'And above the top of all the houses, clear though faint, was now to be seen the outline of a range of hills....
Hal forgot his crossness in a minute; he felt so proud and honoured. Peggy led him to the window. It was not a very pretty prospect; they looked out on to a commonplace street, houses on both sides, though just opposite there was a little variety in the shape of an old-fashioned, smoke-dried garden. Beyond that again, more houses, more streets, stretching away out into suburbs, and somewhere beyond all that again the mysterious, beautiful, enchantingregion which the children spoke of and believed in as "the country," not really so far off after all, though to them it seemed so.
And above the tops of all the houses, clear though faint, was now to be seen the outline of a range of hills, so softly gray-blue in the distance that but for the irregular line never changing in its form, one could easily have fancied it was only the edge of a quickly passing ridge of clouds. Peggy, however, knew better.
"See, Hal," she said, "over there, far, far away,neelyin the sky, does you see that bluey hill?"
Of course he saw, agreeing so readily that Peggy was sure he did not distinguish rightly, which was soon proved to be the case by his announcing that "The 'ill were sailing away."
"No, no, it isn't," Peggy cried. "You've mustooked a cloud, Hal. See now," and by bringing her own eyes exactly on a level with a certain spot on the glass she was able to place his correctly, "just over that little bubble in the window you can see it. Its top goes up above the bubble and then down and then up again, and it never moves like the clouds—does you see now, Hallie dear?"
"Zes, zes," said Hal, "but it's awennylittle 'ill, Peggy."
"No, dear," his sister explained. "It only looks little 'cos it's so far away.Youis too little to understand, dear, but it's true that it's a big hill, neely a mounting, Hal. Mamma told me."
"Oh," said Hal, profoundly impressed and quite convinced.
"Mountings isoldhills, or big hills," Peggy continued, herself slightly confused. "I don't know if they is the papas and mammas of the little ones, but I think it's something like that, for onst in church I heard the clergymunt read that the little hills jumped for joy, so they must be the children. I'll ask mamma, and then I'll tell you. I'm not quite sure if he meaned the same kind, for these hills never jumps—that's how mamma told me to know they wasn't clouds."
"Zes," said Hal, "but go on about the secret, Peggy. Hal doesn't care about the 'ills."
"But the secret'sonthe hills," replied Peggy. "Look more, Hal—does you see a teeny,teenywhite spot on the bluey hill? Higher up than the bubble, but not at the top quite?"
Hal's eyes were good and his faith was great.
"Zes, zes," he cried. "I does see it—kite plain, Peggy."
"Well, Hallie," Peggy continued, "that'smy secret."
"Is it the fairy cottage, and is the little girl zere now?" Hal asked, breathlessly.
Peggy hesitated.
"It is a white cottage," she said. "Mamma told me. She looked at it through a seeing pipe."
"What's a seeing pipe?" Hal interrupted.
"I can't tell you just now. Ask mamma to show you hers some day. It's too difficult to understand, but it makes you see things plain. And mamma found out it was reelly a cottage, a white cottage, all alone up on the hill—isn't it sweet of it to be there all alone, Hallie? And she said I might think it was a fairy cottage and keep it for my own secret, only I've telled you, Hal, and you mustn't tell nobody."
"And is it all like Baby's best sash, and are there cakes and f'owers and cows?" asked Hal.
"I don't know. I made up the story, you know, Hal, to please you. I've made lots—mamma said I might. But I've never see'd the cottage, you know. Idaresayit's beautiful, white and gold like the story,that's why I said it. It does so shine when the sun's on it—look, look, Hal!"
For as she spoke the sunshine had broken out again more brilliantly; and the bright, thin sparkle which often dazzles one between the showers in unsettled weather, lighted up that quarter of the sky where the children were gazing, and, to their fancy at least, the white spot caught and reflected the rays.
"Oh zes, I see," Hal repeated. "But, Peggy, I'd like togozere and to see it. Can't we go, Peggy? It would be so nice, nicer than making up stories. And do you think—oh do you think, Peggy, that p'raps there'spigszere, real pigs?"
He clasped his hands entreatingly as he spoke. Peggy must say there were pigs. Poor Peggy—it was rather a comedown after her fairy visions. But she was too kind to say anything to vex Hal.
"I thought you said pigs was silly," she objected, gently.
"Playing pigs to make Baby laugh is silly," said Hal, "and pigs going to market and stayin' at 'ome and roast beefin', isd'edfulsilly. But not real pigs."
"Oh well, then,youmay think pigs if you like," said Peggy. "I don't think I will, but that doesn'tmatter. You may have them in the cottage if you like, only you mustn't tell Thor and Terry and Baldwin about it."
"I won't tell, on'y youmighthave them too," said Hal discontentedly. "You're not kind, Peggy."
