Little Miss Peggy: Only a Nursery Story

"Only, mamma," said Peggy, "I don't know what com – commo – that long word you said, means."

"I should not have used it, perhaps," said mamma. "And yet I don't know. If we only used the words you understand already, you would never learn new ones – eh, Peggy! Commodious just means large, and not narrow and squeezed up."

Peggy nodded her head, which meant that she quite understood, and then the lessons went on smoothly again.

When they were over, mamma talked about poor people, especially about poor children, to Peggy, and explained to her more than she had ever done before about what being poor really means. It made Peggy feel and look rather sad, and once or twice mamma was afraid she was going to cry, which, of course, she did not wish her to do. But Peggy choked down the crying feeling, because she knew it would make her mother sorry and would not do the poor people any good.

"Mamma," she said, "it neely makes me cry, but I won't. But when I'm big can't I do something for the children at the back?"

"They won't be children then, Peggy dear. You may be able to do something for them without waiting for that. I'll think about it. I don't fancy they are so very poor. As I have been telling you, there are many far poorer. But I daresay they have very few pleasures in their lives. We might try to think of a little sunshine for them now and then."

"The Smile – " began Peggy, but she stopped suddenly, growing red – "the littler ones do play a good deal in the gutter, mamma dear," she said, anxious to state things quite fairly; "but I don't think that's very nice play, and the sun very seldom shines there. And Red – the big ones, mamma dear, and the one that goes on – I can't remember the name of those sticks."

"Crutches," said mamma.

"Yes, crutches —her never has no plays at all, I don't think. She'd have more sunshine at the 'nother side of our house, mamma dear."

Mamma smiled. Peggy did not understand that mamma did not mean "sunshine" exactly as she took it; she forgot, too, that of actual sunshine more fell on the back street than she thought of. For it was only on dull or rainy days that she looked out much on the children at the back. On fine days her eyes were busy in another direction.

"I'll think about it," said mamma. So Peggy for the present was satisfied.

This talk about the Smileys and the rest of them had been a day or two before the morning on which we first saw Peggy – the morning that Thor tried so to make fun of her about choosing sugar in her bread and milk, because it was cold. Mamma had not said any more about the children at the back, and this particular morning Peggy herself was not thinking very much about them. Her head was running a good deal on the white cottage and all her fancies about it, and she was feeling rather disappointed that she had not succeeded better in amusing Hal by her stories.

"It must be, I suppose," she said to herself, "that he's rather too little for that kind of fancy stories. I wonder if Baldwin would like them; it would be nice to have somebody to make fancies with me."

But somehow Baldwin and the fairy cottage did not seem to match. And Thor and Terry were both much too big – Thor would laugh at her, and Terry would think it a waste of time; he had so many other things to amuse himself about. No, Peggy could not think of any one who would "understand," she decided, with a sigh!

CHAPTER IV

"REAL" FANCIES

"Mine be a cot beside the hill."Samuel Rogers.

Just then came the usual summons to her lessons. Mamma was waiting for her little girl in the corner of the drawing-room, where she always sat when she was teaching Peggy. It was a very nice corner, near the fire, for though it was not winter it was rather chilly, and mamma often felt cold. Thor used to tell her that she should take a good run or have a game of cricket to warm her; it would be much better than sitting near the fire. Peggy thought it was rather unkind of Thor to say so, but mamma only laughed at him, so perhaps it was just his boy way of speaking.

Peggy said her lessons quite well, but she looked rather grave; no smiles lighted up her face, and when lessons were over she sat still without speaking, and seemed as if she scarcely knew what she wanted to do with herself.

"Is there anything the matter, dear?" mamma asked.

"I'm rather tired, I think, mamma," Peggy replied.

"Tired!" mamma repeated, in some surprise. It wasn't often that Peggy talked of being tired. "What is that with? You've not been worrying yourself about the children who live over Mrs. Whelan's, I hope? You mustn't do that, you know, dear; it would do you harm and them no good."

For mamma knew that Peggy sometimes did "worry" about things – "Once she takes a thing in her head she'll work herself up so, for all she seems so quiet," nurse would say.

"No, mamma dear," Peggy replied; "I'm not tired because of that. I like thinking about the children at the back. I wish – "

"What?" said mamma.

"I wish I'd sisters like them. I'm rather lonely, mamma. I do think God might have gaved one sister to Peggy, and not such a great lot to the children at the back."

"But you have your brothers, my dear little girl. You might have been an only child."

"The big ones is always neely at school, and Hal's too little to understand. It's Hal that's tired me, mamma dear. He was so d'edfully cross afore nurse put him to bed."

"Cross, was he?" said mamma. "I'm afraid he must be getting those last teeth. He may be cross for some time; if so, it would not do to leave him." She seemed to be speaking to herself, but when she caught sight of Peggy's puzzled face she stopped. "Tell me about Hal, dear," she went on. "What was it that tired you so?"

"I was trying to amuse him and tell him stories about my white cottage up on the hill, and he was so cross. He couldn't understand, and he said they was 'nonsense' stories."

"He is too little, perhaps, to care for fancies," said her mother, consolingly. "You must wait till he is a little older, Peggy dear."

"But when he's older he'll be a boy, mamma," said Peggy; "he'll be like Thor and Terry, who don't care for things like that, or Baldwin, who thinks stories stupid. Oh, mamma, I wish I had a sister. That's what I want," she added, with conviction.

Mamma smiled.

"Poor Peggy," she said. "I'm afraid it can't be helped. You can never have a sister near your own age, and I'm afraid a baby sister, even if you had one, would be no good."

"Oh no, we've had enough babies," said Peggy, decidedly. "But, mamma, mightn't there be some little girl who'd play with me like a sister? If there is a fairy living in that cottage, mamma, how I do wish she would find a little girl for me!"

Mamma looked a very little bit troubled.

"Peggy dear," she said, "you mustn't let your fancies run away with you too far. I told you they would do you no harm if you kept plain in your head that they were fancies, but you mustn't forget that. You know there couldn't really be a fairy living in that little white cottage."

"No," Peggy agreed, "I know that, mamma, because fairies really live in fairyland."

She looked up gravely into her mother's face as she said so. Mamma could not help laughing.

"Fairies really," she said, "live in Peggy's funny little head, and in many other funny little heads, I have no doubt. But nowhere – "

"Mamma, mamma," Peggy interrupted, putting her fingers in her ears as she spoke, "I won't listen. You mustn't, mustn't say that. I must have my fairies, mamma. I've no sisters."

"Well, keep them in fairyland then, or at least only let them out for visits now and then. But don't mix them up with real things too much, or you will get quite a confusion, and never be sure if you're awake or dreaming."

Peggy seemed to consider this over very seriously. After a minute or too she lifted her face again, and looked straight into her mother's with her earnest gray eyes.

"Mamma dear," she began, "will you tell me what the little white house is reely like, then? If you will, I'll promise not to think there's fairies there – only – "

"Only what, dear?"

"If you don't mind," said Peggy, very anxious not to hurt her mother's feelings, "I'd rather not have pigs. I don't think I like pigs very much."

"Well, we needn't have pigs then. But remember I can only 'fancy' it. I've never seen that particular cottage, you see, Peggy. But I have seen other cottages in Brackenshire, and so I can fancy what it most likely is. You see there are different kinds of fancying – there's fancying that is all fancy, like fairy stories, and there's fancying that might be true and real, and that very likely is true and real. Do you understand?"

"Yes," said Peggy, drawing a deep breath. "Well, mamma, go on real-fancying, please. What's that place you've been at – Brat – what is it?"

"Brackenshire," mamma replied. "That's the name of that part of the country that we see far off, from the windows upstairs."

"And is all the cottages white there, and is they very pretty?" asked Peggy, with deep interest. "Oh, mamma, do tell me, quick."

"I don't know if they're all white, but I think they are mostly. And there are some pretty and some ugly. Of course it depends a good deal upon the people that live in them. If they're nice, clean, busy people, who like their house to be neat and pretty, and work hard to keep it so, of course it's much more likely to be so than if they were careless and lazy."

"Oh," said Peggy, clasping her hands. "I do so hope my cottage has nice people living in it. I think it has, don't you, mamma? It looks so white."

"My dear Peggy," said mamma, smiling, "we can't tell, when it's so far away. But we may hope so."

"Yes," said Peggy, "we'll hope so, and we'll think so." But then a rather puzzled look came over her face again, though she smiled too. "Mamma," she went on, "there's such a funny thing come into my head, only I don't know quite how to say it. I think that the far-away helps to make it pretty – why is far-away so pretty, mamma?"

Mamma smiled again.

"I'm afraid I can't tell you why. Wouldn't it spoil some things if we knew the why of them, little Peggy?"

Peggy did not answer. This was another new thought for her, and rather a difficult one. She put it away in her mind, in one of the rather far back cupboards there, and locked it up, to think about it afterwards.

"Mamma," she said, coaxingly, "I want you to tell me a real fancy about the cottage. It will be so nice when I look at it to think it's most likely reely like that."

"Well, then, let us see," mamma began.

"Wait just one minute, mamma dear, till I've shut my eyes. First I must get the bluey hills and the white spot into them, and then I'll shut them and see what you tell. Yes – that's all right now."

So mamma went on.

"I fancy a cottage on the side of a hill. The cottage is white, of course, and the hill is green. Not very green – a kind of brown-green, for the grass is short and close, nibbled by the sheep and cows that find their living on the hill most of the year. The cottage is very white, for last summer it had a nice wash all over, and that lasts clean a good while in the country. There is a little low wall round it shutting it in from the hillside, and this wall is not very white, though it once was so, for it is covered with creeping plants, so that you can scarcely see what its own colour is. At the front of the house there is a little garden, quite a tiny one – there are potatoes and gooseberry bushes and cabbages at one side, but in front of them are some nice old-fashioned flowers, and at the other side there are strawberry plants, and behind them some rose-bushes. In summer I am sure there will be some pretty roses."

"Oh how nice," said Peggy; "go on, go on, please."

"There is a funny little wooden shed behind the house, leaning against the wall, which has a door big enough for a child to go in by, or a big person if they stooped down very much, and besides this it has a very little door in the wall, leading on to the hillside. Can you guess what the shed is for, Peggy, and what the tiny door is for?"

Peggy thought and thought, but her country knowledge was but scanty.

"I can't think," she said. "It couldn't be for pigs, 'cos there isn't any in the cottage. Nor it couldn't be for cows, 'cos cows is so big."

"What should you say to cocks and hens, Peggy? There are to be fresh eggs there, aren't there? And chickens sometimes. I rather think they take eggs and chickens to market, don't they?"

"Oh yes, I'm sure they do. How stupid I am! Of course the little wooden house is for cocks and hens. You're making it lovelily, mamma. What is it like inside, and who lives in it? I do so want to know."

"Inside?" said mamma. "I'm almost afraid you might be disappointed, Peggy, if you've never been in a real cottage. There are so many that look very pretty outside and are not at all pretty inside. But at least we may think it is neat and clean. There are only two rooms, Peggy – a kitchen which you go straight into, and another room which opens out of it. The kitchen is very bright and pleasant; there is a table before the window with some flower-pots on it, in which both winter and summer there are plants growing. There is a large cupboard of dark old wood standing against the wall, and a sort of sofa that is called a settle with cushions covered with red cotton, standing near the fireplace. There are shelves, too, on which stand some dishes and two or three shining pots and pans, the ugly black ones are kept in a little back kitchen where most of the cooking is done, so that the front kitchen should be kept as nice as possible."

"That makes another room, mamma dear. You said there was only two."

"Oh, but it's so very tiny you couldn't call it a room. The second room is a bedroom, but the best pieces of furniture are kept there. There is a nice chest of drawers and a rocking-chair, and there is a very funny wooden cradle, standing right down on the floor, not at all like Baby's cot. And in this cradle is a nice, fat, bright-eyed little baby."

"A baby," said Peggy, doubtfully.

"Yes, to be sure. There's always a baby in a cottage, unless you'd rather have a very old couple whose babies are grown-up men and women, out in the world."

"No," said Peggy, "I don't want that. A very old woman in a cottage would be razer like a witch, or else it could make me think of Red Riding-Hood's grandmother, and that is so sad. No, I don't mind the baby if it has a nice mamma – but only one baby, pelease, mamma dear. I don't want lots, like the children at the back, they're always tumbling about and sc'eaming so."

"Oh no, we won't have it like that. We'll only have one baby – a very contented nice baby, and its mamma is very nice too. She's got quite a pretty rosy face, and she stands at the door every morning to see her husband go off to his work, and every evening to watch for him coming back again, and she holds the baby up in her arms and it laughs and crows."

"Yes," said Peggy, "that'll do. And the eggs and the chickens, mamma?"

"Oh yes, she takes great care of the cocks and hens, and never forgets to go outside the garden to feed them on the hill, and in the evening they all come home of themselves through the little door in the wall. There's a very nice cat in the cottage too; it sits purring on the front steps on fine days, as if it thought the cottage and garden and everything else belonged to it. And – "

But suddenly the clock struck. Up started mamma.

"Peggy, darling, I had no idea it was so late. And I have to go out the moment after luncheon, and I have still two letters to write. I am a greater baby than any of you! Run off, dear, and tell nurse I want to speak to her before I go out."

"And to-morrow," said Peggy, "to-morrow, will you tell me some more about the white cottage, mamma? It is so nice – I don't think you're a baby at all, mamma. A baby couldn't make it up so lovelily."

And Peggy set off upstairs in great content. The white spot would give her more pleasure than ever, now that she knew what sort of real fancies to have about it.

"And to-morrow," she said to herself, "to-morrow mamma will tell me more, lots more. If I say my lessons very goodly, p'raps mamma will tell me some more every day. And p'raps Hallie would like those kinds better than about fairies, and wouldn't call them nonsense stories."

Poor little Peggy – "to-morrow" brought news which put her pretty fancies about the white cottage out of her head for a while.

She gave her mother's message to nurse, and after dinner nurse went downstairs. When she came up again she looked rather grave, and Peggy thought perhaps she was unhappy about Hal, who was still cross and had bright red spots on his cheeks.

"Does you think poor Hallie is ill, nurse?" asked Peggy in a low voice, for Hal not to hear.

"No, my dear, it's only his teeth. But they'll make him fractious for a while, I'm afraid, and he's not a very strong child, not near so strong as Baby and the big boys."

"Poor Hallie," said Peggy, with great sympathy. "I'll be very good to him even if he is very cross, nurse."

Nurse did not answer for a minute, and she still looked very grave.

"Why do you look so sad, nurse, if it isn't about Hal?" asked Peggy, impatiently.

"Did I look sad, Miss Peggy? I didn't know it. I was thinking about some things your mamma was speaking of to me."

"Oh!" said Peggy, "was it about our new frocks? Mamma and you is always very busy when we need new frocks, I know."

"Yes, dear," said nurse, but that was all.

Then Peggy and Hal and nurse and Baby went out for a walk. They did not go very far, for it was what nurse called a queer-tempered day. Between the gleams of blue sky and sunshine there came sharp little storms and showers. It was April weather, though April had not yet begun.

"Which way are we going?" Peggy asked, as they set off, she and Hal hand-in-hand, just in front of nurse and the perambulator. She hoped nurse would say "up Fernley Road," because Fernley Road led straight on towards the hills – so at least it seemed to Peggy. Their street ran into Fernley Road at one end, so that Fernley Road was what is called at right angles with it, and Peggy felt sure that if you walked far enough along the road you could not but come to "the beginning of the hills."

But to-day Peggy was to be disappointed.

"We can't go far, Miss Peggy, and we must go to Field's about Master Hal's new boots. It looks as if it might rain, so perhaps we'd better go straight there. You know the way, Miss Peggy? – right on to the end of this street and then turn to the left."

Peggy gave a little sigh, but trotted on quietly. Hal began grumbling.

"What is I to have new boots for?" he said. "I doesn't want new boots."

"Oh, Hal," said Peggy, "I think it's very nice indeed to have new boots. They shine so, and sometimes they do make such a lovely squeaking."

But Hal wasn't in a humour to be pleased with anything, so Peggy tried to change the subject.

