A Little World Part 5

"Mistake," said Tim. "It was cate--cate--well, what was it?"

"Chism," said the child; "catechism."

"Right," said Tim. "Now, let's see; it was duty towards my neighbour, and if we don't look sharp as a seven--between we shall never get through that beautiful little bit. Eddication, my pretty, is the concrete, atop of which they build society; and if I'd been an eddicated man and known a few things--"

"But you know everything, don't you?" queried Pine.

"Well, no, my dear, not quite," said Tim, rubbing one side of his nose, and gazing in a a comical way at the child.

"But you are very clever, ain't you."

"Oh, dear me, no; not at all," said Tim; "leastwise, without it's in trousis, and there I ain't so much amiss. But come, I say, this won't do; this is catechism wrong side out, so go on."

Then slowly on to the accompaniment of the metal polishing--the lid being by this time succeeded by a bra.s.s candlestick--and the sharp click of Tim's needle, the portion of catechism under consideration progressed till it was brought to a full stop over the words, "Succour my father and mother," when Tim was, to use his own words, quite knocked off his perch by the child's question--

"Who is my mother?"

"Why--er--er--why, mother, you know," replied Tim.

The child shook her head thoughtfully, and now speaking, now stopping to rub at the bright metal, said--

"No, no! not her--not her! My own--my own dear mother could not, would not beat me so. I think it must be some one who comes when I'm half asleep, and I can see her blue eyes, and feel her long curls round my face when she kisses me, and then it is that I wake up; and," she continued dreamily, "I'm not sure whether she does come, for she is not there then, and when I whisper, no one answers; and do you know whether she comes, or whether I dream she does, that must be my mother, for no one else would come and kiss me like that."

"Why, I do," remonstrated Tim, "lots o' times."

"Yes, yes! you do!" said the child, smiling, "but I know when it's you, and I can't help thinking--"

"Here, I say," exclaimed Tim, "this isn't catechism. This won't do, my pretty, you mustn't talk like that. Now, then, go on,--'Succour my father'--"

"Succour--succour," continued the child, "my father and mother. Is she gone to heaven, and does she come to look at me in the night, and kiss me? I don't think that she would whip me so, and--and--oh! pray don't beat me for it. I can't help it. Oh! I can't help it," and then once again, the little thin hands were pressed upon the quivering lips to thrust back the bitter heart-wrung wail that would make itself heard.

No child's cry; but the moaning of a bruised heart, forced and rendered premature in its feelings by the long course of cruelty to which it had been subjected. A stranger might have listened, and then have gone away believing that his feelings had been moved to pity by the anguished utterances of a woman in distress.

Tim hopped from his board, half bewildered, and quite in trouble, to kiss and caress the child, smoothing her hair, patting her cheeks, and holding her tightly to his breast.

"Come, my pretty," he whispered, "you mustn't, you know. It does hurt me so, and ain't I as good as a father? And didn't you promise me as you'd love me very, very much? And now you're raining down tears, and melting all the sugar out of a fellow's nature till you'll make him cross as--Polish away, my pretty."

With two bounds Tim was back in his place, and little Pine again bent over her task; for there was a heavy step upon the staircase, and as it stopped at the door, Tim grunted, and slowly shuffled off his board to replace his iron in the fire after giving it a loud clink upon the stand.

"Now, my dear," said Tim, loudly, "we ain't getting on so fast as we oughter. 'Bear no malice.'"

"'Bear no malice,'" repeated the child, looking up at him, with a quaint smile upon her little pinched lips.

"'Nor hatred in my heart,'" said Tim; and then dolefully, "why don't you look at your work?"

"'Nor hatred in my heart,'" said the child, whose little face, then again upturned, showed that, if there were truth in looks, malice or hatred had never entered her breast.

"Louder, ever so much," whispered Tim, "and don't yer get whipped whilst I'm at Pellet's, there's a pet. 'Keep my hands from picking and stealing,'" he continued, aloud.

"'From picking and stealing,'" said the child, softly.

"She'd better, that's all I can say," came from the doorway; and Mrs Ruggles closed the portal, and then swung round again, right about face, and confronted her husband, "perhaps some one else will keep his tongue from evil-speaking, lying, and so on."

"I'm blessed," muttered Tim, "that's rather hot."

"Of course it is," exclaimed Mrs Ruggles, who only caught the latter part of the sentence, and applied it to the fire. "Such waste of coals.

I suppose that girl's been shovelling them on as if they cost nothing."

"No, my dear--me--it was me," said Tim, who well enough knew that the fire had been made up by Mrs Ruggles herself: but he was a terrible liar.

