something coming before my eyes. It’s gone, quite gone now.”
“But why did she look at the old gentleman, as if addressing him?”
thought John. “Was her mind wandering?”
“I’m glad it’s gone,” muttered Tackleton, turning the expressive eye
around the room. “I wonder where it’s gone, and what it was. Humph,
Caleb, come here! Who’s that man with the gray hair?”
“I don’t know, sir,” Caleb answered in a whisper. “Never saw him before
in all my life. He’d make a beautiful figure for a nut-cracker; quite a
new model.”
“Not ugly enough!” said Tackleton.
“Or a match-safe,” Caleb continued. “What a model! Unscrew his head to
put the matches in. Let them fall down to his neck, and take out.”
“Not half ugly enough,” said Tackleton. “Nothing in him at all. Come!
Bring that box! All right now, I hope, Mrs. Peerybingle?”
“Oh, quite right! Quite right!” said the little woman, waving him
hurriedly away. “Good-night!”
“Good-night,” said Tackleton. “Good-night, John Peerybingle! Take care
how you carry that box, Caleb. Let it fall and I’ll murder you! Dark as
pitch, and weather worse than ever, eh? Good-night!”
So, with another sharp look round the room, he went out the door,
followed by Caleb with the wedding cake on his head.
The carrier had been so much astonished by his little wife, and so
busily trying to sooth her that he had scarcely been conscious of the
Stranger’s presence until now, when he looked up and saw him standing
there, their only guest!
“He don’t belong to them, you see,” said John. “I must give him a hint
to go.”
Just at that moment the old gentleman came toward him, saying, “I
beg your pardon, friend, but since my attendant has not come and the
weather is so bad, can you, in your kindness, let me rent a bed here?”
“Yes, yes!” cried Dot. “Yes! Certainly!”
“Oh!” exclaimed the carrier, surprised by the quickness of her consent.
“Well, I don’t object; still I’m not quite sure--”
“Hush!” she interrupted. “Dear John, please.”
“Why, he’s stone deaf,” urged John.
“I know, but--” She turned to the Stranger. “Yes, sir, certainly. Yes!
Certainly!” Then to John. “I’ll make him up a bed directly, John.”
As she hurried off to do it, the fluttering way she did it was so
strange that the carrier looked after her, quite dumfounded.
“Did its mothers make up a beds then?” cried Tilly Slowboy to the baby;
“and did its hair grow brown and curly when its caps was lifted off,
and frighten it, as precious pets, a-sitting by the fire?”
“What frightened Dot, I wonder?” thought the carrier, pacing to and
fro, and half listening to Tilly’s silly chatter.
The bed was soon made ready, and the Stranger, who would not take
anything but a cup of tea, retired.
After Dot put the baby to bed, she arranged the great comfortable
fireside chair for the carrier, and filled his pipe for him. Then she
brought her little stool and, placing it beside his knee, sat down for
a cozy chat.
But the carrier fell to dreaming, and Boxer, who was stretched at his
feet, I am quite ashamed to say, snored aloud. Just then the cricket
began its song, and Dot, too, fell a-dreaming.
* * * * *
But what was that young figure of a man which remained there, singly
and alone? Why did it linger still, so near her with its arm upon the
chimney-piece, ever repeating in a whisper, “Married! and not to me!”
XXXV
CHIRP THE SECOND
_Bertha, the Blind Girl, and Her Father_
CALEB PLUMMER, the toy-maker, and his blind daughter lived all alone
by themselves, as the Story Books say, in a little cracked nutshell of
a wooden house, close to the big establishment of Gruff and Tackleton,
the toy merchants.
I have said that Caleb and his poor blind daughter lived here. I should
have said that Caleb lived here, and his poor blind daughter lived
somewhere else--in a sort of enchanted fairyland, where no shabbiness
or poverty or trouble ever entered; for Caleb, in the magic of his
devoted, deathless love for his daughter, played a little game of
“Pretend” which made the blind girl think their home beautiful, her
father rich and handsome, and that nothing was lacking which they
needed.
The blind girl never knew that the ceilings were broken and the walls
blotched, and bare of plaster here and there, the beams warped and
bending because of age. The blind girl never knew that the woodwork was
rotting and the paper peeling off the walls, and the little building
withering away.
The blind girl never knew that the dishes were ugly and cracked, and
the carpets threadbare; that sorrow and faint-heartedness were in the
house; that Caleb’s scanty hairs were turning grayer, and more gray,
before her sightless face.
