ONE OF THE POPULACE
The winter was a wretched one. There were days on which Sara tramped
through snow when she went on her errands; there were worse days when
the snow melted and combined itself with mud to form slush; there were
others when the fog was so thick that the lamps in the street were
lighted all day and London looked as it had looked the afternoon,
several years ago, when the cab had driven through the thoroughfares
with Sara tucked up on its seat, leaning against her father's shoulder.
On such days the windows of the house of the Large Family always looked
delightfully cosey and alluring, and the study in which the Indian
gentleman sat glowed with warmth and rich color. But the attic was
dismal beyond words. There were no longer sunsets or sunrises to look
at, and scarcely ever any stars, it seemed to Sara. The clouds hung low
over the skylight and were either gray or mud-color, or dropping heavy
rain. At four o'clock in the afternoon, even when there was no special
fog, the daylight was at an end. If it was necessary to go to her attic
for anything, Sara was obliged to light a candle. The women in the
kitchen were depressed, and that made them more ill-tempered than ever.
Becky was driven like a little slave.
"'T warn't for you, miss," she said hoarsely to Sara one night when she
had crept into the attic--"'t warn't for you, an' the Bastille, an'
bein' the prisoner in the next cell, I should die. That there does seem
real now, doesn't it? The missus is more like the head jailer every day
she lives. I can jest see them big keys you say she carries. The
cook she's like one of the under-jailers. Tell me some more, please,
miss--tell me about the subt'ranean passage we've dug under the walls."
"I'll tell you something warmer," shivered Sara. "Get your coverlet and
wrap it round you, and I'll get mine, and we will huddle close together
on the bed, and I'll tell you about the tropical forest where the Indian
gentleman's monkey used to live. When I see him sitting on the table
near the window and looking out into the street with that mournful
expression, I always feel sure he is thinking about the tropical forest
where he used to swing by his tail from cocoanut-trees. I wonder who
caught him, and if he left a family behind who had depended on him for
cocoanuts."
"That is warmer, miss," said Becky, gratefully; "but, someways, even the
Bastille is sort of heatin' when you gets to tellin' about it."
"That is because it makes you think of something else," said Sara,
wrapping the coverlet round her until only her small dark face was to
be seen looking out of it. "I've noticed this. What you have to do
with your mind, when your body is miserable, is to make it think of
something else."
"Can you do it, miss?" faltered Becky, regarding her with admiring eyes.
Sara knitted her brows a moment.
"Sometimes I _can_ and sometimes I can't," she said stoutly. "But when
I can I'm all right. And what I believe is that we always could--if
we practised enough. I've been practising a good deal lately, and
it's beginning to be easier than it used to be. When things are
horrible--just horrible--I think as hard as ever I can of being a
princess. I say to myself, 'I am a princess, and I am a fairy one, and
because I am a fairy nothing can hurt me or make me uncomfortable.'
You don't know how it makes you forget,"--with a laugh.
She had many opportunities of making her mind think of something else,
and many opportunities of proving to herself whether or not she was a
princess. But one of the strongest tests she was ever put to came on a
certain dreadful day which, she often thought afterward, would never
quite fade out of her memory even in the years to come.
For several days it had rained continuously; the streets were chilly and
sloppy and full of dreary, cold mist; there was mud everywhere,--sticky
London mud,--and over everything the pall of drizzle and fog. Of course
there were several long and tiresome errands to be done,--there always
were on days like this,--and Sara was sent out again and again, until
her shabby clothes were damp through. The absurd old feathers on
her forlorn hat were more draggled and absurd than ever, and her
downtrodden shoes were so wet that they could not hold any more water.
Added to this, she had been deprived of her dinner, because Miss Minchin
had chosen to punish her. She was so cold and hungry and tired that her
face began to have a pinched look, and now and then some kind-hearted
person passing her in the street glanced at her with sudden sympathy.
But she did not know that. She hurried on, trying to make her mind think
of something else. It was really very necessary. Her way of doing it was
to "pretend" and "suppose" with all the strength that was left in her.
But really this time it was harder than she had ever found it, and once
or twice she thought it almost made her more cold and hungry instead
of less so. But she persevered obstinately, and as the muddy water
squelched through her broken shoes and the wind seemed trying to drag
her thin jacket from her, she talked to herself as she walked, though
she did not speak aloud or even move her lips.
"Suppose I had dry clothes on," she thought. "Suppose I had good shoes
and a long, thick coat and merino stockings and a whole umbrella. And
suppose--suppose--just when I was near a baker's where they sold hot
buns, I should find sixpence--which belonged to nobody. _Suppose_, if I
did, I should go into the shop and buy six of the hottest buns and eat
them all without stopping."
Some very odd things happen in this world sometimes.
It certainly was an odd thing that happened to Sara. She had to cross
the street just when she was saying this to herself. The mud was
dreadful--she almost had to wade. She picked her way as carefully as she
could, but she could not save herself much; only, in picking her way,
she had to look down at her feet and the mud, and in looking down--just
as she reached the pavement--she saw something shining in the gutter. It
was actually a piece of silver--a tiny piece trodden upon by many feet,
but still with spirit enough left to shine a little. Not quite a
sixpence, but the next thing to it--a fourpenny piece.
