Ten Girls from Dickens Part 12

When Lizzie Hexam's brother and a friend, Bradley Headstone, paid their first visit to the house on Church Street, they knocked at the door, which promptly opened and disclosed a child--a dwarf, a girl--sitting on a little, low, old-fashioned arm-chair, which had a kind of little working-bench before it.

"I can't get up," said the child, "because my back's bad and my legs are queer. But I'm the person of the house."

"Who else is at home?" asked Charley Hexam, staring?

"n.o.body's at home at present," returned the child, with a glib a.s.sertion of her dignity, "except the person of the house."

The queer little figure, and the queer, but not ugly little face, with its bright grey eyes, was so sharp that the sharpness of the manner seemed unavoidable.

The person of the house continued the conversation: "Your sister will be in," she said, "in about a quarter of an hour. I'm very fond of your sister. Take a seat. And would you please to shut the street door first?

I can't very well do it myself, because my back's so bad and my legs are so queer."

They complied, and the little figure went on with its work of gumming or gluing together pieces of cardboard and thin wood, cut into various shapes. The scissors and knives upon the bench, showed that the child herself had cut them; and the bright sc.r.a.ps of velvet and silk and ribbon also strewn upon the bench showed that when duly stuffed, she was to cover them smartly. The dexterity of her nimble fingers was remarkable, and as she brought two thin edges accurately together by giving them a little bite, she would glance at the visitors out of the corners of her grey eyes with a look that out-sharpened all her other sharpness.

"You can't tell me the name of my trade, I'll be bound," she said.

"You make pincushions," said Charley.

"What else do I make?"

"Penwipers," said his friend.

"Ha, ha! What else do I make?"

"You do something," he returned, pointing to a corner of the little bench, "with straw; but I don't know what."

"Well done, you!" cried the person of the house. "I only make pincushions and penwipers, to use up my waste. But my straw really does belong to my business. Try again. What do I make with my straw?"

"Dinner-mats?"

"Dinner-mats! I'll give you a clue to my trade in a game of forfeits. I love my love with a B because she's beautiful; I hate my love with a B because she is brazen; I took her to the sign of the Blue Boar; and I treated her with Bonnets; her name's Bouncer and she lives in Bedlam--now, what do I make with my straw?"

"Ladies' bonnets?"

"Fine ladies'," said the person of the house, nodding a.s.sent. "Dolls'.

I'm a Doll's dressmaker."

"I hope it's a good business?"

The person of the house shrugged her shoulders and shook her head. "No.

Poorly paid. And I'm often so pressed for time. I had a doll married last week, and was obliged to work all night. And they take no care of their clothes, and they never keep to the same fashions a month. I work for a doll with three daughters. Bless you, she's enough to ruin her husband!" The person of the house gave a weird little laugh, and gave them another look but of the corners of her eyes. She had an elfin chin that was capable of great expression; and whenever she gave this look, she hitched this chin up, as if her eyes and her chin worked together on the same wires.

"Are you always as busy as you are now?"

"Busier. I'm slack just now. I finished a large mourning order the day before yesterday. Doll I work for lost a canary bird."

"Are you alone all day?" asked Bradley Headstone. "Don't any of the neighboring children--?"

"Ah," cried the person of the house, with a little scream as if the word had p.r.i.c.ked her. "Don't talk of children. I can't bear children. I know their tricks and their manners!" She said this with an angry little shake of her right fist, adding:

"Always running about and screeching, always playing and fighting, always skip--skip--skipping on the pavement, and chalking it for their games! Oh--I know their tricks and their manners!" Shaking the little fist as before. "And that's not all. Ever so often calling names in through a person's keyhole, and imitating a person's back and legs. Oh!

_I_ know their tricks and their manners. And I tell you what I'd do to punish 'em. There's doors under the church in the Square--black doors leading into black vaults. Well! I'd open one of those doors, and I'd cram 'em all in, and then I'd lock the door and through the keyhole I'd blow in pepper."

"What would be the good of blowing in pepper?" asked Charley Hexam.

"To set 'em sneezing," said the person of the house, "and make their eyes water. And when they were all sneezing and inflamed, I'd mock 'em through the keyhole. Just as they, with their tricks and their manners, mock a person through a person's keyhole!"

An emphatic shake of her little fist, seemed to ease the mind of the person of the house; for she added with recovered composure, "No, no, no. No children for me. Give me grown-ups."

It was difficult to guess the age of this strange creature, for her poor figure furnished no clue to it, and her face was at once so young and so old. Twelve, or at the most thirteen, might be near the mark.

"I always did like grown-ups," she went on, "and always kept company with them. So sensible. Sit so quiet. Don't go prancing and capering about! And I mean always to keep among none but grown-ups till I marry.

I suppose I must make up my mind to marry, one of these days!"

At that moment Lizzie Hexam entered, and the visitors after saying farewell to the dolls' dressmaker, took Lizzie out with them for a short walk.

The person of the house, dolls' dressmaker, and manufacturer of ornamental pincushions and penwipers, sat in her quaint little low arm-chair, singing in the dark, until Lizzie came back.

"Well, Lizzie--Mizzie--Wizzie," said she, breaking off in her song.

"What's the news out of doors?"

"What's the news indoors?" returned Lizzie playfully, smoothing the bright long fair hair, which grew very luxuriant and beautiful on the head of the dolls' dressmaker. It being Lizzie's regular occupation when they were alone of an evening to brush out and smooth the long fair hair, she unfastened a ribbon that kept it back while the little creature was at work, and it fell in a beautiful shower over the poor shoulders that were much in need of such adorning rain.

Lizzie then lighted a candle, put the room door and the house door open, and turned the little low chair and its occupant toward the outer air.

It was a sultry night, and this was a fine weather arrangement when the day's work was done. To complete it, she seated herself by the side of the little chair, and protectingly drew under her arm the spare hand that crept up to her.

"This is what your loving Jenny Wren calls the best time of the day and night," said the person of the house; adding, "I have been thinking to-day what a thing it would be, if I should be able to have your company till I am married, or at least courted. Because when I'm courted, I shall make _him_ do some of the things that you do for me. He couldn't brush my hair like you do, or help me up and downstairs like you do, and he couldn't do anything like you do; but he could take my work home, and he could call for orders in his clumsy way. And he shall too. _I'll_ trot him about, I can tell him!"

Jenny Wren had her personal vanities--happily for her--and no intentions were stronger in her breast than the various trials and torments that were, in the fulness of time, to be inflicted upon "him."

"Wherever he may happen to be just at present, or whoever he may happen to be," said Miss Wren, "_I_ know his tricks and his manners, and I give him warning to look out."

"Don't you think you're rather hard upon him?" asked her friend smiling, and smoothing her hair.

"Not a bit," replied the sage Miss Wren, with an air of vast experience.

"My dear, they don't care for you, those fellows, if you're not hard upon 'em?"

In such light and playful conversation, which was the dear delight of Jenny Wren, they continued until interrupted by Mr. Wrayburn, a friend of Lizzie's, who fell to talking playfully with Jenny Wren.

"I think of setting up a doll, Miss Jenny," he said.

"You had better not," replied the dressmaker.

"Why not?"

"You are sure to break it. All you children do."

"But that makes good for trade, you know, Miss Wren," he returned.