The blind girl never knew that they had a master, cold, exacting, and
not caring how they got along--never knew that Tackleton was Tackleton,
in fact. For Caleb led her to think his rough words were meant for
jokes; that he was very good to them, and had a peculiarity in that he
could not bear to be thanked for any favor he had done.
You know why he did this. It was because he felt so sorry for poor
blind Bertha that he deceived her into thinking everything lovely and
fair in order that she might be happier. He, too, had had a cricket
singing on the hearth when his motherless girl was very young, and when
he listened to its music, he made up his mind to cheer the little one’s
dark way by every means he could devise.
Caleb and his daughter were at work together in their usual working
room, which served them for their ordinary living room as well; and a
strange place it was.
There were houses in it, furnished and unfurnished, for dolls of all
stations in life. Nice houses for dolls of moderate means; smaller
houses for dolls not so well off; fine town residences for dolls of
high estate. Some of the houses were already furnished with a view to
the conveniences of dolls of limited income; others could be furnished
on notice from the shelves nearby which were full of chairs and tables,
sofas, bedsteads, and other articles of furniture.
Then there were many dolls themselves of all kinds and from all
stations in life.
There were various other samples of his handicraft besides dolls and
dolls’ houses in Caleb Plummer’s room. There were Noah’s Arks in which
the birds and beasts were an uncommonly tight fit, I assure you.
There were scores of little carts, which, when the wheels went round,
performed most doleful music. There were small fiddles and drums, and
no end of cannon, shields and spears.
There were little fellows in red breeches who would tumble down head
first along a piece of tape. There were old gentlemen dolls who would
fly over trapeze bars when pressed in the right place. There were
beasts of all sorts; horses, in particular, of every breed, from the
little spotted gray on four legs, to the thoroughbred rocked on his
highest mettle.
[Illustration: THERE WERE HOUSES IN IT, FURNISHED AND UNFURNISHED,
FOR DOLLS OF ALL STATIONS IN LIFE]
There were dozens and dozens of other little toys, but you already can
imagine how the room looked.
In the midst of all these objects, Caleb and his daughter sat at work;
the blind girl busy as a doll’s dressmaker; Caleb painting a desirable
doll’s family mansion.
“So you were out in the rain last night, Father, in your beautiful new
great-coat,” said Caleb’s daughter.
“In my beautiful new great-coat,” answered Caleb, glancing toward a
clothes-rack in the room on which the burlap garment was carefully hung
to dry.
“How glad I am you bought it, Father! And such a stylish tailor!”
“It’s too good for me,” said Caleb.
The blind girl rested from her work and laughed with delight. “Too
good, Father! What can be too good for you?”
“I’m half ashamed to wear it, though,” said Caleb, watching the effect
of what he said on her brightening face, “upon my word! When I hear the
boys and people say behind me, ‘Hallo! Here’s a swell!’ I don’t know
which way to look. And when the beggar wouldn’t go away last night;
and when I said I am a very common man, said, ‘No, Your Honor! Bless
Your Honor, don’t say that!’ I was quite ashamed. I really felt as if I
hadn’t a right to wear it.”
Happy blind girl! How merry she was with the idea!
“I see you, Father,” she said, clasping her hands, “as plainly as if I
had the eyes I never want when you are with me. A blue coat----”
“Bright blue,” said Caleb.
“Yes, yes! Bright blue!” exclaimed the girl, turning up her radiant
face; “the color I can just remember in the blessed sky! You told me it
was blue before. A bright blue coat----”
“Made loose to the figure,” suggested Caleb.
“Yes! loose to the figure!” cried the blind girl, laughing heartily;
“and in it, you, dear Father, with your merry eye, your smiling face,
your free step, and your dark hair--looking so young and handsome!”
“There! There!” said Caleb, “I shall be vain presently.”
“I think you are already!” cried the blind girl, pointing at him in her
glee. “I know you, Father! Ha, ha, ha! I’ve found you out, you see!”
How different the picture in her mind from Caleb as he sat observing
her. She had spoken of his free step. She was right in that. For years
and years he had never once crossed their threshold with his own slow
pace, but with a footfall free and sprightly, for her to hear; and
never, even when his heart was heaviest, had he forgotten the light
tread that was to render her own so cheerful and courageous.
“There we are,” said Caleb, falling back a step or two to better judge
his work. “It’s a pity the whole front of this doll’s house opens at
once! If there was only a staircase in it, now, and regular doors to
go in at! But that’s the worst of my work, I’m always trying to make
believe!”
“You are speaking quite softly. Are you tired, Father?”
“Tired?” echoed Caleb with a great burst of enthusiasm. “What should
tire me, Bertha? I was never tired. What does it mean?”