"Don't let's talk about the cottage any more, then," said Peggy, though her own eyes were fixed on the far-off white spot as she spoke. "I think p'raps, Hallie, you'rerathertoo little to care about it."
"I'm not," said Hal, "and I do care. But I do like pigs, real pigs. I sawed zem in the country."
"You can't remember," said Peggy. "It's two whole years since we was in the real country, Hallie, and you're only three and a half. I know it's two years. I heard mamma say so to papa, so you wasn't two then."
"But I did see zem and I do 'amember, 'cos of pictures," said Hal.
"Oh yes, dear, there is pictures of pigs in your scrap-book, I know," Peggy agreed. "You get it now and we'll look for them."
Off trotted Hal, returning in a minute with his book, and for a quarter of an hour or so his patient little sister managed to keep him happy and amused.At the end of that time, however, he began to be cross and discontented again. Peggy did not know what to make of him this morning, he was not often so difficult to please. She was very glad when nurse came in to say it was nowhistime for his morning sleep, and though Hal grumbled and scolded and said he was not sleepy she carried him off, and Peggy was left in peace.
She was not at a loss to employ herself. At half-past eleven she usually went down to mamma for an hour's lessons, and it must be nearly that time now. She got her books together and sat looking over the one verse she had to learn, her thoughts roving nevertheless in the direction they loved best—away over the chimneys and the smoke; away, away, up, up to the fairy cottage on the distant hill.
"THE CHILDREN AT THE BACK"
"It seems to me if I'd money enough,My heart would be made of different stuff;I would think about those whose lot is rough."Mrs. Hawtrey.
Thesechildren's home was not in a very pretty place. In front, as I have told you, it looked out on to a rather ugly street, and there were streets and streets beyond that again—streets of straight, stiff, grim-looking houses, some large and some small, but all commonplace and dull. And in and out between these bigger streets were narrower and still uglier ones, scarcely indeed to be called streets, so dark and poky were they, so dark and poky were the poor houses they contained.
The street immediately behind the children's house, that on to which its back windows looked out, was one of these poorer ones, though not by any means one of the most miserable. And ugly thoughit was, Peggy was very fond of gazing out of the night nursery window on to this street, especially on days when it was "no use," as she called it to herself, looking out at the front; that meant, as I daresay you can guess, days on which it was too dull and cloudy to see the distant hills, and above all the white spot, which had taken such hold on her fancy. For she had found out some very interesting things in that dingy street. Straight across from the night nursery window was a very queer miserable sort of a shop, kept by an old Irishwoman whose name was Mrs. Whelan. It is rather absurd to call it a shop, though it was a place where things were bought and sold, for the room in which these buyings and sellings went on was Mrs. Whelan's kitchen, and bedroom, and sitting-room, and wash-house, as well as her shop! It was on the first floor, and you got up to it by a rickety staircase—more like a ladder indeed than a staircase, and underneath it on the ground-floor lived a cobbler, with whom Mrs. Whelan used to quarrel at least once a day, though as he was a patient, much enduring man, the quarrels never went farther than the old Irishwoman's opening her window and shouting down all manner of scoldings to the poor fellow, of which he took no notice.
"She was rather a terrible-looking old woman....
On Sundays the cobbler used to tidy himself up and go off to church "like a gentleman," the boys said. But Mrs. Whelan, alas, never tidied herself up, and never went to church, and though she made a great show of putting a shutter across that part of the window which showed "the shop," nurse had more than once shaken her head when the children were dressing for church, and told them not to look over the way, she was sadly afraid the shutting or shuttering up was all a pretence, and that Mrs. Whelan made a good penny by her Sunday sales of tobacco and pipes to the men, or maybe of sugar, candles, or matches to careless housekeepers who had let their stock run out too late on Saturday night.
She was rather a terrible-looking old woman; she always wore a short bed-gown, that is, a loose kind of jacket roughly drawn in at the waist, of washed-out cotton, which never looked clean, and yet somehow never seemed to get much dirtier, a black stuff petticoat, and a cap with flapping frills which quite hid her face unless you were very near her, and she was generally to be seen with a pipe in her mouth. Her voice was both loud and shrill, and when she was in a temper you could almost hear what she said, though the nursery window was shut. All theneighbours were afraid of her, and in consequence treated her with great respect. But like most people in this world, she had some good about her, as you will hear.
Good or bad, the children, Peggy especially, found Mrs. Whelan very interesting. Peggy had never seen her nearer than from the window, and though she had a queer sort of wish to visit the shop and make closer acquaintance with the old crone, she was far too frightened of her to think of doing so really. The boys, however, had been several times inside Mrs. Whelan's dwelling, and used to tell wonderful stories of the muddle of things it contained, and of the old woman herself. They always bought their soap-bubble pipes there, "three a penny," and would gladly have bought some of the toffee-balls and barley-sugar which were also to be had, if this had not been strictly forbidden by mamma, in spite of their grumbling.
