Long forgotten, Austin’s Stumps, A Story for Children story, oozes Victorian social pedagogy and standard comfort food. Austin’s audience loved Stumps, aka Cecily, a bratty four-year-old brat loved for her lisping mispronunciations, especially “trawberry jam.”
Austin’s contribution to the picnic basket is stuffing it with apple tarts, plum cake, shortbread, mulberry tart, sponge cake, bread and butter, hard-boiled eggs, plums, pears, greengage plums, and macaroons. Stumps’ contribution is that she is missing her favorite “trawberry jam.”
Stump’s conflict is with Peter, a lower-class boy from the circus invited to stay with the family. As expected, she is jealous of her five siblings’ attention to him. Matters get tense at a family “pic-nic,” during which Stumps disregards caution and climbs a hill. Just as she is about to fall, Peter rescues her. Unfortunately, he is severely injured, probably for life. Accepting responsibility, the family cares for Peter. But because Stumps is at fault, her mother insists she must apologize –not so much because Peter is injured, but because he is poor, and God sent him to their family so that they might be kind to him. “Derry sorry,” says Stumps.”
Featured Image: William H. C. Groome, “Just in time to push Stumps back,”
See Stella Austin’s Stumps, A Story for Children, illustration by William H.C. Groome (London: Joseph Masters, 1873); http://www.archive.org/stream/stumpsstoryforch00aust#page/n7/mode/2up