A Garden of Lilies Read online

  Epigraph

  Children, listen and take heed,

  As this little book you read.

  Always do just as you should,

  And be obedient and good.

  Never headstrong, rude or proud,

  Or lazy, careless, wild or loud.

  All your evil ways amend,

  Or you will meet a dreadful end.

  Prudence A Goodchild

  Contents

  Epigraph

  Agnes

  Darning of Stockings

  Beatrice

  An Economical Recipe for a Plain Cake

  Cornelius and Drusilla

  Interesting Facts

  Euphemia

  Cutlery

  Florence and Gilbert

  A Useful Compass

  Horatio

  Captain Frederick Marryat’s Code of Signals

  Parlour Games

  Isadora

  Care of the Hair

  Jesephany and Keziah

  Fish-Scale Embroidery

  Lucretia

  Writing a Letter to a Person of Distinction

  Maurice, Netty and Obadiah

  An Album of Sea-Weeds

  Peregrine

  Quentin

  Cone and Shell Work

  Roderick and Sapphira

  To Grow a Giant Marrow

  Tilly and Ursula

  The Language of Flowers

  Victoria, Wilfreda and Xavier

  Afternoon Tea

  Yaxley

  General Advice on Avoiding Accidents

  Zenobia

  About the Authors

  Copyright

  Agnes

  gnes was a scullery maid. Every day she emptied the slops and mopped the floors and blackleaded the grates and carried water for the baths and coal for the fires. She peeled the potatoes and scraped the fish and washed the saucepans and polished the brass door-knocker and scrubbed the front step of the big house where she worked.

  Agnes should have been grateful and modest, but she was a silly girl. She was frivolous and vain, and she often liked to look at herself in the mirror.

  One day, a peddler came to the kitchen door, and Agnes bought some bright red and blue ribbons. That evening, instead of sitting quietly in the kitchen, darning her stockings as she should, Agnes tied the new ribbons into her hair. She admired her reflection in the mirror, and then, without even putting on her hat, she went out to the fair.

  She rode on the flying boats and the merry-go-round, ate toffee and gingerbread, and watched the fireworks. She came home rather late, and her mistress was very shocked, so Agnes lost her position. She became a beggar, and then drowned in a river.

  Moral

  Modesty should be your aim,

  Or you will surely come to shame.

  Darning of Stockings

  Girls these days are too inclined to frivolous pursuits, such as visiting fairs or reading novels, when they would far better spend their time darning their stockings, or those of their brothers.

  Before commencing, the worn or torn part of the stocking should be trimmed neatly. Select a wool thread somewhat finer than that of the stocking itself.

  The vertical threads are sewn very closely together with no interval between them (see Figure 1).

  Next, the crosswise threads are executed, the needle always taking up the thread that was previously left below (see Figure 2).

  A well-executed darn is an indication of good character. A loose, careless or faulty darn shows extremely poor character indeed.

  Figure 1

  Figure 2

  Beatrice

  eatrice was a greedy child. One day, she refused to eat her good, wholesome dinner of boiled tripe and cabbage and mutton-fat pudding, and instead she asked for bread and jam, apples, currant cakes and treacle. Nurse spanked her with a slipper and sent her to bed with no dinner at all.

  That afternoon, greedy Beatrice lay in bed thinking about how hungry she was. At last, when she could bear it no more, she got up and tiptoed down the back stairs into the kitchen. She crept silently behind Cook to the larder and clambered up onto a stool, stealing a preserved damson from the big jar on the shelf. She gobbled it up and licked her lips.

  She hurried back up the stairs to her bedroom, and there she noticed with horror that the sticky damson syrup had made a purple stain on her white starched pinafore.

  She tried to wash out the incriminating mark using the water from the jug on her washstand. She scrubbed and scrubbed, but the stain would not budge. She heard Nurse’s footstep outside her bedroom door, and she jumped back into bed, pulled up the covers and lay still, hoping she would not be found out.

  Later that day, the damp fabric brought on a fever, which killed her.

  Moral

  Greedy children always tend

  To meet with a disastrous end.

  An Economical Recipe for a Plain Cake

  Rich cakes, puddings and sweets of all kinds are injurious to children and should be avoided. This plain, wholesome cake is sufficient for a dozen or more children on a Sunday-school pic-nic or as an orphanage treat.

  1 pound of flour

  1 teaspoonful of baking powder

  ¼ pound of good beef dripping

  1 teacupful of moist sugar

  1 ounce of caraway seeds

  3 eggs

  1 breakfast-cupful of milk

  butter, for greasing

  Stir together the flour and baking powder in a bowl and rub in the dripping. Add the sugar and caraway seeds. Whisk the eggs and milk, and beat everything together very thoroughly until well mixed. Butter a tin, put in the cake and bake it in a tolerably quick oven for 1½ to 2 hours.

