AN UNTIDY HOME.
MRS. HUMPHREY'S cottage was in its usual uncomfortable condition of
"cleaning up." She had begun "putting straight" in the morning, and she
had been at it ever since, off and on. Yet, though evening was come,
things were not straight. It would have been a mystery to any orderly
housewife, how she managed to be so busy, and to get so little done.
Some men's wives waste a great deal of time in perpetual gossiping with
the neighbours, and then of course it is not surprising that their
homes should be in a mess. But wasting time in that particular fashion
was not one of Janet Humphrey's faults. She did not care for gossip,
and she did not care for the neighbours. Indeed, it was rather a
subject of complaint among the said neighbours that "Mrs. Humphrey was
so unsociable, nobody could get to know her." She rather took a pride
in holding aloof, and in not allowing her children to associate with
the children around more than could be helped.
Janey, the eldest of the party, the little nine years old maiden of
the curl-papers, sat on a chair, in the pink cotton which she had worn
at the school feast, nursing the baby; and the baby, a plump infant of
nine months, being hungry, was screaming lustily. Jackey and Sukey,
aged eight and seven, were quarrelling in the window; and Willie and
Tommy, aged five and three, were rolling about upon the floor, with
rough heads and smeared faces, each having a piece of bread-and-butter.
Janet herself, with a soiled cap and a heated anxious face, was
hurrying to and fro distractedly. Some damp clothes hung round the
fire, and cooking utensils were scattered uncomfortably here and there,
while the china used at the mid-day meal lay still unwashed upon the
wooden table.
"Father'll be in directly, and he'll be so vexed not to find things
straight." This was Janet's usual observation every evening, as if
it were quite an uncommon event for him to find them so; whereas in
reality it was a matter of daily occurrence. "Oh dear, dear, whatever
am I do? If I'd known it would have taken so long, I'd never have got
those things washed out to-day. To-morrow would have done as well. Do
stop that child's crying, Janey. It goes through my head. And those
children,—if I wash them one minute, they're not fit to be seen the
next."
Janet's "minute" was a long one on this occasion, since she had not
found time to wash them for several hours. She came forward, and pulled
Tommy up with a jerk, whereupon he burst into a howl. "Have done, will
you?" said Janet pettishly, giving him a little shake. "Father'll be
back directly, and he'll be angry. Where's the soap? O dear,—nobody
knows what I have to go through. I don't think there ever was such a
set of children. Stop crying this minute, Tommy, or you shan't have one
single bit more of bread-and-butter."
Whereupon Tommy wailed the more, and a man's head appeared in the
doorway.
"Not ready—as usual!" said Jem.
"No, and shan't be for another hour," said Janet sharply; for the
general condition of things made her feel cross, though she was not
naturally ill-tempered.
"Then I'm best out of the way," said Jem rather gruffly, and he
disappeared.
"There! and he'll go to the public, and get into trouble, as sure as
can be," exclaimed Janet despairingly. "Whatever did make me speak like
that to him? Well, I must just get on, and make things straight. Stop
crying, Tommy, do,—come now, be a good boy, and mother will give him a
halfpenny."
The promised bribe took effect, and Tommy's howls lessened. Janet
decided to defer the washing for fear of setting him off again. She
slipped a halfpenny into one grimy little hand, and a piece of bread
into the other, and placed him again on the floor. Then, having given
her children an unwholesome lesson on the easiest mode of getting their
own way, she turned round, flurried and annoyed, to find herself facing
Mrs. Simmons.
"Good evening," said Mrs. Simmons. "I came to bring a few apples for
the young ones, Mrs. Humphrey; and I had to make bold to walk in,
seeing I couldn't manage to get a hearing through the clamour."
Janet looked and felt ashamed. "I'm sure I'm very much obliged," she
said. "It's a bad day with me—cleaning up."
"Why, so was yesterday, wasn't it?" asked Mrs. Simmons, taking a seat,
and regarding attentively Tommy's dingy and buttery cheeks.
"Well, yes,—but I didn't get done," said Janet uncomfortably. "I take a
bit a day, you see, so as to get through things."
"You don't seem quite through 'em yet," said Betsy, surveying the
scene. "I saw your husband going off just now, seemingly in a huff."
"He hadn't any reason. I'm sure it wasn't my fault," Janet said, in
a melancholy tone, "I've toiled hard enough and to spare. I'm pretty
near ready to drop this minute. Janey came back and told me what had
happened, and it gave me such a turn, I haven't felt right since."
