Chapter IX: The Programme

‟ARE you young people aware,” asked Mr. Weston severely, “that it is now up to you to map out the whole duty of pupil-teachers?”

“Parents of high-grade pupil-teachers,” remarked Jo with equal severity, “don’t use such expressions as ‘up to you.’ They employ only the _best_ English.”

“It has been sufficiently exhausting to act as the parent of low-grade twins without beginning to live up to them as high-grade pupil-teachers,” said her father, laughing. “However, I’ll try, being of a meek spirit. Will you, my children, address yourselves to the problem of framing a suitable scheme of educational training for——”

“Oh, Daddy, do say something like ‘that blessed kid,’ to finish with, and then I’ll know it’s you!” cried Jean.

“I meant to,” said Mr. Weston with a sigh of relief. “I couldn’t have kept it up a second longer. Well, what are you going to do about it, anyhow?”

“We’ve been trying to work out a scheme for a week,” Jo said. “There’s such a lot to be thought of. Mrs. Forester said specially that she didn’t want him to have too many lessons—three hours a day would be quite enough for him. Is that enough for Billy?”

“Well, Billy could stand more. But three hours will do for the present,” said Mrs. Weston, who was knitting in her armchair by the window, profiting by the last gleam of daylight. The long summer day was over, and a cool breeze had begun to blow across the scorched, bare plains. Rex and Billy, wearied by battle, were already in bed, in their corner of the verandah, sleeping peacefully. The twins had tucked them up, and were now ready for a family conclave.

“Well—lessons, three hours. We’ve got to fit that in with our own work,” said Jean. “You see, we’re going to do most of the housework. We mean to get up at five in the summer, and get most of it done before breakfast. That leaves Sarah pretty free. Of course, we don’t want Mother to do anything at all.”

“A nice sort of person I should soon become!” said Mrs. Weston, laughing. “Disgracefully fat and hopelessly lazy! It seems hard that you should deliberately conspire to ruin an excellent character like mine!”

“Oh, we know well enough you’ll always be busy, darling,” Jo said, laughing. “You can have the mending of all Billy’s trousers, for one thing: and that’s about enough to keep you busy. But we don’t want you to have any definite housework. We’ve talked it all out with Sarah, and arranged everything. She insists on turning out one room every day—so we’re going to get it all ready for turning out, and do the rest of the housework. It’ll be quite easy, because nothing will ever get dirty or untidy.”

“My poor lambs!” murmured Mrs. Weston, gazing at this picture of youthful optimism.

“Well, you know, Mother, not really bad.” Both the twins laughed. “We do really mean to try to keep things tidy. We’re going round a bit at night, putting everything away before we go to bed—things that don’t seem to matter a bit at night do look so horribly untidy in the morning. And we’re going to plan the work so as to get method. Smithy—Miss Smith, I mean—used always to preach about that. Do you think it takes long to grow method?”

“A lifetime isn’t enough for some people,” Mrs. Weston said. “But if you really try I think yours will soon develop. There are already signs of healthy sprouting!” She smiled at them—the smile a little tremulous. They were so young, and so tremendously in earnest.

“That’s comforting,” Jean said. “Now there’s another important thing. Do you think it’s our duty to teach the boys together? Us together, I mean—not the boys, of course.”

“A class of two isn’t exactly huge,” said their father. “It would be rather over-engined with two teachers, I think.”

“That’s what we thought,” Jean cried eagerly. “It would be silly—we’d be falling over each other. So we mapped out a programme, each of us taking an hour and a half at a time, and we’ll each give the lessons we’re best at ourselves. English isn’t mine, you’ll notice! Then the one who isn’t teaching can be free for other jobs.”

“Here’s the programme,” Jo said. She displayed it triumphantly—a lengthy document, with spaces beautifully ruled in red ink, mapping out a week’s work. Mr. and Mrs. Weston studied it together.

“‘Drill—15 minutes’?” queried Mr. Weston presently.

