My School-Days

My School-Days
by E. Nesbit
1897

NOT because my childhood was different from that of others, not because I have anything strange to relate, anything new to tell, are these words written. For the other reason rather that I was a child as other children, that my memories are their memories, as my hopes were their hopes, my dreams their dreams, my fears their fears. I open the book of memory to tear out some pages for you others.
There is nothing here that is not in my most clear and vivid recollection.
When I was a little child I used to pray fervently, tearfully, that when I should be grown up I might never forget what I thought and felt and suffered then.
Let these pages speak for me, and bear witness that I have not forgotten.

MEMORIES OF CHILDHOOD.
PART I.
STUART PLAID.
When I was small and teachable my mother was compelled to much travel and change of scene by the illness of my elder sister; and as she liked to have me more or less within reach, I changed schools as a place-hunter changes his politics.
The first school I went to was a Mrs. Arthur's--at Brighton. I remember very little about the lessons, because I was only seven years old, but I remember--to my inmost fibre I remember the play. There was a yard behind the house--no garden and there I used to play with another small child whose name I have forgotten. But 1 know that she wore a Stuart plaid frock, and that I detested her.
On the first day of my arrival we were sent into the "playground" with our toys. Stuart plaid, as I must call her, having no other name, had a battered doll and three scallop-shells I had a very complete little set of pewter tea-things in a cardboard box.
"Let's change for a bit," said Stuart plaid.
Mingled politeness and shyness compelled my acquiescence. She took my new tea-things, and I disconsolately nursed the battered torso of her doll. But this grew very wearisome, and I, feeling satisfied that the claims of courtesy had been fully met, protested mildly.
"Now then," said Stuart plaid, looking up from the tea-things, "don't be so selfish; besides, they're horrid little stupid tin things. I wouldn't give twopence for them."
"But I don't want you to give twopence for them; I want them back."
"Oh, no you don't!"
"Yes I do," said I, roused by her depreciation of my property, "and I'll have them too, so there!"
I advanced towards her--I am afraid with some half-formed determination of pulling her hair.
"A11 right," she said, "you stand there and I'll put them in the box and give them to you."
"Promise!"
"Yes, if you don't move."
She turned her back on me. It took her a very long time to put them in the box. I stood tingling with indignation, and a growing desire to slap her face. Presently she turned.
"You would have them back," she said, grinning unpleasantly, "and here they are."
She put them into my hands. She had bitten every single cup, saucer, and plate into a formless lump!
While I stood speechless with anger and misery, she came close to me and said tauntingly
"There, now! aren't you sorry you didn't let me have them?"
"I'll go home," I said, struggling between pride and tears.
"Oh, no you won't," said Stuart plaid, thrusting her mocking face close to mine; "and if you say a word about it I'll say you did it and pinched me as well. And Mrs. Arthur'll believe me, because I'm not a new girl, and you are!"
I turned away without a word, and I never did tell--till now. But I never said another word to Stuart plaid out of school. She tortured me unremittingly. When I had been at school a week or two my paint-box suffered at her hands, but I bore it meekly and in silence, only seeking to replace my Vandyke brown by mud from the garden. Chinese white I sought to manufacture by a mixture of chalk picked up on the sea-shore, and milk from my mug at tea-time. It was never a successful industry. I remember the hot white streets, and the flies, and Brill's baths, and the Western Road, and the bitter pang of passing, at the end of a long procession, our own house, where always some one might be at the window, and never any one was. I used to go home on Saturdays, and then all bitterness was so swallowed up in the bliss of the homereturning, that I actually forgot the miseries of my school-life; but I was very unhappy there. Mrs. Arthur and the big girls were kind enough to me, but Stuart plaid was enough to blight any lot. She blighted mine, and I suppose no prisoner ever hailed the falling of his fetters with the joy I felt when