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*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FIVE CHILDREN AND IT *** Produced by Jason Isbell and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by the Library of Congress) Character set for HTML: ISO-8859-1

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[Pg iv]

FIVE CHILDREN AND IT BY E. NESBIT
Author of "The Treasure-seekers,"
"The Would-be-goods," etc.

ILLUSTRATED

Emblem


NEW YORK
DODD, MEAD & COMPANY
1905

[Pg v]

Copyright, 1905, by
Dodd, Mead and Company
Published October, 1905

[Pg vi]

The Psammead The Psammead
TO

JOHN BLAND

My Lamb, you are so very small,
You have not learned to read at all;
Yet never a printed book withstands
The urgence of your dimpled hands.
So, though this book is for yourself,
Let mother keep it on the shelf
Till you can read. O days that pass,
That day will come too soon, alas!

[Pg vii]

NOTE
Parts of this story have appeared in
the Strand Magazine under the title of

"THE PSAMMEAD."

[Pg viii]

CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE I    Beautiful as the Day 1 II    Golden Guineas 36 III    Being Wanted 70 IV    Wings 108 V    No Wings 141 VI    A Castle and No Dinner 159 VII    A Siege and Bed 183 VIII    Bigger than the Baker's Boy 203 IX    Grown Up 236 X    Scalps 261 XI    The Last Wish 287

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[Pg x]

ILLUSTRATIONS

[Pg xi]

[Pg xii]

The Psammead Frontispiece That First Glorious Rush Round the Garden Facing page 2 Cyril Had Nipped His Finger in the Door of a Hutch " " 4 Anthea Suddenly Screamed, "It's Alive!" " " 12 The Baby Did Not Know Them! " " 28 Martha Emptied a Toilet-jug of Cold Water Over Him " " 32 The Rain Fell in Slow Drops on to Anthea's Face " " 36 He Staggered, and Had to Sit Down Again in a Hurry " " 50 Mr. Beale Snatched the Coin, Bit It, and Put It in His Pocket " " 58 They Had Run Into Martha and the Baby " " 64 He Said, "Now Then!" to the Policeman and Mr. Peasemarsh " " 66 The Lucky Children Hurriedly Started for the Gravel Pit " " 78 "Poof, poof, poofy," He Said, and Made a Grab " " 86 At Double-quick Time Ran the Twinkling Legs of the Lamb's Brothers and Sisters " " 88 The Next Minute the Two Were Fighting " " 90 He Snatched the Baby from Anthea " " 94 He Consented to Let the Two Gypsy Women Feed Him " " 98 The Sand-fairy Blew Himself Out " " 122 They Flew Over Rochester " " 126 The Farmer Sat Down on the Grass, Suddenly and Heavily " " 128 Everyone Now Turned Out His Pockets " " 132 These Were the Necessaries of Life " " 134 The Children Were Fast Asleep " " 138 The Keeper Spoke Deep-Chested Words through the Keyhole " " 150 There the Castle Stood, Black and Stately " " 164 Robert Was Dragged Forthwith—by the Reluctant Ear " " 166 He Wiped Away a Manly Tear " " 168 "Oh, Do, Do, Do, Do!" Said Robert " " 174 The Man Fell with a Splash Into the Moat-water " " 196 Anthea Tilted the Pot over the Nearest Leadhole " " 198 He Pulled Robert's Hair " " 210 "The Sammyadd's Done Us Again," Said Cyril " " 214 He Lifted Up the Baker's Boy and Set Him on Top of the Haystack " " 216 It Was a Strange Sensation Being Wheeled in a Pony-carriage by a Giant " " 220 When the Girl Came Out She Was Pale and Trembling " " 228 "When Your Time's Up Come to Me" " " 230 He Opened the Case and Used the Whole Thing as a Garden Spade " " 238 She Did It Gently by Tickling His Nose with a Twig of Honeysuckle " " 244 There, Sure Enough, Stood a Bicycle " " 248 The Punctured State of It Was Soon Evident " " 250 The Grown-up Lamb Struggled " " 258 She Broke Open the Missionary Box with the Poker " " 266 "Ye Seek a Pow-wow?" He Said " " 278 Bright Knives Were Being Brandished All about Them " " 284 She Was Clasped in Eight Loving Arms " " 294 "We Found a Fairy," Said Jane, Obediently " " 298 It Burrowed, and Disappeared, Scratching Fiercely to the Last " " 308

[Pg xiii]

[Pg 1]

CHAPTER I BEAUTIFUL AS THE DAY

The house was three miles from the station, but, before the dusty hired hack had rattled along for five minutes, the children began to put their heads out of the carriage window and say, "Aren't we nearly there?" And every time they passed a house, which was not very often, they all said, "Oh, is this it?" But it never was, till they reached the very top of the hill, just past the chalk-quarry and before you come to the gravel-pit. And then there was a white house with a green garden and an orchard beyond, and mother said, "Here we are!"

