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СКАЧАТЬ and Oswald into his study, and said—

      "I'm awfully sorry I've got to go away, but it is very serious business, and I must go. You'll be good while I'm away, kiddies, won't you?"

      We promised faithfully. Then he said—

      "There are reasons—you wouldn't understand if I tried to tell you—but you can't have much of a Christmas this year. But I've told Matilda to make you a good plain pudding. Perhaps next Christmas will be brighter."

      (It was; for the next Christmas saw us the affluent nephews and nieces of an Indian uncle—but that is quite another story, as good old Kipling says.)

      When Father had been seen off at Lewisham Station with his bags, and a plaid rug in a strap, we came home again, and it was horrid. There were papers and things littered all over his room where he had packed. We tidied the room up—it was the only thing we could do for him. It was Dicky who accidentally broke his shaving-glass, and H.O. made a paper boat out of a letter we found out afterwards Father particularly wanted to keep. This took us some time, and when we went into the nursery the fire was black out, and we could not get it alight again, even with the whole Daily Chronicle. Matilda, who was our general then, was out, as well as the fire, so we went and sat in the kitchen. There is always a good fire in kitchens. The kitchen hearthrug was not nice to sit on, so we spread newspapers on it.

      It was sitting in the kitchen, I think, that brought to our minds my Father's parting words—about the pudding, I mean.

      Oswald said, "Father said we couldn't have much of a Christmas for secret reasons, and he said he had told Matilda to make us a plain pudding."

      The plain pudding instantly cast its shadow over the deepening gloom of our young minds.

      "I wonder how plain she'll make it?" Dicky said.

      "As plain as plain, you may depend," said Oswald. "A here-am-I-where-are-you pudding—that's her sort."

      The others groaned, and we gathered closer round the fire till the newspapers rustled madly.

      "I believe I could make a pudding that wasn't plain, if I tried," Alice said. "Why shouldn't we?"

      "No chink," said Oswald, with brief sadness.

      "How much would it cost?" Noël asked, and added that Dora had twopence and H.O. had a French halfpenny.

      Dora got the cookery-book out of the dresser drawer, where it lay doubled up among clothes-pegs, dirty dusters, scallop shells, string, penny novelettes, and the dining-room corkscrew. The general we had then—it seemed as if she did all the cooking on the cookery-book instead of on the baking-board, there were traces of so many bygone meals upon its pages.

      "It doesn't say Christmas pudding at all," said Dora.

      "Try plum," the resourceful Oswald instantly counselled.

      Dora turned the greasy pages anxiously.

      "'Plum-pudding, 518.

      "'A rich, with flour, 517.

      "'Christmas, 517.

      "'Cold brandy sauce for, 241.'

      "We shouldn't care about that, so it's no use looking.

      "'Good without eggs, 518.

      "'Plain, 518.'

      "We don't want that anyhow. 'Christmas, 517'—that's the one."

      It took her a long time to find the page. Oswald got a shovel of coals and made up the fire. It blazed up like the devouring elephant the Daily Telegraph always calls it. Then Dora read—

      "'Christmas plum-pudding. Time six hours.'"

      "To eat it in?" said H.O.

      "No, silly! to make it."

      "Forge ahead, Dora," Dicky replied.

      Dora went on—

      "'2072. One pound and a half of raisins; half a pound of currants; three quarters of a pound of breadcrumbs; half a pound of flour; three-quarters of a pound of beef suet; nine eggs; one wine glassful of brandy; half a pound of citron and orange peel; half a nutmeg; and a little ground ginger.' I wonder how little ground ginger."

      "A teacupful would be enough, I think," Alice said; "we must not be extravagant."

      "We haven't got anything yet to be extravagant with," said Oswald, who had toothache that day. "What would you do with the things if you'd got them?"

      "You'd 'chop the suet as fine as possible'—I wonder how fine that is?" replied Dora and the book together—"'and mix it with the breadcrumbs and flour; add the currants washed and dried.'"

      "Not starched, then," said Alice.

      "'The citron and orange peel cut into thin slices'—I wonder what they call thin? Matilda's thin bread-and-butter is quite different from what I mean by it—'and the raisins stoned and divided.' How many heaps would you divide them into?"

      "Seven, I suppose," said Alice; "one for each person and one for the pot—I mean pudding."

      "'Mix it all well together with the grated nutmeg and ginger. Then stir in nine eggs well beaten, and the brandy'—we'll leave that out, I think—'and again mix it thoroughly together that every ingredient may be moistened; put it into a buttered mould, tie over tightly, and boil for six hours. Serve it ornamented with holly and brandy poured over it.'"

      "I should think holly and brandy poured over it would be simply beastly," said Dicky.

      "I expect the book knows. I daresay holly and water would do as well though. 'This pudding may be made a month before'—it's no use reading about that though, because we've only got four days to Christmas."

      "It's no use reading about any of it," said Oswald, with thoughtful repeatedness, "because we haven't got the things, and we haven't got the coin to get them."

      "We might get the tin somehow," said Dicky.

      "There must be lots of kind people who would subscribe to a Christmas pudding for poor children who hadn't any," Noël said.

      "Well, I'm going skating at Penn's," said Oswald. "It's no use thinking about puddings. We must put up with it plain."

      So he went, and Dicky went with him.

      When they returned to their home in the evening the fire had been lighted again in the nursery, and the others were just having tea. We toasted our bread-and-butter on the bare side, and it gets a little warm among the butter. This is called French toast. "I like English better, but it is more expensive," Alice said—

      "Matilda is in a frightful rage about your putting those coals on the kitchen fire, Oswald. She says we shan't have enough to last over Christmas as it is. And Father gave her a talking to before he went about them—asked her if she ate them, she says—but I don't believe he did. Anyway, she's locked the coal-cellar door, and she's got the key in her pocket. I don't see how we can boil the pudding."

      "What pudding?" СКАЧАТЬ