A Gallery of Children/Chapter 2
SPARROW TREE SQUARE
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We will take the lady in green first. Her name is Diana Fitzpatrick Mauleverer James. She is the only child of Mr. and Mrs. Fitzpatrick Mauleverer James, who live at Number 27. Mrs. F. M. James wanted a boy, so that he could support them in their old age; but Mr. F. M. James said loftily: "No F. M. James, my dear, was ever any good at supporting. Where the F. M. Jameses shine is at being supported. Let it be a girl, and let her marry some very rich man when she grows up. It shall be his proud privilege to tend the last of the F. M. James's in their middle-age." So it was a girl.
Mrs. F. M. James was very fond of Diana, but she was fond of Mr. F. M. James, too, and a time came when she found that she couldn't look after both of them; for it would happen sometimes that, when Diana wanted to play trains, Mr. F. M. James didn't, or that when Mr. F. M. James did, then Diana had thought of some other game. So one day she said:
"I think, dear, we had better get Diana a nurse, and then I can devote myself entirely to you."
"Certainly, my love, you should devote yourself entirely to me," said Mr. F. M. James, "but I cannot allow a common nurse to look after Diana Fitzpatrick Mauleverer. The F. M. James's have their pride."
"Then who is to look after her?" asked Diana's Mother.
"She must look after herself."
So from that day Diana looked after herself. She woke herself in the morning, dressed herself, took herself out for a walk, told herself to get-on-with-her-dinner-there-was-a-darling, sang herself to sleep in the afternoon, gave herself tea, brushed her hair and took herself downstairs to her Father and Mother, took herself back again if they were out, gave herself a bath, read to herself while she had her supper, and at the end of the day said good-night to herself and left herself in bed. When she was there, she made up little rhymes for herself, before going to sleep. One of them went like this:
Diana Fitzpatrick Mauleverer James
Was lucky to have the most beautiful names.
How awful for Fathers and Mothers to call
Their children Jemima!—or nothing at all!
But hers were much wiser and kinder and cleverer,
They called her Diana Fitzpatrick Mauleverer James.
I am telling you all this because I want you to understand how proud she felt on that first morning when she took herself to Sparrow Tree Square to feed the birds. There were other children there, but they had nurses with them. Sometimes the children ran away and pretended they didn't belong to the nurses and sometimes the nurses lagged behind and pretended they didn't belong to the children, but Diana Fitzpatrick Mauleverer James knew! She was the only entirely-all-by-herself person there. And she had given herself a bag full of bread-crusts to feed the sparrows with, and she had let herself wear the green coat with fur trimmings, and she was utterly and entirely happy. She nodded to William and Wilhelmina Good, who were walking up and down in a very correct way, William in green, too, and Wilhelmina, who had been growing rather quickly lately, in blue. She laughed like anything at a little boy who was trying to count the sparrows, and kept making it thirty instead of thirty-one, because one of them hid between his legs. How angry he was because he couldn't make it thirty-one! Silly little boy! She bowed politely to the Vanderdecken girls—over-dressed as usual—and agreed with them that it was a fine morning. They were feeding the Sparrows, too, but they just had little bits of bread which their nurses gave them out of their pockets. Not like Diana, who had her crusts in a real grown-up bag!
Now then!
The sparrows flew round Diana Fitzpatrick Mauleverer James, and sat waiting for her.
"All right, darlings," she said as she opened her bag.
Oh, dear! Oh, dear! Oh, dear!
She had forgotten to put the bread-crusts in!