Books at Bed time by calming anxiety,
Sun and Moon by Catherine Mansfield.
In the afternoon the chairs came,
a whole big cartful of little gold ones
with their legs in the air,
and then the flowers came.
When you stared down from the balcony
at the people carrying them,
the flower pots looked like funny, awfully nice hats,
nodding up the path.
Moon thought they were hats,
she said, "Look, there's a man wearing a palm on his head."
But she never knew the difference between real things
and not real one.
There was nobody to look after Sun and Moon.
Nurse was helping Annie alter mother's dress,
which was much too long and tight under the arms,
and mother was running all over the house
and telephoning father to be sure not to forget things.
She only had time to say, "Out of my way children,
they kept out of her way, at any rate, Sunday.
He did so hate being sent stumping back to the nursery.
It didn't matter about Moon.
If she got tangled in people's legs,
they only threw her up and shook her till she squeaked.
But Sun was too heavy for that.
He was so heavy that the fat man
who came to dinner on Sundays used to say,
"Now young man, let's try to lift you."
And then he'd put his thumbs under Sun's arms and groan
and try and give it up at last saying,
"He's a perfect little ton of bricks."
Nearly all the furniture was taken out of the dining room.
The big piano was put in a corner
and then there came a row of flower pots
and then there came the golden chairs.
That was for a concert.
When Sun looked in a white-faced man sat at the piano,
not playing but banging at it and then looking inside.
He had a bag of tools on the piano
and he had stuck his hat on a statue against the wall.
Sometimes he just started to play
and then he jumped up again and looked inside.
Sun hoped he wasn't the concert.
But of course the place to be was in the kitchen.
There was a man helping in a cap like a plamange
and their real cook, Mini,
was all red in the face and laughing,
not cross at all.
She gave them each an almond finger
and lifted them up onto the flower bin
so that they could watch the wonderful things
that she and the man were making for supper.
Cook brought in the things
and he put the Mondishes and trim them.
All fishes with their heads and eyes and tails still on.
He sprinkled with red and green and yellow bits.
He made squiggles all over the jellies.
He stuck a collar on a hammock
and put a very thin sort of a fork in it.
He dotted almonds and tiny round biscuits on the creams
and more and more things coming.
But you haven't seen the ice pudding said, "Cook, come along."
"Why was she being so nice, thought son?"
As she gave the meat her hand
and they looked into the refrigerator.
"Oh, oh, it's a nice little house."
It was a little pink house
with white snow on the roof and green windows
and a brown door.
And stuck in the door,
there was a nut for a handle.
When son saw the nut,
he felt quite tired and had to lean against cook.
"Let me touch it.
Just let me put my finger on the roof," said Moon, dancing.
"He always wanted to touch all the food."
"Son, didn't?"
"Now, my girl, look sharp with a table," said Cook
as the housemaid came in.
"It's a picture," Moon said Nelly,
"come along and have a look."
So they all went into the dining room.
Son and Moon were almost frightened.
They wouldn't go up to the table at first.
They just stood at the door and made eyes at it.
It wasn't a real night yet,
but the blinds were down and in the dining room
and then the lights turned on
and all the lights were red roses.
Red ribbons and bunches of roses
tied up the table at the corners.
In the middle was a lake,
with rose petals floating on it.
"That's where the ice puddings to be," said Cook.
Two silver lions, with wings,
had fruit on their backs
and the salt sellers were tiny birds drinking out of basins.
And all the winking glasses
and shining plates and sparkling knives and forks
and all food and the little red table
napkins made into roses.
"Our people going to eat the food, our son?"
"I should just think they are a loft cook,
laughing with Nelly."
Moon laughed too.
She always did the same as other people,
but son didn't want to laugh.
Round and round he walked
with his hands behind his back.
"Perhaps you would never have stopped
if nurse hadn't called suddenly.
"Now then children,
it's high time you are washed and dressed
and they were marched off to the nursery."
While they were being unbuttoned,
mother looked in with a white thing over her shoulders.
She was rubbing stuff into her face.
I'll ring for them when I want them nurse
and then they can just come down and be seen
like again she said.
"Son was undressed.
First nearly to his skin
and dressed again in a white shirt
with red and white daisies speckled on it.
Breaches with strings at the sides
and braces that came over.
White socks and red shoes."
"Now you are in your Russian costume," said nurse,
flattening down his fringe.
"Am I?" said son.
"Yes, sit quiet in that chair
and watch your little sister."
Moon took ages.
When she had her socks put on,
she pretended to fall back on the bed
and waved her legs at nurse as she always did.
And every time nurse tried to make her curls
with a finger and a wet brush
she turned round in asked nurse
to show her the photo of her brooch
or something like that.
But at last she was finished too.
Her dress stuck out with fur on it.
All white,
there was even fluffy stuff on the legs of her curls.
Her shoes were white with big blobs on them.
"There you are, my lamb," said nurse.
"And you look like a sweet little cherub
of a picture or a powder puff.
Nurse rushed to the door."
"Mah, one moment."
Mother came in again
with half her hair down.
"Oh, she cried.
What a picture."
"Isn't she?" said nurse.
A moon held out her skirts by the tips
and dragged one of her feet.
Son didn't mind people noticing him much.
After that,
they played clean, tidy games up at the table
while nurse stood at the door.
And when the carriages began to come
and the sound of laughter and voices
and soft rustlings came from down below,
she whispered,
"Now then children, stay where you are."
Moon kept jerking the tablecloth
so that it all hung down her side
and son hadn't any
and then she pretended she didn't do it on purpose.
At last, the bell rang.
Nurse pounced at them with the hairbrush,
flattened his fringe,
made her bow stand on end
and joined their hands together.
"Down you go," she whispered.
And down they went.
Son did feel silly holding Moon's hand like that,
but Moon seemed to like it.
She swung her arm and the bell
on her coral bracelet jingled.
At the drawing-room door stood mother,
fanning herself with a black fan.
The drawing-room was full of sweet smelling,
silky rustling ladies
and men in black with funny tails on their coats,
like beetles.
Father was among them,
talking very loud
and rattling something in his pocket.
What a picture cried the ladies.
Oh, the ducks, oh, the lambs, oh, the sweets, oh, the pets.
All the people who couldn't get at Moon kissed Sun,
and a skinny old lady with teeth that clicked said,
"such a serious little puppet,
and wrapped him on the head with something hard."
Son looked to see if the same concert was there,
but it was gone.
Instead, a fat man with a pink head
leaned over the piano,
and looked to a girl who held a violin at her ear.
There was only one man that Sun really liked.
He was a little gray man,
with long gray whiskers,
who walked about by himself.
He came up to Sun,
and rolled his eyes in a very nice way and said,
"Hello, my lad."
Then he went away.
But soon he came back again and said,
"Fond of dogs?"
Sun said yes.
But then he went away again,
and though Sun looked for him everywhere,
he could not find him.
He thought perhaps he'd gone outside to fetch in a puppy.
"Goodnight, my precious baby," said Mother,
folding them up in her bare arms,
"vi-up to your little nest."
Then Moon went,
and made a silly of herself again.
She put her arms in front of her body and said,
"My daddy must carry me."
But they seemed to like it,
and Daddy swooped down and picked her up as he always did.
Nurse was in such a hurry to get them to bed
that she even interrupted Sun over his prayers and said,
"Get on with them, child, do."
And the moment after, they were in bed,
and in the dark except for the nightlight in a little saucer.
"Are you asleep?" asked Moon.
"No," said Sun,
"Are you?"
"No," said Moon.
"A long while after Sun woke up again,
there was a loud, loud noise of clapping from downstairs,
like when it rains."
He heard Moon turn over.
Moon,
"Are you awake?"
"Yes."
"Are you?"
"Yes."
"Well, let's go and look over the stairs."
They had just got settled on the top step
when the drawing-room door opened
and they heard the party cross over the hall into the dining room.
Then the door was shut.
There was a noise of pops and laughing,
then that stopped,
and Sun saw them all walking round and round the lovely table
with their hands behind their backs like he had done.
They were all around and round they walked,
looking and staring.
The man with the grey whiskers,
liked the little house-bath.
When he saw the nut for a handle,
he rolled his eyes like he did before,
and said to Sun,
"See the nut."
"Don't nod your head like that, Moon.
I'm not nodding it to you.
It is not.
I never nod my head."
"Oh, you do.
You're nodding it now.
I'm not.
I'm only showing you how not to do it."
When they woke up again,
they could only hear Father's voice very loud,
a mother laughing away.
Father came out of the dining room,
bounded up the stairs,
and nearly fell over them.
"Hello," he said,
"by Jove Kitty.
Come and look at this."
Mother came out,
"Oh, you naughty children,"
she said from the hall.
"Let's have them down and give them a bone,"
said Father.
"Sun had never seen him so jolly."
"No, certainly not," said Mother.
"Oh, my daddy do.
Do have us down," said Moon.
"I'm hanged if I won't cry, Father.
I won't be bullied Kitty, way there,
and he caught them up, one under each arm."
"Sun thought Mother would have been dreadfully cross,
but she wasn't.
She kept on laughing at Father.
"Oh, you dreadful boy," she said,
"but she didn't mean Son.
Come on, Kitty.
Come and have some pickings," said this jolly Father,
but Moon stopped a minute.
Mother, your dress is right off one side.
It is said Mother,
and Father said yes,
and pretended to bite her white shoulder,
but she pushed him away.
And so they went back to the beautiful dining room.
But, oh, what had happened?
The ribbons and the roses were all pulled untied.
The little red napkins lay on the floor.
All the shining plates were dirty,
and all the winking glasses.
The lovely food that the man had trimmed
was all thrown about,
and there were bones and bits of fruit peels and shells everywhere.
There was even a bottle lying down
with stuff coming out of it on the cloth,
and nobody stood it up again.
And the little pink house,
with the snow roof and the green windows, was broken.
Half melted away in the centre of the table.
"Come on, son," said Father,
pretending not to notice.
Moon lifted up her pajama legs
and shuffled up to the table
and stood on a chair, squeaking away.
"Have a bit of this ice," said Father,
smashing in some roof.
Mother took a little plate and held it for him.
She put her other arm around his neck.
"Daddy, daddy," shrieked Moon.
The little handles left,
the little nut,
"Can I eat it?"
And she reached a cross,
and picked it out to the door
and scrunched it up, biting hard and blinking.
"Here, my lad," said Father,
"but son did not move from the door.
Suddenly, he put up his head and gave a loud wail.
"I think it's horrid, horrid, horrid," he sobbed.
"There, you see," said Mother,
"you see?"
"Off with you," said Father,
"no longer jolly,
this moment of you go,
and wailing loudly,
sun stomped off to the nursery."