Little Meg's Friends in Need
These were hard times for little Meg. The weather was not severely
cold yet, or the children would have been bitterly starved up in their
cold attic, where Meg was obliged to be very careful of the coal. All
her mother's clothes were in pledge now, as well as her own and
Robin's; and it seemed as if it would soon come to pawning their poor
bed and their scanty furniture. Yet Meg kept up a brave spirit, and,
as often as the day was fine enough, took her children out into the
streets, loitering about the cook-shops, where the heat from the cellar
kitchens lent a soothing warmth to their shivering bodies.
About the middle of December the first sharp frost set in, and Meg felt
herself driven back from this last relief. She had taken the children
out as usual, but she had no shoes to put on their feet, and nothing
but their thin old rags to clothe them with. Robin's feet were red and
blue with cold, like her own; but Meg could not see her own, and did
not feel the cold as much for them as for Robin's. His face had lost a
little of its roundness and freshness, and his black eyes some of their
brightness since his birthday; and poor Meg's heart bled at the sight
of him as he trudged along the icy pavement of the streets at her side.
There was one cook-shop from which warm air and pleasant odours came up
through an iron grating, and Meg hurried on to it to feel its grateful
warmth; but the shutters of the shop were not taken down, and the
cellar window was unclosed. Little Meg turned away sadly, and bent her
bare and aching feet homewards again, hushing baby, who wailed a
pitiful low wail in her ears. Robin, too, dragged himself painfully
along, for he had struck his numbed foot against a piece of iron, and
the wound was bleeding a little. They had turned down a short street
which they had often passed through before, at the end of which was a
small shop, displaying in its window a few loaves of bread, and some
bottles containing different kinds of sweetmeats, such as they had
indulged in sometimes in the palmy days when father was at home. The
door was divided in the middle, and the lower half was closed, while
the upper stood open, giving a full view of the shop within. Meg's old
brown bonnet just rose above the top of the closed half, and her
wistful face turned for a moment towards the tempting sight of a whole
shelf full of loaves; but she was going on slowly, when a kindly voice
hailed her from the dark interior.
'Hollo, little woman!' it shouted, 'I haven't set eyes on you this many
a day. How's Robbie and baby.'
'They're here, sir, thank you,' answered Meg, in a more womanly way
than ever, for she felt very low to-day. 'We're only doing middling,
thank you, sir.'
'Why, father's ship's come in,' said her good-natured friend from the
docks, coming forward and wiping his lips, as if he had just finished a
good meal. 'What makes you be doing only middling?'
'Father didn't come home in the ship,' replied Meg, her voice faltering
a little.
'Come in and tell us all about it,' he said. 'Hollo, Mrs Blossom! just
step this way, if you please.'
There was a little kitchen at the back of the shop, from which came a
very savoury smell of cooking, as the door opened, and a round, fat,
rosy-cheeked woman, of about fifty years of age, looked out
inquiringly. She came a step or two nearer the door, as Meg's friend
beckoned to her with a clasp-knife he held in his hand.
'These little 'uns look cold and hungry, don't they, Mrs Blossom?' he
said. 'You smell something as smells uncommon good, don't you?' he
asked of Meg, who had sniffed a little, unconsciously.
'Yes, please, sir,' answered Meg.
'I've ate as much as ever I can eat for to-day,' said her friend, 'so
you give 'em the rest, Mrs Blossom, and I'll be off. Only just tell me
why father's not come home in his ship.'
'He was took bad on the other side of the world,' replied Meg, looking
up tearfully into his good-tempered face, 'and they was forced to leave
him behind in a hospital. That's why.'
'And what's mother doing?' he asked.
'Mother's dead,' she answered.
'Dead!' echoed her friend. 'And who's taking care of you young 'uns?'
'There's nobody to take care of us but God,' said Meg, simply and
softly.
'Well, I never!' cried Mrs Blossom, seizing the baby out of Meg's, and
clasping it in her own arms. 'I never heard anything like that.'
'Nor me,' said the man, catching up Robin, and bearing him off into the
warm little kitchen, where a saucepan of hot tripe was simmering on the
hob, and a round table, with two plates upon it, was drawn up close to
the fire. He put Robin down on Mrs Blossom's seat, and lifted Meg into
a large arm-chair he had just quitted.
'I guess you could eat a morsel of tripe,' he said, ladling it out in
overflowing spoonfuls upon the plates. 'Mrs Blossom, some potatoes, if
you please, and some bread; and do you feed the baby whilst the little
woman gets her dinner. Now, I'm off. Mrs Blossom, you settle about
'em coming here again.'
He was off, as he said, in an instant. Meg sat in her large arm-chair,
grasping a big knife and fork in her small hands, but she could not
swallow a morsel at first for watching Robin and the baby, who was
sucking in greedily spoonfuls of potatoes, soaked in the gravy. Mrs
Blossom urged her to fall to, and she tried to obey; but her pale face
quivered all over, and letting fall her knife and fork, she hid it in
her trembling hands.
'If you please, ma'am, I'm only so glad,' said little Meg as soon as
she could command her voice. 'Robbie and baby were so hungry, and I
hadn't got anythink to give 'em.'
'I suppose you aint hungry yourself neither,' observed Mrs Blossom, a
tear rolling down a little channel between her round cheeks and her
nose.
'Oh, but ain't I!' said Meg, recovering herself still more. 'I've had
nothink since last night, and then it were only a crust as Kitty give
me.'
'Well, dear, fall to, and welcome,' answered Mrs Blossom. 'And who's
Kitty?'
'It's a grown-up person as lives in the back attic,' answered Meg,
after eating her first mouthful. 'She helps me all she can. She's
took all my things to the pawn-shop for me, because she can get more
money than me. She's as good as can be to us.'
'Are all your things gone to pawn?' inquired Mrs Blossom.
'I've got baby's cloak and hood left,' she replied mournfully. 'He
wouldn't give more than a shilling for 'em, and I thought it wasn't
worth while parting with 'em for that. I tried to keep Robbie's cap
and pinafore, that were as good as new, but I were forced to let 'em
go. And our shoes, ma'am,' added Meg, taking Robin's bare and bleeding
foot into her hand: 'see what poor Robbie's done to himself.'
'Poor little dear!' said Mrs Blossom pityingly. 'I'll wash his poor
little feet for him when he's finished his dinner. You get on with
yours likewise, my love.'
Meg was silent for some minutes, busily feasting on the hot tripe, and
basking in the agreeable warmth of the cosy room. It was a wonderfully
bright little spot for that quarter of London, but the brightness was
all inside. Outside, at about three feet from the window, rose a wall
so high as to shut out every glimpse of the sky; but within everything
was so clean and shining, even to the quarried floor, that it was
difficult to believe in the mud and dirt of the streets without. Mrs
Blossom herself looked fresh and comely, like a countrywoman; but there
was a sad expression on her round face, plain enough to be seen when
she was not talking.
'My dear,' she said when Meg laid down her knife and fork, and assured
her earnestly that she could eat no more, 'what may you be thinking of
doing?'
'I don't hardly know,' she answered. 'I expect father home every day.
If I could only get enough for the children, and a crust or two for me,
we could get along. But we can't do nothink more, I know.'
'You'll be forced to go into the house,' said Mrs Blossom.
'Oh, no, no, no!' cried little Meg, drawing Robin to her, and with a
great effort lifting him on to her lap, where he almost eclipsed her.
'I couldn't ever do that. We'll get along somehow till father comes
home.'
'Where is it you live?' inquired Mrs Blossom.
'Oh, it's not a nice place at all,' said Meg, who dreaded having any
visitor. 'It's along Rosemary Lane, and down a street, and then down
another smaller street, and up a court. That's where it is.'
Mrs Blossom sat meditating a few minutes, with the baby on her lap,
stretching itself lazily and contentedly before the fire; while Meg,
from behind Robin, watched her new friend's face anxiously.
'Well,' she said, 'you come here again to-morrow, and I'll ask Mr
George what's to be done. That was Mr George as was here, and he's my
lodger. He took you in, and maybe he'll agree to do something.'
'Thank you, ma'am,' said Meg gratefully. 'Please, have you any little
children of your own?'
The tears ran faster now down Mrs Blossom's cheeks, and she was obliged
to wipe them away before she could answer.
'I'd a little girl like you,' she said, 'ten years ago. Such a pretty
little girl, so rosy, and bright, and merry, as all the folks round
took notice of. She was like the apple of my eye, she was.'
'What was she called?' asked Meg, with an eager interest.
'Why, the neighbours called her Posy because her name was Blossom,'
said Mrs Blossom, smiling amidst her tears. 'We lived out in the
country, and I'd a little shop, and a garden, and kept fowls, and pigs,
and eggs; fresh eggs, such as the like are never seen in this part o'
London. Posy they called her, and a real posy she was.'
Mrs Blossom paused, and looked sadly down upon the happy baby, shaking
her head as if she was sorely grieved at heart.
'And Posy died?' said Meg softly.
'No, no!' cried Mrs Blossom. 'It 'ud been a hundred times better if
she'd died. She grew up bad. I hope you'll never live to grow up bad,
little girl. And she ran away from home; and I lost her, her own
mother that had nursed her when she was a little baby like this. I'd
ha' been thankful to ha' seen her lying dead afore my eyes in her
coffin.'
'That's bad,' said little Meg, in a tone of trouble and tender pity.
'It's nigh upon three years ago,' continued Mrs Blossom, looking down
still upon the baby, as if she were telling her; 'and I gave up my shop
to my son's wife, and come here, thinking maybe she'd step in some day
or other to buy a loaf of bread or something, because I knew she'd come
up to London. But she's never so much as passed by the
window--leastways when I've been watching, and I'm always watching. I
can't do my duty by Mr George for staring out o' the window.'
'Watching for Posy?' said little Meg.
'Ay, watching for Posy,' repeated Mrs Blossom, 'and she never goes by.'
'Have you asked God to let her go by?' asked Meg.
'Ay, my dear,' said Mrs Blossom. 'I ask Him every blessed day o' my
life.'
'Then she's sure to come some day,' said Meg joyfully. 'There's no
mistake about that, because Jesus says it in the Bible, and He knows
all about God. You've asked Him, and He'll do it. It's like father
coming. I don't know whether he'll come to-day or to-morrow, or when
it'll be; but he will come.'
'God bless and love you!' cried Mrs Blossom, suddenly putting baby down
in Meg's lap, and clasping all three of them in her arms. 'I'll
believe it, I will. He's sent you to give me more heart. God love you
all!'
It was some while before Mrs Blossom regained her composure; but when
she did, and it was time for Meg and the children to go home before it
was quite dark, she bound up Robin's foot in some rags, and gave Meg a
loaf to carry home with her, bidding her be sure to come again the next
day. Meg looked back to the shop many times before turning the corner
of the street, and saw Mrs Blossom's round face, with its white cap
border, still leaning over the door, looking after them, and nodding
pleasantly each time she caught Meg's backward glance. At the corner
they all three turned round, Meg holding up baby as high as her arms
could reach, and after this last farewell they lost sight of their new
friend.