Free Mary-Mary by Joan G. Robinson Page B

can grow in our garden,” she said, “when everyone’s cross and busy and beastly and not bothering about it at all, then there must be hundreds and
hundreds
of primroses growing in Bramley Woods where nobody’s cross and busy and beastly. And if
I
were a mother with a whole lot of cross and busy and beastly children I’d go to Bramley Woods and have a picnic there and pick primroses!”
    Then Miriam and Martyn and Mervyn and Meg all started talking at once. But Mother said, “No, hush. Mary-Mary is quite right. I think we really had forgotten it was spring, and I’d quite forgotten about the primroses in Bramley Woods. They must be lovely there just now. Shall we do as Mary-Mary says and all have a picnic?
    Then everyone said, “Oh, yes!” “Hooray!” “A picnic!” “How clever of Mary-Mary to have thought of it!”
    And Mother said, “Yes, it shall be Mary-Mary’s own picnic, because she is the only person who remembered it was really spring!
    So they all went for a picnic to Bramley Woods because Mary-Mary had found the very first primrose, and that is the end of the story.

4
Mary-Mary and Miss Muffin
    ONE day Mary-Mary was bored. All her big brothers and sisters were reading or writing or drawing or knitting, but Mary-Mary was doing nothing.
    She tried talking to them, she tried jumping up and down in front of them, she tried making faces at them; but all they said was, “Oh, stop bothering, Mary-Mary!”
    So Mary-Mary stopped bothering. Instead, she said in a dreamy voice, “I think it’s time Miss Muffin came again.”
    When Mary-Mary said this everybody groaned, because they knew what it meant.
    It meant that Mary-Mary, dressed in some of Mother’s old clothes, was going to come knocking at the front door, saying she was Miss Muffin and had come to tea. Then everyone had to be polite to her and ask her in and treat her as if she were a real visitor. If they didn’t Miss Muffin made such a scene, marching up and down in front of the gate and shouting that “some people had no manners”, that they were all ashamed of her and had to hurry out and bring her indoors before a crowd collected.

    The first time Mary-Mary had come knocking on the door, saying she was Miss Muffin, it had been a great success. Father had been at home, and he had invited her in most politely and never shown that he guessed it might really be Mary-Mary. And when the others had started to say, “Don’t be silly—we know who you are really,” Father had looked quite shocked and said, “Hush! It’s all right for you to be rude to each other or to Mary-Mary; but Miss Muffin is a visitor and must be treated politely.”
    Mary-Mary had loved this, of course, and Miriam, Martyn, Mervyn, and Meg were afraid she would want to be Miss Muffin every day. But Father had said, quite definitely, as he was showing her out of the door, “Good-bye, Miss Muffin. It
has
been nice having you. We shall look forward to your coming again,
but that won’t be for a long while, of course
.”
    Mary-Mary had started to say, “Oh, but I could come again tomorrow … ”
    But Father had put his finger on his lips and said, “No—not if you are really Miss Muffin, because Miss Muffin is a lady, and ladies know that they can’t come to tea very often without being invited.”
    â€œYes, of course,” said Mary-Mary in Miss Muffin’s voice. “I shall only come very sometimes, not at all very often. Thank you for such a nice afternoon. Your children have been most polite to me.”
    For a while Mary-Mary had been quite good about only being Miss Muffin sometimes and not very often. But soon she took to being Miss Muffin oftener and oftener, and once Miss Muffin had even invited herself to tea two days running. Miriam, Martyn, Mervyn, and Meg had shut the door in her face, and it was then that Miss Muffin