wiped her streaming eyes and went on:
“I should never have thought it of you, Andrew. But I’ll say no more, no matter what I think. And this – er – creature – I shall have to call Waif or Stray or— ”
At that the other dog looked at Miss Lark very indignantly, and Andrew barked loudly.
“They say you must call him Willoughby and nothing else,” said Mary Poppins. “Willoughby being his name.”
“Willoughby! What a name! Worse and worse!” said Miss Lark despairingly. “What is he saying now?” For Andrew was barking again.
“He says that if he comes back you are never to make him wear overcoats or go to the Hairdresser’s again – that’s his last word,” said Mary Poppins.
There was a pause.
“Very well,” said Miss Lark at last. “But I warn you, Andrew, if you catch your death of cold – don’t blame me!”
And with that she turned and walked haughtily up the steps, sniffing away the last of her tears.
Andrew cocked his head towards Willoughby as if to say: “Come on!” and the other two of them waltzed side by side slowly up the garden path, waving their tails like banners, and followed Miss Lark into the house.
“He isn’t a ninkypoop after all, you see,” said Jane, as they went upstairs to the nursery and Tea.
“No,” agreed Michael. “But how do you think Mary Poppins knew?”
“I don’t know,” said Jane. “And she’ll never, never tell us. I am sure of that. . .”
JANE, WITH HER head tied up in Mary Poppins’ bandanna handkerchief, was in bed with earache.
“What does it feel like?” Michael wanted to know.
“Like guns going off inside my head,” said Jane.
“Cannons?”
“No, pop-guns.”
“Oh,” said Michael. And he almost wished he could have earache, too. It sounded so exciting.
“Shall I tell you a story out of one of the books?” said Michael, going to the bookshelf.
“No. I just couldn’t bear it,” said Jane, holding her ear with her hand.
“Well, shall I sit at the window and tell you what is happening outside?”
“Yes, do,” said Jane.
So Michael sat all the afternoon on the window seat telling her everything that occurred in the Lane. And sometimes his accounts were very dull and sometimes very exciting.
“There’s Admiral Boom!” he said once. “He has come out of his gate and is hurrying down the Lane. Here he comes. His nose is redder than ever and he’s wearing a top hat. Now he is passing Next Door—”
“Is he saying ‘Blast my gizzard!’?” enquired Jane.
“I can’t hear. I expect so. There’s Miss Lark’s second housemaid in Miss Lark’s garden. And Robertson Ay is in our garden, sweeping up the leaves and looking at her over the fence. He is sitting down now, having a rest.”
“He has a weak heart,” said Jane.
“How do you know?”
“He told me. He said his doctor said he was to do as little as possible. And I heard Daddy say if Robertson Ay does what his doctor told him to he’ll sack him. Oh, how it bangs and bangs!” said Jane, clutching her ear again.
“Hulloh!” said Michael excitedly from the window.
“What is it?” cried Jane, sitting up. “Do tell me.”
“A very extraordinary thing. There’s a cow down in the Lane,” said Michael, jumping up and down on the window seat.
“A cow? A real cow – right in the middle of a town? How funny! Mary Poppins,” said Jane, “there’s a cow in the Lane, Michael says.”
“Yes, and it’s walking very slowly, putting its head over every gate and looking round as though it had lost something.”
“I wish I could see it,” said Jane mournfully.
“Look!” said Michael, pointing downwards as Mary Poppins came to the window. “A cow. Isn’t that funny?”
Mary Poppins gave a quick, sharp glance down into the Lane. She started with surprise.
“Certainly not,” she said, turning to Jane and Michael. “It’s not funny at all. I know that cow. She was a great friend of my Mother’s and I’ll thank you to speak politely to her.” She smoothed her apron and looked at them both very severely.
“Have you known her long?” enquired Michael gently, hoping that if he was particularly polite he would hear something more about the cow.
“Since before she saw the King,” said Mary Poppins.
“And when was that?” asked Jane, in a soft encouraging voice.
Mary Poppins stared into space, her eyes fixed upon something that they could not see. Jane and Michael held their breath, waiting.
“It was long ago,” said Mary Poppins, in a brooding story-telling voice. She paused, as though she were remembering events that happened hundreds of years before that time. Then she went on dreamily, still gazing into the middle of the room, but without seeing anything.
The Red Cow – that’s the name she went by. And very important and prosperous she was, too (so my Mother said). She lived in the best field in the whole district – a large one full of buttercups the size of saucers and dandelions standing up in it like soldiers. Every time she ate the head off one soldier, another grew up in its place, with a green military coat and a yellow busby.
She had lived there always – she often told my Mother that she couldn’t remember the time when she hadn’t lived in that field. Her world was bounded by green hedges and the sky and she knew nothing of what lay beyond these.
The Red Cow was very respectable, she always behaved like a perfect lady and she knew What was What. To her a thing was either black or white – there was nothing in between. Dandelions were either sweet or sour – there were never any moderately nice ones.
She led a very busy life. Her mornings were taken up in giving lessons to the Red Calf, her daughter, and in the afternoon she taught the little one deportment and mooing and all the things a really well brought up calf should know. Then they had their supper, and the Red Cow showed the Red Calf how to select a good blade of grass from a bad one; and when her child had gone to sleep at night she would go into a corner of the field and chew the cud and think her own quiet thoughts.
All her days were exactly the same. One Red Calf grew up and went away and another came in its place. And it was natural that the Red Cow should imagine that her life would always be the same as it had always been – indeed, she felt that she could ask for nothing better than for all her days to be alike till she came to the end of them.
But at the very moment she was thinking these thoughts, adventure, as she afterwards told my Mother, was stalking her. It came upon her one night when the stars themselves looked like dandelions in the sky and the moon a great daisy among the stars.
On