we’re warm and we’ve had something to eat and I’ll pretend for us.’
Plum said, ‘Oh, Nancy, I’m sick of pretending. I don’t think I can pretend any more.’
Nancy said, ‘Well, I’m ten and you’re only eight and pretending is easier for me, so I’ll pretend out loud for both of us.’
She began, ‘We live in a lovely little white house on a broad quiet street shaded with big trees. We have a beautiful mother, a handsome father and twin baby brothers, one for each of us. It is Christmas Eve and we have just decorated the Christmas tree. It is a very large tree and takes up lots of space in our living room but it is a pine with long needles and it smells so delicious that our mother says that it is well worth the space. Now that the tree is decorated, you and I go upstairs and put on our white satin angel costumes with the silk gauze wings and our gold halos, then we all go to the schoolhouse entertainment. Our mother and father are very proud of us because we sing all the Christmas carols for the whole school. We stand by the Christmas tree with a big spotlight on us and first I sing a solo and then you sing a solo and then we sing duets. When the spotlight first shines on us everybody in the schoolhouse just gasps, our costumes are so beautiful.’
Plum said, ‘Who is going to play our accompaniments? Not Mrs Swanson, I hope.’
‘Our mother plays our accompaniments,’ Nancy said. ‘She plays for all the school entertainments and she has never made one single mistake. After the Christmas entertainment is over, Miss Waverly distributes the gifts and she is certainly surprised to find a huge package for her from you and me.’
‘What’s in the package?’ Plum asked.
‘Violet perfume, violet toilet water, violet powder, violet bath powder, violet bath salts and violet soap and there is a bunch of real violets tied to the outside of the package,’ Nancy said.
Plum said, ‘Just like that picture we cut out of the magazine. I bet Miss Waverly never had such a beautiful present. Why don’t we ask her to our house for Christmas dinner?’
Nancy said, ‘Oh, that’s a good idea, especially as I know how sad Christmas is at the Wentils’ where she boards because Charlie Wentil told me that his father believes that Christmas trees or holly or any kind of Christmas presents are wicked and signs of the devil. Charlie told me that last year they all had to pray straight through from milking time to lunch because Charlie brought home a piece of tinsel from school and put it around the clock on the mantel.’
Plum said, ‘I guess right now we’re probably having twice as much fun as Charlie Wentil. Oh, look, Nancy, here come the kittens. They want to get in bed with us. Let’s name them and pretend they belong to us. They can be our Christmas present. Let’s name the mother St Nick and the children Prancer, Dancer and Vixen.’
Nancy said, ‘Those are good names, Plum. Here, St Nick. Bring your children over here. We’ll be gentle to them.’
So St Nick came over and settled herself and her children on the straw bed between the two little girls and when they stroked her sleek black fur she purred loudly and rubbed against their hands. Then Plum said, ‘Go on, Nancy, pretend some more.’