  For orphanage children, mutton dripping may be used in place of beef dripping, as it is more economical. However, it will impart an unpleasant flavour to the cake.

  Cornelius and Drusilla

  ornelius and Drusilla went with their mother and father to pay a visit to Great-Aunt Hypatia. They sat in the parlour and drank tea and ate thin slices of seed cake.

  The grown-ups talked and talked, and Cornelius and Drusilla sat side by side on the hard, shiny sofa.

  After a very long time, when Great-Aunt Hypatia had finished recounting several long stories about distant relations, Cornelius asked, ‘May we play outside?’

  ‘Please, may we?’ whispered Drusilla.

  ‘You may,’ said Great-Aunt Hypatia.

  ‘But mind you stay in the kitchen yard,’ said their father.

  ‘Do not open the gate,’ said their mother.

  The kitchen yard was very cold and muddy, and was surrounded by a high wall. Cornelius and Drusilla peeped through the gate, and on the other side, they saw the sun shining on the fields, with flowers and trees and a trickling stream.

  ‘Will we go through?’ asked Cornelius.

  ‘Just a little way,’ whispered Drusilla.

  They knew they should be obedient and stay in the kitchen yard, but instead they unlatched the gate and pushed it open. Before they had taken two steps, they were trampled by a flock of angry sheep.

  Moral

  Always do as you are told,

  Or you will soon be dead and cold.

  Interesting Facts

  These days, too many boys and girls are unable to make pleasant conversation when paying a visit. Natural History is an unobjectionable subject for discussion. Memorise these Interesting Facts and use them to enliven dull conversations.

  The Gymnotus, or Electric Eel, can kill the largest animal, when in full galvanic vigour.

  The Guinea-Pig, by nature, is docile and meek. It can do no great evil, but is equally incapable of great good.

  The voice of the Zebra is very peculiar and cannot easily be des
cribed.

  From the Great Greenland Whale we derive our supplies of Oil and Whalebone.

  The Tortoise of Archbishop Laud reached the great age of one hundred and twenty years. Its shell may be viewed in the library at Lambeth Palace and measures ten inches by six and a half.

  The bark of the Cinchona Tree may be used to treat Malaria.

  The Sycamore is the noblest of trees and extremely picturesque.

  The domestic habits of the Vulture are very curious, but can hardly be discussed in respectable company.

  Euphemia

  uphemia was invited to stay in a castle. It was of great antiquity, with towers and dungeons and a moat with a drawbridge. The first evening of her stay, a dinner of seventeen courses was served in the grand, gloomy dining room. The first dish was giblet soup. Euphemia was confused by the array of cutlery, which was very fine and marked with the family’s ancient crest. Instead of selecting the soup spoon, she carelessly picked up the grapefruit spoon. The other guests were outraged. They had never seen such dreadful table manners.

  Later that evening, Euphemia tumbled into an oubliette and was never seen again.

  Moral

  Boys and girls must all be able

  To eat correctly at the table.

  Cutlery

  1. Fish Knife

  2. Oyster Fork

  3. Caviar Spoon

  4. Grape Scissors

  5. Grapefruit Spoon

  6. Olive Spoon

  7. Tripe Skewer

  8. Lemon Fork

  9. Cake Fork

  10. Pickle Fork

  11. Kidney Tongs

  12. Lettuce Fork

  13. Sardine Fork

  14. Fish Fork

  15. Soup Spoon

  16. Fruit Knife

  17. Marrow Scoop

  18. Damson Pitter

  19. Nut Pick

  20. Butter Knife

  21. Asparagus Fork

  Florence and Gilbert

  lorence and Gilbert went to pay a call on their grandmother, who lived on the other side of a wood. Their mother gave them a basket to take, containing a loaf of fresh bread and a pot of jam and a nice fruit cake in a tin.

  ‘Be sure to stay on the path,’ she said.

  ‘Yes, Mother,’ said Florence and Gilbert, and they waved goodbye and set off into the wood.

  At first they followed the path carefully. But soon they became distracted and strayed from the way they should go. Florence saw some early snowdrops growing, and she picked the flowers. Gilbert spied a squirrel and chased it as it leaped from branch to branch overhead. In this way, they wandered further and further from the path, until they found themselves deep in the wood and quite lost.

  ‘Perhaps we should leave a trail of breadcrumbs,’ said Florence.

  ‘Or perhaps a kind woodcutter will find us and show us the way,’ said Gilbert.

  But no kind woodcutter appeared, and they wandered aimlessly amongst the trees, until they were unexpectedly eaten up by a hungry tiger that had escaped from a nearby circus.

  Moral

  Always go the way you should

  When you are walking through a wood.

  A Useful Compass

  If you find yourself lost in a wood or other location, you may wish to construct a simple compass.

  You will require a stick of several feet in length and the rays of the sun. During the morning, find a clear, flat place and drive the stick into the ground. Ensure it is upright. Mark the position of the end of the shadow with a small stone.

