The Phoenix and the Carpet

s journey on the wishing carpet. Unless you are too young to re

breakfast-table was extra beautiful. In November, of course, the flowers were chrysanthemums, yellow and coppery coloured. Then there

enerally kept for birthdays and grand occasions, and there was an angel pudding

but he did not yield to the voice that said, 'Go and have an hour's rest.' He nursed the

ing book from the library, called The

rug. At first, of course, there were too many feet and knees and shoulders and elbows, but real comfort was actually settling down on them, and the Phoenix and the carpet were put away on the back top shelf of their min

n. Then she put her pretty sparkly Sunday shoes do

eerfully, and it was not till much later t

Monarch from the damp in the house before last, and there was cook, very red and damp in the face, and with a clean apron tied on all crooked over the dirty one that she had dished up tho

d see her looking pale through the crack of the door, because she had been very kind to the cook, and had given her

the matter?

a cook. 'It's them children: there's that there new carpet in their room, covered thick with mud, both sides, beastly yellow mud, and sakes alive knows where they got it. And all that muck to clean up on a Sunday

k to the children. And you had better think it over

h cook, and cook said she didn't min

elief that the others limited their defence to an expression of sorrow, and of a determination 'not to do it again'. But father said (and mother agreed with him, because mothers have to agree with fathers, and not because it was her own idea) that c

hea could think of, and folded up and put away in the cupboard at the top of th

d Anthea, 'we've

of ordinary November life in Camden Town-and there was the nursery floor all bare boards in the middle and brown oilcloth round the outside, and the bareness and yellowness of the middle

bowl could hardly lighten at all. Next day the Lamb's cough was worse. It

was to know that the wishing carpet was locked up and the Phoenix

it had a most awfully long fly from wherever it was to near Rochester and back, and I

feel sure of this, t

ok, since it was entirely through her making such a fuss ab

Jane, 'and Panther and I would

ankerous cat,

said Anthea, primly, 'because it would

osed Bozwoz,' said Cyril, who had read The Eyes of Light, and intende

that even if she wasn't a blue-nosed Boz

ring the following week, though I daresay the things would not have happened if the cook had been a

foreign mud on both

e thought it would be good for the Lamb's cough. The whole thing forgotten, and bottom of sauc

dig grave with. By regrettable accident fish-slice broken.

table. Robert added chopped soap, but

y falling against it during a perfec

ink with water to make a lake to sail paper boats in. Went away an

n plenty of time during the week to decide where i

he Lamb because he had a bad cough, which, cook repea

where you can't have whooping-cough. Don't be so silly, Robert. If he DOES talk ab

ghed and coughed again, poor dear, and all the chairs and tables were moved off the carpet by the boys, whi

ing breathless in the breakfast-room. 'But I kno

tle voice of the Phoenix

ross under the table, and had once supported a drawer, in the happy days before the drawer had been used as a

s claw. 'If you wanted me you should have recited the ode of invocation; it

l it us in Englis

t it?' said Jane, jumpi

short English version

bert, holding out his hand. '

FUL Phoenix,' it

e along, come along,' said Robert, imp

ttered at once

e to put the whole meaning of the seven thousand lines of Greek invocat

me along, good old

mit-but not bad fo

epping back on to the carpet with

r,' said Jane, sitting down on th

king like it. Cyril and A

efore dinner,' said Cyril, '

aked since Sund

nd furious, came in like a whirlwind and stood on the corner of the carpet,

to make the beefsteak and kidney pudding in that your ma ordere

d I forgot to tell you about it. It got broken when we were telling

us she said to me quiet like, "We mustn't expect old heads on young shoulders," but now I shan't hold it no longer. There was the soap you put in our pudding, and me and Eliza never so m

weren't going to take him out in the Kentish Town Road, they certainly intended to take him els

ile Anthea and Robert caught her by the skirts and apron. 'Look here,' said Cyril, in stern desperation,

'and leave this precious poppet fo

l, solemnly. 'Beware, e

tenderness. 'They shan't take it out, no more they shan't. And-Whe

the cook lost her situatio

re on a sunny southern shore, where

-go-round-and-falling-lift feeling swept over the whole party, and the cook sat down flat on the carpet, holding th

eyes, gave one sounding screech and shut them again, and Anthea took

Look at the trees, and the sand, and the shells, a

in rich profusion. Between the green, green slope and the blue, blue sea lay a stretch of sand that looked like a carpet of jewelled cloth of gold, for it was not greyish as our northern sand is, but yellow and changing-opal-coloured like sunshine and rainbows. And at the very moment when the wild, whi

ff the Lamb's highwayman blue coat and his three-cornered hat, and then his jersey, and then the Lamb himsel

aside in the summer,' said Anthea. 'Mo

came off, and he stood digging his happy n

-'a little white duck-dickie what swims,'

a; 'it can't hurt him

d screamed, shut them, screamed agai

ve, what's all this? I

it up in the dream-book to-morrow. Seaside a

Cyril, 'it isn't a

cook; 'they always

s done, because that's our secret.' He winked heavily at each of the others in turn. 'But y

t don't matter what I say; and I WILL say, if it's my last word, that of all the

hat had spoken. 'Well, if I ever,' said she; 'this is something like a dream! Yellow

e day. Here, you others-a council!' They walked along the shore till they were out of

