That Little Beggar Part 4

"Master Chris, I shall always stay where my duty calls me," she answered with loftiness, "as my mistress knows."

"Certainly," Granny replied soothingly. "Chris, I cannot permit you to speak to Briggs in such a way. Where are your lesson-books?"

"Here, mum," Briggs said, producing two or three diminutive red books and a tiny slate.

"Thank you. Then you had better go and get on with your work," said Granny, and Briggs left, with a last admonitory look at the little beggar, which he received with one of defiance.

"May Jack do lessons too? He's just outside," he asked as Granny opened his reading-book.

"Very well," she agreed, and he ran off to fetch him. He returned presently, followed by his four-legged friend, who, selecting a sunny spot near the window, lay basking there, blinking at us lazily with sleepy eyes, as from time to time he roused himself to snap at the flies within reach.

"I want to get on your knee, my Granny," Chris said, suiting the action to the word.

"I don't think you will do your lessons so well," she said, doubtfully.

"Oh yes, I will!" he replied coaxingly, and was allowed to remain.

"Let us read this," he proposed, opening his book and pointing to a page.

"What is it? A little dialogue?" answered Granny. "Yes; it looks very nice."

"It's very difficult. So will you be the lady, and me the gentleman?"

"Yes, if you would like that. But as I am helping you, you must be very good, and read your very best."

"My very, very best."

There was a pause.

"Now begin, my darling; we are losing so much time," Granny remarked.

"Why, it's you to begin," Chris replied, with a touch of reproach at having been unjustly censured. "Don't you see? You are Sue!"

"Quite true, to be sure, so I am," the old lady said apologetically, then began gently and precisely:

"'_She._ Sir! sir! I am Sue. See me! see me! The cow has. .h.i.t my leg! She has. .h.i.t her leg out up to my leg, and she has. .h.i.t it and I cry! Boo!

boo!'"

To this announcement of woe, Chris replied, or rather chanted in a sing-song tone, and as loudly and rapidly as he could:

"'_He._ Why, Sue, how is it? Why do you cry so? You are not to cry, Sue.

It is bad to cry. Put the cry out and let me see you gay.'"

"Not so fast," Granny here remarked mildly; "not so fast, and not so loud."

"I want to finish it," he explained. "I want to get my lessons done very quickly."

"Ah! but they must be done properly. You see that, my darling, don't you?" she said. Then continued:

"'_She._ I am to cry, and to cry all the day. I am so bad and so ill, and my leg is. .h.i.t, and it is too bad of the cow to hit my leg.'"

"'_He._ Did she hit you on the toe?'"

"'_She._ No. She hit me by the hip, and it is a bad hip now, and she is a bad, old, big cow, and she is not to eat rye or hay; no, not a bit of it all the day.'"

"'_He._ Not eat all the day! not eat rye, not eat hay!'"

At this point, Granny stroked Chris's head and said commendingly:

"You are reading very well now, very well indeed. You have made great progress since I last heard you."

The little beggar wagged his head solemnly. "I want to read well," he stated gravely. "I want to read very well; then I shall read big books like my Uncle G.o.dfrey."

"You are a good little boy," she said. "I am very pleased with the pains my little Chris is taking."

A suspicion crossed my mind. Was he indulging in one of the tricks of which Briggs had forewarned Granny?

"Have you ever read this before, Chris?" I asked.

"Oh, yes; often and often!" he replied, with the utmost candour.

"Oh, my darling, why did you ask me to let you read it now?" Granny said, looking grieved.

"'Cause I read it so well," he explained, without exhibiting any proper shame.

"Ah! but you might have known Granny didn't want an old lesson," she said gravely. "It wasn't quite right; was it, Miss Baggerley?"

"No; it wasn't fair," I a.s.sented.

Chris hung his head. "I didn't mean not to be fair," he said, with touching contrition.

Granny's heart softened. "I don't believe you did, my Chris," she remarked gently.

Chris put his arms round her neck and hid his face on her shoulder. "I'm very sorry," he mumbled. Then raising his head:

"I am going to be a very fair boy," he said magnanimously, touched by Granny's forgiveness; "I'm going to be a very fair boy, and I am going to tell you that I don't know the lady's part as well as I know the gentleman's part. Shall I be Sue, my Granny?"

"Yes. Now that's an excellent idea," she said, with much satisfaction, and glancing at me with a look of pride in her darling's n.o.ble repentance. "I consider that an excellent idea, indeed; and I am very pleased that you should have proposed it."

Chris's face fell. "Don't you think that it is silly for a big boy like me to be Sue?" he asked, with evident disappointment that his offer had been accepted.

"Not at all," Granny said. "It's only in a book, you see, my pet."

"I don't like being a girl," he murmured. "I don't want to be Sue."

"I thought, though, that you wanted to show Granny you were sorry for not having told her you were reading an old lesson," I remarked.

He sighed, without answering me; then after a pause, continued with an effort and a hesitation that offered a striking contrast to the glib manner of his previous reading: