A Little World. George Manville Fenn
“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 scraps 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 One—Chapter Eleven.
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 Saturday—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 snatched 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 Dicky 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.
“Totty yikes oogar,” exclaimed Mrs. Jared, angrily imitating her juvenile’s limping speech, and forgetful that she herself had crippled the words while teaching the little one its first steps in language; “Totty’s a very, very naughty girl, and ought to be well whipped.” And then the troubled dame busied herself in gathering up the spilled saccharine treasures with a spoon, while Totty, elevating her chin to make the passage straight, gave vent to a doleful howl, rubbing the while her sticky hands all over her clean face. Patty tried to look cross because she had been scolded—an utter impossibility on account of the dimples in her cheeks, which seemed as though a couple of kisses had been planted there by loving lips, and the downy, peachy skin had flinched with the contact, and never since risen—nursing up the sweet impressions, and holding them as treasures of the past. Then numbers odd wept for sympathy, as Mrs. Jared scraped and scolded, heedless of the facts that the Dutch clock had given warning for five, and that the tea was not yet made, the toast not cut, and the bloaters not down to cook. For, as it had been a Saturday’s dinner—i.e., scrappy—“snacks,” in honour of Tim Ruggles, were in vogue for tea.
But troubles never come singly; for now the baby having made up its mind to see what was the matter, contrived to wriggle about until its nine-months’-old bundle of soft bones, gristle, and flesh rolled off the sofa, bump on to the floor, where, as soon as it could get its breath, it burst forth into a wail of astonishment and pain at the hard usage it had received.
Patty rushed to seize the suffering innocent; Mrs. Jared, with her skirts, knocked down the origin of the mischief; the kettle boiled violently, and spat and sputtered all over the newly-blackleaded grate and