Mary Poppins in the Park

were always in shadowy darkness.

Mary Poppins, in a sprigged cotton dress, sat bolt upright in a clump of bluebells.

She was thinking, as she darned the socks, that pretty though the Wild Corner was, she knew of something prettier. If it came to a choice between, say, a bunch of clover and herself, it would not be the clover she would choose.

The four children were scattered about her.

Annabel bounced in the perambulator.

And not far off, among the nettles, the Park Keeper was making a daisy-chain.

Birds were piping on every bough, and the Ice Cream Man sang cheerfully as he trundled his barrow along.

The notice on the front said:

THE DAY IS HOT

BUT ICE CREAM'S NOT

'I wonder if he's coming here,' Jane murmured to herself.

She was lying face downwards in the grass, making little plasticine figures.

'Where have those sandwiches gone?' cried Michael, scrabbling in the basket.

'Be so kind, Michael, as to get off my legs. I am not a Turkey carpet! The sandwiches have all been eaten. You had the last yourself.'

Mary Poppins heaved him on to the grass and took up her darning needle. Beside her, a mug of warm tea, sprinkled with grass seed and nettle flowers, sent up a delicious fragrance.

'But, Mary Poppins, I've only had six!'

'That's three too many,' she retorted. 'You've eaten your share and Barbara's.'

'Takin the food from 'is sister's mouth — what next?' said the Park Keeper.

He sniffed the air and licked his lips, just like a thirsty dog.

'Nothin' to beat a 'ot cup o' tea!' he remarked to Mary Poppins.

With dignified calm she took up the mug. 'Nothing,' she answered, sipping.

'Exactly what a person needs at the 'eight of the h'afternoon!' He gave the teapot a wistful glance.

'Exactly,' she agreed serenely, as she poured herself another cup.

The Park Keeper sighed and plucked a daisy. The pot, he knew, was now empty.

'Well — another sponge cake, then, Mary Poppins!'

'The cakes are finished, too, Michael. What are you, pray — a boy or a crocodile?'

He would have liked to say he was a crocodile, but a glance at her face was enough to forbid it.

'John!' he coaxed, with a crocodile smile. 'Would you like me to eat your crusts?'

'No!' said John, as he gobbled them up.

'Shall I help you with your biscuit, Barbara?'

'No!' she protested through the crumbs.

Michael shook his head in reproach and turned to Annabel.

There she sat, like a queen in her carriage, clutching her little mug. The perambulator groaned loudly as she bounced up and down. It was looking more battered than ever today. For Robertson Ay, after doing nothing all the morning, had leaned against it to take a rest and broken the wooden handle.

'Oh, dear! Oh, dear!' Mrs. Banks had cried. 'Why couldn't he lean on something stronger? Mary Poppins, what shall we do? We can't afford a new one!'

'I'll take it to my cousin, ma'am. He'll make it as good as new.'

'Well — if you think he really can—' Mrs. Banks cast a doubtful eye on the bar of splintered wood.

Mary Poppins drew herself up.

'A member of my family, ma'am—' Her voice seemed to come from the North Pole.

'Oh, yes! Indeed! Quite so! Exactly!' Mrs. Banks nervously backed away.

'But why,' she silently asked herself, 'is her family so superior? She is far too vain and self-satisfied. I shall tell her so some day.'

But, looking at that stern face and listening to those reproving sniffs, she knew she would never dare.

Michael rolled over among the daisies, hungrily-chewing a blade of grass.

'When are you going to take the perambulator to your cousin, Mary Poppins?'

'Everything comes to him who waits. All in my own good time!'

'Oh! Well, Annabel isn't taking her milk. Would you like me to drink it for her?'

But at that moment Annabel lifted her mug and drained the last drop.

'Mary Poppins!' he wailed. 'I'll starve to death — just like Robinson Crusoe.'

'He didn't starve to death,' said Jane. She was busily clearing a space in the weeds.

'Well, the Swiss Family Robinson, then,' said Michael.

'The Swiss Family always had plenty to eat. But I'm not hungry, Michael. You can have my cake if you like.'

'Dear, kind, sensible Jane!' he thought, as he took the cake.

'What are you making?' he enquired, flinging himself on the grass beside her.

'A Park for Poor People,' she replied. 'Everyone is happy there. And nobody ever quarrels.'

She tossed aside a handful of leaves and he saw, amid the wildweed, a tidy square of green. It was threaded with little pebbled paths as wide as a fingernail. And beside them were tiny flower-beds made of petals massed together. A summer-house of nettle twigs nestled on the lawn; flowers were stuck in the earth for trees; and in their shade stood twig benches, very neat and inviting.

On one of these sat a plasticine man, no more than an inch high. His face was round, his body was round and so were his arms and legs. The only pointed thing about him was his little turned-up nose. He was reading a plasticine newspaper and a plasticine tool-bag lay at his feet.

'Who's that?' asked Michael. 'He reminds me of someone. But I can't think who it is!'

Jane thought for a moment.

'His name is Mr. Mo,' she decided. 'He is resting after his morning labours. He had a wife sitting next to him, but her hat went wrong, so I crumbled her up. I'll try again with the last of the plasticine—'

She glanced at the shapeless, coloured lump that lay behind the summer-house.

'And that?' He pointed to a feminine figure that stood by one of the flower-beds.

'That's Mrs. Hickory,' said Jane. 'She's going to have a house, too. And after that I shall build a Fun Fair.'

He gazed at the plump little plasticine woman and admired the way her hair curled and the two large dimples in her cheeks.

'Do she and Mr. Mo know each other?'

'Oh, yes. They meet on the way to the Lake.'

And she showed him a little pebbly hollow where, when Mary Poppins' head was turned, she had poured her mug of milk. At the end of the lake a plasticine statue reminded Michael of Neleus.

'Or down by the swing—' She pointed to two upright sticks from which an even smaller stick hung on a strand of darning wool.

Michael touched the swing with his finger-tip and it swayed backwards and forwards.

'And what's that under the buttercup?'

A scrap of cardboard from the lid of the cake-box had been bent to form a table. Around it stood several cardboard stools and upon it was spread a meal so tempting that a king might have envied it.

In the centre stood a two-tiered cake and around it were bowls piled high with fruit — peaches, cherries, bananas, oranges. One end of the table bore an apple-pie and the other a chicken with a pink frill. There were sausages, and currant buns, and a pat of butter on a little green platter. Each place was set with a plate and a mug and a bottle of ginger wine.

The buttercup-tree spread over the feast. Jane had set two plasticine doves in its branches and a bumble-bee