Come on, sillies, he cried, they cant bite. They havent any teeth. Theyve only got those two little holes in their beaks for breathing through.
Will you hold one while I finish with the other? asked Pat. Pip let go of Snooker. Wont I? Wont I? Give us one. I dont mind how much he kicks.
He nearly sobbed with delight when Pat gave the white lump into his arms.
There was an old stump beside the door of the fowl-house. Pat grabbed the duck by the legs, laid it flat across the stump, and almost at the same moment down came the little tomahawk and the ducks head flew off the stump. Up the blood spurted over the white feathers and over his hand.
When the children saw the blood they were frightened no longer. They crowded round him and began to scream. Even Isabel leaped about crying: The blood! The blood! Pip forgot all about his duck. He simply threw it away from him and shouted, I saw it. I saw it, and jumped round the wood block.
Rags, with cheeks as white as paper, ran up to the little head, put out a finger as if he wanted to touch it, shrank back again and then again put out a finger. He was shivering all over.
Even Lottie, frightened little Lottie, began to laugh and pointed at the duck and shrieked: Look, Kezia, look.
Watch it! shouted Pat. He put down the body and it began to waddlewith only a long spurt of blood where the head had been; it began to pad away without a sound towards the steep bank that led to the stream That was the crowning wonder.
Do you see that? Do you see that? yelled Pip. He ran among the little girls tugging at their pinafores.
Its like a little engine. Its like a funny little railway engine, squealed Isabel.
But Kezia suddenly rushed at Pat and flung her arms round his legs and butted her head as hard as she could against his knees.
Put head back! Put head back! she screamed.
When he stooped to move her she would not let go or take her head away. She held on as hard as she could and sobbed: Head back! Head back! until it sounded like a loud strange hiccup.
Its stopped. Its tumbled over. Its dead, said Pip.
Pat dragged Kezia up into his arms. Her sun-bonnet had fallen back, but she would not let him look at her face. No, she pressed her face into a bone in his shoulder and clasped her arms round his neck.
The children stopped screaming as suddenly as they had begun. They stood round the dead duck. Rags was not frightened of the head any more. He knelt down and stroked it now.
I dont think the head is quite dead yet, he said. Do you think it would keep alive if I gave it something to drink?
But Pip got very cross: Bah! You baby. He whistled to Snooker and went off.
When Isabel went up to Lottie, Lottie snatched away.
What are you always touching me for, Isabel?
There now, said Pat to Kezia. Theres the grand little girl.
She put up her hands and touched his ears. She felt something. Slowly she raised her quivering face and looked. Pat wore little round gold ear-rings. She never knew that men wore ear-rings. She was very much surprised.
Do they come on and off? she asked huskily.
X
Up in the house, in the warm tidy kitchen, Alice, the servant girl, was getting the afternoon tea. She was dressed. She had on a black stuff dress that smelt under the arms, a white apron like a large sheet of paper, and a lace bow pinned on to her hair with two jetty pins. Also her comfortable carpet slippers were changed for a pair of black leather ones that pinched her corn on her little toe something dreadful
It was warm in the kitchen. A blow-fly buzzed, a fan of whity steam came out of the kettle, and the lid kept up a rattling jig as the water bubbled. The clock ticked in the warm air, slow and deliberate, like the click of an old womans knitting needle, and sometimesfor no reason at all, for there wasnt any breezethe blind swung out and back, tapping the window.
Alice was making water-cress sandwiches. She had a lump of butter on the table, a barracouta loaf, and the cresses tumbled in a white cloth.
But propped against the butter dish there was a dirty, greasy little book, half unstitched, with curled edges, and while she mashed the butter she read:
To dream of black-beetles drawing a hearse is bad. Signifies death of one you hold near or dear, either father, husband, brother, son, or intended. If beetles crawl backwards as you watch them it means death from fire or from great height such as flight of stairs, scaffolding, etc.
Spiders. To dream of spiders creeping over you is good. Signifies large sum of money in near future. Should party be in family way an easy confinement may be expected. But care should be taken in sixth month to avoid eating of probable present of shell fish
How many thousand birds I see.
Oh, life. There was Miss Beryl. Alice dropped the knife and slipped the Dream Book under the butter dish. But she hadnt time to hide it quite, for Beryl ran into the kitchen and up to the table, and the first thing her eye lighted on were those greasy edges. Alice saw Miss Beryls meaning little smile and the way she raised her eyebrows and screwed up her eyes as though she were not quite sure what that could be. She decided to answer if Miss Beryl should ask her: Nothing as belongs to you, Miss. But she knew Miss Beryl would not ask her.
