The Railway Children | Page 9

a soap-dish that cracked responsively.
"Oh, yes," said Mother, "only it'll mean unpacking one of those big

cases that we put in the cellar. Phil, do mind where you're walking to,
there's a dear. Peter, hold the light."
The cellar door opened out of the kitchen. There were five wooden
steps leading down. It wasn't a proper cellar at all, the children thought,
because its ceiling went up as high as the kitchen's. A bacon-rack hung
under its ceiling. There was wood in it, and coal. Also the big cases.
Peter held the candle, all on one side, while Mother tried to open the
great packing-case. It was very securely nailed down.
"Where's the hammer?" asked Peter.
"That's just it," said Mother. "I'm afraid it's inside the box. But there's a
coal-shovel--and there's the kitchen poker."
And with these she tried to get the case open.
"Let me do it," said Peter, thinking he could do it better himself.
Everyone thinks this when he sees another person stirring a fire, or
opening a box, or untying a knot in a bit of string.
"You'll hurt your hands, Mammy," said Roberta; "let me."
"I wish Father was here," said Phyllis; "he'd get it open in two shakes.
What are you kicking me for, Bobbie?"
"I wasn't," said Roberta.
Just then the first of the long nails in the packing-case began to come
out with a scrunch. Then a lath was raised and then another, till all four
stood up with the long nails in them shining fiercely like iron teeth in
the candle-light.
"Hooray!" said Mother; "here are some candles--the very first thing!
You girls go and light them. You'll find some saucers and things. Just
drop a little candle-grease in the saucer and stick the candle upright in
it."

"How many shall we light?"
"As many as ever you like," said Mother, gaily. "The great thing is to
be cheerful. Nobody can be cheerful in the dark except owls and
dormice."
So the girls lighted candles. The head of the first match flew off and
stuck to Phyllis's finger; but, as Roberta said, it was only a little burn,
and she might have had to be a Roman martyr and be burned whole if
she had happened to live in the days when those things were
fashionable.
Then, when the dining-room was lighted by fourteen candles, Roberta
fetched coal and wood and lighted a fire.
"It's very cold for May," she said, feeling what a grown-up thing it was
to say.
The fire-light and the candle-light made the dining-room look very
different, for now you could see that the dark walls were of wood,
carved here and there into little wreaths and loops.
The girls hastily 'tidied' the room, which meant putting the chairs
against the wall, and piling all the odds and ends into a corner and
partly hiding them with the big leather arm-chair that Father used to sit
in after dinner.
"Bravo!" cried Mother, coming in with a tray full of things. "This is
something like! I'll just get a tablecloth and then--"
The tablecloth was in a box with a proper lock that was opened with a
key and not with a shovel, and when the cloth was spread on the table,
a real feast was laid out on it.
Everyone was very, very tired, but everyone cheered up at the sight of
the funny and delightful supper. There were biscuits, the Marie and the
plain kind, sardines, preserved ginger, cooking raisins, and candied peel
and marmalade.

"What a good thing Aunt Emma packed up all the odds and ends out of
the Store cupboard," said Mother. "Now, Phil, DON'T put the
marmalade spoon in among the sardines."
"No, I won't, Mother," said Phyllis, and put it down among the Marie
biscuits.
"Let's drink Aunt Emma's health," said Roberta, suddenly; "what
should we have done if she hadn't packed up these things? Here's to
Aunt Emma!"
And the toast was drunk in ginger wine and water, out of willow-
patterned tea-cups, because the glasses couldn't be found.
They all felt that they had been a little hard on Aunt Emma. She wasn't
a nice cuddly person like Mother, but after all it was she who had
thought of packing up the odds and ends of things to eat.
It was Aunt Emma, too, who had aired all the sheets ready; and the men
who had moved the furniture had put the bedsteads together, so the
beds were soon made.
"Good night, chickies," said Mother. "I'm sure there aren't any rats. But
I'll leave my door open, and then if a mouse comes, you need only
scream, and I'll come and tell it exactly what I think of it."
Then she went to her own room. Roberta woke to hear