My School-Days

My School-Days
by E. Nesbit
1897

NOT because my childhood was different from that of others, not
because I have anything strange to relate, anything new to tell, are these
words written. For the other reason rather that I was a child as other
children, that my memories are their memories, as my hopes were their
hopes, my dreams their dreams, my fears their fears. I open the book of
memory to tear out some pages for you others.
There is nothing here that is not in my most clear and vivid
recollection.
When I was a little child I used to pray fervently, tearfully, that when I
should be grown up I might never forget what I thought and felt and
suffered then.
Let these pages speak for me, and bear witness that I have not
forgotten.

MEMORIES OF CHILDHOOD.
PART I.
STUART PLAID.
When I was small and teachable my mother was compelled to much
travel and change of scene by the illness of my elder sister; and as she
liked to have me more or less within reach, I changed schools as a
place-hunter changes his politics.

The first school I went to was a Mrs. Arthur's--at Brighton. I remember
very little about the lessons, because I was only seven years old, but I
remember--to my inmost fibre I remember the play. There was a yard
behind the house--no garden and there I used to play with another small
child whose name I have forgotten. But 1 know that she wore a Stuart
plaid frock, and that I detested her.
On the first day of my arrival we were sent into the "playground" with
our toys. Stuart plaid, as I must call her, having no other name, had a
battered doll and three scallop-shells I had a very complete little set of
pewter tea-things in a cardboard box.
"Let's change for a bit," said Stuart plaid.
Mingled politeness and shyness compelled my acquiescence. She took
my new tea-things, and I disconsolately nursed the battered torso of her
doll. But this grew very wearisome, and I, feeling satisfied that the
claims of courtesy had been fully met, protested mildly.
"Now then," said Stuart plaid, looking up from the tea-things, "don't be
so selfish; besides, they're horrid little stupid tin things. I wouldn't give
twopence for them."
"But I don't want you to give twopence for them; I want them back."
"Oh, no you don't!"
"Yes I do," said I, roused by her depreciation of my property, "and I'll
have them too, so there!"
I advanced towards her--I am afraid with some half-formed
determination of pulling her hair.
"A11 right," she said, "you stand there and I'll put them in the box and
give them to you."
"Promise!"
"Yes, if you don't move."

She turned her back on me. It took her a very long time to put them in
the box. I stood tingling with indignation, and a growing desire to slap
her face. Presently she turned.
"You would have them back," she said, grinning unpleasantly, "and
here they are."
She put them into my hands. She had bitten every single cup, saucer,
and plate into a formless lump!
While I stood speechless with anger and misery, she came close to me
and said tauntingly
"There, now! aren't you sorry you didn't let me have them?"
"I'll go home," I said, struggling between pride and tears.
"Oh, no you won't," said Stuart plaid, thrusting her mocking face close
to mine; "and if you say a word about it I'll say you did it and pinched
me as well. And Mrs. Arthur'll believe me, because I'm not a new girl,
and you are!"
I turned away without a word, and I never did tell--till now. But I never
said another word to Stuart plaid out of school. She tortured me
unremittingly. When I had been at school a week or two my paint-box
suffered at her hands, but I bore it meekly and in silence, only seeking
to replace my Vandyke brown by mud from the garden. Chinese white I
sought to manufacture by a mixture of chalk picked up on the sea-shore,
and milk from my mug at tea-time. It was never a successful industry. I
remember the hot white streets, and the flies, and Brill's baths, and the
Western Road, and the bitter pang of passing, at the end of a long
procession, our own house, where always some one might be at the
window, and never any one was. I used to go home on Saturdays, and
then all bitterness was so swallowed up in the bliss of the
homereturning, that I actually forgot the miseries of my school-life; but
I was very unhappy there. Mrs. Arthur and the big girls were kind
enough to me,