"Nurse says we are to turn to the left at the end of this street," she said. "Does you know which is the left, Hal? I do, 'cos of my pocket in my frock. First I feel for my pocket, and when it's there I say 'all right,' and then I know that's the right, and when it isn't there I can't say 'all right,' and so I know the side it isn't at is the left."

Hal listened with some interest, but a slight tinge of contempt for feminine garments.

"Boys has pockets at each sides, so all boys' sides is right," he said.

But Peggy was by this time in the midst of her researches for her pocket, so she did not argue the point.

"Here it is!" she exclaimed, "all right, so the nother side is left. This way, Hallie," and very proud to show nurse that she had understood her directions, she led her little brother down the street into which they had now turned.

There were shops in this street, which made it more amusing than the one in which the children lived, even though they had seen them so often that they knew pretty well all that was worth looking at in the windows – that is to say, in the picture-shops and the toy-shops, and perhaps in the confectioner's. All others were passed by as a matter of course. Field's, the shoemaker's, was not quite so stupid as some, because under a glass shade, in the midst of all the real boots and shoes, were half a dozen pairs of dolls' ones, which Peggy thought quite lovely, though apparently no one else was of her opinion, as the tiny things stayed there day after day without a single pair being sold. Peggy herself could remember them for what seemed to her a very long time, and Baldwin, who owned to having admired them when he was "little," assured her they had been there since she was quite a baby; he could remember having "run on" to look at them in the days when he and Terry had trotted in front and nurse had perambulated Peggy behind.

The little boots and shoes came into Peggy's mind just now, partly perhaps because Hal was hanging back so, and she was afraid he would be cross if she asked him to walk quicker.

"Let's run on and look at the tiny shoes in Field's window," she said. "We can wait there till nurse comes up to us. She'll see us."

This roused Hal to bestir himself, and they were soon at the shoemaker's.

"Isn't they sweet?" said Peggy. "If I had a gold pound of my very own, Hal, I'd buy some of them."

"Would you?" said Hal, doubtfully. "No, if I had a gold pound I'd – "

But just then nurse came up to them and they were all marched into the shop.

CHAPTER V

THE LITTLE RED SHOES

"Pif-paf Pottrie, what trade are you? Are you a tailor?""Better still!" "A shoemaker?"Brothers Grimm.

There was another reason why the children liked Field's shop. At the back of it was a sort of little room railed off by a low wooden partition with curtains at the top, into which customers were shown to try on and be fitted with new boots or shoes. This little room within a room had always greatly taken Peggy's fancy; she had often talked it over with her brothers, and wished they could copy it in their nursery. Inside it had comfortable cushioned seats all round, making it look like one of the large, square, cushioned pews still to be found in some old churches, pews which all children who have ever sat in them dearly love.

There was always some excitement in peeping into this little room to see if any one was already there; if that were the case the children knew they should have to be "tried on" in the outer shop. To-day, however, there was no doubt about the matter – Miss Field, who acted as her father's shop-woman, marshalled them all straight into the curtained recess without delay; there was no one there – and when Peggy and Hal had with some difficulty twisted themselves on to the seats with as much formality as if they were settling themselves in church, and nurse had explained what they had come for, the girl began operations by taking off one of Hal's boots to serve as a pattern for his size.

"The same make as these, I suppose?" she asked.

"No, miss, a little thicker, I think. They're to be good strong ones for country wear," said nurse.

Peggy looked up with surprise.

"For the country, nursie," she said. "He'll have weared them out before it's time for us to go to the country. It won't be summer for a long while, and last year we didn't go even when summer comed."

Nurse looked a little vexed. Miss Field, though smiling and good-natured, was not a special favourite of nurse's; she was too fond of talking, and she stood there now looking very much amused at Peggy's remonstrance.

"If you didn't go to the country last year, Miss Margaret," said nurse, "more reason that you'll go this. But little girls can't know everything."

Peggy opened her eyes and her mouth. She was just going to ask nurse what was the matter, which would not have made things better, I am afraid, when Baby changed the subject by bursting out crying. Poor Baby – he did not like the little curtained-off room at all; it was rather dark, and he felt frightened, and as was of course the most sensible thing to do under the circumstances, as he could not speak, he cried.