Transcriber's note: Unusual and inconsistent spelling is as printed.
[Illustration: SHE WENT ONE STEP DEEPER STILL, BENT FORWARD AND
CAUGHT THE LITTLE GIRL IN A FIRM GRIP.]
Little "Why-Because"
By
AGNES GIBERNE
Author of "Sun, Moon and Stars," "Five Little Birdies,"
"Stories of the Abbey Precincts," "Through the Lynn," etc.
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY DUDLEY TENNANT
LONDON
THE RELIGIOUS TRACT SOCIETY
4 Bouverie Street and 65 St. Paul's Churchyard E. C.
CONTENTS.
[Illustration]
CHAPTER
I. FIDGETS
II. QUITE IMPOSSIBLE
III. THE "VICARAGE DOG"
IV. LITTLE IVY
V. THE WONDERFUL NEWS
VI. BUTTONS AND BUTTON-HOLES
VII. ANOTHER SIDE OF IVY
VIII. HECLA IN CHARGE
IX. SUCH A TEMPTATION
X. GREAT DANGER
XI. CONSEQUENCES
XII. THAT DELIGHTFUL TOY-SHOP
XIII. ONLY THINK
LITTLE "WHY-BECAUSE"
[Illustration]
CHAPTER I
Fidgets
"AUNTIE, what does 'ruthless' mean?"
"Why do you wish to know, Hecla?"
"I saw it in a book."
"You shall show me the passage by-and-by. Just now you have to work."
Hecla was hemming a small pocket-handkerchief, with red edges. She
liked doing this, because it was for "Chris," but she did not love work
for its own sake. She liked nothing which meant sitting still.
Hers was a rather curious name. She had been born in Iceland, under the
shadow, so to speak, of Mount Hecla. That was why she was so called.
She sat at a small table in the middle of the room, with her back to
the window, and Miss Storey, a slender, small, middle-aged lady, was
near the fire. At Miss Storey's feet lay a fine black Persian cat, fast
asleep; and in the window hung a gilt cage, the canary within ever
hopping from perch to perch, except when it stopped to feed or to sing.
Sunshine streamed full upon the cage and upon the draped white
curtains. It was a sunny day, but very cold, and patches of snow in the
front garden told of a recent fall.
Miss Storey kept very upright and very still, and her small delicate
fingers scarcely seemed to move as they knitted. But Hecla was neither
upright nor still. She was a restless little mortal; quite as restless
as the canary in its cage. She too was slim, and also rather tall for
her age; and she had an anxious way of wrinkling her forehead, as if
trying to do something beyond her power. She wore a brown holland
pinafore over a brown stuff frock, and her hair hung in limp rats'
tails down her back.
"Auntie, why does Chris learn Latin, and me not?"
"You may perhaps learn Latin some day, my dear. It is not necessary for
you at present."
Hecla managed five stitches in silence.
"Auntie, isn't it most dreadfully cruel of the blackbirds to eat worms?
Why don't they eat crumbs—that would be ever so much nicer? I do think
it's cruel, don't you?"
"No more cruel than it is of Hecla to eat mutton."
Another pause. Hecla pushed her needle in and out.
"Auntie—"
"Go on with your work, dear."
"I'm going. Auntie—"
"My dear child, you will finish much sooner if you do not talk. Try
now!"
Hecla did try. She screwed her forehead into all sorts of shapes,
huddled herself into a bunch, and asked no questions for nearly two
whole minutes. Her chair kept up a gentle creaking.
"You need not fidget, Hecla."
There were no sounds for quite thirty seconds. Then she forgot. Out
went one foot and the other curled itself round the leg of her chair.
Her elbow sprawled over the table, and down went a reel of cotton. It
rolled away, so of course she had to run after it; and when she came
back and plumped into her chair—crash followed.
"My dear Hecla!"
"Oh, auntie, it's my work-box! I'm so sorry!"
"Pick it up carefully. Then you must try to be quiet."
Picking up the fallen box and putting its contents straight was easy.
But to be quiet—there lay the difficulty. Do what Hecla would, and try
as she might, it always seemed as if the one impossible thing for her
was to keep still.
"I've done one whole side of my handkerchief, auntie." She jumped
up—and bang! again. Down went her chair, backwards.
"Hecla!"
"Oh dear! Things will tumble so, auntie."
"Not unless they are made."
"I didn't try—truly, I didn't!" Hecla's forehead was all over crinkles.
"No, dear. But did you try not?"
Hecla was not sure. She brought the handkerchief to her aunt, and stood
waiting while Miss Storey put on her glasses. But you must not suppose
for a moment that Hecla stood still and upright, like a soldier.
Nothing of the sort! First she balanced herself on one leg, and then
she balanced herself on the other; now she clasped her hands behind her
back, and then she stretched them high over her head; next, she gave a
skip, and pranced round to the back of Miss Storey's chair.
"Stand still."
Hecla said "Yes," and danced back.
"It is not badly done. One more side, and Elisabeth shall take you out."
That brought another prance. "Oh, I do like going out, and I love going
with Elisabeth."
"But you must do as Elisabeth tells you."
"Oh yes, of course, auntie."
She sat down, began again, did six stitches, and sighed. "They are such
long sides!"