“Oh, that’s physical jerks—you know, calisthenics,” Jo explained. “We’ll begin with that every morning. They were very keen about it at school. Miss Dampier says it gets all the brain-machinery going well.”

“Good idea,” said their father, relapsing into silence.

“Isn’t there a good deal of time for ‘Reading’?” asked Mrs. Weston. “They’re very small for such long lessons.”

“Oh—that’s not only the boys,” Jean said. “We’re going to read to them—jolly books, like those ‘High Roads’ series, that teach you all about history and geography and literature without letting you guess that you’re being taught. We had a lot of them ourselves, and Mrs. Forester has sent dozens in Rex’s trunk. They’ll get absolutely full of knowledge without an effort on their own parts!”

“Why wasn’t I taught like that!” groaned Mr. Weston. “My ‘High Roads’ were paved with flint—these lucky young dogs will have theirs strewn with rose-leaves. Well, it seems a pretty comprehensive schedule, twinses. I hope you’ll be able to live up to it.”

“We mean to have a jolly good try,” Jo said. “I expect we’ll slump sometimes, but we’re really going to do our best. Now, where do you come in, Dad?”

“Is it me?” queried Mr. Weston blankly. “What have I to do with your fell schemes?”

“Rex isn’t a fell scheme, and you have lots to do with him,” said his relentless daughter. “You see, it was specially mentioned that he needs manly influence. Well, we can’t supply that!”

“I’m not so sure,” remarked the hapless man, gazing at the determined young faces. “Still, I’m willing to do all I can. What would you suggest?”

“Well—boxing for one thing: and of course he has to be taught to ride. We can all take a turn at that, but we think he ought to begin with you, Dad, ’cause he’ll have more confidence with a man than he would with us.”

“Can do,” said Mr. Weston. “I’ll give him half an hour on old Merrilegs after breakfast every morning—if I possibly can. Boxing after tea; then they can wash off the results and sleep off the soreness! Anything else?”

“Well—no other accomplishments. But he can go about with you and Billy, can’t he, Dad?—when you have time, of course. We don’t want them always with us, or getting into mischief alone.”

“Billy is very anxious to learn to manage the place,” said Mr. Weston, with a twinkle in his eye. “I think he has visions of relieving me of any work after a year or two—like you two with your mother. I’ve promised to teach him all I can, but of course there’s very little to show him just now, with the whole place a desert, and most of the stock away. When Rex can ride I can take them both out with me. Meanwhile, I’ll do what I can to instruct him in country ways; and it’s not a bad thing to teach them to use their eyes. Quite remarkable, how many people can look at things without seeing them. To come down to actual deeds, Billy is earnestly learning to use an axe, and to milk. Rex can share those lessons.”

“For goodness’ sake, don’t let him chop his feet off!” begged Mrs. Weston.

“Not if I can avoid it,” said her husband. “The axe Billy is using isn’t sharp enough to cut anything in particular, so I don’t think you need worry. But will young Rex want to learn such unfashionable things as chopping and milking?”

“Oh, I think he’ll want to join in anything that Billy does,” Jean said. “And if you tell him to do them as a matter of course, he’ll hardly refuse, even if it’s a shock to him. Then there’s swimming.”

“Am I the swimming teacher too?” demanded Mr. Weston. “For I warn you, I shan’t have time.”

“Oh, no—we can teach him. We thought of going to bathe every afternoon, and he’ll soon learn. I think that’s all,” said Jean, wrinkling her brows. “Or can you think of anything else we ought to teach him?”

“I think you’ve a fairly complete scheme—for a boy who has to go slow. Rex will certainly say that he has enough to do.”

“It doesn’t appear that there is any job for me in the scheme,” remarked Mrs. Weston. “In fact, I think you’re steadily planning to make me into a fine lady. I don’t think I quite like it.”

She found herself suddenly hugged by both twins.

“Bless you, you’ve got jobs all the time!” said Jo. “He’s only nine, and he can’t possibly do without mothering. It’s the biggest job of all. And we’ll all come to you with our difficulties, as we always do, and you’ll get us all out.”

