Produced by Al Haines
[Illustration: Cover art]
[Frontispiece: Tom came running to prevent Maggie from snatching her
line away.]
TOM AND MAGGIE TULLIVER
TOLD FROM GEORGE ELIOT'S
"THE MILL ON THE FLOSS"
THOMAS NELSON AND SONS, LTD.
LONDON, EDINBURGH, AND NEW YORK
1909
CONTENTS.
I. TOM MUST GO TO SCHOOL
II. THE CHOICE OF A SCHOOL
III. TOM COMES HOME
IV. ALL ABOUT A JAM PUFF
V. THE FAMILY PARTY
VI. THE MAGIC MUSIC
VII. MAGGIE IS VERY NAUGHTY
VIII. MAGGIE AND THE GIPSIES
IX. THE GIPSY QUEEN ABDICATES
X. TOM AT SCHOOL
XI. THE NEW SCHOOLFELLOW
XII. THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON
XIII. PHILIP AND MAGGIE
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
TOM CAME RUNNING TO PREVENT MAGGIE FROM
SNATCHING HER LINE AWAY . . . . . . . . . . . . _Frontispiece_
"MY PRETTY LADY, ARE YOU COME TO STAY WITH US?"
"HERE, MAGGIE, COME AND HEAR IF I CAN SAY THIS"
"O TOM, PLEASE DON'T," CRIED MAGGIE
MAGGIE AND TOM TULLIVER.
Chapter I.
TOM MUST GO TO SCHOOL.
"What I want, you know," said Mr. Tulliver of Dorlcote Mill--"what I
want is to give Tom a good eddication. That was what I was thinking of
when I gave notice for him to leave th' academy at Lady Day. I meant
to put him to a downright good school at Midsummer.
"The two years at th' academy 'ud ha' done well enough," the miller
went on, "if I'd meant to make a miller and farmer of him like myself.
But I should like Tom to be a bit of a scholard, so as he might be up
to the tricks o' these fellows as talk fine and write with a flourish.
It 'ud be a help to me wi' these lawsuits and things."
Mr. Tulliver was speaking to his wife, a blond, comely woman in a
fan-shaped cap.
"Well, Mr. Tulliver," said she, "you know best. But hadn't I better
kill a couple o' fowl, and have th' aunts and uncles to dinner next
week, so as you may hear what Sister Glegg and Sister Pullet have got
to say about it? There's a couple o' fowl _wants_ killing!"
"You may kill every fowl i' the yard if you like, Bessy, but I shall
ask neither aunt nor uncle what I'm to do wi' my own lad," said Mr.
Tulliver.
"Dear heart!" said Mrs. Tulliver, "how can you talk so, Mr. Tulliver?
However, if Tom's to go to a new school, I should like him to go where
I can wash him and mend him; else he might as well have calico as
linen, for they'd be one as yallow as th' other before they'd been
washed half a dozen times. And then, when the box is goin' backards
and forrards, I could send the lad a cake, or a pork-pie, or an apple."
"Well, well, we won't send him out o' reach o' the carrier's cart, if
other things fit in," said Mr. Tulliver. "But you mustn't put a spoke
i' the wheel about the washin' if we can't get a school near enough.
But it's an uncommon puzzling thing to know what school to pick."
Mr. Tulliver paused a minute or two, and dived with both hands into his
pockets, as if he hoped to find some idea there. Then he said, "I know
what I'll do, I'll talk it over wi' Riley. He's coming to-morrow."
"Well, Mr. Tulliver, I've put the sheets out for the best bed, and
Kezia's got 'em hanging at the fire. They aren't the best sheets, but
they're good enough for anybody to sleep in, be he who he will."
As Mrs. Tulliver spoke she drew a bright bunch of keys from her pocket,
and singled out one, rubbing her thumb and finger up and down it with a
placid smile while she looked at the clear fire.
"I think I've hit it, Bessy," said Mr. Tulliver, after a short silence.