Betsy Simmons' rather grim look softened. "Ah,—Poor little Miss Daisy,"
she said. "And poor Davis too, for the matter of that. Not a bit less
one than the other, only the one seems to come nearer to us. Yes, it's
an awful thing to have happened, and nobody can know yet if either
of the two will get over it. The man suffers terribly, they say, and
poor little Miss Daisy just lies still with shut eyes and don't know
anybody. Well, well,—I don't doubt it's all for the best,—and she's
ready for death, if anybody ever was. I wish I was as sure I was ready
myself. But it's an awful thing to be struck down, all in a moment."
"I wish you wouldn't talk so. It turns me quite queer," said Janet.
"You do look as if a cup of tea would do you good," said Mrs. Simmons.
"I haven't had time to get one. There's no getting anything done, with
a pack of children about."
"You should train your children to be a help and not a hindrance," said
Mrs. Simmons, rising, with a business-like air. "That's what I would
do. Why, dear me, there isn't one but might take his share of work,
unless it's the baby. Even Tommy isn't too small to pick up scraps, and
clear away crumbs. Now you sit still a few minutes, Mrs. Humphrey, and
get a bit of quiet, and I'll do for you. I couldn't take a cup of tea,
for my part, or anything else, in such a mess as this. You sit still,
and just see!"
Janet looked astonished, but obeyed. Mrs. Simmons divested herself of
shawl and bonnet, folding the former, and laying the latter neatly upon
it. She never flung off what she wore, or tossed articles of clothing
anywhere, as some people are apt to do when in a hurry.
Then she proceeded to "tidy" the room. Janet had been "tidying" all
day, quite in vain; for the simple reason that as fast as she made
one part tidy she made another part untidy. Betsy Simmons, on the
contrary, advanced steadily, step by step, placing everything in order,
putting away this, hanging up that, pushing chairs back against the
wall, collecting stray scraps of paper, string and cotton, and working
a rapid transformation. Once Janet protested, "I shall want that
directly, Mrs. Simmons; it's no good putting it by."
"Want it! And if you do," said Mrs. Simmons, "what then, Mrs. Humphrey?
Can't you get it out again? I shall want my bed by-and-by, but I don't
keep it at hand all day in my shop. It saves a deal of trouble, to put
everything straight away in its right place the moment it's been used."
"But the children'll only drag all the chairs crooked in another
minute," said Janet.
"Chairs are meant to be used," said Mrs. Simmons, in an oracular
manner. "But there's no need for them all to stand about the whole day
like a set of dancing dervishes. If every child was taught to put his
chair back straight against the wall after he's done with it, the world
would be over so much tidier."
"Why, I don't do that," said Janet.
"More's the pity!" said Mrs. Simmons.
Having swept up the hearth,—an operation which Janet rarely performed,
because it was sure to need sweeping again before long,—Mrs. Simmons
brought out water and soap. The missing soap she had accidentally
discovered, lying hidden under Janet's bonnet. The elder children
submitted with tolerable composure to having their dirty little faces
and hands made clean and shining. Tommy, however, had a strong dislike
to soap, and Tommy shrieked his disapproval.
"He won't like it," gasped Janet, in dismay.
"Then he'll have to get along without the liking," said Betsy Simmons
calmly, as she lifted Tommy into a convenient position.
"Tommy will be a good boy, won't he?" said Janet coaxingly. "Mother
will give him a nice bun if he is good."
"Give him a bun for having his face washed!" said Mrs. Simmons. "And a
halfpenny for stopping crying! He's like to cost you dear at this rate,
Mrs. Humphrey. Haven't you got any better use for your pennies than
that?"
Janet sat rebuked; ashamed yet angry. Tommy yelled, but he yelled in
vain. Mrs. Simmons quietly soaped him, scrubbed him, sponged him, and
dried him. A clean though tearful little boy was presently seated on a
chair, and told to "be good."
"He wouldn't let me do all that, now," said Janet.
Mrs. Simmons turned round quite indignantly. "Wouldn't let!" she said.
"A baby of three not let his mother do as she likes with him! What on
earth do you mean, Mrs. Humphrey?"
"Well, I don't know,—it doesn't seem as if I could manage them like you
do," said Janet.
"Maybe not,—because you don't set to work the right way," said Mrs.
Simmons. "Give in to a child because he cries, or bribe him to be
good, and your mastery over him is gone. But once make him understand
that you mean what you say, and that he has to do what he's told, and
your trouble's at an end. Why, dear me, I wonder what my mother would
have said, when I was a girl, if any one of us—and she had a dozen
children—had set up for a moment against her will. Not we! There wasn't
such a thing known among us. Mother's will was law, and no mistake. But
for all that we loved her more than I can tell, and she did toil for
us. The world never looked the same to me, Mrs. Humphrey, since mother
died."
"Everybody isn't like that, though," Janet said hopelessly, as Mrs.
Simmons placed the teapot on the table.