and fished and fished, but we didn’t catch any fish at all, not one little tiny one even. Then a boy said, ‘Look, there is your little sister in the water too!’
And, do you know, my naughty little sister had walked right into the water with her shoes and socks on, and she was trying to fish with her little basket.
I said, ‘Get out of the water,’ and she said, ‘No.’
I said, ‘Get out at once,’ and she said, ‘I don’t want to.’
I said, ‘You’ll get all wet,’ and she said, ‘I don’t care.’ Wasn’t she naughty?
So I said, ‘I must fetch you out then,’ and my naughty little sister tried to run away in the water. Which is a silly thing to do because she fell down and got all wet.
She got her frock wet, and her petticoat wet, and her knickers wet, and her vest wet, and her hair wet, and her hair-ribbon – all soaking wet. Of course, I told you her shoes and socks were wet before.
And she cried and cried.
So we fetched her out of the water, and we said, ‘Oh, dear, she will catch a cold,’ and we took off her wet frock, and her wet petticoat and her wet knickers and her wet vest, and her wet hair-ribbon, and her wet shoes and socks, and we hung all the things to dry on the bushes in the sunshine, and we wrapped my naughty little sister up in a woolly cardigan.
My little sister cried and cried.
So we gave her the sandwiches, and she ate them all up. She ate up her sandwiches and my sandwiches, and the other children’s sandwiches all up – and she cried and cried.
Then we gave her the lemonade and she spilled it all over the grass, and she cried and cried.
Then one of the children gave her an apple, and another of the children gave her some toffees, and while she was eating these, we took her clothes off the bushes and ran about with them in the sunshine until they were dry. When her clothes were quite dry, we put them all back on her again, and she screamed and screamed because she didn’t want her clothes on any more.
So, I took her home, and my mother said, ‘Oh, you’ve let your little sister fall into the water.’
And I said, ‘How do you know? Because we dried all her clothes,’ and my mother said, ‘Ah, but you didn’t iron them.’ My little sister’s clothes were all crumpled and messy.
Then my mother said I should not have any sugary biscuits for supper because I was disobedient. Only bread and butter, and she said my little sister must go straight to bed, and have some hot milk to drink.
And my mother said to my little sister, ‘Don’t you think you were a naughty little girl to go in the water?’
And my naughty little sister said, ‘I won’t do it any more, because it was too wet.’
But, do you know, when my mother went to throw away the stones out of my little sister’s basket, she found a little fish in the bottom which my naughty little sister had caught!
2. My Naughty Little Sister at the fair
Here is another story about my naughty little sister.
When I was a little girl, my little sister used to eat all her breakfast up, and all her dinner up, and all her tea up, and all her supper up – every bit.
But one day my naughty little sister wouldn’t eat her breakfast. She had cornflakes and an egg, and a piece of bread and butter, and an apple, and a big cup of milk, and she wouldn’t eat anything.
She said, ‘No cornflakes.’
Then my mother said, ‘Well, eat your egg,’ and she said, ‘No egg. Nasty egg.’ She said, ‘Nasty apple,’ too, and she spilled her milk all over the table. Wasn’t she naughty?
My mother said, ‘You won’t go to the fair this afternoon if you don’t eat it all up.’ So then my naughty little sister began to eat up her breakfast very quickly. She ate the cornflakes and the egg, but she really couldn’t manage the apple, and my mother said, ‘Well, you ate most of your breakfast so I think we shall let you go to the fair.’
Shall I tell you why my naughty little sister hadn’t wanted to eat her breakfast? She was too excited. And when my naughty little sister was excited, she was very cross and disobedient.
When the fair-time came, my big cousin Jane came to fetch us. Then my naughty little sister got so excited that she was crosser than ever. My mother dressed her up in her new best blue dress and her new best blue knickers, and her white shoes and blue socks, but my naughty little sister wouldn’t help a bit. And you know what that means.
She went all stiff and stubborn, and she wouldn’t put her arms in the armholes for herself, and she wouldn’t lift up her feet for her shoes, and my mother said, ‘Very well, they shall go without you.’ Then my naughty little sister lifted up her feet very quickly. Wasn’t she bad?
We went on a bus to the fair, and when we got there, it was very nice. We saw cows and horses and pigs and sheep and chickens, and lots and lots of people. And there were big swings that went swingy-swing, swingy-swing, and roundabouts that went round and round, round and round. Then my naughty little sister said, ‘I want a swing! I want a swing!’
But my big cousin Jane said, ‘No, you are too little for those big swings, but you shall go on the little roundabout.’
The little roundabout had wooden horses with real reins, and things to put your feet in, and there were little cars on the roundabout, and a little red fire-engine, and a little train.
First, we watched the roundabout going round and round, and when it went round all the cars and horses went up and down, up and down, and the fire-engine and the train went up and down too. The roundabout played music as it went round.
Then, when it stopped, my big cousin said, ‘Get on, both of you.’ There were lots of other children there, and some of them were afraid to go on the roundabout, but my little sister wasn’t afraid. She was the first to go on, and she got on all by herself, without anyone lifting her at all. Wasn’t she a big girl? And do you know what she did? She got into the seat of the red fire-engine, and rang and rang the bell. ‘Clonkle! Clonkle! Clonkle!’ went the bell, and my little sister laughed and laughed, and when the roundabout went round it played nice music, and my naughty little sister said, ‘Hurrah. I’m going to put the fire out!’
My little sister had four rides on the roundabout. One, two, three, four rides. And then my big cousin Jane said, ‘We have spent all our money. We will go and look at the people buying horses.’
But my little sister got thoroughly nasty again, and she said, ‘No horse.
