Sweethearts at Home. Crockett Samuel Rutherford
two ticks, because Pete Bolton was a perfectly horrid boy, and would have stolen it like nothing at all. Only Little Sarah was upon him with a bound like a tiger, and bit his hand (yes, it was nasty, being very dirty). Only she bit Pete's hand from a sense of duty, and made him let go. She had her face rubbed in the mud, her hair tugged, and all, but she never let go the sovereign – half of which wasn't hers.
There was a girl for you, and yet boys will say that only they are brave! Well, don't you think it was pretty hard for Sarah – harder, I think, after fighting for it than before? You see, she thought of all the nice things she could get for her mother with the extra ten shillings, besides new boots for herself that didn't let in the water, and – oh! a lot of things like that.
Worst of all, she knew that if she did take it back to father he would only shove it in his pocket without noticing. But she said over and over: "Honesty is the best! Honesty is the best!" You see, she could not remember the word "policy," which does not improve the sentiment anyway – to my mind, at least.
So back she went. Father was still mooning about among his books, and just as she expected he took the golden sovereign and shoved it back into his pocket right among pennies and pocket-knives and so on. But he quite forgot to give Sarah her own real half-sovereign. I believe he thought she had picked the coin up off the floor. For he just said, "Thank you," and went on with his work.
And Little Sarah stood there fit to cry.
By and by he noticed the girl and asked what she was waiting for – not unkindly, you know. But, as usual, he was busy and wanted to be left alone.
"Please, sir," said Little Sarah Brown, "my half-sovereign!"
"But I paid you your wages, did I not?"
"Oh, yes, sir; but – "
"Oh, you would like an advance on next week – very well, then." And he pulled out of his pocket the very identical piece of gold that had been Little Sarah's temptation – like mine about the Blue Vase and Mir-row, you remember.
"There!" he said; "now go away! I'm busy!"
"But, please, sir – !"
"WHAT?"
Then Little Sarah burst into tears, and father stared. But after a while he got at the truth – how he had given a whole sovereign in place of a half —
"Very likely – very likely!" said he.
And how Sarah had brought it back – all of her own accord.
"Very unlikely!" he muttered.
And how he had shoved it back into his pocket without noticing —
"Very likely!" he said – to himself this time.
So what did he do, when he had heard all about it, but promise to whack Pete Bolton with his stick the first time he got him. And Sarah began to cry all over again, saying that Pete had no mother and couldn't be expected to know any better.
"Well," said he, "that's as may be! But anyway, I'll be a father to Pete the next time I catch him. I'll teach him to let little girls alone. I've dealt with heaps of Pete Boltons before! Oh, often! Don't you trouble, little girl!"
And he actually got his hat and walked home with Little Sarah, growling all the time. I don't know what he gave her. But, anyway, what he said to her mother made the poor woman so happy that she nearly forgot to be ill. And on Monday I noticed that Little Sarah had new whole shoes and so had her brother Billy. So something must have happened, and though nothing was said, I can pretty well guess what.
So can Hugh John – and you too, my dear Diary. Only we won't tell. But the "Compulsory Man," who makes boys attend school, descended on wicked Pete Bolton, and then the schoolmaster fell on him, so that Pete became a reformed character – this is, so long as he was sore. Then, of course, he forgot, and began playing truant again.
Only after that he let Little Sarah alone. Because, you see, he never knew when, in a narrow lane, he might meet a big man, pulling at a big mustache, and carrying a very big stick. Because the sermons that big man preached with his stick were powerful, and Pete Bolton did not forget them easily.
The End – moral included free of charge, as Hugh John says.
IV
MISS POLLY PRETEND
End of June.
Of course there ought to be a story in all this – the story of my life. I have a Relative who can spin you the story of anybody's life if you only tell him what number of shoe he wears. Only I am just a little girl, and have neither been murdered nor married – as yet. So in my life there are no – what is the word? – ingredients for the pudding. Yes, that is it.
So it must just come anyhow, like things tumbling out of your pocket when you hang head down from a tree or haystack which you are climbing.
All the same I will try always to put one story or one subject into a chapter, though these won't be called "Printed in Gore," or "The House of Crime," or anything like that.
For, you see, the stories the boys read are just stuffed with such things. So it will be rather a change to write about "The Dirty Piece of Embroidery" and "The Colored-Silk Work-basket."
And that reminds me. Often Grown-ups "give it" to their children for the very identical things they used to do themselves when young. There is a friend of father's down at Dumfries whom he calls Mr. Massa. And once we bribed Mr. Massa to tell us all about when father was young – he was his earliest and dearest friend – though, by his telling, father pounded him shamefully and unmercifully for nothing at all, even after they had vowed eternal friendship. And do you know, the things that father did when he was a boy – well, he would thrash Hugh John and Sir Toady for now!
But I expect that all fathers and most mothers were like that. When I am a mother, I shan't be. Because, having kept a Diary, I shall only have to take it out and see how I felt. Don't you think that is a first-rate idea?
Besides, if it is printed, as Mr. Dignus says that it will be, it is bound to be true, and I shall have to believe it. Oh, just won't my children have a good time! Also Hugh John's. But Sir Toady Lion says he isn't going to have any – being married is ever such a swot, and children are all little pigs.
Well, he ought to know.
Oh, about this Mr. Massa? He told us some splendid things about father – how he stood on the top of Thrieve Castle with a stone in one hand and his watch in the other to measure the altitude, having just learned how. Only he forgot, and let go the wrong hand.
Smack– went the watch on the grass about seventy feet below! And there was he left standing with the stone in his hand. But the watch was ticking cheerfully away when they picked it up, and it is that very same old nursery watch that is hung up there now, and tells us when it is time not to get up.
I don't think I ever knew what it was to have a true friend with a good memory till that moment. And as for the boys and me, we never thought we should like any of father's friends so much. But Mr. Massa told us more things that we can cast up to him in time of need than we would ever have wormed out of father himself in a century. Funny how close people get about some things when they get older. Oh, I wish I had been born my own little girl. Then I should have been properly brought up!
However, that is not my fault.
Hugh John says that being naughty is just according as you look at it. Big Folks' job is to make us behave, so that we are as little of a nuisance to them as possible. Our business to get as much fun as we can out of life without getting in the way of the Grown-ups. All their "Don't do this's" and "You mustn't do that's" are just warnings not to give them trouble. Moral (according to Hugh John), "Give as little trouble as possible to Grown-ups. And they will let you do pretty much as you want to."
He says that acts first-rate at school. Toe the line with the masters, and then if you do "whale" your fellow-pupil, no questions are asked. The only way to be a bad little boy in peace and quiet is to be a good little boy so far as work is concerned!
And as Hugh John does it, this is not hypocritical.