THE WASHING DAY.
Monday morning was hopelessly wet. The rain came down in sheets, and the
garden looked like a pond. But Peggy was delighted. “It’s such a good
washing day,” she explained to her aunt, “and all my doll’s things are
so black.”
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Aunt Euphemia suggested that Janet would allow the washing to go on in
the kitchen; and Peggy at once ran away to fetch the doll’s clothes and
her little tub, and carry them all to the kitchen. Janet was very
pleased. She put the tub on a stool, so that it should be just the right
height for Peggy to wash at, and filled the tub with nice soapy hot
water.
Then she pinned up Peggy’s sleeves to her shoulders, and together they
undressed the doll (which was a baby one, in long white robes), and laid
its clothes in a heap on a chair.
Peggy would have liked to wash them all at once, but Janet told her that
washerwomen did things one at a time, so she consented to do this. The
doll’s long, tucked white robe was the first to go into the tub. It was
not indeed very white, for it had got rather dirty on the railway
journey.
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“Rub it all over with soap, Miss Peggy,” Janet said, and Peggy rubbed on
the soap as hard as she could. How the water fluffed up! it almost
filled the tub, and Peggy had to part the frothy suds away with her hand
to see to rub the cloth. After the robe had been well washed, Janet gave
Peggy a basin full of clean water to rinse the soap out of it, and then
she took a ball like a big blue cherry, wrapped it in a bit of muslin,
and shook it about in the water. The water became bright blue too!
“Now, Miss Peggy, put the robe in,” said Janet. Peggy was afraid to do
it; she thought it would come out bright blue. But Janet assured her it
would only have a nice bluish look that would make the white whiter; and
Peggy believed her, and dipped the robe in the blue. It came out as
white and nice as possible.
Then Janet hung it before the kitchen stove to dry, and Peggy saw that
on the stove Janet had put the dearest little iron to heat.
“Am I to iron it out my own self, Janet?” she asked.
“Oh yes, Miss Peggy, that you are.”
It took only a few minutes for the frock to dry, and then Janet put a
blanket with a sheet over it upon the lid of a large box, and gave the
box to Peggy for an ironing table.
The little iron was not at all difficult to manage, and Peggy found that
it was delightful to squeeze all the creases out of her doll’s robe. It
looked as good as new when it was done.
“Why, Janet, Belinda won’t ever need new robes at all; I can go on
washing and washing them,” Peggy said.
There remained, however, all Belinda’s under-clothes to be washed; and
before they were half finished, Peggy began to think that washing was
rather hard work.
“My hands feel so queer, Janet,” she said, drawing them out of the soapy
water. They looked indeed most strange; the skin was all crinkled up in
the funniest way. “Oh, look!” Peggy cried in dismay.
Janet assured her they would come right in a very short time. “But I’m
thinking you’ve washed enough, Miss Peggy, for one day; maybe I’ll
finish it for you,” she said.
Peggy wasn’t altogether sorry. “Well, Janet, if you will be so kind as
to finish for me, I will go and listen to my shell,” she said, “and
perhaps my hands will stop feeling funny.”
There was a small library at Seafield where Peggy was allowed to play by
herself. She liked the room much better than the drawing-room, because
there were such lots of books with nice pictures in them. Those she
liked best were Hume’s “History,” with pictures of the kings and queens,
and Blair’s “Grave,” with illustrations by a man called William Blake.
Peggy used to spread the large book upon the floor and pore over the
pictures. She didn’t understand them, but that only made them more
interesting. To-day, instead of looking at the pictures, she got her red
shell, and sat down on the corner of the sofa holding the shell to her
ear. The rushing sound in the shell was just like the noise of the sea
outside, and Peggy listened to it for a long time. Then getting a little
tired of this, she went to the window and looked out. The rain had
stopped, and the sun was beginning to come out. The thrushes were
singing as if they liked the rain, and Peggy thought it would be nice to
go out and see what it felt like also. So she went out to the front
door, and stood there looking out. Then she stepped out on to the
gravel; then she ran a little bit down the avenue; then she came to the
gate and looked out at the sea; and then a new thought struck her—why
should she not look to see if she could find any lovely red shells on
the beach? The tide was out; there was a stretch of sand with little
pools and rocks covered with seaweed: surely in these pools or on the
sands she might find a red shell for herself! This was stupid of Peggy,
for shells like that the captain gave her come from tropic seas, not
from our own sea; but she did not know this.
Out Peggy skipped along the shining sand. It was firm and nice to run
on, and she wondered she had not done this long ago; it was far nicer
than the garden. Her feet made tracks on the sand like the footprint
Crusoe saw, she thought. Then she came to a pool with little seaweedy
rocks in it. The first thing she saw there made her stand still with
interest: it was a lot of things like little red flowers growing on the
edge of the rock. But when she put her hand down and tried to get one,
she found it was alive; and when she touched it, it drew in all its
waving red feelers, and became like a lump of red-currant jelly fixed to
the rock! “I hope I didn’t hurt it,” Peggy thought. She leant over the
pool and watched it till it cautiously put out first one feeler and then
another, and at last it looked as pretty as ever again and as much
alive. Peggy wondered what it was called. Then down on the slushy sand
at her feet Peggy saw a great big lump of jelly, six times as large as
the little one in the pool. It didn’t look very nice, she thought, but
she wondered if, when it was put into the water, it would bloom out like
the other. The only way to find this out was to lift it into the pool,
but Peggy hesitated about doing this. Then she saw a long flat stone
like a slate lying near, and taking this in her hand, she tried to slip
it under the “jelly beast,” as she called it. But the jelly beast didn’t
seem to like being disturbed, and it sank down and down into the soft
sand till it almost disappeared. Peggy became more and more anxious to
get it. She dug her slate down into the sand, and at last, with a great
effort, lifted the jelly beast, along with a great lump of sand, and
flung it into the pool. Then she sat down to watch it. To her great joy
it began, just like the other one, to put out one feeler after another,
till it lay there at the bottom of the pond like a big pink rose. “Oh,
it’s lovely; I _do_ want to have it for my own!” she cried. “I wonder if
I would be allowed to have it in my tub.” She bent down to look nearer,
and under the fringe of seaweed suddenly she saw something shining red.
She plunged her hand down and grabbed the prize. But, oh dear me! the
next moment she screamed and screamed. It was a large red crab she had
caught at, and the crab had caught her! Have you seen the crabs lying in
the fish-shop windows twitching their claws? They look harmless enough,
but with these claws they can hold on in the most terrible way, once
they catch hold of you. Oh, how Peggy screamed! She ran towards the
house splashing through the pools, with the big red crab hanging on to
her hand. She was in an agony of pain and terror. The sound of her
screams brought James running from the garden. Peggy ran straight to
him, calling out for help; and James caught up a stone, and gave the
crab such a blow on its claw that it let go in a moment, and fell to the
ground. Peggy’s finger was bleeding a good deal, and he took out his own
handkerchief and bound it up for her, and then took her other hand and
led her, still sobbing, up to the house.
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“We’ll gang into Janet, missie,” he said wisely. He knew that Janet was
a more comforting person than Martin, and Peggy thought so too. Janet
took her on her knee, and kissed her and wiped her eyes, and looked at
the poor nipped finger till gradually Peggy stopped crying. Then Janet
took her to the pump, and washed her face and hands, and began to tell
her a funny story about a crab that had nipped her own finger once, till
Peggy found herself laughing instead of crying.
When she was quite happy again, Janet said to Peggy that they would go
together and tell Aunt Euphemia all about it. Peggy was a little
frightened, but Janet said she must do it, and together they went into
the drawing-room.
Here it seemed to Peggy that Janet took all the blame on herself. She
told Aunt Euphemia how she had allowed Peggy to go away from the
kitchen, and had not looked after her, and how Peggy had gone out alone,
and then she told the sad story of the crab. And Aunt Euphemia, instead
of being angry, accepted the excuses Janet made, for she was very fond
of Janet, and never thought anything she did was wrong.
“Maybe, ma’am, you would let me take Miss Peggy to the shore myself?”
Janet asked; “then she’d get no mischief.”
“Indeed, Janet, I see she must never be left alone for a minute; so when
your work is done, you may certainly take the child out with you,” said
Aunt Euphemia.
“Come away then, Miss Peggy,” said Janet; “ye’ll bide wi’ me till I make
the currant tart, and in the afternoon we can gang till the shore.”
Peggy ran off to the kitchen as happy as possible to make the currant
tart, and Janet told her that they would go down to the shore together,
carrying Peggy’s tub, and fill it with all manner of sea beasts, and
bring them back to the house. And wasn’t this a delightful suggestion?
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