"It isn't soverydirty, mamma," they said, "and you get a lot more for a penny than in a proper shop."
But mamma would not give in. She knew what Mrs. Whelan was like, as she used sometimes to go over herself to talk to the poor old woman, but that, of course, was a different matter.
"I don't much like your going there at all," she would say, "but it pleases her for us to buy some trifles now and then."
But in her heart she wished very much that they were not obliged to live in this dreary and ugly town, where their poor neighbours were rarely the sort of people she could let her children know anything of. Mamma, inherchildhood, had lived in that fairyland she called "the country," and so had papa, and they still looked forward to being there again, though for the present they were obliged to make the best of their home in a dingy street.
It seemed much less dull and dingy to the children than to them, however. Indeed I don't think the children ever thought about it at all. The boys were busy at school, and found plenty of both work and play to make the time pass quickly, and Peggy, who might perhaps have been a little dull and lonely in her rather shut-up life, had her fancies and her wonders—her interesting things to look at both at the front and the back of the house, and mamma to tell all about them to! And this reminds me that I have not yet told you what it was she wasmostfond of watching from the night nursery window. It was not Mrs. Whelan or the cobbler; it was thetenants of the third or top story of the rickety old house—the family she always spoke of to herself as "the children at the back."
Such a lot of them there were. It was long before Peggy was able to distinguish them "all from each other," as she said, and it took her longer still to make names by which she could keep a clear list in her head. The eldest looked to her quite grown-up, though in reality she was about thirteen; she was a big red-cheeked girl, though she lived in a town; her arms were red too, poor thing, especially in winter, for they were seldom or never covered, and she seemed to be always at work, scrubbing or washing, or running out to fetch two or three of the little ones in from playing in the gutter. Peggy called her "Reddy," and though it was the girl's red cheeks and arms which made her first choose the name, in a while she came to think of it as meaning "ready" also, for Peggy did not know much about spelling as yet, and the thought in her mind of the look of the two words was the same. For a good while Peggy fancied that Reddy was the nurse or servant of the family, but one day when she said something of the kind to her own nurse she was quickly put right.
"Their servant, my dear! Bless you, no. Howcould they afford to keep a servant; they've hard enough work to keep themselves, striving folk though they seem. There's such a many of them, you see, and mostly so little—save that big girl and the sister three below her, there's none really to help the mother. And the cripple must be a great charge."
"What's the cripple, nursey?" Peggy asked.
"Why, Miss Peggy, haven't you noticed the white-faced girl on crutches? You must have seen her dragging up and down in front of the house of a fine day."
"Oh yes," said Peggy, "but I didn't know that was called cripple. And she's quite little; she's as little as me, nurse!"
"She's older than she looks, poor thing," said nurse—"maybe oldest of them all."
This, however, Peggy could not believe. She fixed in her own mind that "Crippley" came after the two boys who were evidently next to Reddy—she did not give the boys names, for they did not interest her as much as the girls. Having so many brothers of her own and no sister, it seemed to her as if a sister must be the very nicest thing in the world, and of all the children at the back, the two that she liked most to watch were a pair of littlegirls about three years older than herself, whom she named "The Smileys," "Brown Smiley" and "Light Smiley" when she thought of them separately, for though they were very like each other, the colour of their hair was different. They were very jolly little girls, poorly clad and poorly fed though they were, taking life easily, it seemed—too easily in the opinion of their eldest sister Reddy, and the sister next above them—between them and Crippley, according to Peggy's list. This sister was the only one whose real name Peggy knew, by hearing it so frequently shouted after her by the mother and Reddy. For this child, "Mary-Hann," was rather deaf, though it was not till long afterwards that Peggy found this out.
"Mary-Hann" was a patient stupid sort of girl, a kind of second in command to Reddy, and she was like Reddy in appearance, except that she was several sizes smaller and thinner, so that even supposing that her arms were as red as her sister's they did not strike one in the same way.
Below the Smileys came another boy, who was generally to be seen in their company, and who, according to Peggy, rejoiced in the name of "Tip." And below Tip were a few babies, in reality Ibelieve never more than three, during the years through which their little over-the-way neighbour watched them. But even she was obliged to give up hopes of classifying the babies, for there always seemed to beababy about the same age, and one or two others just struggling into standing or rather tumbling alone, and for ever being picked up by Reddy or her attendant sprite Mary-Hann.
