When the new house was done, there was a joyful homecoming. As the Queen passed through the door, one of the maids of honor threw an old shoe after her, "to bring good luck," she said. To the Prince, entering into the new home brought memories of his childhood in Coburg, and after the first dinner he said, "We have a hymn in Germany for such occasions. It begins:
"Bless, O God, our going forth, Bless Thou, too, our coming in."
So it was that the new house was opened. Not only the grown folk, but the merry little company of princes and princesses, were very happy in it whenever a few days could be spared for its pleasures. As they grew older, a Swiss cottage was built for them, and this was _their_ house. There was a charming little kitchen, with a cooking stove, so that the girls could try all sorts of experiments in the cooking line; and happy they were when they could persuade their father and mother to partake of a "banquet" of their own preparing. The boys had a forge and a carpenter's bench, where they built small boats and chairs and tables and wheelbarrows. Every child had a garden, and there he raised not only flowers, but fruit and vegetables. In this little paradise the children did what they liked, but they were shown the best way of doing it. A gardener taught them how to manage their gardens, and whenever their vegetables were a success, they either gave them away or sold them at market price to the royal kitchen. Prince Albert himself taught the boys how to use tools, and helped them to begin a museum of insects, minerals, and all sorts of curiosities like the one that he and his brother Ernest had had in Coburg when they were boys.
Not only at Osborne, but wherever the royal children were, they were brought up as simply as the Queen herself had been. Whatever material was bought for their clothes had to be shown to the Queen, and if it was rich or expensive, she would refuse to allow it to be used. As soon as the princes and princesses were old enough, they were taught to take as much care of their clothes as if they had been a poor man's children. One of their nurses wrote that they had "quite poor living--only a bit of roast beef and perhaps a plain pudding;" and she added, "The Queen is as fit to have been a poor man's wife as a queen." Baron Stockmar was consulted on all nursery questions, and he said that it was more difficult to manage a nursery than a kingdom.