"I wonder what you would feel if you had all round a great sheet to
hem. I did that when I wasn't much older than you are now."
Hecla was deeply interested. She put down her work, and gazed earnestly
at Miss Storey.
"Weren't you much older than me, auntie?"
"I was just ten years old."
"Ah, but I'm only eight and a half. I'm 'xactly eight and a half."
"Eighteen months is not so very much difference."
Privately Hecla thought the difference enormous. She felt that at ten
years old she would be very nearly grown-up. But she only asked, "What
made you hem the sheet? Was it—for punishment?"
"No, not at all. The sheet had to be hemmed, and I wanted to help my
mother."
Hecla considered the question with knitted brows. She felt convinced
that her aunt must have been an extraordinarily good little girl, far
superior to all little girls whom she had known, especially superior to
herself. Hecla was most anxious to be good, and her great desire was to
please everybody; but the idea of hemming even one side of anything so
vast as a sheet—that simply lay outside the world of things possible!
"Weren't you obliged to do it?" she inquired hopelessly.
"No, certainly not. I used to get up in the early morning, and get a
piece done before breakfast."
More and more astonishing. "Not in winter, auntie."
"Yes, in winter."
Hecla gave it up as a hopeless case. She was generally wide-awake
enough at night, but profoundly drowsy in the morning—at least, in
winter mornings.
"I shouldn't like to have to hem a sheet. It would take me—oh, I think
a whole, whole year."
"Not unlikely, at your present rate."
Hecla understood, and felt ashamed. She picked up the handkerchief
which lay at her feet and set to work anew. Silence actually lasted
for nearly five minutes, by which time she felt that she was almost
rivalling Miss Storey's past goodness.
It was a fair-sized room in which they sat, crowded with heavy
old-fashioned furniture. Each chair, not in use, stood rigidly with
its back against the wall, only never touching it, for fear the pretty
paper might be rubbed or scratched. The semi-grand piano—on which
nobody ever played, for Hecla practised on another—was laden with
handsome old china and framed photographs, always arranged in the same
manner. On the mantelpiece were a number of valuable vases, placed in
a row. An ornamental corner bookcase held many handsome calf-bound
volumes, each of which had invariably the same neighbours.
Miss Storey and her sister disliked changes. They had lived here all
their lives, seldom going away even for a short time; and they did
their best to keep everything both inside and outside the house exactly
what it had always been. That, at least, was Miss Storey's aim; and
whether Miss Anne felt the same or not, she seldom differed from her
sister.
Until the coming of little Hecla, some eighteen months before this
date, nothing had disturbed the even tenor of their lives since Miss
Storey's girlhood. Everything in the house had gone steadily on, as if
by clockwork—like the aged timepiece in the hall, which never was known
to lag behind or to run ahead.
Nothing and nobody under that roof had ever been in a hurry, or
afflicted with fidgets. Certainly not Miss Storey, or Miss Anne Storey,
or the elderly servant who had done most of the work, or the stolid
young girl who helped her, or the silent old charwoman who sometimes
came for a day's work, or even the dignified Persian cat. All had gone
on calmly, smoothly, placidly.
But when their only sister died, leaving one little girl alone
and friendless, it became their duty to take her. And they did
not hesitate. They determined at once to have the child, though
they—especially Miss Storey—felt that it would be a trial.
And it no doubt was a trial. Though they were very fond of the child,
she worried them a good deal, without in the least meaning to do so.
Miss Storey was not really old. Many a woman of her age is still active
and vigorous, and even young, and Miss Anne was many years the younger
of the two. Still, they had lived so long in one particular way, that
it was not easy for them to change.
And with the coming of little Hecla, an eager, affectionate, talkative,
restless child of seven, accustomed to be made much of and to get her
own way more than was perhaps wise, things were a good deal altered. It
could not be otherwise.
For years and years the sisters had lived in quiet, and had had
everything about them neat and regular and orderly. All at once, into
the midst of this placid household came a little fidgety sprite, never
for a moment still, never, if she could help it, for a moment silent,
always on the go, always wanting to do something fresh, perpetually
asking questions, never putting anything away into its right place,
unable to write without scattering ink-spots, unable to kiss them
without rumpling their nice white frills. It really was something of a
trial at first even to Miss Anne, and it was a very great trial to Miss
Storey. Not even eighteen months of it had made the elder sister grow
used to the new state of things.
Do what they might, they could not shape the child into their own ways.
She really was on the whole a good little girl, anxious to do what was
right. But she forgot words of reproof almost as soon as they were
spoken; and it seemed as if she positively had to dance and skip and
prance and fidget and chatter the whole day long without a break.
Perhaps the aunts had done much the same in their childhood, and had
forgotten; or, if Miss Anne remembered, she never said so. Perhaps
they had been naturally less restless. There is a great difference
between different children, just as there is a great difference between
different grown-up people.
Hecla never for a moment dreamt what a trial her presence in the house
was to her Aunt Millicent. She knew that she was always being told not
to fidget, but she supposed that to be only because she had to learn to
be proper and quiet.
Sometimes she wondered why the aunts liked to sit so still, and to move
so slowly; and why she might not jump up and down and race round and
round just as often as she felt inclined. But she never questioned in
her little heart their real kindness and love; and it never so much as
came into her head that she could be a trouble to either of them.