"Then you ought to have known better."

"Yes, my dear," said Tim, humbly, glad to have averted the current of his lady's wrath.

"Are those trousers nearly done?" said Mrs Ruggles.

"Very nearly, my dear," replied Tim, throwing his iron duster, and some more sc.r.a.ps over the spot where lay the doll.

"Because you have to go to Pellet's, mind, this afternoon."

"Thinking about 'em when you was on the stairs, my dear," said Tim, and this time he spoke the truth.

Volume 1, Chapter XI.

HOMELY.

This was a busy day in Duplex Street: in fact, most days were busy there, and Mrs Jared and Patty were in a state of bustle from morning till night. For, being a poor man's wife, Mrs Jared had grown of late years to think that doing nothing stood next door to a sin, and consequently she worked hard, early and late.

But this was a Sat.u.r.day--a day upon which all the juveniles rose with sorrow in their hearts, since it was washing day. Not the washing day when the copper was lit in the back kitchen, and Mrs Winks from the Seven Dials came to work with crimpy hands by the day, making the house full of steam and the cold mutton to taste of soap, but a day when there was a family wash of the little Pellets. Mrs Jared's task had of late years grown to be rather heavy, the consequence being that she had become on her part more vigorous of arm, more bustling of habit.

Certainly during these weekly lamb-washings there used to be a good deal of outcry--Mrs Jared being the washer, and Patty undertaking the head-dressing and finger and toe-nails of the smaller members, bringing to an end her part of the performance by carrying them up pig-a-back to bed like so many little sacks. But in consequence of numbers, the first washed had of necessity to go very early to rest--a fact productive of much crowding and getting behind one another, the strongest in this case going to the wall, and thrusting the weaker before them.

Mrs Jared had been very busy all day--at least what should have been all day--though in consequence of a heavy fog, and the neutralising lamp-light, it seemed to have been all night. She had made a mistake that morning, and risen two hours before her customary time, the consequence being that cleaning matters were the same period of time in advance; and in place of the lavations taking place after tea, they were all over before, and the shining faces, that had lately been screwed up, were once more beginning to look happy and contented, though, by some strange fatality, their owners seemed to be always in Mrs Jared's way.

Everything about the place shone clean and bright: the comfortable front kitchen was in order, and tea time was near at hand, when Jared Pellet would descend with Tim Ruggles, grown by long working quite a friend of the family--coming for so much a day and his meals, and ready to do anything, from curtailing the goodly proportions of Jared's old trousers, and making them up for smaller members of the family, and contriving caps out of waistcoats, to acting in various ways as a regular tailor-chemist in the new and useful combinations he could contrive for the little Pellets, of whom one never knew for certain how many Jared had, for if you tried to count them there were always two or three fresh little heads peeping out at you from among Mrs Jared's skirts, like chicks from the wings of a hen.

Tea time at last, and things in a satisfactory state of preparation, though, as a matter of course, work was never ended in Duplex Street.

Mother and daughter had taken it in turns to change gowns, and to smooth hair; and then Patty had made that pleasant home-like clinking noise so familiar to every Englishman, formed by the setting out of the cups and saucers, and the placing of the spoons in their normal positions.

"Ah-h-h! who is touching the sugar?" cried Mrs Jared, in what was meant for the tone of an ogress; but from so pleasant-faced a little body anything like an ogreish sound was out of the question.

But the voice had its effect; for a little, plump, sticky fist was s.n.a.t.c.hed from the sugar-basin, though not without drawing with it the depository of sweets, when a large proportion of the sandy-looking necessary was thrown down upon the newly-swept piece of drugget, amidst a violent clattering of teacups, and a buzz of small voices, as though a score of wasps had been attracted to the cloying banquet.

"Oh, Totty, Totty!" exclaimed Mrs Jared, popping the baby down upon the old chintz-covered sofa--there always was a baby at Jared's--and then charging the culprit, and a couple more, who had gathered round the spoil. "Oh dear, dear! and Mr Ruggles will be down directly to tea. O Patty, why didn't you mind Totty? See what mischief she has been in; and here's d.i.c.ky with quite a handful now."

"She was here just this minute," cried Patty from the back kitchen, "and I did not miss her."

In fact, it was rather hard to mind Jared's progeny, who, from being confined in a small house, were exceedingly restless--climbing, falling, upsetting candles, cutting fingers, or rolling from the top to the bottom of the kitchen stairs, so that the rag-bag was always in requisition, and tied-up fingers, sticking-plaistered or bruised heads, and abrasions in general were matters of course.

"Totty yikes oogar," said the sticky cause of the mischief, in treacly tones.