Little Miss Peggy Part 13

If we could but go there some fine day. Father says it's not so far; many's the time he's walked over there and back again the next morning when he first comed to work here, you see, miss, and his 'ome was still over there like."

"Yes, in the white cottage," said Peggy. She had made up her mind that it was unkind not to "let it be" that the Smileys' father had lived in that very cottage, for he did seem to be a nice man in spite of his bigness and his dingy workman's clothes. If he wasn't nice and kind she didn't think the children would talk of him as they did.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "I can't 'amember your name," she exclaimed breathlessly, "but I've brought you this," and she held out the bun.

Brown Smiley's face smiled all over.

"Lor', miss," she exclaimed. "You are kind to be sure. Mayn't I give it to Lizzie? She's been very bad to-day, and she's eat next to nought.

This 'ere'll be tasty-like."

But suddenly a window above opened, and Mother Whelan's befrilled face was thrust out.

"What are ye about there then, and me fire burning itself away, and me tea ready, waiting for the bread? What's the young lady chatterin' to the like o' you for? Go home, missy, darlin', go home."

P.P. 107-9]

But she spoke absently; Matilda-Jane's words had put thoughts in her head which seemed to make her almost giddy. Brown Smiley stared at her for a minute.

"How she do cling to them cottages being white," she thought to herself, "but there--if it pleases her! She's but a little one." "White if you please, miss," she replied, "though I can't say as I had it from father."

But suddenly a window above opened, and Mother Whelan's befrilled face was thrust out.

"What are ye about there then, and me fire burning itself away, and me tea ready, waiting for the bread? What's the young lady chatterin' to the likes o' you for? Go home, missy, darlin', go home."

The two children jumped as if they had been shot.

"Will she beat you?" whispered Peggy, looking very frightened. But Brown Smiley shook her little round head and laughed.

"She won't have a chance, and she dursn't not to say beat us--father'd be down on her--but she doesn't think nought of a good shakin'. But I'll push the basket in and run off if she's in a real wax."

"Good-bye, then. You must tell me lots more about the hills. Ask your father all you can," and so saying, Peggy flew home again.

"Where've you been, what did you do with the bun?" asked Baldwin, as soon as she came in to the nursery.

"I runned down with it, and gaved it to a little girl I saw in the street," said Peggy.

"Very kind and nice, I'm sure," said Miss Earnshaw. "Was it a beggar, Miss Peggy? You're sure your mamma and nurse wouldn't mind?" she added, rather anxiously.

"Oh no," said Peggy. "It's not a _beggar_. It's a proper little poor girl what nurse gives our nold clothes to."

"Oh," said Baldwin, "one of the children over the cobbler's, I suppose.

But, Peggy," he was going on to say he didn't think his sister had ever been allowed to run down to the back street to speak to them, only he was so slow and so long of making up his mind that, as f.a.n.n.y just then came in with the tea, which made a little bustle, n.o.body attended to him, and Miss Earnshaw remained quite satisfied that all was right.

The buns tasted very good--all the better to Peggy from the feeling that poor lame Lizzie was perhaps eating hers at that same moment, and finding it "tasty."

"Does lame people ever get quite better?" she asked the young dressmaker.

"That depends," Miss Earnshaw replied. "If it's through a fall or something that way, outside of them so to say, there's many as gets better. But if it's _in_ them, in the const.i.tution, there's many as stays lame all their lives through."

Peggy wriggled a little. She didn't like to think about it much. It sounded so mysterious.

"What part's that?" she asked; "that big word."

"Const.i.tootion," said Baldwin, as if he was trying to spell "Constantinople."

Miss Earnshaw laughed. She lived alone with her mother, and was not much used to children. But she was so pleasant-tempered and gentle that she easily got into their ways.

"I shouldn't use such long words," she said. "Our const.i.tution just means ourselves--the way we're made. A strong, healthy person is said to have a good const.i.tution, and a weakly person has a poor one."

Baldwin and Peggy both sat silent for a minute, thinking over what she said.

"I don't see how that's to do with crippling," said Peggy at last. "Does you mean," she went on, "that p'raps lame people's legs is made wrong--by mistake, you know. _In course_ G.o.d wouldn't do it of purpose, would he?"

Baldwin looked rather startled.

"Peggy," he said, "I don't think you should speak that way."

Peggy turned her gray eyes full upon him.

"I don't mean to say anything naughty," she said. "_Is_ it naughty, Miss Earnshaw?"

The young dressmaker had herself been rather taken aback by Peggy's queer speech, and for a moment or two scarcely knew what to say. But then her face cleared again.

"G.o.d can't make mistakes, Miss Peggy," she said, "and He is always kind.

All the same there's many things that seem like one or the other, I know. It must be that there's reasons for them that we can't see--like when a doctor hurts anybody, it seems unkind, but it's _really_ to do them good."

"Like when our doctor cutted poor Baby's tooths to make them come through," said Peggy, eagerly. "They was all _bleeding_, bleeding ever so, Miss Earnshaw. Baby didn't understand, and he was _very_ angry. He always sc'eams at the doctor now. I almost think he'd like to kill him."

Baldwin opened his mouth wide at these bloodthirsty sentiments of Baby's. He was too shocked to speak.

"But it is only 'cos he doesn't understand," Peggy went on, placidly.

"_I_ don't sc'eam at the doctor. I speak to him quite goodly, 'cos, you see, _I_ understand."

Baldwin closed his mouth again. He looked at Peggy with admiring respect.

"Yes," agreed Miss Earnshaw, greatly relieved at the turn their talk had taken, "that's just it, Miss Peggy. You couldn't have put it better."

"Peggy," said Baldwin, "when you're big you should be a clergymunt."

CHAPTER VIII

UNDER THE BIG UMBRELLA

"As I was going up Pippin Hill, Pippin Hill was dirty, There I met a pretty miss, And she dropped me a curtsey."