Anytime Tales (5 page)

And then she would make the children play quite a different way, a way they didn’t want to play at all!

“Don’t interfere!” they would say at last. “Go away, Ina!”

“Well, I only wanted to put you right,” Ina would say, and then off she would go in a huff.

If she saw a little girl sewing she would go at once to see what she was doing. Then she would say, “Oh, you are making an overall for your doll, I see. Well, you are doing it wrong. You should sew it like
this!”

And she would take the sewing from the little girl’s hand and make her sew it quite differently. It
was
so tiresome of Ina!

The other children got very tired of her. “Here comes Interfering Ina!” they would say as soon as they saw her coming. “Hallo, Ina. Are you going to poke your nose into our games again? Well, go away.”

But do you suppose that cured Ina of her tiresome ways? Not a bit! She simply loved to interfere with everything, and she was so curious about everybody and what they were doing that she was for ever poking her nose here, there and everywhere!

Now one day she was walking home alone from school. The other children wouldn’t walk with her because she had interfered in a fine new game they had made up that morning and had spoilt it for them. So there was Ina, walking home by herself, feeling very cross indeed.

She came to a field and heard somebody laughing. It was such a funny high little laugh that Ina stopped to see who it could be. She climbed on the gate and peeped into the field. And there she saw a most surprising sight.

She saw four little brownie-men playing leapfrog! They were having a fine game, and were shouting and laughing in little bird-like voices. Ina watched them for a while and then she called to them.

“You know, that’s not the right way to play leapfrog! You want to bend down with your back to the others, not with your front. Look, I’ll show you!”

She climbed over the gate and jumped down into the field. She ran to the surprised brownies. She took hold of one of them and bent him down. He stood up again angrily.

“How dare you push me about!” he cried, in a voice like a thrush’s, clear and high. “Go away, you interfering little girl!”

“But I’m only trying to show you how to play leapfrog properly!” said Ina crossly. “Bend down!”

She tried to bend the brownie over again, but he pushed her away and slapped her fingers.

“We play leapfrog the brownie way, not
your
way!” he said, “Brothers, who is this bad-mannered child?”

One of the brownies looked closely at Ina. Then he laughed. “I’ve heard of her!” he said. “It’s Interfering Ina! She pokes her silly little nose into everything and makes herself such a nuisance!”

“Oh, she does, does she?” said the first brownie, glaring at Ina. “Well, every time she interferes in future and pokes her nose into other people’s business her nose will get longer! Ha ha! That will be funny!”

He jumped high into the air, turned head over heels, and sprang right over the hedge. The others followed, and Ina was left alone in the field, a little frightened and very cross.

She went home. “Silly little fellows!” she said, feeling her pretty little nose. “As if anything they said would come true!”

She had her dinner, and then she went out to play in the garden. She heard the little boy next door talking to his rabbit as he cleaned out its hutch.

Ina stood on a box and looked over the wall. “Jimmy,” she said, “you shouldn’t clean out a hutch that way. You should have the clean hay ready before you take out the old hay. You should …’

Jimmy stared up at her—and then he stared again. Something funny had happened to Ina’s nice little nose. It had grown quite an inch longer,

“What have you done to your nose, Ina?” asked Jimmy in surprise. “It does look funny!”

Ina felt her nose in alarm. Gracious! It did feel long! She rushed indoors and looked at herself in the glass. Yes—it had grown a whole inch longer., and her face looked queer with such a long nose. Ina was ashamed and frightened.

“I shall have to say I bumped it and it swelled,” said the little girl to herself. She did not usually tell stories, but she felt too ashamed to say that it had grown long because she had interfered.

So when she went to school that afternoon and the other children asked her what had happened to her nose she told them a story. “I bumped it and it swelled,” she said.

“Funny sort of swelling,” said John. “It isn’t really big—it’s just
long.”

Ina forgot about her nose after a bit, for there came a handwork lesson, which she loved. The children were making toys. Ina looked at the little boy next to her.

“What are you making?” she said.

“I’m making an engine,” he said.

“That’s not the way to make an engine!” said Ina scornfully. “Give it to me. Look—you should put the funnel
here!”
She pressed so hard on the funnel that it broke!

“Oh, you interfered” said the little boy, almost in

tears, for he had been very proud of his engine. “Oooooh! What’s happened to your nose, Ina?”

What indeed! It had grown quite two inches longer in that moment, and now it looked horrid! Ina was quite ugly.

The children shouted with laughter.

“Ina’s nose is getting longer and longer so that she can poke it into other people’s business very easily!” said Joan.

Well, before the day was ended Ina’s nose was six inches long. Imagine it! It stuck out from her face and made her look very strange indeed. Her mother was simply horrified when she saw it.

“Ina! What have you done with your nose?”

“Nothing,” said Ina sulkily. It was no use saying that she had bumped it, because Mummy simply wouldn’t believe her.

“But something’s happened to it, something horrid!” said her mother. “I must take you to the doctor.”

So Ina went to the doctor, and first he laughed when he saw her nose, and then he looked grave, and last of all he looked puzzled.

“I’ve never seen such a nose,” he said. “How did she get it?”

“She won’t tell me,” said Ina’s mother. Then Ina began to cry and she told all that had happened—how she had interfered with the brownies and they had said her nose would grow bigger every time she stuck it into somebody else’s business! “Dear me!” said the doctor in surprise. “So that’s

what happened. Well, I’m afraid I can’t do anything about it.”

