Milly and Olly | Page 3

creature, at least, an old gray poll-parrot, that chatters away, and behaves as if it were quite sensible, and knew all about everything."
"Hasn't she got any pussies, mother?" asked Olly.
"Yes, two I believe; but they don't get on with Polly very well, so they live in the kitchen out of the way--"
"I like pussies better than pollies," said Olly gravely.
"Why, what do you know about pollies, old man?"
"Pollies bite, I know they do. There was a polly bited Francis once."
"Well, and pussies scratch," said Milly.
"No, they don't, not if you're nicey to them," said Olly; who was just then very much in love with a white kitten, and thought there were no creatures so delightful as pussies.
"Well, suppose you don't make up your mind about Aunt Emma's Polly till you've seen her," said Mrs. Norton. "Now sit down on the rug there and let us have a talk."
Down squatted the children on the floor opposite their mother, with their little heads full of plans and their eyes as bright as sparks.
"I'll take my cart and horse," began Olly; "and my big ball, and my whistle, and my wheelbarrow, and my spade, and all my books, and the big scrap-book, and--"
"You can't, Olly," exclaimed Milly. "Nurse could never pack all those up. There'd be no room for our clothes. You can take your whistle, and the top, and the picture books, and I can take my dolls. That'll be quite enough, won't it, mother?"
"Quite enough," said Mrs. Norton. "If it's fine weather you'll see--you won't want any toys. But now, look here, children," and she held up the map. "Shall I show you how we are going to get to the mountains?"
"Oh yes," said Milly, "that'll be like my geography lesson--come, Olly. Now mother'll teach you geography, like Fr?ulein does me."
"That's lessons," said Olly, with half a pout, "not fun a bit. It's only girls like lessons--Boys never do--Jacky doesn't, and Francis doesn't, and I don't."
"Never mind about it's being lessons, Olly. Come and see if it isn't interesting," said Mrs. Norton. "Now, Milly, find Willingham."
Willingham was the name of the town where Milly and Oliver lived. It is a little town in Oxfordshire, and if you look long enough on the map you may find it, though I won't promise you.
"There it is," said Milly triumphantly, showing it to her mother and Olly.
"Quite right. Now look here," and Mrs. Norton took a pencil out of her pocket and drew a little line along the map. "First of all we shall get into the train and go to a place called--look, Milly."
"Bletchley," said Milly, following where the pencil pointed. "What an ugly name."
"It's an ugly place," said Mrs. Norton, "so perhaps it doesn't deserve a better name. And after Bletchley--look again, Milly."
"Rugby," said Milly, reading the names as her mother pointed, "and then Stafford, and then Crewe--what a funny name, mother!--and then Wigan, and then Warrington, and then Lancaster. Ox-en-holme, Kendal, Wind-er-mere. Oh, mother, what a long way! Why, we've got right to the top of England."
"Stop a bit, Milly, and let me tell you something about these places. First of all we shall get out of the train at Bletchley, and get into another train that will go faster than the first. And it will take us past all kinds of places, some pretty and some ugly, and some big and some small. At Stafford there is an old castle, Milly, where fierce people lived in old days and fought their neighbours. And at Crewe we shall get out and have our dinner. And at Wigan all the trees grow on one side as if some one had come and given them a push in the night; and at Lancaster there's another old castle, a very famous one, only now they have turned it into a prison, and people are shut up inside it. Then a little way after Lancaster you'll begin to see some mountains, far, far away, but first you'll see something else--just a little bit of blue sea, with mountains on the other side of it. And then will come Windermere, where we shall get out and drive in a carriage. And we shall drive right into the mountains, Olly, till they stand up all round us with their dear kind old faces that mother has loved ever since she was a baby."
The children looked up wonderingly at their mother, and they saw her face shining and her eyes as bright as theirs, as if she too was a child going out for a holiday.
"Oh! And, mother," said Olly, "you'll let us take Spot. She can go in my box."
Now Spot was the white kitten, so Milly and mother began to laugh.
"Suppose you go and ask Spot first, whether she'd like it, Olly," said Mrs. Norton, patting