Part 9 (1/2)

THE MAGIC SONG

[Ill.u.s.tration: The Magic Song]

VI

THE MAGIC SONG

About a month after Cuthbert had been lucky enough to save Beardy Ned's little girl, the weather grew so hot that all the people in the town became rather discontented. It is always easier for people in towns to become discontented than it is for other people, because instead of fields to walk on they have only pavements; and instead of hills to look at they have only chimneys; and instead of bean-flowers to smell they have only dust-bins and the stale air that trickles down the streets. So the men in the ironworks were discontented because they thought that the men who owned the ironworks didn't give them enough money; and the men in the cotton-mills were discontented because they thought that the men who owned the cotton-mills made them work too hard; and the girls in Mr Joseph's refreshment shops thought him a cruel old beast; and the policemen thought that n.o.body loved them.

Also, the men who owned the ironworks thought that their men were greedy; and the men who owned the cotton-mills were afraid of becoming poor; and Mr Joseph was feeling depressed; and the policemen still thought that n.o.body loved them. Even dear Miss Plum, the head of the school, had a frown on her forehead, and the French mistress slapped Doris so hard that she left a red mark on Doris's cheek. Of course Doris was very angry about it, and her little brothers wanted to know exactly where the mark was. But it had faded away by the time she arrived home, and her mother only said that it had probably served her right. Doris was rather fond, you see, of cheeking the French mistress, and asking her silly questions to make the other girls laugh; and since she had had her hair bobbed the week before, she was even cheekier than usual.

Doris, as you may remember, lived in John Street, which was the next street to Peter Street, where Marian and Cuthbert lived. But the houses in it were smaller than the houses in Peter Street, and most of the people in them were rather poor. Doris's mother was poor, because Doris's daddy was dead, and Doris had five little brothers--Teddy and George, who were the twins, and Jimmy and Jocko and Christopher Mark.

They were much too poor to be able to have a maid, and so Doris's mother had to do most of the work. She had to be cook and housemaid and nurse and governess and Mummy darling all in one. Now that Doris was ten she was able to help her mother sometimes, and she used to take Christopher Mark out in his push-cart; and since she had been to the Arctic Circle with Cuthbert and Captain Jeremy her mother had begun to lean upon her a little more.

But oh, it was hot! The people in the streets lagged along with pale faces. They talked about the trouble in the ironworks, and the trouble in the cotton-mills, and what would Mr Joseph do if his girls went on strike, and didn't the policemen look ill-tempered? And Miss Plum couldn't make her accounts come right; and the French mistress went home to her boarding-house; and there she told everybody that she was going to be ill, and that the ham was tepid and the milk-pudding sour.

Even in John Street it was almost as bad, though it was a quiet street with a field at the other end of it. For the sun poured right into it, so that there wasn't any shade, and the stones of the pavement shone like martyrs, and the drains at Number Fifteen were out of order, and there was half a haddock lying in the middle of the road. So Doris went into the garden when they had all finished tea, but it was as hot in the garden as it was anywhere else; and the lady next door was grumbling to the lady beyond about one of her husband's collars that had been spoilt in the wash. Doris played about a bit and made Jocko cry, because he was silly and wanted to read a book; and then she went round to Peter Street to see Cuthbert and Marian, and found that they had gone into the country to see their Uncle Joe.

So she came back and teased the twins, and at last it was time to go to bed; and it was almost as hot after the sun had gone down as it had been in the middle of the day. She slept in the same room with Jimmy and Jocko, and they all turned and twisted and kicked off their bedclothes; and as the daylight faded the moonlight grew, so that it was past ten before they fell asleep. That was when their mother came and kissed them, and she was so tired that she could hardly stand; and then she went to bed and fell asleep too, and the church clock struck eleven times. Happy was Beardy Ned then, sleeping by the stream, with little Liz and his beautiful secret; and happy was Gwendolen in her farmhouse bedroom smelling of lavender and last year's apples. But sorrowful and sticky were the people of the town, and troubled were their slumbers.

Then Doris sat up suddenly, for out in the street was the biggest din that she had ever heard. She jumped from her bed and ran to the window, and there she saw nine of the strangest-looking people. There was a big sailor with a concertina, and a stout lady with a tambourine, and a soldier with a pair of cymbals, and an elderly greengrocer, who was very thin. They were standing in a row, and sitting on the ground behind them were five men, each with a drum. Doris leaned out, and when they saw her they all sang louder than ever; but the funny thing was that n.o.body else in the whole street seemed to hear them. The blinds were all down, the moonlight lay on the road, and there wasn't a head at anybody's window.

When Doris first listened they had been singing about the lady, but now they began to sing about the sailor, and the sailor stepped forward, playing his concertina, and singing the loudest of them all. He had a tenor voice with a great smack in it, like the smack of a wave against a jetty, and when he sang softly without taking a breath it was like water running through seaweed. The soldier sang ba.s.s, like a motor-lorry in a hurry to get home over a rough road, and the stout lady sang soprano, and the elderly greengrocer only squeaked. This is what they sang:

Here's a sailor come home from the Guineas, His face is as black as a leaf, His eyes are like forests of darkness, His heart is a hotbed of grief, His arms are like roots of the jungle, He has ladies tattooed on his skin, And his clothes smell of cinnamon--cardamom--tar.

Oh, mother, must I let him in?

Bang! Bang! [went the drums], Oh, mother, must I let him in?

Then there was a chorus and the queerest sort of dance, and it all seemed somehow to be just wrong; and when they stopped and looked up at her window Doris really didn't know what to make of them. Then the sailor coughed, and scratched the back of his head, and said, ”Beg pardon, miss, but are you ten years old?”

Doris said that she was.

”And have you five brothers younger than yourself?”

Doris said that she had.

”And have you five fingers on each hand and five toes on each foot?”

Doris laughed and said that they could come and count them if they didn't believe her word.

They looked at one another with a peculiar expression, while the five drummers stared at the ground; and then the stout lady asked her if she would come downstairs and let them count her eyelashes.

”Why do you want to count my eyelashes?” asked Doris.