FullReads

Sandy knew the flowers and the names of them quite as well as I did, of course; we knew everything that lived in Our Field; so when I called, “Ox-eye daisies, cock’s-foot grass, labels; meadow-sweet, fox-tail grass, labels; dog-roses, shivering grass, labels;” and so on, he gave me the right things, and I had nothing to do but to put the colours that looked best together next to each other, and to make the grass look light, and pull up bits of moss to show well. And at the very end I put in a label, “All out of Our Field.”

I did not like it when it was done; but Richard praised it so much, it cheered me up, and I thought his mosses looked lovely.

The flower-show day was very hot. I did not think it could be hotter anywhere in the world than it was in the field where the show was; but it was hotter in the tent.

We should never have got in at all–for you had to pay at the gate–but they let competitors in free, though not at first. When we got in, there were a lot of grown-up people, and it was very hard work getting along among them, and getting to see the stands with the things on. We kept seeing tickets with “1st Prize” and “2nd Prize,” and struggling up; but they were sure to be dahlias in a tray, or fruit that you mightn’t eat, or vegetables. The vegetables disappointed us so often, I got to hate them. I don’t think I shall ever like very big potatoes (before they are boiled) again, particularly the red ones. It makes me feel sick with heat and anxiety to think of them.

We had struggled slowly all round the tent, and seen all the cucumbers, onions, lettuces, long potatoes, round potatoes, and everything else, when we saw an old gentleman, with spectacles and white hair, standing with two or three ladies. And then we saw three nosegays in jugs, with all the green picked off, and the flowers tied as tightly together as they would go, and then we saw some prettier ones, and then we saw my collection, and it had got a big label in it marked “1st Prize,” and next to it came Richard’s moss-tray, with the Hair-moss, and the Pincushion-moss, and the Scale-mosses, and a lot of others with names of our own, and it was marked “2nd Prize.” And I gripped one of Sandy’s arms just as Richard seized the other, and we both cried, “Perronet is paid for!”

* * * * *

There was two-and-sixpence over. We never had such a feast! It was a picnic tea, and we had it in Our Field. I thought Sandy and Perronet would have died of cake, but they were none the worse.

We were very much frightened at first when the old gentleman invited himself; but he would come, and he brought a lot of nuts, and he did get inside the oak, though it is really too small for him.

I don’t think there ever was anybody so kind. If he were not a man, I should really and truly believe in Sandy’s fairy godmother.

Of course I don’t really believe in fairies. I am not so young as that. And I know that Our Field does not exactly belong to us.

I wonder to whom it does belong? Richard says he believes it belongs to the gentleman who lives at the big red house among the trees. But he must be wrong; for we see that gentleman at church every Sunday, but we never saw him in Our Field.

And I don’t believe anybody could have such a field of their very own, and never come to see it, from one end of Summer to the other.