COUNTRY MUD
IT was a mild afternoon towards the end of February. Sundale Station
looked deserted when the London train dashed into it. Only a porter
stood on the platform to welcome any arrivals, and when the one
passenger proved to be our Peggy, hugging her small box, he looked at
her with grim humour.
"I'm paid by the Company to wait on you, Miss, so hand over. Where are
you going? Not from this part, are you?"
"I'm going to my place."
Peggy was in nowise daunted.
The journey had been a delightful one. Mrs. Jones and Mrs. Creak had
both stolen a short respite from their busy life to come to the station
and see her off. She had received a parting present from both of them.
Mrs. Jones had presented her with a fancy workbox, gay with painted
flowers, and Mrs. Creak a stout serviceable umbrella.
Peggy thought there never was such a happy girl as herself; not a
shadow dimmed the future. And she looked up into the porter's face now
with such a beaming smile, that an answering one appeared on his.
"Well, where's that?"
"Ivy Cottage—Miss Churchhill's."
"Oh, those be the two fresh ladies come down last Monday. You wait a
bit, and I'll get my barrow and go with you. 'Tis only half a mile—a
little more."
So a quarter of an hour later Peggy stood before her new home. Perhaps
it did not quite come up to what her fancy depicted. It was a small
red-brick house standing back from the road, with a front garden edged
with trees and shrubs. Straw and newspaper littered the front path, the
windows were curtainless and blindless, and the front door stood open,
showing furniture blocking the way.
Peggy walked up the path with smiling assurance; then she paused, for
down on the floor, at the foot of a flight of steep narrow stairs, sat
Miss Churchhill, with dishevelled hair, and a handkerchief up to her
face.
When she saw Peggy she sprang to her feet.
"Why, Peggy, we have completely forgotten you! Come in. Is this your
box? How much is it? Sixpence. Thank you, porter; put it down here. We
are all in confusion. Good afternoon. Now, Peggy, you must help us, for
we hardly know what to do first, and I am in the agonies of toothache."
She tried to speak brightly, but Peggy's quick eyes rested on her face.
"Please 'm, you've bin cryin'. I'm wery sorry for yer; but, please 'm,
have you tried brown paper and vinegar with a little pepper? Aunt used
to find it eased her faceache wonderful, and Mrs. Jones, please 'm,
used to soak her brown paper in gin. She said it was first-rate."
Miss Churchhill began to laugh; Peggy's interest and earnestness when
she had hardly set foot inside the house comforted and cheered her.
"Joyce!" she cried. "Our little maid has come."
Downstairs came a bright-faced dark-haired girl. She had an apron over
her black dress, and her skirt was pinned up. She smiled at Peggy.
"There's a lot to be done, so you must help us as quickly as you can.
The woman who has been cleaning for us had to leave early to-day. We
have got your room ready. Can we get your box up? It is quite a small
one; you take one handle, and I will take the other."
The little room was soon reached. Peggy gazed at it with admiration,
but her eyes remained longest on her dressing-table and looking-glass.
"I was a-wonderin' whether I'd have a glass," she said confidentially
to the youngest Miss Churchhill. "You see 'm, it's rather partic'lar to
me, 'cause of my caps!"
"Oh, of course," Joyce replied, hastily beating a retreat; "now take
your things off, and come downstairs as quick as possible. It is
tea-time."
"My dear Helen," she said, when she joined her sister, "what an
extraordinary specimen you have got hold of."
"She is an original, but I'm hoping she may be a treasure. Don't laugh
at her, Joyce; she takes life in real earnest. She has done me good
already. I was feeling so miserable when she arrived."
"Poor old thing! You're worn out. Shut the front door, and come and
sit down. We shall all feel better after a cup of tea. Do you hear the
kitchen fire crackling? Doesn't that cheer you up?"
"We shall never get our furniture into the rooms," sighed Helen. "We
ought to have sold more, and brought much less."
"I shan't speak to you till we've had tea!"
Joyce went off to the kitchen, singing; then a few minutes after came
back to her sister.
"We haven't a drop of milk in the house. I've forgotten all about it."
"The farm is close; send Peggy."
"So I will."
Joyce ran upstairs. She found Peggy holding out one of her print
dresses, and gazing at it with loving admiration.
