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.”
“Yes, 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 had made the dreadful scene outside the front gate.
So today, when Mary-Mary said, “I think it’s time Miss Muffin came again,” everybody groaned.
Then Mother said quickly, “No, I can’t do with any visitors to-day—I’m too busy. Miss Muffin must come another day.”
“When?” said Mary-Mary. “Tomorrow?”
“Perhaps,” said Mother. “It all depends how busy I am. No, not tomorrow. It’s the Garden Fête. I must bake some cakes to take along there.”
The Garden Fête was going to be held two afternoons running at the house of a lady called Miss Stokes. She had a large garden, and if the weather was fine the stalls and the teas were going to be out of doors.
“Can we go to the Garden Fête too?” said Miriam.
“Yes,” said Mother. “We will all go tomorrow.”
“Oh, why not today?” said Miriam, Martyn, Mervyn, and Meg all together.
“I told you why,” said Mother. “But now I come to think of it, there’s really no reason why you shouldn’t go by yourselves.”
Miriam, Martyn, Mervyn, and Meg were all very pleased.
“But do we have to take Mary-Mary?” they said.
“No. You four go on your own today,” said Mother. “I’ll take Mary-Mary tomorrow.”
Then she gave them threepence each to get in (because it was half-price for children) and ninepence each to spend there.
Mary-Mary stood at the gate and watched them go. They felt rather sorry for her when they saw her standing there.
“Never mind,” they said. “Perhaps Miss Muffin can come another day.”
“Yes, perhaps she can,” said Mary-Mary, “and perhaps she can’t. And perhaps she can come today and perhaps she can’t. It all depends how busy she is.”
They looked rather surprised at this. Then Miriam said, “Come on, she’s only pretending. Let’s go.” And they all said, “Never mind, Mary-Mary,” again, and waved good-bye to her all the way down the road.
Mary-Mary went on thinking rather hard about Miss Muffin.
“Perhaps she can and perhaps she can’t,” she said out loud, to nobody in particular. “It all depends how busy she is. I’d better find out.”
Then she dialled a pretend telephone number on the gate, pulled a branch of the hedge close to her ear, and said very fast, in an important, grown-up voice, “Ting-a-ling, ting-a-ling. Hallo, Miss Muffn—is that you? Are you busy today? No, I’m bored to death. Oh, good. Well, there’s a garden fête at Miss Stokes’ house. Oh, hooray—thank you for telling me. I could just do with a garden fête. I’ve never been to one before. No, I thought you hadn’t. Good-bye.”
“Well, that settles that,” said Mary-Mary. “Miss Muffin is coming today. I thought she was.”
She ran quickly upstairs, pulled out a box from under her bed, and took out Miss Muffin’s old, battered hat and purple-flowered dress. Then she ran downstairs again and put them on in front of the hall mirror, nodding at herself and talking to herself all the time.
In the kitchen she could hear Mother getting out the baking-tins, then someone knocking at the back door, then Mrs Merry’s voice saying she’d just popped in as she was passing.
“That’s lucky,” said Mary-Mary, putting on the old, battered hat. “Mrs Merry’s just popped in, so I’ll just pop out. When Mrs Merry pops in she doesn’t pop out again for ages and ages; so if I pop out now no one’ll miss me. But just in case they do, I’ll pop a note in the letter-box saying I’ve popped out; then I’ll pop off.”
“That sounded rather good,” said Mary-Mary. “I wish I could remember how I did it.”
Then she wrote a note saying, “Dear Mrs Madam, Just popped out to the Fate. Yours truly, Miss, Muffin,” and popped it in the letter-box.
Last of all she ran out and dug up her dreadful old handbag out of the sandpit. She had to keep it there when she wasn’t using it because it was so very old and dreadful-looking that people always wanted to throw it away when they saw it lying around. It had belonged to Mother a very long while ago.
She opened it to see what was inside. There were only two buttons, an elastic band, and an empty cigarette packet.
“Never mind,” said Miss Muffin. “Money isn’t everything.” And she closed it with a snap and set off to the Garden Fête.
She ran all the way there, holding up her skirt so as not to trip over it. On the fence outside Miss Stokes’ house was a large notice which she stopped to read. It said:
COME TO THE GARDEN FETE STALLS, SIDESHOWS, AND STRAWBERRY TEAS
PLEASE WALK IN
At the top of the drive a lady was sitting at a little table taking money from the people who were coming in (sixpence for grown-ups and half-price for children). Miss Muffin bent down low, picked up her skirt, and ran as fast as she could right past the little table, and through a rose arch into the garden. The lady at the table looked up quickly.
“Who was that funny little person?” she said.
But nobody seemed to know.
“Oh, well, I expect she was something to do with one of the sideshows,” said the lady, and went on taking the sixpences.
Miriam, Martyn, Mervyn, and Meg each spent their ninepence at the Garden Fête. First they spent threepence each on an ice-cream (but that didn’t last long). Then they spent threepence each on the hoop-la stall (but none of them won anything). Then they spent threepence each on the lucky dip.
Miriam won two marbles.
“What ever do I want with those?” she said.
Martyn won a doll’s knife and fork.
“That’s no use to me,” he said.
Mervyn won a pink plastic hair-slide, but didn’t even feel funny enough to put it on. And Meg won a box of pistol caps.
“I should call that an unlucky dip,” said Martyn. “I’d rather have had another ice-cream.”
“So would I,” said the others. Then they all said together, “Never mind—we’ll save them for Mary-Mary.”
After that they stood in a group near the tea garden, sadly watching the people having strawberry teas at the little tables and wishing they had saved their ice-creams till now instead of buying them right at the beginning.
