"What's S. P. G.?" Oswald asked.
"Society for the Propagation of the Jews, of course," said Noël, who cannot always spell.
"No, it isn't; but do let me go on."
Alice did go on.
"We propose to get up a society, with a chairman and a treasurer and secretary, and keep a journal-book saying what we've done. If that doesn't make us good it won't be my fault.
"The aim of the society is nobleness and goodness, and great and unselfish deeds. We wish not to be such a nuisance to grown-up people, and to perform prodigies of real goodness. We wish to spread our wings" – here Alice read very fast. She told me afterwards Daisy had helped her with that part, and she thought when she came to the wings they sounded rather silly – "to spread our wings and rise above the kind of interesting things that you ought not to do, but to do kindnesses to all, however low and mean."
Denny was listening carefully. Now he nodded three or four times.
"Little words of kindness" (he said),
"Little deeds of love,
Make this earth an eagle
Like the one above."
This did not sound right, but we let it pass, because an eagle does have wings, and we wanted to hear the rest of what the girls had written. But there was no rest.
"That's all," said Alice, and Daisy said:
"Don't you think it's a good idea?"
"That depends," Oswald answered, "who is president, and what you mean by being good." Oswald did not care very much for the idea himself, because being good is not the sort of thing he thinks it is proper to talk about, especially before strangers. But the girls and Denny seemed to like it, so Oswald did not say exactly what he thought, especially as it was Daisy's idea. This was true politeness.
"I think it would be nice," Noël said, "if we made it a sort of play. Let's do the 'Pilgrim's Progress.'"
We talked about that for some time, but it did not come to anything, because we all wanted to be Mr. Greatheart, except H. O., who wanted to be the lions, and you could not have lions in a Society for Goodness.
Dicky said he did not wish to play if it meant reading books about children who die; he really felt just as Oswald did about it, he told me afterwards. But the girls were looking as if they were in Sunday school, and we did not wish to be unkind.
At last Oswald said, "Well, let's draw up the rules of the society, and choose the president and settle the name."
Dora said Oswald should be president, and he modestly consented. She was secretary, and Denny treasurer if we ever had any money.
Making the rules took us all the afternoon. They were these:
Rules
1. Every member is to be as good as possible.
2. There is to be no more jaw than necessary about being good. (Oswald and Dicky put that rule in.)
3. No day must pass without our doing some kind action to a suffering fellow-creature.
4. We are to meet every day, or as often as we like.
5. We are to do good to people we don't like as often as we can.
6. No one is to leave the Society without the consent of all the rest of us.
7. The Society is to be kept a profound secret from all the world except us.
8. The name of our Society is —
And when we got as far as that we all began to talk at once. Dora wanted it called the Society for Humane Improvement; Denny said the Society for Reformed Outcast Children; but Dicky said, "No, we really were not so bad as all that." Then H. O. said, "Call it the Good Society."
"Or the Society for Being Good In," said Daisy.
"Or the Society of Goods," said Noël.
"That's priggish," said Oswald; "besides, we don't know whether we shall be so very."
"You see," Alice explained, "we only said if we could we would be good."
"Well, then," Dicky said, getting up and beginning to dust the chopped hay off himself, "call it the Society of the Wouldbegoods and have done with it."
Oswald thinks Dicky was getting sick of it and wanted to make himself a little disagreeable. If so, he was doomed to disappointment. For every one else clapped hands and called out, "That's the very thing!" Then the girls went off to write out the rules, and took H. O. with them, and Noël went to write some poetry to put in the minute book. That's what you call the book that a society's secretary writes what it does in. Denny went with him to help. He knows a lot of poetry. I think he went to a lady's school where they taught nothing but that. He was rather shy of us, but he took to Noël. I can't think why. Dicky and Oswald walked round the garden and told each other what they thought of the new society.
"I'm not sure we oughtn't to have put our foot down at the beginning," Dicky said. "I don't see much in it, anyhow."
"It pleases the girls," Oswald said, for he is a kind brother.
"But we're not going to stand jaw, and 'words in season,' and 'loving sisterly warnings.' I tell you what it is, Oswald, we'll have to run this thing our way, or it'll be jolly beastly for everybody."
Oswald saw this plainly.
"We must do something," Dicky said; "it's very hard, though. Still, there must be some interesting things that are not wrong."
"I suppose so," Oswald said, "but being good is so much like being a muff, generally. Anyhow I'm not going to smooth the pillows of the sick, or read to the aged poor, or any rot out of Ministering Children."
"No more am I," Dicky said. He was chewing a straw like the head had in its mouth, "but I suppose we must play the game fair. Let's begin by looking out for something useful to do – something like mending things or cleaning them, not just showing off."
"The boys in books chop kindling wood and save their pennies to buy tea and tracts."
"Little beasts!" said Dick. "I say, let's talk about something else." And Oswald was glad to, for he was beginning to feel jolly uncomfortable.
We were all rather quiet at tea, and afterwards Oswald played draughts with Daisy and the others yawned. I don't know when we've had such a gloomy evening. And every one was horribly polite, and said "Please" and "Thank you," far more than requisite.
Albert's uncle came home after tea. He was jolly, and told us stories, but he noticed us being a little dull, and asked what blight had fallen on our young lives. Oswald could have answered and said, "It is the Society of the Wouldbegoods that is the blight," but of course he didn't; and Albert's uncle said no more, but he went up and kissed the girls when they were in bed, and asked them if there was anything wrong. And they told him no, on their honor.
The next morning Oswald awoke early. The refreshing beams of the morning sun shone on his narrow, white bed and on the sleeping forms of his dear little brothers, and Denny, who had got the pillow on top of his head and was snoring like a kettle when it sings. Oswald could not remember at first what was the matter with him, and then he remembered the Wouldbegoods, and wished he hadn't. He felt at first as if there was nothing you could do, and even hesitated to buzz a pillow at Denny's head. But he soon saw that this could not be. So he chucked his boot and caught Denny right in the waistcoat part, and thus the day began more brightly than he had expected.
Oswald had not done anything out of the way good the night before, except that when no one was looking he polished the brass candlestick in the girls' bedroom with one of his socks. And he might just as well have let it alone, for the servants cleaned it again with the other things in the morning, and he could never find the sock afterwards. There were two servants. One of them had to be called Mrs. Pettigrew instead of Jane and Eliza like others. She was cook and managed things.
After breakfast Albert's uncle said:
"I