To give greater force to his words, he checked himself in the middle of
a yawn, and began to hum a song. He sang it with a pretended care-free
manner that made his face look a thousand times more meagre and more
thoughtful than before.
_Tackleton Comes In_
Just then Tackleton put his head in at the door. “What! You’re singing,
are you?” he thundered. “Go it! I can’t sing!”
Nobody would have suspected that he could. He hadn’t a singing face by
any means.
“I can’t afford to sing,” said Tackleton. “I’m glad you can. I hope
you can afford to work, too. Hardly time for both, I should think.”
Caleb turned toward his daughter, and said in a low tone, “If you could
only see him, Bertha, how he’s winking at me. Such a man to joke! You’d
think, if you didn’t know him, he was in earnest--wouldn’t you now?”
The blind girl smiled and nodded.
“The bird that can sing and won’t sing, must be made to sing,” grumbled
Tackleton. “What about the owl that can’t sing, and oughtn’t to sing,
and will sing. Is there anything that he should be made to do?”
“The way he’s winking at me this moment!” whispered Caleb to his
daughter. “Oh, my gracious!”
“Always merry and light-hearted with us!” cried the smiling Bertha.
“Oh, you’re there, are you?” answered Tackleton. “Poor idiot!”
He really did believe she was an idiot; and, strange to say, he thought
her an idiot because she was fond of him.
“Well! being there, how are you?” said Tackleton, in his grudging way.
“Oh, well; quite well. And as happy as even you could wish me to be--as
happy as you would make the whole world, if you could.”
“Poor idiot!” muttered Tackleton. “No gleam of reason! Not a gleam!”
The blind girl took his hand, and held it a moment in her own two
hands, and laid her cheek against it tenderly, before releasing it.
There was so much affectionate gratitude in the act, that Tackleton
himself was moved to say, in a milder growl than usual:
“What’s the matter now?”
“I stood the little plant beside my pillow when I went to sleep last
night, and remembered it in my dreams. When the day came, and the
glorious red sun--the red sun, Father?”
“Red in the mornings and in the evenings, Bertha,” said poor Caleb,
with a woeful glance at his employer.
“When it rose, and bright light came into the room, I turned the little
tree towards it, and blessed Heaven for making such precious things,
and blessed you for sending it to cheer me.”
“Whew!” said Tackleton under his breath, “we’re getting on! The next
thing will be the padded cell.”
Meanwhile Caleb looked as if he were uncertain whether Tackleton had
done anything deserving of praise or not. Yet he knew that with his own
hands he had brought the little rose tree home for her so carefully,
and that with his own lips he had made her believe that it was a gift
from Tackleton, in order to keep her from suspecting how much he every
day denied himself to save the money it cost--that she might be the
happier.
“Bertha!” said Tackleton, with for once a show of cordiality, “Come
here.”
“Oh, I can come straight to you. You needn’t guide me!”
“Shall I tell you a secret, Bertha?”
“If you will,” she answered eagerly.
How bright the darkened face looked! How anxious the listening head!
“This is the day on which that spoiled child, John Peerybingle’s wife,
pays her regular visit to you--makes what she calls her ‘picnic’ here,
ain’t it?” said Tackleton, with a look of distaste for the affair.
“Yes,” replied Bertha, “this is the day.”
“I thought so,” said Tackleton. “I should like to join the party.”
“Do you hear that, Father?” cried Bertha in delight.
“Yes, yes, I heard it,” murmured Caleb, with the look somewhat of a
sleepwalker, “but I don’t believe it.”
“You see,” said Tackleton, “I--I want to bring the Peerybingles a
little more into the company of May Fielding, for I am going to be
married to May.”
“Married!” cried the blind girl, starting from him.
“Oh! She’s such a confounded idiot,” muttered Tackleton, “that I was
afraid she’d never comprehend. Ah, yes, Bertha! Married! Church,
parson, clerk, bells, satin, veils, and all the rest of the tomfoolery.
A wedding, you know; a wedding. Don’t you know what a wedding is?”
“I know,” replied the blind girl gently. “I understand.”
“Do you?” muttered Tackleton. “It’s more than I expected.” Then
aloud: “Well, on that account I want to join the party, and bring May
and her mother. I’ll send in a little something or other before the
afternoon--a cold leg of mutton, or some comfortable trifle of that
sort. You’ll expect me?”
“Yes,” she answered, turning away.
“I don’t think you will,” muttered Tackleton, looking at her; “for you
seem to have forgotten all about it already. Caleb!”
“I may venture to say I’m here, I suppose,” thought Caleb. “Sir?”
