Jeremy by Hugh Walpole

The ritual of the journey to Cow Farm was, by this time, of course, firmly established, and the first part of the ritual was that one should wake up at three in the morning. This year, however, for some strange mysterious reason Jeremy overslept himself and did not wake up until eight o'clock, to find then that everyone was already busy packing and brushing and rushing about, and that all his own most sacred preparations must be squeezed into no time at all if he were to be ready. Old Tom Collins's bus came along at twelve o'clock to catch the one o'clock train, so that Jeremy might he considered to have the whole morning for his labours, but that was not going to be enough for him unless he was very careful. Grown-up people had such a way of suddenly catching on to you and washing your ears, or making you brush your teeth, or sitting you down in a corner with a book, that circumnavigating them and outplotting them needed as much nerve and enterprise as tracking Red Indians. When things were fined down to the most naked accuracy he had apparently only two "jobs": one to accustom Hamlet to walking with a "lead," the other to close the green box; but of course Mary would want advice, and there would, in all probability, be a dispute or two about property that would take up the time.

It was indeed an eventful morning. Trouble began with Mary suddenly discovering that she had lost her copy of "Alice in Wonderland" and rushing to Jeremy's box and upsetting all Jeremy's things to see whether it were there. Jeremy objected to this with an indignation that was scarcely in the sequel justified, because Mary found the book jammed against the paint-box and a dry walnut nestling in its centre. She cried and protested and then suddenly, with the disgusting sentimentality that was so characteristic of her, abandoned her position altogether and said that Jeremy could have it, and then cried again because he said he didn't want it.