It was a strong, slender rope with a striped red and blue handle at
each end, but Mary Lennox had never seen a skipping-rope before. She
gazed at it with a mystified expression.
What is it for? she asked curiously.
For! cried out Martha. Does tha mean that they ve not got
skippin -ropes in India, for all they ve got elephants and tigers and
camels! No wonder most of em s black. This is what it s for; just
watch me.
And she ran into the middle of the room and, taking a handle in each
hand, began to skip, and skip, and skip, while Mary turned in her chair
to stare at her, and the queer faces in the old portraits seemed to
stare at her, too, and wonder what on earth this common little cottager
had the impudence to be doing under their very noses. But Martha did
not even see them. The interest and curiosity in Mistress Mary s face
delighted her, and she went on skipping and counted as she skipped
until she had reached a hundred.
I could skip longer than that, she said when she stopped. I ve
skipped as much as five hundred when I was twelve, but I wasn t as fat
then as I am now, an I was in practice.
Mary got up from her chair beginning to feel excited herself.
It looks nice, she said. Your mother is a kind woman. Do you think I
could ever skip like that?
You just try it, urged Martha, handing her the skipping-rope. You
can t skip a hundred at first, but if you practice you ll mount up.
That s what mother said. She says, Nothin will do her more good than
skippin rope. It s th sensiblest toy a child can have. Let her play
out in th fresh air skippin an it ll stretch her legs an arms an
give her some strength in em.
It was plain that there was not a great deal of strength in Mistress
Mary s arms and legs when she first began to skip. She was not very
clever at it, but she liked it so much that she did not want to stop.
56