"I'm just a-goin' to get into it, please 'm."
"Oh, you needn't do that to-night. Slip on an apron. But I want you
first of all to run up to the farm for some milk. I will show you where
it is. Put on your hat again, and make haste."
Peggy breathlessly obeyed.
Joyce took her outside the gate, and pointed to another large gate on
the opposite side of the road.
"Go through that, and keep to the footpath across the field; then go
through another gate, and you'll reach the farmyard. Get a pint of milk
from Mrs. Green, the farmer's wife, and tell her who sent you. She'll
know then; and it will be all right. Do you quite understand?"
"Yes 'm."
Peggy departed with pleased importance.
She was a long time gone, but at last she reappeared with a very sober
face.
"Come along; where's the milk?" asked Joyce, meeting her at the front
door.
"Please 'm, I haven't got it!"
"Why? Have you spilt it? What is the matter?"
For answer Peggy slowly pulled up her skirt, and displayed one boot,
which she raised in the air for inspection. It was certainly very muddy.
"I had to turn back 'm. It was awful! I never see'd such mud—never! It
ain't like the mud I've bin accustomed to; it sticks! And it got worse,
and a cab-horse wouldn't a-walked through it!"
Joyce stared at her, then lost her patience.
"You stupid girl! It's no good to be afraid of mud in the country. Here
are we waiting for our tea! How do you expect us to get our milk? If
you don't do it, I must."
Tears that had been very near the surface now ran over.
"Please 'm, it's my best boots, and they cost four shillings and
sixpence; but I'll try again 'm."
Peggy choked down a sob, and departed.
Joyce went back to her sister half-amused, half-vexed.
"She thinks no end of her clothes," she said. "If she could only see
what a little guy she looks!"
"Oh, hush, Joyce! I don't think she is half bad-looking. She is very
thin, and has that stunted, wizened appearance that most London
children have, but she has a dear little face. It will be getting dark
if she does not make haste. I never should have thought that mud would
have turned her back."
Poor Peggy was going through worse horrors than mud, and when she
finally arrived with the milk, her hat was awry, her black dress was
covered with dirt, and her eyes nearly starting out of her head with
terror.
Joyce snatched the jug out of her hand, and marched off to the kitchen
without a word; but Helen took pity on her.
"What is the matter, Peggy? You look frightened."
"Oh, please 'm, I've never bin to a farm, and I did go through the mud,
though it was almost a-drownin' of me, and then I come to a gate, and
when I got through, please 'm, it was a wild beast show, only worse,
for they weren't shut up in cages! There was great brown bulls with
'orns 'm, a-tryin' to run at me, and there was pigs as big as sheep,
and great white geese, and a dog barkin' like mad and tryin' to break
his chain to get at me, and awful-lookin' turkeys which I've never seen
alive 'm before, only hung up in shops at Christmas-time, but I knewed
'em by their red beards, but the scandalous noise 'm they made at me,
would frighten the king hisself!
"They all made for me 'm, they did indeed, and there was ducks and
fowls by the hundreds all runnin' under everybody's feet. Please 'm,
I knewed I were in dreadful danger, but I did my dooty faithful, and
thought of your milk. Only what with the sticky mud, and the cocks and
hens, and tryin' to dodge the bulls, and turkeys, and all the rest o'
the wild animals, I fell slap down 'm, and then I give myself up for
lost. I 'ollered, and 'ollered, and then a man run out, and he took the
jug, and was so kind as to tell me I might wait outside the gate, and
he fetched the milk to me hisself.
"And, please 'm, is there no p'lice in the country, for they wouldn't
allow no such goin's-on in London; they be all on the loose and no one
to keep 'em from attacking yer! And, please, 'm, must I go every day to
fetch the milk?"
Peggy's breath gave out. She truly had been nearly frightened out of
her wits.
Helen concealed her amusement, and spoke very kindly.
"We forgot you were a little town girl, Peggy. We will not send you
till you are accustomed to country ways. I don't think the animals
would have hurt you, but I'm sure it must have been very alarming. Now
go upstairs and change your boots, and brush your dress, and then come
down to tea."
