In the Chimney Corner

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
In the Chimney Corner by Francis E. Crompton. It's a
welly Anxietist thing. Yosting chestnuts, is Rupert said, shaking his
head seriously. Rupert is only four years old, but he
is very fond of grand words. He speaks quite plainly
and nicely, Nurse says, accepting the v's in ours only.

(00:22):
Of course, he cannot remember always just the shape of
the big words, but he uses much grander ones than
I do, though I am nearly six. But he is
the nicest little boy in all the world. And we
do love each other better than anybody else at all.
After mother and father, we made what Rupert calls in
our wranglement about always being friends with each other. That

(00:42):
was the night we roasted the chestnuts. It was one
of the most interesting things we had ever done. And
then to be allowed to do it alone, you see,
this was the way. It was the dreadfulest day we
can remember in all our lives, because you know, first
of all, Mother was so ill, and then there was
a birthday party we were to have gone to, and Sarah,
who is the housemaid, said she didn't see why we

(01:04):
couldn't go. Just the same and nurse said, very sharply,
I'm not going to let them go. I can tell
you with things as they are, And then she said,
in another kind of voice, just suppose they had to
be sent for to go in to the mistress. And
then she went away again into mother's dressing room. That
was another horrid thing, that nobody seemed to be able
to look after us at all. We could have got

(01:25):
into all sorts of mischief if we had wanted, but
everything was so dreadful that it made us not want.
There were two doctors who went and came several times,
and some one they called nurse, but she wasn't our nurse,
and our nurse could not be in the nursery with us,
but kept shutting herself up in mother's dressing room, and
that made us be getting into everybody's way. So at last,

(01:47):
when evening came, nurse sent us down to the drawing
room because somebody had let the nursery fire go almost out,
and she told us to stay there and be good.
And father said he would perhaps come and sit with
us by and by. But I don't know what we
should have done there so long, if Sarah had not
brought us a plate of chestnuts, and shown us how
to roast them. We feel sure that nurse would not

(02:07):
have allowed it by ourselves, and would have called it
playing with fire. But Father looked in at us once
and did not stop us at all, but only said
we were very good, and Cook and Sarah kept looking
in too, and they were very kind, only rather quiet
and queer. So that was how it was that we
came to be allowed to be roasting chestnuts in the
drawing room by ourselves, which does seem a little funny

(02:29):
if you did not know about that dreadful day. There's
only two left now, Rupert said. We hadn't eaten all
the plateful, of course, because so many of them when
they popped, had popped quite into the fire, and we
were not to try to get them out. We had
roasted one each for Sarah, and one for Cook and
for nurse, and for Father, and of course the biggest
of all for mother. We thought she might enjoy it

(02:50):
when she got better. And they were all done, and
there were only two left besides what we had eaten
and lost, so we put them together on the bar
to roast, and Rupert's said, one for you and one
for me, yours is the light one, and mine is
the dark one. And I said, yes, and let us
do them as Sarah did with two of them, and
try if they will keep together till they are properly done,

(03:11):
and then it will be as if we kept good
friends and loved each other always. So that was what
Rupert called the anxietious part, because you know, one of
them might have flown into the fire before the other
was roasted. And we were so excited about it that
I believe we should have cried. But they were the
nicest chestnuts of all, the playful And that was the
nicest thing of all that long day that had so

(03:32):
many nasty ones in it, For the dark chestnut and
the light one kept together all the time and split
quite quietly and comfortably, and began to have a lovely smell.
And then we thought it was fair to rake them off.
Those chestnuts were welly fond of each other, said Rupert
in his solemnest way, while they were cooling in the fender,
like you and me, Nella. And so we'll promise, on

(03:55):
our word of honors to be friends like them and
love each other for always and always, I said, And
we held each other's hands, and when the chestnuts were cooled,
and peeled ate them up and enjoyed the most of
all the chestnuts. But after we had made that play
last as long as we could, and it grew later
and later began to seem miserabler than ever, and nobody

(04:17):
came to take us to bed, although it did feel
so dreadfully like bedtime, and nobody brought us any bread
and milk, and chestnuts did not really make a good supper,
even if you have roasted them yourself. And I tried
to tell Rupert the steadfast tinned soldier, but he grew
cross because I couldn't tell it as well as mother.
So I said, well, let us lie down here on

(04:37):
the rug, and perhaps if we make believe, it will
seem like going to bed. But Rupert said, how could
he go to bed without saying his prayers? And he
was so tired and cross that I said, well, you
say yours and I'll hear them. And so Rupert knelt
down on the rug and said his prayers, and I
heard them at least, I mean, we tried, but I
couldn't always remember what came next. And then he remembered

(04:58):
that he wanted. Mother burst out crying, so I did
not know what to do any more, and I could
only huggle him, as he calls it, and wipe his
eyes on my frock. And we sat there and huggled
each other, and I think we fell asleep in the
chimney corner after that, at least. The next thing we
remember is being picked up by Father and nurse, and
nurse carried Rupert upstairs, and Father carried me, and I said,

(05:22):
we try to be good, father, but we were obliged
to go to sleep on the floor just there. We
really and truly couldn't keep awake any longer. And Father
did not think it naughty, I am sure, for he
kissed us both ever so many times at the nursery
door with a great big hug, although we went away
without speaking, and nurse undressed us as quickly as she could,

(05:43):
and as Rupert calls it, skewsed our baths, for we
were so dreadfully sleepy. And I did think once that
Nurse seemed to be crying, but I was too tired
to notice any more. And that was the end of
the dreadfulest day we have ever known. It began to
be happier quite soon next day, for Grannie came and
stayed with us and had time to love us very much.

(06:05):
We told her about the chestnuts, and she thought it
ever so nice, and she told us something too, two things,
and one was very beautiful and one was very dreadful.
And the beautiful thing was that God had sent us
a baby's sister on that dreadful evening. But then he
saw that he could take better care of her than
even mother and nurse, and he loved her so much
that he sent an angel to fetch her away again.

(06:28):
And though we were sorry not to have the little sister,
and that was another reason to make Rupert and me
love each other all the more, Grannie said. Yet she
told us how beautiful it was to know that baby
Lucy would never do a naughty thing or say a
naughty word, would always be kept quite safe now. And
the dreadful thing was, but I can only say it

(06:48):
in a whisper, that God had almost taken mother away
to be with baby Lucy too. But he looked down
at us and at Father, Grannie said, and was sorry
for us. And I think the time when he was
sorry was when Rupert was crying and I was trying
to hear his prayers because he must have seen that
I could not be like mother to Rupert, not however

(07:08):
much I tried. And so he was sorry for us,
and Mother stayed. End of In the Chimney Corner recording
by Shawn Michael Hogan, Saint John's, Dyfoundland, Canada,