Sometimes she "pretended" to
be Jack in the Beanstalk; sometimes she pretended to be at the
mast-head of a ship at sea; sometimes to be in an upper story of a
fairy-house; sometimes to be escaping from a bear; sometimes (with
recollections of London) to be the bear himself on a pole, or a monkey
in the Zoological Gardens; or to be on the top of the Monument or of
St. Paul's. Our most common game, however, was the time-honoured drama
of "houses." Each branch constituted a story, and we used to emulate
each other in our exploits of high climbing, with a formula that ran
thus:--
"Now I'm in the area" (the lowest branch). "Now I'm on the dining-room
floor" (the next), and so on, ending with, "And now I'm the very poor
person in the garret."
There were two trees which stood near each other, of about equal
difficulty.
We used each to climb one, and as we started together, the one who
first became the "very poor person in the garret" was held to be the
winner of the game.
We were not allowed to climb trees on Sunday, which was a severe
exercise of Polly's principles. One Sunday afternoon, however, much to
my amazement, she led me away down the shrubbery, saying,
"My dear Regie! I've found two trees which I'm sure we may climb on
Sundays.
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