Such were Peggy's "children at the back." And many a dull day when it was too rainy to go a walk, and too cloudy to be "any use" to gaze out at the front of the house, did these poor children, little as they guessed it, help to make pass more quickly and pleasantly for the sisterless maiden. Many a morning when Hal and Baby were asleep and nurse was glad to have an hour or so for a bit of ironing, or some work of the kind down in the kitchen—for my Peggy's papa and mamma were not rich and could not keep many servants, so that nurse, though she was plain and homely in her ways, was of far more use than a smarter young woman to them—many a morning did the little girl, left in the night nursery in charge of her sleeping brothers, take up her stand at the window which overlooked Mrs. Whelan's and the cobbler and the Smileys with alltheir brothers and sisters. There was always something new to see or to ask nurse to explain afterwards. For ever so long it took up Peggy's thoughts, and gave much conversation in the nursery to "plan" how the ten or eleven children, not to speak of the papa and mamma,couldall find place in two rooms. It kept Peggy awake at night, especially if the weather happened to be at all hot or close, to think howveryuncomfortable poor Reddy and Crippley and Mary-Hann and the Smileys must be, all sleeping in one bed as nurse said was too probably the case. And it was the greatest relief to her mind, and to nurse's too, I do believe, to discover by means of some cautious inquiries of the cobbler when nurse took him over some of the boys' boots to mend, that the family was not so short of space as they had feared.
"They've two other rooms, Miss Peggy, as doesn't show to the front," said nurse, "two attics with sloping windows in the roof to their back again. And they're striving folk, he says, as indeed any one may see for theirselves."
"Then how shall we plan it now, I wonder," said Peggy, looking across to the Smileys' mansion with new respect. But nurse had already left the room,and perhaps, now she was satisfied their neighbours were not quite so much to be pitied, would scarcely have had patience to listen to Peggy's "wonderings" about them. So the little girl went on to herself—
"I should think the downstairs room is the papa's and mamma's and the teeniest baby's, and perhaps Crippley sleeps there, as she's ill, like me when I had the hooping-cough and I couldn't sleep and mamma kept jumping up to me. And then the big boys and Tip has one room—'ticks,' nurse calls the rooms with windows in the roof. I think I'd like to sleep in a 'tick' room; you must see the stars so plain without getting up; and—and—let me see, Reddy and Mary-Hann and the Smileys and the old babies—no, that's too many—and I don't know how many old babies there is. We'll sayone—if there's another it must be a boy and go in the boys' tick—and that makes Reddy and Mary——"
"Miss Peggy, your mamma's ready for your lessons," came the housemaid's voice at the door, and Peggy hurried off. But she was rather in a brown study at her lessons that morning. Mamma could not make her out at all, till at last she shut up the books for a minute and made Peggy tell her where her thoughts were wool-gathering.
"Not so very far away, mamma dear," said Peggy, laughing. She never could help laughing when mamma said "funny things like that." "Not so very far away. I was only wondering about the children at the back."
She called them always "the children at the back" when she spoke of them—for even to mamma she would have felt shy of telling her own names for them. And then she went on to repeat what nurse had heard from the cobbler. Mamma agreed that it was very interesting, and she too was pleased to think "the children at the back's house," as Peggy called it, was more commodious than might have been expected. But still, even such interesting things as that must not be allowed to interfere with lessons, Peggy must put it all out of her head till they were done with, and then mamma would talk about it with her.
"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, "itneelymakes 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 soverypoor. 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 gooddeal in the gutter, mamma dear," she said, anxious to state things quite fairly; "but I don't think that'sverynice 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—hernever 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 itawaste 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!
"REAL" FANCIES
"Mine be a cot beside the hill."Samuel Rogers.
Justthen 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, andwhen 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 gavedonesister 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 aboy, 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'swhat 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 thereisa 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 theywerefancies, 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 fairiesreallylive in fairyland."
She looked up gravely into her mother's face as she said so. Mamma could not help laughing.
"Fairiesreally," she said, "live in Peggy's funny little head, and in many other funny little heads, I have no doubt. But nowhere——"
"Mama dear," she began....
"Mamma, mamma," Peggy interrupted, puttingher fingers in her ears as she spoke, "Iwon'tlisten. 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 isreelylike, 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'drathernot 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 itmost likelyis. You see there are different kinds offancying—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 theyverypretty?" 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. Ithinkit has, don't you, mamma? It lookssowhite."
"My dear Peggy," said mamma, smiling, "wecan'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 likelyreelylike 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 andthe 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 ifthey stooped down very much, and besides this it has averylittle 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 ofit. 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 couplewhose 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 berazerlike a witch, or else it could make me think of Red Riding-Hood's grandmother, and that issosad. No, I don't mind the baby if it has a nice mamma—but only one baby, pelease, mamma dear. I don't wantlots, 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? Itisso 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 ofrealfancies 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 callthemnonsense 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. Shehopednurse 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 youcouldnot 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?Ido, '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 Ican'tsay '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.Thisway, Hallie," and veryproud 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 mindjust 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'tthey 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, ifIhad a gold pound I'd——"
But just then nurse came up to them and they were all marched into the shop.