THE CANTERBURY PILGRIMS
may as well do it some nice way. Let's be Pilgrim's Progress, like I wanted to at first."
And we were all beginning to say we didn't want to, when suddenly Dora said, "Oh, look here! I know. We'll be the Canterbury Pilgrims. People used to go pilgrimages to make themselves good."
"With pease in their shoes," the Dentist said. "It's in a piece of poetry—only the man boiled his pease—which is quite unfair."
"Oh yes," said H. O., "and cocked hats."
"Not cocked—cockled"—it was Alice who said this. "And they had staffs and scrips, and they told each other tales. We might as well."
Oswald and Dora had been reading about the Canterbury Pilgrims in a book called A Short History of the English People. It is not at all short really—three fat volumes—but it has jolly good pictures. It was written by a gentleman named Green. So Oswald said:
"All right. I'll be the Knight."
"I'll be the wife of Bath," Dora said. "What will you be, Dicky?"
"Oh, I don't care, I'll be Mr. Bath if you like."
"We don't know much about the people," Alice said. "How many were there?"
"Thirty," Oswald replied, "but we needn't be all of them. There's the Nun-Priest."
"Is that a man or a woman?"
Oswald said he could not be sure by the picture, but Alice and Noël could be it between them. So that was settled. Then we got the book and
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