ON THE ROAD
Needless to say Betty did not "waste" any time that night over
home-lessons. How can the beginner of a great singer be expected to care
whether the pronoun "that" in "I dare do all 'that' may become a man,"
is relative or possessive? or whether Smyrna is the capital of Turkey or
Japan? or even whether the Red Sea has to do with Africa or China.
Betty did not even open her school satchel, or peep at the cover of her
books. Instead, she copied out the words of her song and learnt them
sitting there at the table with Cyril.
Neither was Cyril doing home-lessons. He certainly had his books spread
out before him, but the contents of his pockets were strewn upon his
open books, and he was examining them and grumbling now and again at
the rapacity of certain school-mates who had caused him to lose certain
treasures, or accept less valuable ones, on the school system of "I'll
give you this for that."
He turned over three coloured marbles in disgust. For them he had
bartered away a catapult, and now his heart was heavy over the exchange.
"Artie Jones is a sneak," he grumbled. "He ought to have given me six
marbles for that catapult. Eh? What do you say?"
The question was directed to Betty, whose lips were moving.
She shook her head, and sighed drearily, for she had entered into the
very being of the little beggar girl who sang for a penny.
"Nothing," she said. "Nothing you'd understand. Don't chatter."
"Don't be so silly," said Cyril. "I'm as old as you, any way."
"Mother says I'm an hour older than you," said Betty.
"That's nothing," said Cyril.
"You can learn a lot in an hour," quoth Betty, and bent her attention
to her strip of paper.
"I told mother about the dirty plates, so there," said the boy.
"And----"
"Bah!" said Betty, and pushed her fingers into her ears.
Betty had several plans for waking early, amongst which may be
named--putting marbles in her bed that in rolling unconsciously about
for comfort she might be awakened by the discomfort. That had answered
very well once or twice. Another was to place her pillow half-way down
the bed, that she might be within reach of the foot of it--and then to
rest her own foot on a lower rail and tie it there. Another was to prop
herself into a sitting position and fold her hands across her chest,
that by sleeping badly she might not sleep long.
Many a night had her father and mother laughed at the attitude chosen by
their second daughter, and arranged her that her sleep might be easier.
"Betty wants to get up early," they would say and smile. But upon this
night--the night before the battle--they did not go to her room at all.
Mrs. Bruce was reading a new magazine, and saying now and again, as she
turned a leaf or smiled at her husband, that she _had_ intended doing a
bit of mending; and Mr. Bruce was polishing up a chapter in his book,
and saying now and again as he paused for a choicer word, or smiled at
his wife, that he _had_ intended doing that blessed article on Cats, for
Flavelle. So they both went on being uncomfortably comfortable.
Betty tried all her expedients for early rising, and yet peaceful was
her sleep throughout the night. Her lashes lay still on her rounded
cheeks, her rosy lips smiled and her brown curls strewed the pillow,
just as effectively as though she were on a velvet couch, and a living
illustration of a small princess, sleeping to be awakened by a kiss.
She awoke just as the day was pinkly breaking and the night stealing
greyly away, awoke under the impression that John Brown was cutting off
her foot. It was a great comfort to find it there and merely cold and
cramped from lack of covering and an unnatural position.
She remembered everything immediately without even waiting to rub her
eyes, and she sprang out of bed at once, even though her right foot
refused to do its duty, and she had to stand for a valuable minute on
her left.
The clock hands (she had carried the kitchen clock into her bedroom to
Mary's chagrin), pointed to a quarter to five, and Betty realized she
had only an hour in which to dress eat her breakfast, bid good-bye to
any home objects she held dear, and travel down the road to the store.
She was vexed, for she had meant to get up at four.
She got into her tattered Saturday's frock (her Cinderella costume) and
she brushed and plaited her short curly hair, as well as it would allow
itself to be plaited. Then she made a bundle of her boots and stockings
and school-day frock and hid them away under the skirt of her draped
dressing-table, and opened her money-box and extracted the contents
(thirteen half-pennies). This was the fortune with which she purposed to
face the world.
And so real had this thing become to her now, that she crept to the far
side of the double bed to kiss the sleeping Nancy, and down the passage
to Cyril's room, to look at his face upon the pillows; and the tears
were heavy in her eyes because she was quitting her "early" home.
When she had reached the pantry she remembered something, and went back
to her bed room, to place by Nancy's side her only remaining doll, a
faded hairless beauty, Belinda, by name.
And she pinned a note upon the pincushion (all her heroines who fled
from their early homes, left notes upon the pincushion) addressed to
"Father and Mother," and as she passed their door she stroked it
lovingly. In the pantry she was guilty of several sobs, while she cut
the bread, it seemed so pitiful to her to be going away from her home in
the grey dawn to seek a livelihood for her family. In truth her small
heart ached creditably as she ate her solitary breakfast, and it might
have gone on aching only that she suddenly bethought herself of time.
