The New Mother

“The New Mother” is an 1882 short story by Lucy Clifford. The story centres around two young girls who live with their mother and baby sibling in the woods. One day they happen across strange girl who promises to show them a tiny man and woman who live in her guitar if they are naughty enough. Excited by this offer, they return home and try to be as badly behaved as possible, to which their mother responds with threats of leaving and the arrival of a new mother with “glass eyes and a wooden tail” . Three times the strange girl tells them they haven't been naughty enough, and three times they return home to behave more badly than the day before. Finally, the girl tells them that they shall never be naughty enough to see the miniature couple and they return home to find that their mother really has gone. When the new mother arrives, they run away into the woods to live on berries. Lucy Clifford (1846–1929) Clifford, also known as Mrs. W. K. Clifford, was an English journalist, novelist, and wife of notable philosopher and mathematician William Kingdon Clifford. Other works by this author include: “Mrs. Keith's Crime” (1885), “The Anyhow Stories, Moral and Otherwise” (1882), and “Aunt Anne” (1892). Read & Co. Classics is proudly republishing this classic collection of children's short stories now complete with an introductory poem by Lola Ridge.