  Next, inscribe a circle, starting from the stone, with the stick as the centre. The circle must be an equal distance from the stick all the way around.

  Now you must wait several hours. The shadow of the stick will move as the day progresses. At some time during the afternoon, the end of the shadow will again touch the circle. Mark this point with a second stone.

  A line drawn directly between these two stones will align East and West. North and South may now easily be ascertained, and if you know the direction in which you wish to travel, you may be able to find your way home.

  Horatio

  oratio was an untidy boy. His shirts were always crumpled and his stockings were never pulled up neatly. His knees were grubby and his bootlaces were broken. His pockets were always stuffed full of pebbles and marbles and sweet wrappers and train tickets.

  ‘Horatio, you are a disgrace,’ said his mother with a languid sigh. ‘I cannot bear to look at you. You must join the Navy. They will teach you to be clean and neat and a credit to the family.’

  So Horatio became a midshipman on HMS Inexorable. He learned to tie knots and scrub the deck and use a sextant and follow orders. But he could not learn to be neat and tidy, and was always in trouble.

  One day, the Captain told him to climb up to the masthead and keep a lookout for icebergs. ‘But put on a clean collar first, my boy,’ he said. ‘That one is disgraceful.’

  Horatio went down to his berth and searched in his sea trunk for a clean collar. But all his collars were grubby and crumpled, and it took him a long time to find one that was reasonably clean. Before he could return to the deck, there was a tremendous crash. The ship struck an iceberg and foundered, and Horatio drowned in the shipwreck.

  Moral

  Be neat and tidy, clean and trim,

  Or your ending will be rather grim.

  Captain Frederick Marryat’s Code of Signals

  If you find yourself on a ship in difficulty, you may use signal flags to summon assistance from a passing vessel. Attach a selection of flags to the signal halyard in the correct order and hoist them up the mast.

  Parlour Games

  Children’s games that require playing cards, lighted matches or dangerous substances, or encourage gambling, loud laughter or rough behaviour, should never be allowed in respectable homes. The following games are pleasant and unobjectionable.

  Up Jenkins

  Two teams sit on either side of a table. One team has a halfpenny coin, which they pass hand to hand underneath the table, in a secretive manner so the other team cannot guess the location of the coin. The Captain of the opposing team suddenly cries, ‘Up Jenkins,’ and all the players in the team with the coin must lift their closed hands up above the table, with their elbows resting on the tabletop. On the command ‘Down Jenkins’, they must slam their hands onto the table, hands open and palms down. The guessing team listen to hear the telltale chink of the hidden coin. Then they must select one hand that they believe to be empty and cry, ‘Off.’ The hand is lifted, and if it is indeed empty, the guessing team selects another hand, and so on. If the coin is concealed in the last hand that remains on the table, the guessing team is the winner.

  A Memory Game

  A tray containing twenty-five small objects, such as a penknife, a piece of sealing-wax, a salt-cellar, a Daguerreotype, an Egyptian artefact, &c., is placed on a table. The players may gaze on the objects for one minute, attempting to remember them all. The tray is covered, and the players must each write down a list of the objects. The player with the longest correct list is declared the winner.

  Hunt the Thimble

  All but one player leaves the room, and the one remaining hides a thimble, or other small object, in plain sight and sits down. The players return and must search for the thimble. As each player spies it, he or she says nothing, but must sit down quietly. The last player standing and still searching has lost the game.

  Blow the Feather

  This exceedingly diverting game requires a brightly coloured feather, such as may be plucked from a feather boa or shed by a pet parrot. Two teams sit facing each other at a table. The feather is placed in the centre of the table. Each team must attempt to blow the feather into the air and pass it over the heads of the opposing team. The first team to achieve this is the winner.

  Isadora

  sadora was a scatter-brained girl. She was neglectful with her housework and careless with her appearance.

  ‘Isadora
, stop daydreaming!’ her mother would say sharply, twenty times a day. ‘And brush your hair. You look a fright.’

  Isadora should have brushed her hair quickly and tied it back, because she had a lot of work to do. She had to watch her little brothers and sisters and help her mother in the kitchen and the laundry. But instead she would gaze up at the clouds in the sky, as the children played at the edge of the cliff and sheets flew off the line and the kettle whistled dry on the hob. She would push her hair carelessly out of her eyes and let the icy wind whip it into a tangle as she watched seagulls fly past overhead.

  Her mother rapped Isadora hard on the head with the hairbrush.

  ‘Brush your hair, you lazy girl,’ she said. ‘Two hundred strokes.’

  Isadora started to brush the knots out of her tangled hair, but soon she was daydreaming again, gazing at the green waves, far below her window. Carelessly, she leaned further than she should, and then a bit further, and then she overbalanced and fell right out of the window, tumbling down the cliff and plunging into the sea, where she was gobbled up by an enormous fish.

  Moral

  For hair that’s glossy, clean and bright,