Mary Poppins in the Park. P. Travers L.

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      “You do!” he insisted gallantly.

      She sniffed, and glanced at the Nursery mirror. Her reflection gave a similar sort of sniff and glanced at Mary Poppins. Each of them, it was easy to see, highly approved of the other.

      “I wonder why she kept this?” Jane took an old cracked tile from the box. The picture showed a boat-load of people rowing towards an island.

      “To remind her of her youth,” said Michael.

      “To give more trouble,” snapped Mary Poppins, shaking the dust from another wrapping.

      Back and forth the children ran, collecting and setting up the treasures – a cottage in a snowstorm, with Home Sweet Home on the glass globe; a pottery hen on a yellow nest; a red-and-white china clown; a winged horse of celluloid, prancing on its hind legs; a flower vase in the shape of a swan; a little red fox of carved wood; an egg-shaped piece of polished granite; a painted apple with a boy and a girl playing together inside it; and a roughly made, full-rigged ship in a jam-jar.

      “I hope that’s all,” grumbled Michael. “The mantelpiece is crowded.”

      “Only one more,” said Mary Poppins, as she drew out a knobbly bundle. A couple of china ornaments came forth from the paper wrapper. Her eyebrows went up as she looked at them and she gave a little shrug. Then she handed one each to Jane and Michael.

      Weary of running back and forth, they set the ornaments hurriedly at either end of the mantelpiece. Then Jane looked at hers and blinked her eyes.

      A china lion, with his paw on the chest of a china huntsman, was reclining beneath a banana tree which, of course, was also china. The man and the animal leant together, smiling blissfully. Never, thought Jane, in all her life, had she seen two happier creatures.

      “He reminds me of somebody!” she exclaimed, as she gazed at the smiling huntsman. Such a manly figure he looked too, in his spruce blue jacket and black top-boots.

      “Yes,” agreed Michael. “Who can it be?”

      He frowned as he tried to recall the name. Then he looked at his half of the china pair and gave a cry of dismay.

      “Oh, Jane! What a pity! My lion has lost his huntsman!”

      It was true. There stood another banana tree, there sat another painted lion. But in the other huntsman’s place there was only a gap of roughened china. All that remained of his manly shape was one black shiny boot.

      “Poor lion!” said Michael. “He looks so sad!”

      And, indeed, there was no denying it. Jane’s lion was wreathed in smiles, but his brother had such a dejected look that he seemed to be almost in tears.

      “You’ll be looking sad in a minute – unless you get ready for lunch!”

      Mary Poppins’ face was so like her voice that they ran to obey her without a word.

      But they caught a glimpse, as they rushed away, of her starched white figure standing there, with its arms full of crumpled paper. She was gazing with a reflective smile at Miss Andrew’s broken treasure – and it seemed to them that her lips moved.

      Michael gave Jane a fleeting grin.

      “I expect she’s only saying ‘Humph!’”

      But Jane was not so sure …

      “Let’s go to the swings,” suggested Michael, as they hurried across the Lane after lunch.

      “Oh, no! The Lake. I’m tired of swinging.”

      “Neither swings nor lakes,” said Mary Poppins. “We are taking the Long Walk!”

      “Oh, Mary Poppins,” grumbled Jane, “the Long Walk’s far too long!”

      “I can’t walk all that way,” said Michael. “I’ve eaten much too much.”

      The Long Walk stretched across the Park from the Lane to the Far Gate, linking the little countrified road to the busy streets they had travelled that morning. It was wide and straight and uncompromising – not like the narrow, curly paths that led to the Lake, and the Playground. Trees and fountains bordered it, but it always seemed to Jane and Michael at least ten miles in length.

      “The Long Walk – or the short walk home! Take your choice!” Mary Poppins warned them.

      Michael was just about to say he would go home, when Jane ran on ahead.

      “I’ll race you,” she cried, “to the first tree!”

      Michael could never bear to be beaten. “That’s not fair! You had a good start!” And off he dashed at her heels.

      “Don’t expect me to keep up with you! I am not a centipede!”

      Mary Poppins sauntered along, enjoying the balmy air, and assuring herself that the balmy air was enjoying Mary Poppins. How could it do otherwise, she thought, when under her arm was the parrot umbrella and over her wrist a new black handbag?

      The perambulator creaked and groaned. In it, the Twins and Annabel, packed as close as birds in a nest, were playing with the blue duck.

      “That’s cheating, Michael!” grumbled Jane. For accidentally on purpose, he had pushed her aside and was running past.

      From tree to tree they raced along, first one ahead and then the other, each of them trying to win. The Long Walk streamed away behind them and Mary Poppins and the perambulator were only specks in the distance.

      “Next time you push me I’ll give you a punch!” said Michael, red in the face.

      “If you bump into me again I’ll pull your hair, Michael!”

      “Now, now!” the Park Keeper warned them sternly. “Observe the Rules! No argle-bargling!”

      He was meant to be sweeping up the twigs, but, instead, he was chatting with the Policeman, who was leaning against a maple-tree, whiling away his time.

      Jane and Michael stopped in their tracks. Their race, they were both surprised to find, had brought them right across the Park and near to the Far Gate.

      The Park Keeper looked at them severely. “Always argufying!” he said. “I never did that when I was a boy. But then I was a Nonly child, just me and me poor old mother. I never ’ad nobody to play with. You two don’t know when you’re lucky!”

      “Well, I dunno!” the Policeman said. “Depends on how you look at it. I had someone to play with, you might say, but it never did me any good!”

      “Brothers or sisters?” Jane enquired, all her crossness vanishing. She liked the Policeman very much. And today he seemed to remind her of someone, but she couldn’t think who it was.

      “Brothers!” the Policeman informed her, without enthusiasm.

      “Older or younger?” Michael asked. Where, he wondered to himself, had he seen another face like that?

      “Same СКАЧАТЬ