“Take care she don’t forget what I’ve been saying to her.”
“She never forgets,” returned Caleb; “it’s one of the few things she
ain’t clever in.”
“‘Every man thinks his geese swans’,” observed the toy merchant, with a
shrug of his shoulders. “Poor idiot!”
Having delivered this remark with much contempt, old Gruff and
Tackleton went out.
_Bertha’s Eyes_
Bertha remained where he had left her, lost in thought. The gayety had
vanished from her face, and it was very sad. Three or four times she
shook her head as if bewailing some loss.
It was not until Caleb had been busy for some time in yoking a team
of wooden horses to the tongue of a little wooden wagon by the simple
means of nails, driven through the vital parts of their bodies, that
she drew near his work-bench, and, sitting down beside him, said:
“Father, I am lonely. I want to borrow your eyes.”
“Here they are,” said Caleb. “Always ready. They are more yours than
mine, Bertha, any hour in the four-and-twenty. What shall your eyes do
for you, dear?”
“My patient, willing eyes!” the blind girl said. “Will they look around
the room, Father?”
“All right, no sooner said than done, Bertha.”
“Tell me about it.”
“It’s much the same as usual,” said Caleb. “Homely, but snug. The gay
colors on the walls; the bright flowers on the plates and other dishes;
the shining wood, where there are no panels; the general cheerfulness
and neatness of the building; all make it very pretty.”
Cheerful and neat it was, wherever Bertha’s hands could busy
themselves, but nowhere else were cheerfulness and neatness possible
in the old crazy shed which Caleb’s fancy painted with such pleasant
description.
“You have your working clothes on, and are not so gallant as when you
wear the handsome coat?” said Bertha, touching him.
“Not quite so gallant,” answered Caleb. “Pretty lively, though.”
“Father,” said the blind girl, drawing close to his side, and putting
one arm around his neck, “tell me something about May. Is she very
pretty?”
“She is indeed,” said Caleb. And she was indeed. It was quite a rare
thing for Caleb not to draw upon his imagination.
“I can imagine her,” said Bertha. “Her hair is dark, darker than mine.
Her voice is sweet and musical, I know. I have often loved to hear it.
Her form----”
“There’s not a doll in all the room can compare with her,” said Caleb.
“And her eyes!”
He stopped; for Bertha’s arm around his neck had given a sudden
pressure. He coughed a moment; hammered a moment; then began to sing
the gay song about the sparkling bowl, a thing he always did when in
such difficulties.
“Now, about your friend, our benefactor, Mr. Tackleton--I am never
tired, you know, of hearing about him. Now, was I ever?” she said
hastily.
“Of course not!” answered Caleb. “And with reason.”
“Ah, with much reason!” cried the blind girl so fervently that Caleb
began to doubt if he had been wise in deceiving her.
“Tell me about him, dear father,” said Bertha. “Many times again! His
face is kind and tender, honest and true, I am sure it is! The goodness
in his heart shines out in his countenance.”
“And makes it noble,” added Caleb, who was rather desperate by now.
“And makes it noble!” cried the blind girl. “He is older than May,
Father?”
“Yes, quite a little older; but that don’t signify,” said Caleb.
“Oh, no, Father! Just to think, she can do so much for him when he
grows old and infirm, and can nurse him if he gets ill, and help him in
every way. Will she do all this, Father?”
“No doubt of it,” said Caleb.
“I love her for that, Father. I love her with all my heart,” exclaimed
the blind girl.
_The Carrier’s Cart_
In the meantime there had been a lively scene at John Peerybingle’s,
for little Mrs. Peerybingle naturally couldn’t think of going anywhere
without the baby; and to get the baby ready took time.
Not that there was so much of the baby, but there was so much to do
about it, and it all had to be done by easy stages. For instance, when
the baby was got, by hook or by crook, to a certain point in dressing,
and you might have supposed that another touch or two would finish him
off, and turn him out a tiptop baby, he was unexpectedly extinguished
in a warm nightgown, and hustled off to bed; where he simmered, so to
speak, between sheets and blankets, for the best part of an hour.
From this place of inaction, he was recalled, shining very much, and
roaring violently, to partake of his luncheon. After which, he went to
sleep again.
Then Mrs. Peerybingle took the opportunity to make herself look as fine
as possible, and Miss Slowboy put on her best bib-and-tucker.
By this time, the baby, being all alive again, was dressed by the
united efforts of Mrs. Peerybingle and Miss Slowboy, and put into his
cream-colored coat and flannel cap; and so, in course of time, they all
three got to the door, where John’s old horse stood tearing up the road
with impatient autographs, and from where Boxer might be seen a little
distance down the road, looking back, tempting the horse to come on
without orders.