“But can’t you tell us how to cure her nose?” asked Ina’s mother, beginning to cry too. “She was such a pretty girl, and now she is so ugly.”

“Well, I can only say that perhaps if she stops interfering with other people her nose may go back to its right size,” said the doctor. “But that rests with Ina herself, poor child!”

They went home, the mother very sad and upset. So was poor Ina.

“Now listen, Ina,” said her mother. “We can’t have your nose growing any longer, can we? Well, you must stop poking it into things that don’t concern you. You mustn’t interfere any more. You had better ask the other children to help you.”

“All right, Mummy, I will,” said Ina. And she went out to find her friends. She told them what the doctor had said.

“So please will you all help me?” she begged. “If I come and interfere, stop me at once, because if you don’t my nose will grow down to my toes, and maybe I’ll have to tie a knot in it to stop myself from tripping over it!”

“We’ll help you, Ina,” said the children kindly. Children are always kind when they see someone in trouble, and these children couldn’t bear to see Ina crying tears all down her long nose. They had often been cross with her, but now they only wanted to help her.

So the next few days you should have seen what happened. Every time Ina came to interfere or to poke her nose into something that was nothing to do with her they spoke at once. “Ina! Remember! Don’t interfere!”

Then Ina would go red and say, “Sorry! I nearly forgot!”

In a week’s time her nose was almost the right size again, and soon it will be the same pretty little nose she had before.

But goodness knows how long the magic will last! She will have to be careful all her life not to interfere just in
case
her nose shoots out again! Poor Ina! She still looks a bit queer, but I hope that next time I see her she will look her old pretty little self._______

Aunt tabitha was rather a strict old lady. When her nieces went to stay with her, they were very careful how they behaved. They said “please” and “thank you” when they should, and they always opened the door for Aunt Tabitha and fetched her footstool as soon as she sat in her chair.

When Phyllis and Jane went to stay with her, they felt rather frightened. They did hope they would do everything they should. They meant to try very hard.

But Phyllis was rather a noisy child and banged doors behind her. So Aunt Tabitha was cross and spoke sharply.

And then Jane upset her tea all over the clean tablecloth and that made Aunt Tabitha cross too. They went to bed the first night feeling rather upset.

” I hope Aunt Tabitha isn’t going to be cross all the time,” said Phyllis.

“I shall go home if she is!” said Jane. “I don’t like her.”

“Well, we’ll see what happens to-morrow,” said Phyllis. “I shall try my hardest not to bang doors.”

She didn’t bang a door---but she forgot to wipe her feet on the mat and brought mud in all over the blue hall carpet. Aunt Tabitha frowned when she saw it.

“Get the dust-pan and brush and sweep up the mud as soon as it is dry,” she said.

And then Jane knocked against a little table, upset a glass vase and down it went with a crash. It broke into about a hundred pieces!

Aunt Tabitha was very angry. “If you are clumsy again I shall send you up to bed,” she said.

Poor Phyllis and Jane! It was really very difficult for them to be sweet and smiling to some one who scolded them so hard. But they knew that Aunt Tabitha was old, and Mother had said that old people were not so patient as younger ones.

“She’s nice when she smiles,” said Phyllis. “But I wish she’d smile oftener.”

“I think we’ll go home,” said Jane, who was rather afraid of being sent to bed if she did anything else to displease her aunt. “I’ll pack our bag. We can slip out of the house and go home without anyone knowing.”

Just then the maid came in, looking very pale. “Please, Miss Phyllis and Miss Jane,” she said. “I feel ill. Do you think you could manage to get your aunt’s tea if I leave it ready?”

“Of course,” said Jane at once. “Go and lie down, Mary. You do look ill. We can manage.”

“I meant to finish turning out your aunt’s little sewing-room,” said Mary. “I’m in the middle of it now. But I feel so queer I really think I’d better leave it till tomorrow.”

The maid went to her room. The two girls looked at one another. “We can’t slip home now,” said Jane. “It would be mean. We must stay and help.”

“Do you think we’d better try and finish turning out Aunt Tabitha’s sewing-room?” said Phyllis. “It would be kind to Mary to do it. And Aunt Tabitha does hate to see a room upside down. Let’s do it!”

So the two girls got dusters, brooms and mops, and went to finish turning out the sewing-room. Aunt Tabitha was having a nap in the drawing-room, and didn’t know what they were doing at all.

The room was upside down, for Mary had been in the middle of turning it out. The girls swept the ceiling free of cobwebs. They swept the carpets. They polished the boards. Then they wondered if they ought to take the chair cushions into the garden and bang them to get rid of the dust.

“Well, we might as well be thorough!” said Jane. “Look—the seat of this chair comes out. Shall we take it right out and dust underneath properly?”

“Yes,” said Phyllis. “Come on—tug!”

The seat of the chair, which was an enormous velvet cushion, came out with a jerk. The girls were just going to take it downstairs to beat, when Jane caught sight of something deep down in the underseat of the chair. She put her hand down and pulled it out. It was a fiat leather case. She opened it—and gave a loud cry.

“Phyllis! This case is full of paper money. Look— pound notes—and ten-shilling notes! Good gracious! Who do you suppose it belongs to?”