"Riley's as likely a man as any to know o' some school; he's had
schooling himself, an' goes about to all sorts o' places--auctioneering
and vallyin' and that. I want Tom to be such a sort o' man as Riley,
you know--as can talk pretty nigh as well as if it was all wrote out
for him, and a good solid knowledge o' business too."
"Well," said Mrs. Tulliver, "so far as talking proper, and knowing
everything, and walking with a bend in his back, and setting his hair
up, I shouldn't mind the lad being brought up to that. But them
fine-talking men from the big towns mostly wear the false shirt-fronts;
they wear a frill till it's all a mess, and then hide it with a bib;--I
know Riley does. And then, if Tom's to go and live at Mudport, like
Riley, he'll have a house with a kitchen hardly big enough to turn in,
an' niver get a fresh egg for his breakfast, an' sleep up three pair o'
stairs--or four, for what I know--an' be burnt to death before he can
get down."
"No, no," said Mr. Tulliver; "I've no thoughts of his going to Mudport:
I mean him to set up his office at St. Ogg's, close by us, an' live at
home. I doubt Tom's a bit slowish. He takes after your family, Bessy."
"Yes, that he does," said Mrs. Tulliver; "he's wonderful for liking a
deal o' salt in his broth. That was my brother's way, and my father's
before him."
"It seems a bit of a pity, though," said Mr. Tulliver, "as the lad
should take after the mother's side instead o' the little wench. The
little un takes after my side, now: she's twice as 'cute as Tom."
"Yes, Mr. Tulliver, and it all runs to naughtiness. How to keep her in
a clean pinafore two hours together passes my cunning. An' now you put
me i' mind," continued Mrs. Tulliver, rising and going to the window,
"I don't know where she is now, an' it's pretty nigh tea-time. Ah, I
thought so--there she is, wanderin' up an' down by the water, like a
wild thing. She'll tumble in some day."
Mrs. Tulliver rapped the window sharply, beckoned, and shook her head.
"You talk o' 'cuteness, Mr. Tulliver," she said as she sat down; "but
I'm sure the child's very slow i' some things, for if I send her
upstairs to fetch anything, she forgets what she's gone for."
"Pooh, nonsense!" said Mr. Tulliver. "She's a straight, black-eyed
wench as anybody need wish to see; and she can read almost as well as
the parson."
"But her hair won't curl, all I can do with it, and she's so franzy
about having it put i' paper, and I've such work as never was to make
her stand and have it pinched with th' irons."
"Cut it off--cut it off short," said the father rashly.
"How can you talk so, Mr. Tulliver? She's too big a gell--gone nine,
and tall of her age--to have her hair cut short.--Maggie, Maggie,"
continued the mother, as the child herself entered the room, "where's
the use o' my telling you to keep away from the water? You'll tumble
in and be drownded some day, and then you'll be sorry you didn't do as
mother told you."
Maggie threw off her bonnet. Now, Mrs. Tulliver, desiring her daughter
to have a curled crop, had had it cut too short in front to be pushed
behind the ears; and as it was usually straight an hour after it had
been taken out of paper, Maggie was incessantly tossing her head to
keep the dark, heavy locks out of her gleaming black eyes.
"Oh dear, oh dear, Maggie, what are you thinkin' of, to throw your
bonnet down there? Take it upstairs, there's a good gell, an' let your
hair be brushed, an' put your other pinafore on, an' change your
shoes--do, for shame; an' come and go on with your patchwork, like a
little lady."
"O mother," said Maggie in a very cross tone, "I don't want to do my
patchwork."
"What! not your pretty patchwork, to make a counterpane for your Aunt
Glegg?"
"It's silly work," said Maggie, with a toss of her mane--"tearing
things to pieces to sew 'em together again. And I don't want to sew
anything for my Aunt Glegg; I don't like her."
Exit Maggie, drawing her bonnet by the string, while Mr. Tulliver
laughs audibly.
"I wonder at you as you'll laugh at her, Mr. Tulliver," said the
mother. "An' her aunts will have it as it's _me_ spoils her."