Poor Peggy went upstairs a sadder and a wiser girl. She shook her head
at herself in the glass.
"Yer clothes will be ruined, Peg, and you've no more money to buy new
ones. I almost thinks I shan't like the country."
But a minute after, the glory of perching her cap on the top of her
head, and feeling that it had a right to remain there, overcame all her
woes.
She went downstairs with a smiling face, and when she found herself
in a cheerful kitchen, which, though small, was tidy, she again
congratulated herself on her good fortune.
Joyce found her really helpful in getting things to rights, and when
she laid her head on her pillow that night, Peggy added the following
to her evening prayer:
"And, please God, I thank you for bringin me 'ere, and making me into
a proper servant. And I'll try to do my dooty to you and my missuses. And
please help me to do it, for Jesus' sake. Amen."
Perhaps the supreme moment to Peggy was that in which she stood arrayed
the next morning in her clean print gown. What did it matter if it was
faded and old? It was starched, and crackled when she moved.
"Sounds like silk almost," she said to herself; and she certainly swept
downstairs as if she were a princess robed in satin.
Poor little Peggy had never before possessed a dress that had to be
washed. When water was scarce, and soap and soda had to be considered,
it was natural that she could not afford the luxury of a dress that
soiled so easily. A girl going to her first ball could not have taken
more care not to spoil the dainty freshness of her gown, than Peggy did
of her second-hand print dress that morning.
Joyce, coming down to help with the breakfast, returned to her sister
upstairs exploding with laughter.
"Helen, your little maid will be the death of me!"
"What has she done now?"
"She has pinned newspapers all over herself to preserve her gown and
apron. She looks like a walking edition of the 'Times!' And when I
remonstrated, she said the coals and kitchen grate would soil her
clothes. Can't you hear her crackling as she moves about?"
Helen laughed heartily.
"Don't hurt her feelings. I don't think she has ever possessed a cotton
frock before. She will soon get accustomed to it, and, after all, such
extreme cleanliness ought to be encouraged."
In a few days Ivy Cottage presented a tidy aspect. Helen and Joyce
felt that their rooms, if tiny, were cosy and even pretty. And Peggy's
gratification was great when the stairs were carpeted. She took a keen
interest in her new surroundings and learnt to use the possessive case
pretty freely.
It was "my kitchen," "my kettle," "I'm sweepin' my draw'n' room,"
or "dustin' my dinin' room bookcase." Everything—upstairs and
down—belonged to her, and "my house, my garding, and my missuses"
formed the chief topic of conversation with any passing villager. She
found she had a great deal to learn, but she was so willing and anxious
to please, that Joyce, who took her in hand, forgave her ignorance and
awkwardness, and prophesied to her sister that though at present a
rough diamond, she might prove worth her weight in gold.
Mrs. Creak meanwhile looked out anxiously for Peggy's first letter.
The Board School had certainly taught her to read and write, and though
the letter arrived with many an ink-smudge and blot, it was quite
decipherable.
"MY DEAR MRS. CREAK,—I'm going to write to you for this is Sunday and
I've been to church, and I let you no that the cuntry aint clean at
all, but downrite filthy, for I never seed mud like it in London. There
is no lamps or shops when tis dark so you falls down anyweres in a
ditch or pond and no pleece picks you up for there is none of them.
"Old men wears their shirts over their coats to come to church. Farms
has hunderds of feerce animals kep roun them which you has to walk
thro, and they all tries to kep you away from the door, and cows and
bulls walks along the road all day. There is no shops noweres.
"My place is fine and I has butter to eat evry day. I has many
hunderds of things to take care of. I treds on carpets evry day.
I spilt tea over my apron I trys to be clean. There is more to dirt me
than our room in London. My missuses are nice ladys. I am quite well
as I hopes it leaves you at present.
"Your friend,
"MARGARET PERKINS.
"P. S.—Nex Sunday I goes to Sunday School. Please give my love to
Missus Jones."
"Well," said Mrs. Creak, folding up the letter and taking off her
spectacles, "girls is different to when I was young! The country too
dirty for her! What next! Nought about the sweet, pure air and blue sky
and singing birds, and green grass and trees and hedgerows. Her eyes
never gets higher than the mud! I'm ashamed on her, that I be!"