THE WOULDBEGOODS
The unexpected Dentist said, "I third it. At first I thought it would help, but afterwards I saw it only made you want to be naughty, just because you were a Wouldbegood."
Oswald owns he was surprised. We put it to the vote at once, so as not to let Denny cool. H. O. and Noël and Alice voted with us, so Daisy and Dora were what is called a hopeless minority. We tried to cheer their hopelessness by letting them read the things out of the Golden Deed book aloud. Noël hid his face in the straw so that we should not see the faces he made while he made poetry instead of listening, and when the Wouldbegoods was by vote dissolved forever he sat up, with straws in his hair, and said:
"THE EPITAPH
"The Wouldbegoods are dead and gone,
But not the golden deeds they have done.
These will remain upon Glory's page
To be an example to every age.
And by this we have got to know
How to be good upon our ow—N.
N is for Noël, that makes the rhyme and the sense both right. O.W.N., own; do you see?"
We saw it, and said so, and the gentle poet was satisfied. And the council broke up. Oswald felt that a weight had been lifted from his expanding chest, and it is curious that he never felt so inclined to be good and a model youth as he did then.
294