Half-past five, John had said, and she remembered all that she had done
since half-past four.
"It _must_ be half-past five now," she said. "I'll eat this as I go,"
and she folded two pieces of bread and butter together.
Then she found her bonnet and the strip of paper with the song upon it,
and grasping her half-pennies set forth.
She ran most of the way to the store, which, it may be remembered,
occupied the corner, just before you come to Wygate School.
As Betty came in sight of it she saw John standing still there, and she
thought gratefully how good it was of him to wait for her.
He wore a very old and very baggy suit, a dirty torn straw hat (of which
it must be owned he had plenty), and neither boots nor stockings.
The children eyed each other carefully, noting every detail, and both in
their own heart admiring the other exceedingly.
Betty's face had lost its traces of tears, but had not got back its
happy look. Her mouth drooped sadly.
"What's up?" asked John as they turned their faces towards the silent
south.
"It hurts me, leaving the little ones," said Betty, who was now in
imagination Madam S----. "You have no brothers and sisters to provide
for."
John sighed. "No," he said, "I've no one but an old grandfather, and he
grudges me every crust I eat. He's cut me off with a shilling."
For a space Betty was envious. For a space she liked John's imagination
better than her own. That "cutting off with a shilling" seemed to her
very fine.
He showed her his shilling. "I've _that_," he said, "to begin life on.
Many a fellow would starve on it. _I'm_ going to make my fortune with
it."
They were the words one of his heroes had spoken, and sounded splendid
to both.
"I've sixpence-halfpenny," said Betty, and unclosed her little brown
hand for a second. "That's all!"
They walked on. In front of them and behind ran the dusty road, like a
red line dividing a still bush world. Overhead was a tender sky, grey
stealing shyly away to give place to a soft still blue. Already the
daylight was wakening others than these foolish barefooted waifs. Here
and there a frog uttered its protest against, mayhap, the water it had
discovered, or been born to; the locusts lustily prophesied a hot day.
Occasionally an industrious rabbit travelled at express speed from the
world on one side of the red road to the world on the other. And above
all this bustle and business and frivolity rang the brazen laugh of a
company of kookaburras, who were answering each other from every corner
of the bush.
After some little travelling the fortune seekers came upon a cottage
standing alone in a small bush-clearing on their right. Three cows stood
chewing their cud, and waiting to be milked, a scattering of fowls was
shaking off dull sleep, and making no little ado about it, and near the
door a shock-headed youth was rubbing both eyes with both hands.
Betty and John walked on. These signs of awakening life roused them to a
livelier sense of being alive.
Yet a little further and they came to what Betty always called a
"calico" cottage, which is to say, a cottage made of scrim, and
white-washed. Windows belonged to it, and a door, and a garden enclosed
by a brushwood fence.
"Let's peep in the gate," said Betty, "it's such a _sweet_ little
house."
"Wait till you see the house _I_ mean to have," quoth John.
But Betty preferred to peep in then. She went close to the half-open
gate and popped in her head.
Inside the gate was a garden, and all its beds were defined by upended
stout bottles--weedless, sweet-scented beds wherein grew such blooms as
daisies, and violets, stocks, sweetpeas, sweet williams, lad's love and
mignonette.
"Oh!" said Betty. "Oh--just smell! just put your head in for a minute,
John."
But John was for "pushing on," and getting to Sydney to make his
shilling two.
While they were parleying, a man came round the corner of the "sweet
little house," and his eyes fell on the bonneted maiden.
"Hullo!" he exclaimed, "and who's this? Polly?"
"No," said Betty.
"Na-o. Then p'raps it's Lucy. Eh?"
John tugged at Betty's dress and said "Come on," urgingly; but the man
was already letting down two slip-rails a little way from the crazy
gate, and his eyes rested on the second barefooted imp.
"Hullo!" he exclaimed, "An' how's this any'ow?"
John, who had a greater dread of capture than Betty, inquired innocently
if there were any wild flowers up this way.
The man drew his hand across his eyes to banish sleep inclinations. "Not
many now, I reckon," he said. "There might be a few sprigs of 'eath an'
the flannel flowers ain't all done yet. Goin' to town?"
Betty nodded, and John said,--
"Yes--we'll be gettin' back 'ome" in a fair imitation of his
questioner's voice.
"I'll be goin' as far as the markets," said the man "an' I don't mind
givin' you a lift ef you like."
John's eyes brightened, for he was longing for the centre of the city,
and he had felt they were covering ground very slowly. And Betty's
brightened because she thought she would soon coax the man into letting
her drive.
So the fortune seekers made their entry into town in a fruit cart.