Seven Little Australians | Page 9

he howled, backing towards the door. "Hoo--yah--boo-hoo-ooo! Esther--boo--yah--Judy--oh--oh--h! oh--oh--h--h--h--h!" As might be expected, his father had picked up a strap that lay conveniently near, and was giving his son a very fair taste of it.
"Oh--h--h--h! o--o--h! o--o--h! ah--h--h! 'twasn't me-- 'twasn't my fault--its Pip and Judy--oh--h--h--h! hoo--the pant'mime! boo-hoo! ah--h--h--h--you're killing me! hoo-boo! I was only d--doin' it--oh--hoo--ah--h--h! d--oin' it to p--please--boo--oo--oo! to p--please you!"
His father paused with uplifted strap. "And that's why all the others are behaving in so strange a fashion? Just for me to take them to the pantomime?"
Bunty wriggled himself free. "Boo--hoo--yes! but not me--I didn't--I never--true's faith--oh-h-h-hoo-yah! it wasn't my fault, it's all the others--boo--hoo--hoo! hit them the rest."
He got three more smart cuts, and then fled howling and yelling to the nursery, where he fell on the floor and kicked and rolled about as if he were half killed.
"You sn--n--n--n--neaks!" he sobbed, addressing the others, who had flown from all parts at his noisy outcry, "you m-m--- mean p--p--p--pigs! I h--hadn't n--n--no fo--o--ow-l, and I've h--h--had all the b--b--b--beating! y--you s--s--sn--n-neaks! oh--h--h--h! ah--h--h--h! oh--h--h--h! oh--h--h-h! I'm b--b-- bleeding all over, I kno--o--o--ow!"
They couldn't help laughing a bit; Bunty was always so irresistibly comic when he was hurt ever so little; but still they comforted him as well as they could, and tried to find out what had happened.
Esther came in presently, looking very worried. "Well?" they said in a breath.
"You really are the most exasperating children," she said vexedly.
"But he pantomime--quick, Esther--have you asked him?" they cried impatiently.
"The pantomime! He says he would rather make it worth Mr. Rignold's while to take it off the boards than that one of you should catch a glimpse of it--and it serves you very well right! Meg, for goodness' sake give Baby some dry clothes--just look at her; and, Judy, if you have any feeling for me, take off that frock. Bunty, you wicked boy, I'll call your father if you don't stop that noise. Nell, take the scissors from the General, he'll poke his eyes out, bless him."
The young stepmother leaned back in her chair and looked round her tragically. She had never seen her husband so thoroughly angered, and her beautiful lips quivered when she remembered how he had seemed to blame her for it all.
Meg hadn't moved; the water was trickling slowly off Baby's clothes and making a pool on the floor, Bunty was still giving vent to spasmodic boos and hoos, Judy was whistling stormily, and the General, mulcted of the scissors, was licking his own muddy shoe all over with his dear little red tongue.
A sob rose in her throat, two tears welled up in her eyes and fell down her smooth, lovely cheeks. "Seven of you, and I'm only twenty!" she said pitifully. "Oh! it's too bad--oh dear! it is too bad."

CHAPTER IV
The General Sees Active Service
"My brain it teems With endless schemes, Both good and new."
It was a day after "the events narrated in the last chapter," as story-book parlance has it. And Judy, with a wrathful look in her eyes, was sitting on the nursery table, her knees touching her chin and her thin brown hands clasped round them.
"It's a shame," she said, "it's a burning, wicked shame! What's the use of fathers in the world, I'd like to know!"
"Oh, Judy!" said Meg, who was curled up in an armchair, deep in a book. But she said it mechanically, and only as a matter of duty, being three years older than Judy.
"Think of the times we could have if he didn't live with us," Judy continued, calmly disregardful. "Why, we'd have fowl three times a day, and the pantomime seven nights a week."
Nell suggested that it was not quite usual to have pantomimic performances on the seventh day, but Judy was not daunted.
"I'd have a kind of church pantomime," she said thoughtfully-- "beautiful pictures and things about the Holy Land, and the loveliest music, and beautiful children in white, singing hymns, and bright colours all about, and no collection plates to take your only threepenny bit-oh! and no sermons or litanies, of course."
"Oh, Judy!" murmured Meg, turning a leaf. Judy unclasped her hands, and then clasped them again more tightly than before. "Six whole tickets wasted--thirty beautiful shillings--just because we have a father!"
"He sent them to the Digby-Smiths," Bunty volunteered, "and wrote on the envelope, 'With compts. J. C. Woolcot.'"
Judy moaned. "Six horrid little Digby-Smiths sitting in the theatre watching our fun with their six horrid little eyes," she said bitterly.
Bunty, who was mathematically inclined, wanted to know why they wouldn't look at it through their twelve horrid little eyes, and Judy laughed and came down from the table, after expressing a wicked wish that the little Digby-Smiths might all tumble over the dress-circle rail before the curtain rose.