The barbarous babes

BOYS with long hair are always silly, and Lionel was one of the silliest. I don’t know whether it was having the curls that had done it, or if he had been born stupid, but any way he used to make a most awful fuss if he knocked himself or cut his finger, and he liked to have his hands clean, and cried if you didn’t always play just what he wanted. Another peculiar thing about him was that he seemed to enjoy it, if visitors noticed him or admired his hair, instead of escaping as any of us would have done. Fortunately they don’t pay much attention to us, because our hair is short. At least mine and Humphrey’s is, and though Violet’s has been allowed to grow, it is quite straight, and an ugly sort of lighty brown in colour. As for Teddy, he is only four, so his hair doesn’t count.

Though I’ve spoken of Lionel here by his proper name, we didn’t call him that. It was much too long, and so we christened him “Macassar Oil,” because I discovered that the first part of Lionel written backwards spells oil, and Cousin Florence does put stuff on his hair. She didn’t seem a bit pleased though, when I explained it to her, though I don’t believe she’d have ever thought of it for herself. Cousin Florence is Lionel’s mother, and they’ve always lived in India, so we children had never seen them until they came to stay with us.

It was funny, but though we’d never wanted people to do anything before but leave us alone, we found that we didn’t a bit like it always being Lionel and his curls that every one made such a fuss over. I don’t mean, of course, that Mother was any different, but she was so busy that she couldn’t attend to us much, for there was a dinner party and lots of other things to amuse Cousin Florence, and cook’s temper is always awful. Why, some evenings she couldn’t even come to say good-night to us and tuck us up, (I mean Mother, not cook), and that makes everything seem horrid.

It wasn’t only Lionel that was such a trial, but Cousin Florence was always there too. She said she liked to watch us play, as if we could do anything with a grown-up person looking on, and just at that time we were in the middle of a most exciting game, where Humphrey was my grandfather and very strict and nearly starved and beat me to death. One day we couldn’t stand it any longer, so Humph and I ran off and left Cousin Florence and Lionel. We hid all the afternoon in the cave we’ve discovered, where you have to sit quite doubled up because it’s so small and secret, and it was lovely. But Mother made us promise not to do it again. She said Bayard wouldn’t have done it nor any one like that, because they considered the laws of hospitality to be most sacred, and that they showed politeness to a visitor even if he’d insulted them. So after that we always played with Lionel, but underneath Humph and I had another game all the time, and that helped us. We pretended that we were Knights of the Round Table, and that Lionel was the Unwelcome Guest, who had to be courteously entreated; we said “please” and “thank you” to him in almost every sentence. Really that was the only game at which Lionel was much good, for he didn’t seem to understand pretending at all, so he always had to act a passing gentleman or some silly thing of that sort. He couldn’t even be a regiment of soldiers properly.

Any one would think that things were bad enough like this, but it was much worse when Macassar Oil’s grandmother came to stay too. She wasn’t any relation of ours really, but she told us to call her Aunt Arabella, and so we did, although we didn’t want to. I didn’t like her from the first, though I never guessed that she’d take to watching us as well as Cousin Florence. But the most insulting part was that we found out they did it because they didn’t like to leave Lionel alone with us. They said that we were so rough and would hurt him or something, just because Humphrey once knocked him down, and as Lionel is eleven months older, I’m sure he ought to have been ashamed not to be able to take care of himself. Besides that was before Mother told us about Bayard. Another horrid thing that Cousin Florence and Aunt Arabella did, was always to make out that Lionel had won in races, and if Fräulein, our governess, was there, she was just as bad, and they didn’t seem to think it dreadful when Lionel cheated or anything, but only said to one another, in French, how sweet he looked with his golden hair and things like that.

Well, we tried to bear it and be good—we really did. It was most unlucky that just the day when I was feeling particularly cross with Lionel, because he’d gone in to lunch with the grown-ups, and Humph and I were too untidy, that I happened to see the picture of Samson in the old scrap-book. I won’t tell you more about it now, because you’ll understand better further on, but it was that picture that put the whole thing into my head.

I’d better say at once that of course we knew that what we meant to do was naughty, though we pretended to ourselves that it wasn’t; but we really didn’t know how naughty it was until Mother told us afterwards. Besides, we didn’t wait to let ourselves think, which Mother says is always a mistake, for it was directly after lunch that it all happened.

I don’t think I’ve said that in the afternoon Lionel always went to sleep; he really does just as if he were a baby, only on hot days Cousin Florence sometimes puts a rug and cushions and things for him in the garden. Then every one used to leave him, for we children were only too glad to get away, and so they didn’t think they need watch over him any more.

That afternoon it was very warm, and it all went most conveniently. Instead of going up to the orchard though, as we generally did when Lionel rested, we hid in the laurel bushes. Then as soon as Cousin Florence had gone into the house I crept out. Lionel was still awake, and I made him put his head on my knees. I felt rather mean at that part, but it couldn’t be helped, for that’s what Delilah really did, and Lionel didn’t mind, because he likes any one to cuddle him, instead of only his mother like most people. Then I sat quite still though I got the most awful pins and needles in my left foot.

At last he went to sleep and I called “Man, Man,” softly, and Humphrey came wriggling along the grass, like we’d planned.

“Shave off the seven locks of Samson’s head,” I whispered, but then I saw that Humph had brought father’s razor because it said “shave,” so I told him not to be so silly, but to run and fetch a pair of scissors.

Humphrey was very quick, I will say that, and Lionel didn’t stir, so the exciting part could begin. Humph was the lords of the Philistines now, of course, and I took the scissors. And then—it was dreadful I know—I really cut off Lionel’s curls!

Lionel never woke, and the scissors went snip, snip, most beautifully. I did enjoy it, because I thought so hard about its being Samson and Delilah that I couldn’t remember it was naughty. At last the curls were all off, and though the hair wasn’t very even, not like the barber does it, because it was most difficult, still it was beautifully short in places. Humph had been looking on almost too astonished to speak, but when I jumped up and cried, “The Philistines be upon thee, Samson,” he rushed at Lionel like I’d told him to.

Lionel, though, spoilt it all. He always does. He wouldn’t do anything that was proper, nor have his eyes put out, but just began to howl. He howled and howled, and Cousin Florence and Mother and Father and everybody came tearing out of the house. They all spoke at once, and cried out that Lionel’s appearance was spoilt, and all sorts of things, and certainly, now that I saw him properly, he did look rather bad, and quite ugly. The astonishing part was that they seemed almost as cross with Lionel as with us, though I kept explaining that he’d been asleep all the time, for that was only fair. Finally Father sent Humph and me to our rooms very angrily.

But I didn’t mind that, like I did Mother’s coming up that evening and talking to me. It was dreadful. She said that she was disappointed in me and not only had I been rude to guests myself, but I’d made her and Father seem rude; and she told me that Cousin Florence and Lionel were going away early in the morning, so what I’d done had practically driven them out of the house. But the worst was when she said that she had trusted me to look after the others, because I was the eldest, and to be a help to her, but now she found that she couldn’t, and that she must ask Fräulein to always stop with us. I began to wish that I could be dead.

At last, though, Mother forgave me. And she said that if I was very good for a long time, then her confidence in me would come back again, and so I’m going to be. And I’m never going to be Delilah again, never, because I see now how wicked she was to cut off any one’s hair without first asking her mother.