Just as they were wondering whether to go home the four Merry children came by. Barbara, Billy, Bunty, and Bob were all laughing and looking very jolly.
“I say!” said Barbara to Miriam. “Have you seen who’s at the White Elephant stall?”
“The what?” said Miriam. “Surely they haven’t got elephants here?”
“No, of course not. ‘White elephants’ just means anything you don’t want and don’t know how to get rid of. People bring them to fêtes, and then sometimes other people buy them.” She began laughing again; so did the others.
“Well, what’s so funny about that?” said Miriam, who was beginning to want her tea quite a lot.
“It isn’t funny at all,” said Martyn, who was hungry. “I don’t see anything to laugh at,” said Mervyn, who was thirsty.
“Nor do I,” said Meg, who was tired.
“You will if you go to the White Elephant stall,” said the Merrys, and they all went off, laughing.
Just then Miss Stokes came hurrying out of the tea garden.
“Hallo! How are you all?” she said. “And how is your dear mother? I haven’t seen her for such a long time. And how is your baby brother, or is it a sister?”
“We have a little sister,” said Miriam.
“But she’s not quite a baby any more,” said Martyn.
“She’s at home with Mother,” said Mervyn.
“They’re coming tomorrow,” said Meg.
“Well, that is nice,” said Miss Stokes. “I shall look forward to seeing them both. And now you must come and see my stall—it’s the White Elephant stall and I’ve been doing so well. I’ve got a wonderful helper.”
She led them down to the far end of the garden, where they saw quite a little crowd collected round one of the stalls. As they came nearer they heard people laughing. Then all of a sudden Martyn said, “ Look who’s there!”
They all looked, and high up above the people’s heads, standing on the stall itself, what should they see but a funny little person, no bigger than Mary-Mary, in a battered old hat and a purple-flowered dress.
“Why, it’s Mm—!” Miriam was just going to say ‘Mary-Mary,’ but Miss Stokes said, “Miss Muffin, that’s right. It’s little Miss Muffin. Do you know her?”
“Well, sort of,” mumbled Miriam, Martyn, Mervyn, and Meg. “We have seen her before.”
“That’s nice,” said Miss Stokes; “then you must come and meet her. She’s been such a success. I’ve sold nearly everything off my stall since she started helping me. Such a funny little thing—she told me her name was Muffin, but I don’t know any family of that name. I was a bit worried at first—she seemed so small to be here alone; but she said she’d just popped in as she was passing, and she had some big brothers and sisters here. So I supposed it was all right, and she’s been such a success on the stall.”
Miss Stokes pushed her way through the crowd with the others following. It was quite difficult to get near the stall, because so many people were coming away with their arms full of things: old lampshades, picture-frames, china ornaments, and all sorts of odds and ends. One man was even wheeling an old pram full of odd-sized dinner plates, old hats, and saucepans.
“Yes,” said Miss Stokes in a whisper, “they’ve all been bought at the White Elephant stall!”
They pushed their way nearer and saw that Miss Muffin, on top of the stall, was waving a large bunch of paper flowers.
“Only threepence!” she was calling out in a high, squeaky voice. “Who’ll buy a big bunch of flowers for threepence?”
“What should I do with those?” said a man in the front.
“You could put one in your buttonhole, and give the rest to your lady,” said Miss Muffin. “And here’s a jug, a very nice jug. Who’d like to buy this jug?” She picked up a large white bedroom jug that was standing in a basin beside her.
“What’s it for?” said the man down in front.
Miss Muffin looked at it. “Well, it’s a bit big for milk,” she said, “but you could use it for a vase. The handle makes it easier to fill.” She put the bunch of paper flowers in it. “There you are,” she said, “if you buy both together they’re very pretty.”
“But what about the basin?” said the man.
“Oh, that’s for sailing boats in, if you’re a man, or making puddings in, if you’re a lady. It’s a very useful basin—you can use it for both.”
“But I haven’t got a boat,” said the man, smiling, “and my lady has a pudding basin already. What should I do with it?”
Miss Muffin thought hard, then she said brightly, “I know—you could wash in it!”
Every one laughed because that was what the basin was really for; then the man said, “All right, you win,” and he handed up the money for all three.
He took one of the paper flowers and put it in his buttonhole, then he handed the rest of the bunch back to Miss Muffin.
“Keep those for yourself,” he said. Then off he went, carrying the big china jug and basin.
“Oh, goody!” said Miss Stokes. “I never thought we’d get rid of those.” Then she pushed her way to the front.
“Miss Muffin,” she called, “here are some friends of yours. Would you like to come down now and see them? You’ve done so well I’ve hardly anything left to sell; so if you’d like to take your friends to tea I’ll give you the tickets.”
So Miss Muffin was lifted down from the stall, and Miss Stokes thanked her very much indeed for her valuable help, and brought out a long strip of pink paper, which was five tea tickets all joined together.
“Take those to the tea garden,” she said, “and you and your friends will just be in nice time for the strawberry teas.”
So Miriam, Martyn, Mervyn, and Meg all sat at a table under a large striped umbrella with Miss Muffin, and had strawberries and bread and butter and jam, and little iced cakes as well.
“You see,” said Mary-Mary, nodding at them under the large battered hat and wiping her sticky fingers on the purple-flowered dress, “Miss Muffin is quite a useful person to know sometimes. You ought to be polite to her every time she comes.”
So Mary-Mary and her big brothers and sisters all had strawberry teas at the Garden Fête, thanks to Miss Muffin, and that is the end of the story.