"How white the house is," said Robert.

"And look at the roses," said Anthea.

"And the plums," said Jane.

"It is rather decent," Cyril admitted.

The Baby said, "Wanty go walky;" and the hack stopped with a last rattle and jolt.[Pg 2]

Everyone got its legs kicked or its feet trodden on in the scramble to get out of the carriage that very minute, but no one seemed to mind. Mother, curiously enough, was in no hurry to get out; and even when she had come down slowly and by the step, and with no jump at all, she seemed to wish to see the boxes carried in, and even to pay the driver, instead of joining in that first glorious rush round the garden and orchard and the thorny, thistly, briery, brambly wilderness beyond the broken gate and the dry fountain at the side of the house. But the children were wiser, for once. It was not really a pretty house at all; it was quite ordinary, and mother thought it was rather inconvenient, and was quite annoyed at there being no shelves, to speak of, and hardly a cupboard in the place. Father used to say that the iron-work on the roof and coping was like an architect's nightmare. But the house was deep in the country, with no other house in sight, and the children had been in London for two years, without so much as once going to the seaside even for a day by an excursion [Pg 3]train, and so the White House seemed to them a sort of Fairy Palace set down in an Earthly Paradise. For London is like prison for children, especially if their relations are not rich.

That first glorious rush round the garden That first glorious rush round the garden

Of course there are the shops and theatres, and entertainments and things, but if your people are rather poor you don't get taken to the theatres, and you can't buy things out of the shops; and London has none of those nice things that children may play with without hurting the things or themselves—such as trees and sand and woods and waters. And nearly everything in London is the wrong sort of shape—all straight lines and flat streets, instead of being all sorts of odd shapes, like things are in the country. Trees are all different, as you know, and I am sure some tiresome person must have told you that there are no two blades of grass exactly alike. But in streets, where the blades of grass don't grow, everything is like everything else. This is why many children who live in the towns are so extremely naughty. They do not know what is the matter with them, and no more [Pg 4]do their fathers and mothers, aunts, uncles, cousins, tutors, governesses, and nurses; but I know. And so do you, now. Children in the country are naughty sometimes, too, but that is for quite different reasons.

The children had explored the gardens and the outhouses thoroughly before they were caught and cleaned for tea, and they saw quite well that they were certain to be happy at the White House. They thought so from the first moment, but when they found the back of the house covered with jasmine, all in white flower, and smelling like a bottle of the most expensive perfume that is ever given for a birthday present; and when they had seen the lawn, all green and smooth, and quite different from the brown grass in the gardens at Camden Town; and when they found the stable with a loft over it and some old hay still left, they were almost certain; and when Robert had found the broken swing and tumbled out of it and got a bump on his head the size of an egg, and Cyril had nipped his finger in the door of a hutch that seemed made to keep rab[Pg 5]bits in, if you ever had any, they had no longer any doubts whatever.

Cyril had nipped his finger in the door of a hutch Cyril had nipped his finger in the door of a hutch

The best part of it all was that there were no rules about not going to places and not doing things. In London almost everything is labelled "You mustn't touch," and though the label is invisible it's just as bad, because you know it's there, or if you don't you very soon get told.

The White House was on the edge of a hill, with a wood behind it—and the chalk-quarry on one side and the gravel-pit on the other. Down at the bottom of the hill was a level plain, with queer-shaped white buildings where people burnt lime, and a big red brewery and other houses; and when the big chimneys were smoking and the sun was setting, the valley looked as if it was filled with golden mist, and the limekilns and hop-drying houses glimmered and glittered till they were like an enchanted city out of the Arabian Nights.

Now that I have begun to tell you about the place, I feel that I could go on and make [Pg 6]this into a most interesting story about all the ordinary things that the children did,—just the kind of things you do yourself, you know, and you would believe every word of it; and when I told about the children's being tiresome, as you are sometimes, your aunts would perhaps write in the margin of the story with a pencil, "How true!" or "How like life!" and you would see it and would very likely be annoyed. So I will only tell you the really astonishing things that happened, and you may leave the book about quite safely, for no aunts and uncles either are likely to write "How true!" on the edge of the story. Grown-up people find it very difficult to believe really wonderful things, unless they have what they call proof. But children will believe almost anything, and grown-ups know this. That is why they tell you that the earth is round like an orange,

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