“So long as you all do that I shan’t feel too much on the shelf,” said her mother. “And I’m appointing myself one job that you needn’t put down on the schedule—the last half-hour at night for the boys. That is mine, and nobody must take it, please. Also it seems to me that the schedule and the oddments and the hundred-and-one things that aren’t written down won’t leave my twinses much time, so I want it to be clearly understood that in case of necessity I can take over the lessons occasionally. I’m not going to have your poor old noses perpetually at the grindstone.”

“We’re not going to feel it a grind,” declared Jean. “And, Mother, there won’t be much mending for Rex, for Mrs. Forester has sent up just the sensiblest things for him: scout blouses and whipcord breeches, and all sorts of hard-wearing things that look as if they couldn’t possibly tear!”

“You don’t know small boys as well as I do!” returned Mrs. Weston, laughing.

“Well—you’ll see. And there are ever so many things, and all perfectly new. But nothing very swagger: our poor old Billy won’t feel that he’s too much in the shade.”

“I was afraid when we met him that Billy would be hopelessly out of it,” said Jo. “He was such a dreadfully superior young man. And he still shows signs of being superior—but not as much. And they went off to bed arm in arm—which was far more than I had dared to hope for, the very first night.”

“There’s nothing like a good, honest fight,” said her father, laughing. “If you had seen those urchins in the orchard, going at each other, hammer and tongs, you’d have known that there was no question of superiority about either of them. After all, Rex’s polish is only skin-deep; there’s normal small boy under it. And one small boy is very like another.”

“I’m rather troubled about one thing,” Jean said. “It doesn’t seem to me that Rex can possibly keep his polish up here. Billy will certainly rub it off, even if Jo and I don’t. It just couldn’t exist in a place like Emu Plains.”

“It could not,” her father nodded agreement.

“Well—when the Foresters come back from Colombo and find only unpolished Rex—it sounds rather like unpolished rice—do you think they’ll be horrified? For all we know Mrs. Forester has spent nine laborious years in putting that polish on.”

“That’s an awful idea!” said Jo anxiously.

“Only, Helen isn’t a bit polished,” Jean said. “She’s almost rugged at times, especially when you duck her in the baths. Of course her manners are lovely when she wants them to be; but then every Captain of the School has to have lovely manners for use if required—not as a habit. Rex’s polish isn’t like that. He fairly wallows in it.”

“He won’t wallow long,” said Mr. Weston. “Not if I know Billy.”

“Well—will Mrs. Forester mind?”

“She will not,” said Mrs. Weston, coming into the discussion with a note of decision in her clear voice. “If Mrs. Forester finds that much-too-pretty little boy grown into a brown, noisy, healthy ruffian like Billy, with horny hands and tough muscles, she won’t worry one little bit as to where his polish has gone. The mother who sent her son up here with scout suits and whipcord breeches doesn’t want him kept in cotton-wool. We can’t be always sure of making no mistakes, twinses dear: but I think if we have to decide between living up to the polish or the breeches, it will certainly be best to let the polish go. Elaine Forester won’t miss it after her boy has been for a year on Emu Plains!”

Later, on her way back from bidding good-night to the twins, in their end of the verandah, Mrs. Weston paused near the boys’ beds. Billy always slept under her window: to-night the second little bed was drawn near his, and the sleek, fair head showed close to the ruddy curls in the moonlight. Billy lay, as always, with one arm flung above his head. He did not stir when his mother stooped to kiss him, tucking the sheet more closely round him. But when she bent above the other bed, Rex tossed round uneasily, and spoke in his sleep.

“Mother!” he muttered. The word was almost a cry.

“Go to sleep, little sonnie,” Mrs. Weston said gently. She put her lips to the smooth cheek, and Rex settled down with a little satisfied sigh.

A vision came across Mrs. Weston of that other mother, whose ship was bearing her relentlessly away from her son.

“I’ll take care of him for you,” she murmured. And when she leaned from her window later on for the look she always gave Billy before blowing out her light, her caressing eyes lingered as long on the fair head as on the ruddy mass of despised curls.