. The Lamb can be getting rid of his whooping-cough all the morning, and we can look about; and if the s

ants and animals, like the

't kind,' re

with her sitting on it. Perhaps it'll be a lesson to her, and anyway, if

ril shouldered the well and happy Lamb, the Phoenix perched on Robert

s there were tangled creepers with bright, stra

xe,' said Robert. 'I shall ask fa

lossoms hanging from the trees, and brilliant

e any birds here handsomer than I am? Don't be afrai

Robert, with convictio

y own impression. I will take a flight.' It circled in the air for a momen

d comfortably, the girls picking flowers and the Lamb inviting the 'pretty

e he hadn't whoo

rs, the children suddenly passed a corner and found themselves in a forest clearing

y. Suppose they WERE cannibals. It

'Go NOW,' she said, and her voice tre

mly. 'Look, there's a goat tied up

y we're missionarie

THAT,' said the Phoe

y n

, it isn't true,' re

the chrysanthemums father had brought home on Saturday. In his hand he held a spear. The whites of his eyes and the white of his teeth were the only light things about him, except that where the sun shone on his sh

children had ever heard, and at once brown coppery people leapt out of every hut, and swarmed like ants about the clearing. There was no time f

pause was Anthea's. She stood back to let Cyril pass, because he was carrying the Lamb, who screamed

r cut to the beach than the creeper-covered way by which they had come, and almost d

' cried Cyril

could hear behind them as they ran the patter of f

ch tropic shells of the kind you would not buy in the Kentish Town Road under at least fifteen pence

Cyril. 'They MUST hate water. I

by-waves were easy to go through. It is warm work running for your life in the tropics, and the co

hoenix. 'What are

e west was a head-a head they knew, with a cro

re all talking at the top of their voices, and all were pointing copper-col

ards her as quickly as t

here for?' Robert shouted; 'an

ter. I got a bit warm setting there in the sun, and I just says, "I wish I was in a

e the cook to the nearest and largest bath-the sea, and how terrible it would have been if th

reaking in on the general sigh of relief, 'bu

d through the water which the plunging Lamb was

nts cooks to EAT? Cooks are ENGAGED,

nd what they say?' as

s difficult and unpleasing. It's quite easy, when you know how it's done. It just comes to you. I should advise you to beach

water, and at last spread it on the sand. The cook, who had followed, instantly sat down on it, and at once the copper-coloured natives, now strangely humble, formed a ring round the carpet, and fell on their face

after some time, 'that they wish

d Anthea, who had heard her

r as cook, but as queen; and q

a breath

l the choices! But there's

of the cook's being engaged as

t's not their own choice. It seems that there is an ancient prophecy of this copper-coloured tribe that a great qu

; and a very dirty cap it was, be

nearly white-very white indeed compared to the co

savages, and they don't know any better. Now would you really like to stay? or, if you'll promise not to be s

e I should make; and now I'm going to. IF it's only in a dream, it's well worth while. And I don't go back to that nasty underground kitchen, and

sly asked the Phoenix, 'that

ueen a very precious and soft

soft thing, so mind you're a good queen, cook. It's more

rest with long garlands of beautiful flowers, white and sweet-scente

laimed the enraptured cook. 'Well, this he

began to dance. It was a dance such as you have never seen; it made the children feel almost sure that the cook was right, and that they were all in a dream. Small, strang

white crown-cap all on o

ter than the Albert Edward Music-hall

d language; and when the savages had recovered their breath, they implor

l be yours, O qu

ranslated this request. 'No more kitchens and attics for me, thank you. I'm off to my

t glimpse of her striped stockings and worn elastic-side boots before she disappeared into the s

all right, but they don't seem to cou

said that the queen would arise from the waves with a white crown and s

dinner?' said

and no pudding-basin,' Anthea reminded hi

t home,'

m clothes again, but Anthea and Jane managed it, by force

own warm things and took

t to their white-crowned queen. Then Anthea said 'Home,' just as duchesses and other people do to their coachmen, and the intelligent carp

wonder-the kitchen clock never did give her satisfaction-and she's got run over or fell down in a fit as likely as not. You'll have to put up with the cold bacon for y

the cook any more, except the chil

everal times in the night, and at last decided that she would ask the Phoenix to let her tell her mother all about it. But there was no opportunity to do this ne

d given him. But the children knew that it was the southern shore where you can't have whooping-cough that had cured him. The

t downstairs in her night-gown (it was very chilly), sat down on the carpet, and with a beating heart

folded the carpet, and put it over her shoulders like a shawl, for she was determine

er courage by saying over and over, 'It is my DU

ain,' said the cook, d

eam does

ing under a screen of palm-leaves, for it was afternoon in the island, and blazing hot. She wore

said. 'They seem to think a lot of

anting; the sight of the cook as

getting rested now. Tomorrow I'm going to start cleaning out my hut, if the dream keeps on,

you talk

k up. I always thought I should be quick at foreign languages. I've taught the

ything?' Anthea asked e

ng up with that bell a-going if you keep on stopping here a-talkin

nthea, gaily, for her c

the ground, and said 'Home'-and there she wa

t back to bed. 'I'm glad somebody's pleased. Bu

ttle difficult to believ