More William | Page 2

ones wiv great big suge shells. I put 'em in a tin for presents an' they've gotten out an' I've gotten no presents for nobody."
He relapsed into despondency.
William surveyed the hall.
"They've got out right enough!" he said, sternly. "They've got out right enough. Jus' look at our hall! Jus' look at our clothes! They've got out right enough."
Innumerable slimy iridescent trails shone over hats, and coats, and umbrellas, and wall-paper.
"Huh!" grunted William, who was apt to overwork his phrases. "They've got out right enough."
He looked at the tracks again and brightened. Jimmy was frankly delighted.
"Oo! Look!" he cried, "Oo funny!"
William's thoughts flew back to his bedroom wall--"A Busy Day is a Happy Day."
"Let's clean it up!" he said. "Let's have it all nice an' clean for when they come down. We'll be busy. You tell me if you feel happy when we've done. It might be true wot it says, but I don't like the flowers messin' all over it."
Investigation in the kitchen provided them with a large pail of water and a scrubbing-brush each.
For a long time they worked in silence. They used plenty of water. When they had finished the trails were all gone. Each soaked garment on the hat-stand was sending a steady drip on to the already flooded floor. The wall-paper was sodden. With a feeling of blankness they realised that there was nothing else to clean.
It was Jimmy who conceived the exquisite idea of dipping his brush in the bucket and sprinkling William with water. A scrubbing-brush is in many ways almost as good as a hose. Each had a pail of ammunition. Each had a good-sized brush. During the next few minutes they experienced purest joy. Then William heard threatening movements above, and decided hastily that the battle must cease.
"Backstairs," he said shortly. "Come on."
Marking their track by a running stream of water, they crept up the backstairs.
But two small boys soaked to the skin could not disclaim all knowledge of a flooded hall.
William was calm and collected when confronted with a distracted mother.
"We was tryin' to clean up," he said. "We found all snail marks an' we was tryin' to clean up. We was tryin' to help. You said so last night, you know, when you was talkin' to me. You said to help. Well, I thought it was helpin' to try an' clean up. You can't clean up with water an' not get wet--not if you do it prop'ly. You said to try an' make Christmas Day happy for other folks and then I'd be happy. Well, I don't know as I'm very happy," he said, bitterly, "but I've been workin' hard enough since early this mornin'. I've been workin'," he went on pathetically. His eye wandered to the notice on his wall. "I've been busy all right, but it doesn't make me _happy_--not jus' now," he added, with memories of the rapture of the fight. That certainly must be repeated some time. Buckets of water and scrubbing-brushes. He wondered he'd never thought of that before.
William's mother looked down at his dripping form.
"Did you get all that water with just cleaning up the snail marks?" she said.
William coughed and cleared his throat. "Well," he said, deprecatingly, "most of it. I think I got most of it."
"If it wasn't Christmas Day ..." she went on darkly.
William's spirits rose. There was certainly something to be said for Christmas Day.
It was decided to hide the traces of the crime as far as possible from William's father. It was felt--and not without reason--that William's father's feelings of respect for the sanctity of Christmas Day might be overcome by his feelings of paternal ire.
Half-an-hour later William, dried, dressed, brushed, and chastened, descended the stairs as the gong sounded in a hall which was bare of hats and coats, and whose floor shone with cleanliness.
"And jus' to think," said William, despondently, "that it's only jus' got to brekfust time."
William's father was at the bottom of the stairs. William's father frankly disliked Christmas Day.
"Good-morning, William," he said, "and a happy Christmas, and I hope it's not too much to ask of you that on this relation-infested day one's feelings may be harrowed by you as little as possible. And why the deu--dickens they think it necessary to wash the hall floor before breakfast, Heaven only knows!"
William coughed, a cough meant to be a polite mixture of greeting and deference. William's face was a study in holy innocence. His father glanced at him suspiciously. There were certain expressions of William's that he distrusted.
William entered the dining-room morosely. Jimmy's sister Barbara--a small bundle of curls and white frills--was already beginning her porridge.
"Goo' mornin'," she said, politely, "did you hear me cleanin' my teef?"
He crushed her with a glance.
He sat eating in silence till everyone had come down, and Aunts Jane, Evangeline,