Brothers of Pity | Page 2

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"Who made his shroud?" "I," said the Beetle, "With my thread and
needle, I made his shroud."--Death of Cock Robin.
It must be much easier to play at things when there are more of you
than when there is only one.
There is only one of me, and Nurse does not care about playing at
things. Sometimes I try to persuade her; but if she is in a good temper
she says she has got a bone in her leg, and if she isn't she says that
when little boys can't amuse themselves it's a sure and certain sign
they've got "the worrits," and the sooner they are put to bed with a
Gregory's powder "the better for themselves and every one else."
Godfather Gilpin can play delightfully when he has time, and he
believes in fancy things, only he is so very busy with his books. But
even when he is reading he will let you put him in the game. He doesn't
mind pretending to be a fancy person if he hasn't to do anything, and if
I do speak to him he always remembers who he is. That is why I like
playing in his study better than in the nursery. And Nurse always says
"He's safe enough, with the old gentleman," so I'm allowed to go there
as much as I like.
Godfather Gilpin lets me play with the books, because I always take
care of them. Besides, there is nothing else to play with, except the
window-curtains, for the chairs are always full. So I sit on the floor,

and sometimes I build with the books (particularly Stonehenge), and
sometimes I make people of them, and call them by the names on their
backs, and the ones in other languages we call foreigners, and
Godfather Gilpin tells me what countries they belong to. And
sometimes I lie on my face and read (for I could read when I was four
years old), and Godfather Gilpin tells me the hard words. The only rule
he makes is, that I must get all the books out of one shelf, so that they
are easily put away again. I may have any shelf I like, but I must not
mix the shelves up.
I always took care of the books, and never had any accident with any of
them till the day I dropped Jeremy Taylor's Sermons. It made me very
miserable, because I knew that Godfather Gilpin could never trust me
so much again.
However, if it had not happened, I should not have known anything
about the Brothers of Pity; so, perhaps (as Mrs. James, Godfather
Gilpin's house-keeper, says), "All's for the best," and "It's an ill wind
that blows nobody good."
It happened on a Sunday, I remember, and it was the day after the day
on which I had had the shelf in which all the books were alike. They
were all foreigners--Italians--and all their names were Goldoni, and
there were forty-seven of them, and they were all in white and gold. I
could not read any of them, but there were lots of pictures, only I did
not know what the stories were about. So next day, when Godfather
Gilpin gave me leave to play a Sunday game with the books, I thought I
would have English ones, and big ones, for a change, for the Goldonis
were rather small.
We played at church, and I was the parson, and Godfather Gilpin was
the old gentleman who sits in the big pew with the knocker, and goes to
sleep (because he wanted to go to sleep), and the books were the
congregation. They were all big, but some of them were fat, and some
of them were thin, like real people--not like the Goldonis, which were
all alike.
I was arranging them in their places and looking at their names, when I

saw that one of them was called Taylor's Sermons, and I thought I
would keep that one out and preach a real sermon out of it when I had
read prayers. Of course I had to do the responses as well as "Dearly
beloved brethren" and those things, and I had to sing the hymns too, for
the books could not do anything, and Godfather Gilpin was asleep.
When I had finished the service I stood behind a chair that was full of
newspapers, for a pulpit, and I lifted up Taylor's Sermons, and rested it
against the chair, and began to look to see what I would preach. It was
an old book, bound in brown leather, and ornamented with gold, with a
picture of a man in a black gown and a round black cap and a white
collar in the beginning; and there was a list of all