The New Mother

With a Poem by Lola Ridge

Lucy Clifford

• Publisher: Read & Co. Children's
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN: 9781528718325
• eBook ISBN: 9781528791311

"The New Mother" is an 1882 short story by Lucy Clifford. The story centres around two young girls who live with their mother and baby sibling in the woods. One day they happen across strange girl who promises to show them a tiny man and woman who live in her guitar if they are naughty enough. Excited by this offer, they return home and try to be as badly behaved as possible, to which their mother responds with threats of leaving and the arrival of a new mother with "glass eyes and a wooden tail" . Three times the strange girl tells them they haven't been naughty enough, and three times they return home to behave more badly than the day before. Finally, the girl tells them that they shall never be naughty enough to see the miniature couple and they return home to find that their mother really has gone. When the new mother arrives, they run away into the woods to live on berries. Lucy Clifford (1846–1929) Clifford, also known as Mrs. W. K. Clifford, was an English journalist, novelist, and wife of notable philosopher and mathematician William Kingdon Clifford. Other works by this author include: "Mrs. Keith's Crime" (1885), "The Anyhow Stories, Moral and Otherwise" (1882), and "Aunt Anne" (1892). Read & Co. Classics is proudly republishing this classic collection of children's short stories now complete with an introductory poem by Lola Ridge.

II

“Good day,” said the village girl, when she saw Blue-Eyes and the Turkey approach. She was again sitting by the heap of stones, and under her shawl the peardrum was hidden. She looked just as if she had not moved since the day before. “Good day,” she said, in the same cheerful voice in which she had spoken yesterday; “the weather is really charming.”

“Are the little man and woman there?” the children asked, taking no notice of her remark.

“Yes; thank you for inquiring after them,” the girl answered; “they are both here and quite well. The little man is learning how to rattle the money in his pocket, and the little woman has heard a secret— she tells it while she dances.”

“Oh, do let us see,” they entreated.

“Quite impossible, I assure you,” the girl answered promptly. “You see, you are good.”

“Oh !” said Blue-Eyes, sadly, “but mother says if we are naughty she will go away and send home a new mother, with glass eyes and a wooden tail.”

“Indeed,” said the girl, still speaking in the same unconcerned voice, “that is what they all say.”

“What do you mean?” asked the Turkey.

“They all threaten that kind of thing. Of course really there are no mothers with glass eyes and wooden tails; they would be much too expensive to make.” And the common sense of this remark the children, especially the Turkey, saw at once, but they merely said, half crying, “We think you might let us see the little man and woman dance.”

“The kind of thing you would think,” remarked the village girl.

“But will you if we are naughty?” they asked in despair.

“I fear you could not be naughty — that is, really —even if you tried,” she said scornfully.

“Oh, but we will try; we will indeed,” they cried ; ” so do show them to us.”

“Certainly not beforehand,” answered the girl, getting up and preparing to walk away.

“But if we are very naughty to-night, will you let us see them tomorrow?”

“Questions asked to-day are always best answered to-morrow,” the girl said, and turned round as if to walk on. “Good day,” she said blithely; “I must really go and play a little to myself; good day,” she repeated, and then suddenly she began to sing:

Oh, sweet and fair’s the lady-bird,
And so’s the bumble-bee,
But I myself have long preferred
The gentle chimpanzee,
The gentle chimpanzee-e- e,
The gentle chim

“I beg your pardon,” she said, stopping, and looking over her shoulder, “it’s very rude to sing without leave before company. I won’t do it again.”

“Oh, do go on,” the children said.

“I’m going,” she said, and walked away.

“No, we meant go on singing,” they explained, “and do let us just hear you play,” they entreated, remembering that as yet they had not heard a single sound from the peardrum.

“Quite impossible,” she called out as she went along. “You are good, as I remarked before. The pleasure of goodness centres in itself; the pleasures of naughtiness are many and varied. Good day,” she shouted, for she was almost out of hearing.

For a few minutes the children stood still looking after her, then they broke down and cried.

“She might have let us see them,” they sobbed.

The Turkey was the first to wipe away her tears.

“Let us go home and be very naughty,” she said; “then perhaps she will let us see them tomorrow.”

“But what shall we do ?” asked Blue-Eyes, looking up. Then together all the way home they planned how to begin being naughty. And that afternoon the dear mother was sorely distressed, for, instead of sitting at their tea as usual with smiling happy faces, and then helping her to clear away and doing all she told them, they broke their mugs and threw their bread and butter on the floor, and when the mother told them to do one thing they carefully went and did another, and as for helping her to put away, they left her to do it all by herself, and only stamped their feet with rage when she told them to go upstairs until they were good.

“We won’t be good,” they cried. “We hate being good, and we always mean to be naughty. We like being naughty very much.”

“Do you remember what I told you I should do if you were very very naughty ?” she asked sadly.

“Yes, we know, but it isn’t true,” they cried. “There is no mother with a wooden tail and glass eyes, and if there were we should just stick pins into her and send her away; but there is none.”

Then the mother became really angry at last, and sent them off to bed, but instead of crying and being sorry at her anger they laughed for joy, and when they were in bed they sat up and sang merry songs at the top of their voices.

* * * * *

The next morning quite early, without asking leave from the mother, the children got up and ran off as fast as they could over the fields towards the bridge to look” for the village girl. She was sitting as usual by the heap of stones with the peardrum under her shawl.

“Now please show us the little man and woman,” they cried, “and let us hear the peardrum. We were very naughty last night.” But the girl kept the peardrum carefully hidden. “We were very naughty,” the children cried again.

“Indeed,” she said in precisely the same tone in which she had spoken yesterday.

“But we were,” they repeated; “we were indeed.”

“So you say,” she answered. “You were not half naughty eno...

Table of contents

• MOTHER
• THE NEW MOTHER
• I
• II