Alice was a mild creature in reality, but she had the most marvellous retorts ready for questions that she knew would never be put to her. The composing of them and the turning of them over and over in her mind comforted her just as much as if theyd been expressed. Really, they kept her alive in places where shed been that chivvied shed been afraid to go to bed at night with a box of matches on the chair in case she bit the tops off in her sleep, as you might say.
Oh, Alice, said Miss Beryl. Theres one extra to tea, so heat a plate of yesterdays scones, please. And put on the Victoria sandwich as well as the coffee cake. And dont forget to put little doyleys under the plateswill you? You did yesterday, you know, and the tea looked so ugly and common. And, Alice, dont put on that dreadful old pink and green cosy on the afternoon teapot again. That is only for the mornings. Really, I think it ought to be kept for the kitchenits so shabby, and quite smelly. Put on the Japanese one. You quite understand, dont you?
SELECTED STORIES
Katherine Mansfield
Copyright
William Collins
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This eBook edition published by William Collins in 2015
Life & Times section © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
Silvia Crompton asserts her moral right as author of the Life & Times section
Classic Literature: Words and Phrases adapted from
Collins English Dictionary
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Source ISBN: 9780008133269
Ebook Edition © August 2015 ISBN: 9780008133276
Version: 2015-07-21
CONTENTS
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
History of Collins
Life & Times
FROM RHYTHM (1912)
How Pearl Button was Kidnapped
FROM BLISS AND OTHER STORIES (1920)
Prelude
Bliss
FROM THE GARDEN PARTY AND OTHER STORIES (1922)
At The Bay
The Garden Party
The Daughters of the Late Colonel
Miss Brill
FROM THE DOVES NEST AND OTHER STORIES (1923)
The Fly
Classic Literature: Words and Phrases
About the Publisher
History of Collins
In 1819, millworker William Collins from Glasgow, Scotland, set up a company for printing and publishing pamphlets, sermons, hymn books, and prayer books. That company was Collins and was to mark the birth of HarperCollins Publishers as we know it today. The long tradition of Collins dictionary publishing can be traced back to the rst dictionary William published in 1824, Greek and English Lexicon. Indeed, from 1840 onwards, he began to produce illustrated dictionaries and even obtained a licence to print and publish the Bible.
Soon after, William published the rst Collins novel, Ready Reckoner; however, it was the time of the Long Depression, where harvests were poor, prices were high, potato crops had failed, and violence was erupting in Europe. As a result, many factories across the country were forced to close down and William chose to retire in 1846, partly due to the hardships he was facing.
Aged 30, Williams son, William II, took over the business. A keen humanitarian with a warm heart and a generous spirit, William II was truly Victorian in his outlook. He introduced new, up-to-date steam presses and published affordable editions of Shakespeares works and ThePilgrims Progress, making them available to the masses for the rst time. A new demand for educational books meant that success came with the publication of travel books, scientic books, encyclopedias, and dictionaries. This demand to be educated led to the later publication of atlases, and Collins also held the monopoly on scripture writing at the time.
In the 1860s Collins began to expand and diversify and the idea of books for the millions was developed. Affordable editions of classical literature were published, and in 1903 Collins introduced 10 titles in their Collins Handy Illustrated Pocket Novels. These proved so popular that a few years later this had increased to an output of 50 volumes, selling nearly half a million in their year of publication. In the same year, The Everymans Library was also instituted, with the idea of publishing an affordable library of the most important classical works, biographies, religious and philosophical treatments, plays, poems, travel, and adventure. This series eclipsed all competition at the time, and the introduction of paperback books in the 1950s helped to open that market and marked a high point in the industry.
HarperCollins is and has always been a champion of the classics, and the current Collins Classics series follows in this tradition publishing classical literature that is affordable and available to all. Beautifully packaged, highly collectible, and intended to be reread and enjoyed at every opportunity.
Life & Times
When Katherine Mansfield died at the age of just thirty-four, she was buried beneath a stone that records the span of her life 1888 to 1923 and sums her up as Katherine Mansfield, wife of John Middleton Murry. Her husband, who himself lasted another thirty-four years, memorialised her by publishing collections of her short stories, letters and previously private journals; it was not long before her death was considered a loss not just for literature but also for humanity. Katherine Mansfield was a beautiful soul who had been taken too young.