If you think that Mrs. Peerybingle needed a chair or anything of that
kind to help her climb into the cart, you are mistaken, or you don’t
know John Peerybingle, for before you could have seen him, he lifted
her from the ground; and there she was in place, fresh and rosy,
saying, “Oh, John, how can you!”
“All ready?” asked John, starting off, after Miss Slowboy and the baby
were in place.
“John, you’ve got the basket with the veal-and-ham-pie and other
things?” asked Dot. “If you haven’t, you must turn around again this
very minute.”
“You’re a nice little article,” replied the carrier, “to be talking
about turning round after keeping me a full quarter of an hour behind
my time.”
“I am sorry for it, John,” said Dot, “but I really could not think of
going to Bertha’s--I would not do it, John, on any account--without the
veal-and-ham-pie and things. Whoa!” This last word was addressed to the
horse, who didn’t mind at all.
“Oh, do turn round, John,” begged Mrs. Peerybingle. “Please!”
“It’ll be time enough to do that,” said John, “when I begin to leave
things behind me. The basket’s here safe enough.”
“What a hard-hearted monster you must be, John, not to have said so at
once, and saved me such a turn! I declare I wouldn’t go to Bertha’s
without the veal-and-ham-pie and things for any money. Regularly, once
a fortnight, ever since we have been married we have had our little
picnic. If anything were to go wrong with it, I should almost think we
were never to be lucky again.”
“It was a kind thought in the first place,” said the carrier, “and I
honor you for it, little woman.”
“My dear John,” replied Dot, turning very red, “don’t talk about
honoring me. Good gracious!”
“By-the-bye--” observed the carrier, “that old gentleman----”
Dot looked embarrassed.
“He’s an odd fish,” said the carrier. “I can’t make him out. I don’t
believe there’s any harm in him, though.”
“None at all. I’m--I’m sure there’s none at all.”
“Yes?” said the carrier, with his eyes attracted to her face because
she had spoken so earnestly. “Well, I am glad you feel so certain about
it, because it makes me feel surer. It’s curious he should have taken
it into his head to ask us for lodgings, ain’t it? Things come about so
strangely.”
“So very strangely,” she rejoined in a low voice, scarcely audible.
“However, he’s a good-natured old gentleman,” said John, “and pays
as a gentleman, and I think his word is to be relied upon, like a
gentleman’s. I had quite a long talk with him this morning. He can
hear me better already he says, as he gets more used to my voice. He
told me a great deal about himself, and I told him a good deal about
myself; and a rare lot of questions he asked me. I told him about
having two routes, you know, in my business; one day going to the right
from our house and back again, another day going left from our house
and back again (for he’s a stranger, and don’t know the names of the
places about here); and he seemed quite pleased. ‘Why,’ he says, ‘then
I shall be returning your way to-night. I thought I’d be coming in
exactly the opposite direction. That’s capital! I may trouble you for
another lift, perhaps, but I’ll promise not to fall asleep again.’ He
was sound asleep surely! Dot, what are you thinking of?”
“Thinking of, John? I--I was listening to you.”
“Oh! that’s all right!” said the carrier. “I was afraid, from the
look of your face, that I had gone rambling on so long as to set you
thinking of something else. I was very near it, I’ll be bound.”
Dot making no reply, they jogged on for some time in silence. But it
was not very easy to remain silent long in John Peerybingle’s cart, for
everybody on the road had something to say, though it might only be,
“How are you?” and indeed it was very often nothing else. Sometimes
passengers on foot or on horseback plodded on a little way beside the
cart just for the pleasure of having a chat.
Then, too, everybody knew Boxer, all along the road--especially the
fowls and pigs, who, when they saw him coming, running with his body
all on one side and his ears pricked up inquisitively, would make
tracks and not wait for any nearer acquaintance. Wherever he went,
somebody or other might cry, “Hello! Here’s Boxer!” and with that, out
came at least two or three other somebodies to bid John Peerybingle and
his pretty wife good-day.
The packages and parcels to be delivered were as numerous as usual, and
it required many stops to give them out. This was not the worst part
of the journey by any means. Some people were so full of wonder about
their parcels, and other people so full of directions about the parcels
they were sending off by John, and John took so keen an interest in all
the parcels, that it was as good as a play, and Dot thoroughly enjoyed
it, as she looked on from her seat in the cart.
[Illustration: THEY JOGGED ON FOR SOME TIME IN SILENCE]