In one second it was in her cold little red-and-blue hand.
"Oh," she gasped, "it is true! It is true!"
And then, if you will believe me, she looked straight at the shop
directly facing her. And it was a baker's shop, and a cheerful, stout,
motherly woman with rosy cheeks was putting into the window a tray of
delicious newly baked hot buns, fresh from the oven--large, plump, shiny
buns, with currants in them.
It almost made Sara feel faint for a few seconds--the shock, and the
sight of the buns, and the delightful odors of warm bread floating up
through the baker's cellar window.
She knew she need not hesitate to use the little piece of money. It
had evidently been lying in the mud for some time, and its owner was
completely lost in the stream of passing people who crowded and jostled
each other all day long.
"But I'll go and ask the baker woman if she has lost anything," she said
to herself, rather faintly. So she crossed the pavement and put her wet
foot on the step. As she did so she saw something that made her stop.
It was a little figure more forlorn even than herself--a little figure
which was not much more than a bundle of rags, from which small, bare,
red muddy feet peeped out, only because the rags with which their owner
was trying to cover them were not long enough. Above the rags appeared
a shock head of tangled hair, and a dirty face with big, hollow, hungry
eyes.
Sara knew they were hungry eyes the moment she saw them, and she felt a
sudden sympathy.
"This," she said to herself, with a little sigh, "is one of the
populace--and she is hungrier than I am."
The child--this "one of the populace"--stared up at Sara, and shuffled
herself aside a little, so as to give her room to pass. She was used
to being made to give room to everybody. She knew that if a policeman
chanced to see her he would tell her to "move on."
Sara clutched her little fourpenny piece and hesitated a few seconds.
Then she spoke to her.
"Are you hungry?" she asked.
The child shuffled herself and her rags a little more.
"Ain't I jist?" she said in a hoarse voice. "Jist ain't I?"
"Haven't you had any dinner?" said Sara.
"No dinner,"--more hoarsely still and with more shuffling. "Nor yet no
bre'fast--nor yet no supper. No nothin'."
"Since when?" asked Sara.
"Dunno. Never got nothin' to-day--nowhere. I've axed an' axed."
Just to look at her made Sara more hungry and faint. But those queer
little thoughts were at work in her brain, and she was talking to
herself, though she was sick at heart.
"If I'm a princess," she was saying--"if I'm a princess--when they
were poor and driven from their thrones--they always shared--with the
populace--if they met one poorer and hungrier than themselves. They
always shared. Buns are a penny each. If it had been sixpence I could
have eaten six. It won't be enough for either of us. But it will be
better than nothing."
"Wait a minute," she said to the beggar child.
She went into the shop. It was warm and smelled deliciously. The woman
was just going to put some more hot buns into the window.
"If you please," said Sara, "have you lost fourpence--a silver
fourpence?" And she held the forlorn little piece of money out to her.
The woman looked at it and then at her--at her intense little face and
draggled, once fine clothes.
"Bless us! no," she answered. "Did you find it?"
"Yes," said Sara. "In the gutter."
"Keep it, then," said the woman. "It may have been there for a week, and
goodness knows who lost it. _You_ could never find out."
"I know that," said Sara, "but I thought I would ask you."
"Not many would," said the woman, looking puzzled and interested and
good-natured all at once.
"Do you want to buy something?" she added, as she saw Sara glance at the
buns.
"Four buns, if you please," said Sara. "Those at a penny each."
The woman went to the window and put some in a paper bag.
Sara noticed that she put in six.
"I said four, if you please," she explained. "I have only fourpence."
"I'll throw in two for makeweight," said the woman, with her
good-natured look. "I dare say you can eat them sometime. Aren't
you hungry?"
A mist rose before Sara's eyes.
"Yes," she answered. "I am very hungry, and I am much obliged to you for
your kindness; and"--she was going to add--"there is a child outside who
is hungrier than I am." But just at that moment two or three customers
came in at once, and each one seemed in a hurry, so she could only thank
the woman again and go out.
[Illustration: The beggar girl was still huddled up in the corner.]
The beggar girl was still huddled up in the corner of the step. She
looked frightful in her wet and dirty rags. She was staring straight
before her with a stupid look of suffering, and Sara saw her suddenly
draw the back of her roughened black hand across her eyes to rub away
the tears which seemed to have surprised her by forcing their way from
under her lids. She was muttering to herself.
Sara opened the paper bag and took out one of the hot buns, which had
already warmed her own cold hands a little.
"See," she said, putting the bun in the ragged lap, "this is nice and
hot. Eat it, and you will not feel so hungry."
The child started and stared up at her, as if such sudden, amazing good
luck almost frightened her; then she snatched up the bun and began to
cram it into her mouth with great wolfish bites.
"Oh, my! Oh, my!" Sara heard her say hoarsely, in wild delight. "_Oh,
my!_"
Sara took out three more buns and put them down.
The sound in the hoarse, ravenous voice was awful.
