The book of Martha

If I had been clairvoyant enough to foresee the arrival of the Buttons in the house next door, I should have looked for another dumping-ground for my domestic burdens, and, quite likely, have found myself side by side with other and worse Buttons; so I dare say it was for the best—or the least bad anyhow. When we took our house the adjoining Bijou was empty. I had forgotten (being, as the efficient female says, a little excitable) that it might some day be filled.

We were very happy for two years; then Satan began to find occupation for our landlord, at whose bidding the Buttons sprang up like fungus on the lawn of the empty house. I came home after a short holiday to find them thriving upon their evil juices. There were then two parent Buttons and three young ones. Six years later there were eight young ones, “and all by the same father,” as a friend who was staying with us remarked with surprise. In the mission field, where I understand that human life is often fostered for table purposes, the Buttons would be invaluable, but for a civilised country there were too many of them, added to which (as it they wanted adding to!) they kept animals and birds and every kind of creature with a voice whom they could lay hands on.

What deaf idiot can have floated the idea of there being dumb animals in the world to claim our affection and respect? When I find a dumb animal I shall love it with all my heart and soul. As for those animals that already exist, it would be as reasonable to speak with tears in our eyes about dumb foreigners because they make life intolerable with vociferations we do not understand.

I used to read books about the Great African Silence, dreaming about it as a Mussulman dreams of Paradise. If there is a certain hour known as cock-crow why may not other hours be apportioned in the same way and devoted to a particular animal? If this were done I could arrange my day. I would not go to bed until after cock-crow, I would do my shopping at dog-bark, and arrange to dine with a friend during caterwaul. As it is there is no method about the nuisance; it is all adrift and mixed up. And in the case of the Buttons there were the children, who welded single aggravations into one vast outrage.

They used to disperse themselves for conversation, when reasonable people approach one another. They planted one in the turret at the top of the house, another at the bottom of the garden, a third and fourth, within quarrelable distance, at the drawing-room window, while the fifth remained in a distant potting-shed, and then they began; the dumb animals acting as chorus.

“Ron——ald?” (From the turret.)

“Ye——s?”

“What are you doing?”

“Wh——at?”

“Wha——t—are—you—do——ing?”

“Mending my boat.”

“Wha——t?”

“Men——ding—my—boa——t.”

“Mend——ing—your—wha——t?”

“My bo——at.”

“Your—co——at?”

“Bo——o——at.” (“Bow—bow—bow!——Bow—bow—bow!——Bouff!”)

“Down, Spot——Spot! Spot! Spot!” (Whistling) “Peow, weow, weow——”

“Jimmy——”

“Wh——at?”

“Mother says, do you want your hammer?”

“Wh——at?”

“Mother says—do—you—want—your—hammer?”

(It would not be right to say what I did with that hammer in my mind, because a sin thought of is a sin committed in the eye of Goodness.)

“I ca——n’—t he——a—r.”

“Kwakee—scrwaak.” (From the parrot.)

“Bow—bow—bow!——bow!——Bow—bow—bow!——bow!”

“Cock—a—doodle—do!”

“Co—rr——a—warra—corrawarra.” (From the hen.)

Dog-bark and child-call lasted nearly until cock-crow came round again, because the Buttons, like the poor, keep their little ones up rather late. They trundled rattly things along the gravel, and joked loudly with papa after he came home, until half-past ten at night. We only needed cries of “Salt!” “Herrings!” and “Murder!” to give us the flavour of life at its fullest.

By way of side-shows there were the gramophone, and the pianola, and the annual baby (who never slept very well), and Mrs. Button’s singing, and the flirtations of the cook’s cat.

We enjoyed occasional precious lulls when Mrs. Button had a baby or the children were down with some disease. Even then there were always a few who had recovered first or who had not yet developed it; and as the animals did not get infectious diseases, and their confinements in no way interfered with their usual routine, the “Corrawarraing” and “Cockadoodling” and “Bowing” went on all the year round. It never took Mrs. Button more than a fortnight to have a baby, and during that time the monthly nurse sang almost as loudly in the garden as Mrs. Button used to do in the drawing-room, so, altogether, the lulls did not amount to very much. We always stayed at home during the Buttons’ summer holiday for the pleasure of being without them; besides which, we got an extra month’s peace by going away ourselves as soon as they came back.

I never could see any point in the Button family; they seemed to serve no useful end. They fed, and moved about, and multiplied exceedingly, yet never ate each other up, nor burrowed, nor became destructive in their neighbours’ gardens. But they were neither grateful to the eye nor could they be used for sport or for the table.

Mr. Button went every day to some mysterious place of business, where persons gave him good money to do for them what they could equally well have done for themselves; it was probably dull work, and Mr. Button did not mind doing it. It suited both parties that the work should go on, because the money they gave him made it possible for him to go on being Mr. Button, which was what he liked. Mrs. Button also liked him to go on being what he was, and they were so contented that they continued to make more and more young Buttons, just because it seemed a pity not to. I am quite certain that was the only reason that moved them to such an important step.

I have never seen children who so clearly as the young Buttons showed that it did not matter in the least whose children they were, any more than it matters which particular couple of rabbits own the young ones nibbling on the lawn. They were just the young Buttons. If their parents had happened to be the Duttons, or the Scruttons, or the Muttons, it would have suited them quite as well—so long as cook didn’t leave. That really would have mattered after she had got into their ways.

I have known the Button family now for some years, and never have I heard or seen them do anything that could not have been equally well said or done in a different way. “It will do as well as any other” is a favourite saying with all of them. Once, when the Buttons were away, their life’s history shaped itself in my thoughts, falling more or less into rhyme because they are so monotonous. There had been a new baby lately, and the butcher’s cart was at the door again: