I

This next episode in Jeremy's year has, be it thoroughly understood, no plot nor climax to it—it is simply the chronicle of an Odyssey. Nor can it be said to have been anything but a very ordinary Odyssey to the outside observer who, if he be a parent, will tell you that going to the seaside with the family is the most bothering thing in the world, and if he is a bachelor or old maid will tell you that being in the same carriage with other people's children who are going to the sea is an abominable business and the Law ought to have something to say to it.

All through May, June and July Mrs. Cole slowly pulled back to something like her natural health. The new infant, Barbara by name, was as strong as a pony, and kicked and screamed and roared so that the house was quite a new place. Her arrival had done a great deal for Helen, whose gaze had hitherto been concentrated entirely upon herself; now she suddenly discovered a new element in life, and it was found that she was “ideal with a baby” and “a great help to nurse.” This made her more human, and Barbara, realising as babies always do who understands and who does not, would behave with Helen when she would behave with no one else. Mary could not be expected to transfer her allegiance from Jeremy, and then Barbara was frightened at her spectacles; Jeremy, having Hamlet, did not need a baby!

There came a fine hot morning towards the end of July when Miss Jones said, suddenly, in the middle of the history lesson: “Saturday week we go to Rafiel.” Jeremy choked, kicked Mary under the table, and was generally impossible during the rest of the morning. It was Miss Jones's fault; she should have chosen her occasion more carefully. Before the evening Jeremy was standing in the corner for drawing on his bedroom wall-paper enormous figures in the blackest of black lead. These were to mark the days that remained before Saturday week, and it was, Jeremy maintained, a perfectly natural thing to do and didn't hurt the old wall-paper which was dirty enough anyway, and Mother had said, long ago, he should have a new one.

Meanwhile, impossible to describe what Jeremy felt about it. Each year Cow Farm and Rafiel had grown more wonderful; this was now the fifth that would welcome them there. At first the horizon had been limited by physical incapacity, then the third year had been rainy, and the fourth—ah, the fourth! There had been very little the matter with that! But this would be better yet. For one thing, there had never been such a summer as this year was providing—a little rain at night, a little breeze at the hottest hour of the day—everything arranged on purpose for Jeremy's comfort. And then, although he did not know it, this was to be truly the wonderful summer for him, because after this he would be a schoolboy and, as is well known, schoolboys believe in nothing save what they can see with their own eyes and are told by other boys physically stronger than themselves.

Five or six days before the great departure he began to worry himself about his box. Two years ago he had been given a little imitation green canvas luggage box exactly like his father's, except that this one was light enough to carry in one's hand. Jeremy adored this box and would have taken it out with him, had he been permitted, on all his walks, but he had a way of filling it with heavy stones and then asking Miss Jones to carry it for him; it had therefore been forbidden.

But he would, of course, take it with him to Cow Farm, and it should contain all the things that he loved best. At first “all the things that he loved best” had not seemed so very numerous. There would, first of all, of course, be the Hottentot, a black and battered clown for whom he had long ceased to feel any affection, but he was compelled by an irritating sense of loyalty to include it in the party just as his mother might include some tiresome old maid “because she had nowhere to go to, poor thing.” After the Hottentot there would be his paint-box, after the paint-box a blue writing-case, after the writing-case the family photographs (Father, Mother, Mary and Helen), after the photographs a toy pistol, after the pistol Hamlet's ball (a worsted affair rendered by now shapeless and incoherent), after the ball “Alice in Wonderland” (Mary's copy, but she didn't know), after “Alice,” “Herr Baby,” after “Herr Baby” the Prayer Book that Aunt Amy gave him last birthday, after the Prayer Book some dried flowers which were to be presented to Mrs. Monk, the lady of Cow Farm (this might be called carrying coals to Newcastle), after the flowers a Bible, after the Bible four walnuts (very dry and hard ones), after the walnuts some transfer papers, after the transfer papers six marbles—the box was full and more than full, and he had not included the hammer and nails that Uncle Samuel had once given him, nor the cigarette-case (innocent now of cigarettes, and transformed first into a home for walking snails, second a grave for dead butterflies, third a mouse-trap), nor the butterfly net, nor “Struuwelpeter,” nor the picture of Queen Victoria cut from the chocolate-box, nor—most impossible omission of all—the toy-village. The toy-village! What must he do about that? Obviously impossible to take it all—and yet some of it he must have. Mr. and Mrs. Noah and the church, perhaps—or no, Mrs. Monk would want to see the garden—it would never do not to show her the orchard with the apple-trees, and then the youngest Miss Noah! She had always seemed to Jeremy so attractive with her straight blue gown and hard red cheeks. He must show her to Mrs. Monk. And the butcher's shop, and then the sheep, and the dogs and the cows!

He was truly in despair. He sat on the schoolroom floor with his possessions all around him. Only Helen was in the room, and he knew that it would be no use to appeal to her—she had become so much more conceited since Barbara's arrival—and yet he must appeal to somebody, so he said to her very politely:

“Please, Helen, I've got my box and so many things to put into it and it's nearly Saturday already—and I want to show the Noahs to Mrs. Monk.”

This would have been a difficult sentence for the most clear-headed person to unravel, and Helen was, at that moment, trying to write a letter to an aunt whom she had never seen and for whom she had no sort of affection, so she answered him rather roughly:

“Oh, don't bother with your box, Jeremy. Can't you see I'm busy?”

“You may be busy,” said Jeremy, rising indignantly to his feet, “but I'm busy too, and my business is just as good as yours with your silly old letter.”

“Oh, don't bother!” said Helen, whereupon Jeremy crept behind her and pinched her stocking. A battle followed, too commonplace in its details to demand description here. It need only be said that Hamlet joined in it and ran away with Helen's letter which had blown to the ground during the struggle, and that he ate it, in his corner, with great satisfaction. Then, when they were at their angriest, Helen suddenly began to laugh which she did sometimes, to her own intense annoyance, when she terribly wanted to be enraged, then Jeremy laughed too, and Hamlet yielded up fragments of the letter—so that all was well.

But the problem of the box was not solved—and, in the end, the only part of the toy village that Mrs. Monk ever saw was the youngest Miss Noah and one apple-tree for her to sit under.