"She is hungrier than I am," she said to herself. "She's starving." But
her hand trembled when she put down the fourth bun. "I'm not starving,"
she said--and she put down the fifth.
The little ravening London savage was still snatching and devouring when
she turned away. She was too ravenous to give any thanks, even if she
had ever been taught politeness--which she had not. She was only a poor
little wild animal.
"Good-by," said Sara.
When she reached the other side of the street she looked back. The child
had a bun in each hand and had stopped in the middle of a bite to watch
her. Sara gave her a little nod, and the child, after another stare,--a
curious lingering stare,--jerked her shaggy head in response, and until
Sara was out of sight she did not take another bite or even finish the
one she had begun.
At that moment the baker-woman looked out of her shop window.
"Well, I never!" she exclaimed. "If that young un hasn't given her buns
to a beggar child! It wasn't because she didn't want them, either.
Well, well, she looked hungry enough. I'd give something to know what
she did it for."
She stood behind her window for a few moments and pondered. Then her
curiosity got the better of her. She went to the door and spoke to the
beggar child.
"Who gave you those buns?" she asked her.
The child nodded her head toward Sara's vanishing figure.
"What did she say?" inquired the woman.
"Axed me if I was 'ungry," replied the hoarse voice.
"What did you say?"
"Said I was jist."
"And then she came in and got the buns, and gave them to you, did she?"
The child nodded.
"How many?"
"Five."
The woman thought it over.
"Left just one for herself," she said in a low voice. "And she could
have eaten the whole six--I saw it in her eyes."
She looked after the little draggled far-away figure and felt more
disturbed in her usually comfortable mind than she had felt for many a
day.
"I wish she hadn't gone so quick," she said. "I'm blest if she shouldn't
have had a dozen." Then she turned to the child.
"Are you hungry yet?" she said.
"I'm allus hungry," was the answer, "but 'tain't as bad as it was."
"Come in here," said the woman, and she held open the shop door.
The child got up and shuffled in. To be invited into a warm place full
of bread seemed an incredible thing. She did not know what was going to
happen. She did not care, even.
"Get yourself warm," said the woman, pointing to a fire in the tiny back
room. "And look here; when you are hard up for a bit of bread, you can
come in here and ask for it. I'm blest if I won't give it to you for
that young one's sake."
* * * * *
Sara found some comfort in her remaining bun. At all events, it was very
hot, and it was better than nothing. As she walked along she broke off
small pieces and ate them slowly to make them last longer.
"Suppose it was a magic bun," she said, "and a bite was as much as a
whole dinner. I should be overeating myself if I went on like this."
It was dark when she reached the square where the Select Seminary was
situated. The lights in the houses were all lighted. The blinds were not
yet drawn in the windows of the room where she nearly always caught
glimpses of members of the Large Family. Frequently at this hour she
could see the gentleman she called Mr. Montmorency sitting in a big
chair, with a small swarm round him, talking, laughing, perching on the
arms of his seat or on his knees or leaning against them. This evening
the swarm was about him, but he was not seated. On the contrary, there
was a good deal of excitement going on. It was evident that a journey
was to be taken, and it was Mr. Montmorency who was to take it. A
brougham stood before the door, and a big portmanteau had been strapped
upon it. The children were dancing about, chattering and hanging on to
their father. The pretty rosy mother was standing near him, talking as
if she was asking final questions. Sara paused a moment to see the
little ones lifted up and kissed and the bigger ones bent over and
kissed also.
"I wonder if he will stay away long," she thought. "The portmanteau is
rather big. Oh, dear, how they will miss him! I shall miss him
myself--even though he doesn't know I am alive."
When the door opened she moved away,--remembering the sixpence,--but she
saw the traveller come out and stand against the background of the
warmly lighted hall, the older children still hovering about him.
"Will Moscow be covered with snow?" said the little girl Janet. "Will
there be ice everywhere?"
"Shall you drive in a drosky?" cried another. "Shall you see the Czar?"
"I will write and tell you all about it," he answered, laughing. "And I
will send you pictures of muzhiks and things. Run into the house. It is
a hideous damp night. I would rather stay with you than go to Moscow.
Good night! Good night, duckies! God bless you!" And he ran down the
steps and jumped into the brougham.
"If you find the little girl, give her our love," shouted Guy Clarence,
jumping up and down on the door-mat.
Then they went in and shut the door.
"Did you see," said Janet to Nora, as they went back to the room--"the
little-girl-who-is-not-a-beggar was passing? She looked all cold and
wet, and I saw her turn her head over her shoulder and look at us. Mamma
says her clothes always look as if they had been given her by some one
who was quite rich--some one who only let her have them because they
were too shabby to wear. The people at the school always send her out on
errands on the horridest days and nights there are."
Sara crossed the square to Miss Minchin's area steps, feeling faint and
shaky.
"I wonder who the little girl is," she thought--"the little girl he is
going to look for."
And she went down the area steps, lugging her basket and finding it very
heavy indeed, as the father of the Large Family drove quickly on his way
to the station to take the train which was to carry him to Moscow, where
he was to make his best efforts to search for the lost little daughter
of Captain Crewe.