Mrs. Molesworth - Hoodie

A pretty, cheerful nursery – a nursery in which surely children could not but be happy – with pictures on the walls and toys in the glass-doored cupboard, and rocking-horse and doll-house, and everything a child's heart could wish for. Spring sunshine faint but clear, like the first pale primrose, peeping in at the window, a merry fire crackling away in the tidy hearth. And just in front of it, for it is early spring only, a group of children pleasant to see. A soft-haired, quiet-eyed little girl, a book open upon her knee, and at each side, nestling in beside her, a cherub-faced dot of a boy, listening to the story she was reading aloud.

Such a peaceful, pretty picture! Ah yes – what a pity to disturb it. But I must show you the whole of it. Into this pretty nursery flies another child – a tiny fairy of a girl, tiny even for her years which are but five – in she flies, down the long passage which leads to the children's quarters, in at the nursery door, which, in spite of her hurry, she carefully closes, and seeing that the other door is open closes it too, then, flying back to the centre of the room, deliberately sets to work to – children, can you guess? – to scream !

She sheds no tears, there is no grief, only wrath, great and furious, in the little face which should have been so pretty, in the big blue eyes which should have been so sweet. She shakes herself till her fair, fluffy hair is all in a "touzle," she dances with rage till her neck and arms are crimson, from time to time in the middle of her screams calling out at the pitch of her voice, "I don't love any body. I don't want any 'sing. I don't like any 'sing. Go away ugly evybody. I don't love Pince. Go away ugly Pince."

The girl by the fire looked up for a moment.

"Prince isn't here," she said. "Oh, Hoodie," she went on wearily, "how can you – how can you be so naughty?"

Hoodie turned towards her sister.

"I don't love zou , Maudie. Naughty, ugly Maudie. Pince sall be here. Naughty Maudie. I sall be naughty. I don't love any body."

"Nebber mind, Maudie dear, nebber mind naughty Hoodie. Hoodie's always naughty. Please go on, Maudie," said one of the two little boys.

Magdalen tried to go on. But in the midst of such a din, it was very difficult to make herself heard, and at last she gave up in despair.

"It's no good, Hec," she said, "I can't go on. Hoodie spoils everything when she gets like that."

The little fellows' faces lengthened.

"Hoodie 'poils ebery'sing," they murmured.

Just then the door opened.

"Miss Hoodie," said the maid who came in, "Miss Hoodie again! And Sunday morning too – the day you should be extra good."

"The day she is nearly always extra naughty," said Magdalen, with the superiority of eight years old. "It's no good speaking to her, Martin. She's going to go on – she shut the doors first."

Martin seated herself composedly beside the three children.

"I never did see such a child," she said; "no, never. You would think, Miss Maudie, she might stop if she liked, seeing how she can keep it in like, as long as she's afraid of her Mamma hearing. If she can keep it in till she shuts the doors, she might keep it in altogether, you would think."

"Stop! of course she can stop if she likes," said Magdalen. "What was it set her off, Martin, do you know?"

"Something about Prince," replied Martin. "Thomas said she was trying to get him to come up-stairs with her, and he whistled to him, not knowing, and Prince ran away from her."

"Hoodie's keeped all her bicsits for Pince, for a treat for him for Sunday," said little Hec, with some evident sympathy for Hoodie.

"She shouldn't be so silly then," said Maudie. "What do dogs know about its being Sunday, and treats? I know Hoodie always spoils our Sundays, and we're better than dogs."

"I don't love you, naughty Maudie. I don't love any body," screamed Hoodie.

"It certainly doesn't look as if you did, and very soon nobody will love you, Miss Hoodie, if you go on so," said Martin, virtuously.

"I wish," said Duke, the second twin, "I wish papa would build anoder gate big house and put Hoodie to live there all alone, don't you, Maudie? A gate big house where not nobody could hear her sceaming."

Great applause followed this brilliant idea – but the laughter only increased Hoodie's fury. Duke was the next she turned upon.

"I don't love you, naughty, ugly Duke," she screamed. "I don't love any body. Go away evybody, go away, go away , go AWAY."

Such was Hoodie – poor Hoodie – at five years old!

What had made her so naughty? That was the question that puzzled everybody concerned – not forgetting Hoodie herself.

"I didn't make myself. 'Tisn't my fault. God should have made Hoodie gooder," she would say defiantly.

And was it not a puzzle? There was Maudie, just as nice and good a little girl as one would wish to see, and Hec and Duke, both comfortable, good-natured little fellows – all three, children to whom things came right, and whose presence in the world seemed as natural and pleasant a thing as that of birds in the trees or daisies in the grass. Why should not Hoodie be like them? She was born in July – one bright sunny day when all the world was rejoicing – and little Maudie had been so pleased to have a baby sister, and her godmother had begged that she might be called "Julian," and everybody had, for a time, made much of her. But, alas, as the years went on, they told a different tale – governesses and nurses, sister and brothers, it was the same story with all – Hoodie's temper was the strangest and the worst that ever a child had made herself and other people miserable by.

"I could really fancy," said Maudie one day, "I could really fancy, if there were such things as fairies, you know – that one of them had been offended at not being asked to Hoodie's christening."

And when Hoodie grew old enough to hear fairy tales, this speech of Maudie's came back to her mind, and she wondered, with the strange unexpressed bewilderment of a child, if indeed there were some mystery about her naughtiness – some spell cast upon her which it was hopeless to try to break. For she knew she was naughty, very naughty – she never thought of denying it. Only deep down somewhere in her – where, she could not have told – there was a feeling that she did not want to be naughty – she did not like being naughty – there was a mistake about her somehow or somewhere, which nobody could understand or ever would, and which it never entered her head to try to explain to any one.

The screaming went on steadily – agreeably for Hoodie herself, it is to be hoped, for it certainly was anything but pleasant for other people. Suddenly there came a lull – a step was heard coming along the passage, and light as it was, Hoodie's quick ears were the first to hear it. It was mother!

Hoodie's power of self-control was really very great – her screams ceased entirely, only, as her fury had this time been very great even for her, it had naturally arrived at tears and sobs, and in consequence she was not able all at once to stifle the sobs that shook her, or even by scrubbing at her poor eyes with all her might, with a rather grimy little ball which she called her "pocket-hankerwich," could she succeed in destroying all traces of the storm. She ran over to the window and stood with her back to the door, staring, or pretending to stare, down at the pretty garden beds, gay with crocuses and snowdrops. But mother's eyes were not to be so easily deceived. One glance at the peaceful, though subdued group round the fireplace, one anxious look at the little figure standing solitary by the window, its fat dimpled shoulders convulsively heaving every moment or two, its face resolutely turned away, and mother knew all.