Read Ebook: Punch or the London Charivari Volume 159 December 29 1920 by Various Seaman Owen Editor

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Ebook has 272 lines and 17773 words, and 6 pages

ELIZABETH'S CHRISTMAS.

"I've always thort 'ow I'd love to 'ave a reel nice Christmas," remarked Elizabeth--"a jolly proper kind o' one, you know, 'm."

"Don't you find Christmas a pleasant time, then?" I inquired.

"Well, you see, 'm, I bin in service ever since I was turned fifteen, an' you know wot Christmas in service is. An extry tip, I will say, but a lot of extry work to go along with it--and wot washin' up! Some'ow it orl seems so different in books an' on the pictures."

She sighed as she spoke and a look that was almost human crept into the arid region of her countenance. A feeling of compunction swept over me. Was it possible that this poor simple girl concealed depths of conviviality in her nature and a genial disposition which I, in common with all her former employers, had carelessly overlooked? I will admit that this unexpected phase in Elizabeth's character touched and interested me.

"Lor!" she ejaculated. "D'ye reerly mean it, 'm?"

"I do, Elizabeth. Let me know the sort of Christmas you've always longed for and I'll see that you get it."

She drew up her lank form and her face shone. "Well, 'm, I don't know where you get 'em, but for one thing I've often thort as 'ow I'd like to 'ave a festlebord."

"What's that?" I asked, puzzled. "Is it in the Stores' list?"

"I don't know, 'm, but there's always a lot about it in the books. When the Squire's son comes 'ome repentant at Christmas-tide they always gathers round a festlebord and rejoices."

I began to see light. "You mean a 'festal board'?"

"That's wot I sed, 'm."

"Well, you shall have one, Elizabeth, I'll see to that. I'd let you have a Squire's son as well, but unfortunately the only ones I know are not repentant--as yet. And now tell me which of your friends you would like to invite."

"Never mind about the people you're not inviting," I broke in; "we don't need a list of them. Who do you want to come?"

"Well, there's Mrs. Spurge, the char--a real nice lady, as you know, 'm. Then I'd like to arsk Polly, the sister of the cook wot lives in the 'ouse at the corner with red 'air; an' there's Mary Baxter. An' isn't it lucky my sailor-brother will be 'ome for the first time in ten years? Can 'e come too, 'm? 'E's been round the world twice."

"In that case, Elizabeth, he certainly ought to be invited. He may even have returned home repentant, so you will be able to rejoice at the festal board in proper style."

For my part I did not pass a very blithesome Christmas. Henry's aunt, who invited us, is rich, but she is also dull, and several times I found myself rather envying Elizabeth. While Aunt Jane nodded in her chair, Henry and I pictured those boisterous revels of Elizabeth and her friends, their boundless mirth, their unrestrained gaiety. We imagined them too gathered round the sailor-brother, listening with rapt delight as he told them stories of the far-off wonder-lands he had known. Henry sighed then and said there were times when he envied the so-called lower classes their capacity for enjoyment.

"Then it really was as nice as you thought it would be, Elizabeth?"

"Oh, Elizabeth, you don't mean to say you quarrelled?" I interrupted sorrowfully.

"Oh, no, it wasn't quarrellin', 'm--just bargin', you know. Any'ow it ended in Polly an' Mary an' my brother goin' off early. I was chilly to Mrs. Spurge owin' to 'er 'avin' said that she didn't believe my sailor-brother 'd ever been further than Wapping in a coal-barge. I shouldn't 'ave spoke to 'er again that evenin' if the book 'adn't brought us together again friendly, like."

"What book?" I asked, bewildered.

"And what was the book called?" I inquired.

"I'm glad you enjoyed yourself, Elizabeth."

"It's the 'appiest Christmas I ever 'ad, 'm. That there Mr. Dickings is a one! 'E do know wot's wot in festlebords."

HOW, WHY AND WHAT.

But in spite of this check he said, "Why Is my Ego the same as my I?" So they put him to bed And placed ice on his head till the cerebral storm had passed by.

Now I'm told he is asking them, "What Use has psycho-analysis got?" And they answer, "N.E. If you're not an M.D., Or a novelist minus a plot."

"A cargo of 800 German pianos arrived at the Tyne from Hamburg on Saturday."

Another key industry in danger.

MAYBIRDS.

I can see some justification for keeping peacocks, especially if you have shaven lawns and terraces and sundials, though sundials, I imagine, are rather a nuisance now-a-days, because of the trouble of having them reset for summer and winter time. Peacocks at any rate are beautiful, and, if their voices are apt in England to become a little hoarse, that is only because they screech when the weather is going to be bad.

The pheasant is also a useful and beautiful fowl. One may put down bread-crumbs to attract the pheasant to one's garden when he is alive, or to one's plate when he is dead.

But I can see no justification whatever for keeping maybirds, for they are neither useful nor beautiful. Perhaps you do not know what a maybird is. I have five maybirds. I have them because people here would keep saying to me, "Look at the price of fresh eggs, and how much nicer it is to have your own." It is a curious thing about the country that people are always giving one disinterested advice in the matter of domestic economy. In London it is different. In London people let you take a twopenny bus ticket to Westminster instead of walking across the Park, and go to ruin in your own sweet way. They rather admire your dash. But in the country they tell you about these things.

So I went to a man and confessed to him my trouble about fresh eggs.

"I see," he said; "you want maybirds."

"No, I don't," I said; "I want hens."

"It's the same thing," he told me. "How many would you like?"

"Five," I said. I thought five would be an unostentatious number and make it clear that I was not trying to compete with the wholesale egg-dealers.

He segregated five maybirds and explained their points to me.

It appeared that one of them was a Buff Orpington and three were white Wyandottes and one had no particular politics. I should say now that it was an Independent. It has speckles and is the one that keeps getting into the garden.

I asked him when the creatures would begin to enter upon their new duties, and he said they would do so at once.

"What is their maximum egg-laying velocity?" I inquired.

"They'll lay about three eggs a day between them," he said, "these five birds."

"Why between them?" I enquired. But I consented to buy his birds, and he said if I liked he would run round to my garden at once and run up a hen-house and a hen-run for me. "Run" seemed rather a word with him.

I said, "Yes, by all means."

He came round that evening and hewed down an apple-tree under the light of the moon to make room for the maybird-run, and in the morning he brought a large roll of wire-netting, and the next day he built a wooden house, and the day after that he brought his five maybirds, and the day after that he came round and asked for some cinders. He sprinkled these all over the enclosure, and I watched him while he worked.

"What is that for?" I asked.

"They want something to scratch in when they run about," he explained. "Exercise is what they need."

"They seem to be scratching already, but they don't seem to be running," I said. "Wouldn't it have been better to put a cinder-track all round the edge and train them to run races round it?"

He said that he hadn't thought of that, but I could try it if I liked. Then he gave me a bag of food, which he said was particularly efficacious for maybirds, and produced his bill.

All this happened about a month ago, and for the last four weeks the principal preoccupation of my household has been the feeding of these five birds. I have had to lay a gravel-path from the aviary to the back premises in order to sustain the weight of the traffic. Huge bowls of hot food are constantly being mixed and carried to them, without any apparent consciousness on their part of their reciprocal responsibilities. What I mean to say is that there are no eggs. The food which they eat resembles Christmas-pudding at the time when it is stirred, and I have suggested that a sixpence should be concealed in it every now and then--sixpence being apparently the current price of an egg--in order to indicate the nature of our hopes.

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