There were once upon a time, three little girls who lived with their parents in a large house on the side of a mountain, and I am going to tell you some of the naughty, mischievous things they did. The eldest girl was called Nita, the middle girl, Marses, and the youngest, Madge. Marses was not really the name of the middle one, but she was given that by Madge when the latter was quite small and it had stuck to her. Nita was ten, Marses eight, and Madge six, and they had such a nice old nurse whose name was Canio. She was very, very fond of all three girls, and used to call them her "golden ones" - (when she was in a good temper).
Nita was a very quiet sort of girl, and had quite given up playing with dollies because she thought she was "getting too old" for them. When she had discovered this painful fact, soon after her tenth birthday, she one day took all her dolls and distributed them to the other two, who were only too delighted to have them, and greatly pitied Nita for having arrived so quickly at such a great age which necessitated this heart-breaking trial. They neither of them saw the tears, however, that Nita shed afterwards while in the lonely little sitting room upstairs. After she had given up dolls she used to sit there for hours reading or drawing, and would lock the door so that Marses and Madge should not disturb her.
Marses and Madge were so like each other that they were often taken for twins which they liked. Marses, however, had straight dark hair and Madge had a perfect rumpus of light curls all over her head which looked a mop!
I must now tell you what these two used to do to their old nurse (for of course Nita was much too old to do such silly, childish things). Canio used to bring cans of hot water up the kitchen stairs every evening for their baths. The stairs were very steep and led into a sort of attic where the cloths used be dried on wet days. Then there was a big door which led on to a landing on which the room where Marses and Madge slept opened.
Well, these two little monkeys used to go up to their rooms before Canio got there, get hold of a sheet each, put it over their heads and creep along to the top of the stair and wait for Canio to appear. As she came labouring up the stairs with heavy cans of water, she saw two dreadful ghostly apparitions with claw-like hands streched out in front, waiting to devour her at the top of the stairs. She would utter a shriek and subside (cans, lamp and all) at the bottom. This was just what those two wanted and they would laugh till they could laugh no more. Sometimes Mother would hear a noise and make for the stairs, but generally before she got there, Madge and Marses were in their room as innocent as lambs and Canio would never tell tales about her "golden ones". It was a strange thing, however, that as often as this happened, Canio never got accustomed to it but always received a shock!
Madge and Canio were in the bedroom as the two children were going to bed, and had opened the window for a little to look out as it was a beautiful summer night, when a funny thing happened to Marses though she did not think it very funny at the time. She walked straight into the room never looking where she was going and fell headlong into a bath of cold water that was waiting there for the morning tub! She howled loudly as you may imagine, and mother came up from the study in a great fright thinking somebody had fallen out the window, and was relieved to find that it was nothing worse than a cold bath and a tumble.
There was a lovely garden to the house with several lawns, an olive grove, three vineyards and two orchards. It was quite a walk to go all round it, so Marses and Madge used often to play at being pilgrims and take a long stick and trudge right round the place.
Therre were a great many fig trees growing all round the garden and after dinner, instead of having fruit at the table (which you always have to eat so daintily and not take too much of because it is greedy) they just went into the vineyard and got as many grapes as they wanted into their laps and then climbed a fig tree and alternatively ate figs and grapes without having any horrid person to tell them when to stop.
When it was very, very hot in the summer mother used to let them take off their socks and shoes and paddle about in a little stream that ran through their grounds. They used to love this and generally took their dolls to give them a paddle or a bath! But the dolls feet were more tender and often they lost their skins, to say nothing of their complexions through this performance!
Marses was much the naughtiest of the two younger girls, and used often to lead Madge astray. Mother would always make them have a sleep in the middle of the day in summer, because she said the hot weather made them cross unless they had a rest, and Marses and Madge used to hate this. So Marses used to get some fruit which she put under her pillow when she got into bed, and when she thought mother was asleep (for mother slways slept with Madge in the afternoon while Marses had another bed in the same room) she would get out the fruit and eat it and make faces at Madge who would of course laugh and mother would put out a hand a pat her on the back to keep her quiet, whereas it was Marses' fault all the time.
They did heaps of other naughty things and often got into trouble, but they were very contented and happy on the whole as well they might be with such a lovely house and garden. They had what they called "The Stork's Nest" the outside of which consisted of wires slung between the leafy tops of some chestnut trees and covered over with dried ferns. They got up to this by a ladder; it was beautifully shady and cool so high up. On wet days they played at dolls all the time when lessons were done, as they had a big play-room and lots of dolls. They would gather all sorts of weeds and vegetables from the garden and cook them up into dishes for their dolls' dinner and then keep what the dolls did not eat for days till the whole room smelt. Then mother would come sniffing and have a regular spring cleaning of all the old, moudly, smelly delicacies, and Marses and Madge would get baskets and go out and bring fresh supplies in - which came to the same end!!