"REAL" FANCIES
"Mine be a cot beside the hill."
SAMUEL ROGERS.
JUST then 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, and when 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 gaved _one_ sister 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 a _boy_, 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's_
what 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
there _is_ a 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 they _were_ fancies, 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 fairies _really_ live
in fairyland."
She looked up gravely into her mother's face as she said so. Mamma could
not help laughing.
"Fairies _really_," she said, "live in Peggy's funny little head, and in
many other funny little heads, I have no doubt. But nowhere----"
[Illustration: "Mama dear," she began, "will you tell me what the little
white house is reely like, 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'd _rather_ not have pigs. I don't think I like pigs very
much."
P. 52]
"Mamma, mamma," Peggy interrupted, putting her fingers in her ears as
she spoke, "I _won't_ listen. 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
is _reely_ like, 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'd _rather_ not 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 it _most likely_
is. You see there are different kinds of fancying--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 they _very_ pretty?" 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. I _think_ it has, don't you, mamma? It looks _so_
white."
"My dear Peggy," said mamma, smiling, "we can'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
likely _reely_ like 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 and the 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 if they stooped down very much, and besides this it has a _very_
little 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 of
it. 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 couple whose 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 be _razer_ like a witch, or else it could make me think of Red
Riding-Hood's grandmother, and that is _so_ sad. No, I don't mind the
baby if it has a nice mamma--but only one baby, pelease, mamma dear. I
don't want _lots_, 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? It _is_ so 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 of _real_
fancies 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 call _them_ nonsense 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. She _hoped_
nurse 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 you _could_ not 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? _I_ do, '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 I
_can't_ say '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.
_This_ way, Hallie," and very proud 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 mind just 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't_ they 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, if _I_ had a gold pound I'd----"
But just then nurse came up to them and they were all marched into the
shop.