little sister had to come, but do you know what she did, while we were looking at the horses? She ran away. I said she was a naughty child, you know.
Yes. She ran away, and we couldn’t find her anywhere. We looked and looked. We went to the roundabouts and she wasn’t there. We went to the swings and she wasn’t there. She wasn’t at the pig place, or the cow place or the chicken place, or any of the other places. So then my big cousin Jane said, ‘We must ask a policeman. Because policemen are good to lost children.’
We asked a lady if she could tell us where a policeman was, and the lady said, ‘Go over the road to the police-station.’
So my cousin took me over the road to the police-station, and we went into a big door, and through another door, and we saw a policeman sitting without his hat on. And the policeman said, ‘How do you do, children. Can I help you?’ Wasn’t that nice of him?
Then my big cousin Jane said, ‘We have lost a naughty little girl.’ And she told the nice policeman all about my bad little sister, all about what her name was, and where we had lost her, and what she looked like, and the nice policeman wrote it all down in a big book.
Then the kind policeman said, ‘No, we haven’t a little girl here, but if we find her, we will send her home to you in a big car.’
So then my cousin Jane and I went home, and it was a long walk, because we had spent all our pennies on the roundabout.
When we got home, what do you think? There was my naughty little sister, sitting at the table, eating her tea. She had got home before us after all. And do you know why that was? It was because a kind policeman had found her and taken her home in his big car.
And do you know, my naughty little sister said she’d never, never run off like that again, because it wasn’t at all nice, being lost. She said it made her cry.
But, my naughty little sister said, if she did get lost again, she would find another nice policeman to take her home, because policemen are so kind to lost children.
3. When my Naughty Little Sister wasn’t well
I hope you aren’t a shy child. My naughty little sister wasn’t shy, but she used to pretend to be sometimes, and when nice aunts and uncles came to see us, she wouldn’t say, ‘How do you do!’ or shake hands or anything, and if they tried to talk to her she would run off down the garden and hide among the currant bushes until they went away.
But my naughty little sister talked and talked when she wanted to. She talked to the milkman and the baker and the coalman and the window-cleaner man, and all the other people who came to the door, and when they came she got terribly in their way, because she talked to them so much, but they all liked my naughty little sister.
One day she upset all the milkman’s bottles, and he only said, ‘Never mind, no use crying over spilt milk,’ and another day she shut the cellar up just as the coalman was going to tip the coal in, and he only said, ‘Well, well now, there’s a job for your father!’ and she climbed up the ladder after the window-cleaning man and then she cried because she was afraid to come down, but he only said, ‘There! There! Don’t cry, dearie,’ and he lent her his leathery thing to wipe her tears on.
So you see, they liked my naughty little sister very much, but wasn’t she naughty?
Well now, one day my poor naughty little sister wasn’t very well. She sat in her chair and looked very miserable and said, ‘I’m not a very well girl today.’
So my mother said, ‘You shall go to bed and have a hot drink, and a hotwater-bottle and we shall send for the doctor to come and see what’s wrong with you.’
And my naughty little sister said, ‘No doctor! Nasty doctor!’ Wasn’t she a silly cuckoo? Fancy saying, ‘No doctor’ when she wasn’t well!
But my mother said, ‘He’s a nice doctor. You must tell him how you feel, and then he will make you all better.’
Then my naughty little sister said, ‘I’m too shy. I won’t talk to him.’ She said it in a cross, growly voice, ‘I won’t talk to him!’
So my naughty little sister went to bed, and she had a hot-water-bottle and a hot drink. Also, she had her best books, and all her dolls and her teddy bears, but she felt so not-well that she didn’t want any of these things at all.
Presently my naughty little sister heard a knock on the front door, and she said, ‘No doctor,’ and hid her face under the sheet.
But it wasn’t the doctor, it was the nice milkman, and when he heard my naughty little sister wasn’t well, he sent her his love, and a notebook with lines on, and a blue pencil to write with.
Then my naughty little sister heard the front door again, and she said, ‘No doctor,’ again, and hid her face again, but it was the nice baker, and he sent my naughty little sister his love and a little spongy cake in case she fancied it.
Then she heard the front door again, and she said, ‘No doctor – nasty doctor,’ but it was the nice coalman, and he sent my naughty little sister his love and a red rose from his cap that smelt rosy and coaly.
After that my naughty little sister began to feel a much happier girl, and she didn’t hide her face any more, so that when the window-cleaner man came to clean the window, she could see him smiling through the glass, and when he popped his head in and asked, ‘How’s the invalid?’ my naughty little sister said, ‘I’m not a well girl today.’
The window-cleaner man said, ‘Well, the doctor will soon put you right.’
And my naughty little sister watched the window-cleaner man rubbing away with the leathery thing, and then she said, ‘No doctor,’ to the window-cleaner man.
‘No doctor,’ she said, out loud.
‘Yes doctor,’ said the window-cleaner man.
‘No doctor,’ said my naughty little sister.
‘That’s a silly idea you’ve got,’ said the window-cleaner man. ‘The doctor will make you a well girl again.’
Then my naughty little sister began to cry and cry. ‘No doctor, no doctor. I’m too shy.’ Like that, in that miserable way.
And then the window-cleaner man said, ‘What a pity you won’t have the doctor, because you won’t see his listening-thing, or his glass-stick-thing to pop under your tongue, or the doctor’s bag that he keeps his little bottles in.’
Then my naughty little sister stopped crying and said, ‘What listening-thing? What stick-thing?’
‘Ah,’ said the window-cleaner man, ‘I shan’t tell you that. Why should I? But it’s a pity you won’t see that doctor and find out for yourself.’ That’s what the window-cleaner man said.
