Freda and Daffy in Trouble
DAFFY was getting sleepy. Suddenly Freda called to her in an excited
whisper:
"She's gone, and Jane went first. Come on, and don't make a noise."
Softly they sped along the passage, down some stairs to another long
passage, through a green baize door, past several rooms, and at last
they came to the right one.
"He may be here already," said Daffy fearfully. "I'm a little afraid."
"He won't come till he wants a bed," said Freda reassuringly; "and
grown-up people never go to bed till it's quite dark."
They found the room empty, but Daffy kept glancing out of the window,
with her heart beating fast. It was dusk in this big room. The creepers
outside the window tapped against the window-panes, as if they were
hands that wanted to come in.
She and Freda were not very clever at making up a bed, and when she
pulled a corner of the sheet towards her, Freda pulled it away again.
It seemed as if they could not get it smooth and straight.
Then an owl hooted outside the window, and Daffy gave a little scream.
Freda was hotly indignant with her.
"You're a coward, that's what you are! And you'll make Nurse come down
upon us, if you don't take care. I wish you weren't so clumsy! Do be
quick! I think I hear him coming!"
That quickened Daffy. She did not want to see that dirty ugly old man
coming into the dusky room. The pillows were thumped into their cases,
the blankets and coverlet drawn tight over the big bed and tucked under
the mattress, then Daffy slipped out of the room, thankful the task was
over. Freda locked the door and took the key to bed with her; even her
bold heart did not wish to have the old man prowling about over the
house in the middle of the night.
They snuggled down into their beds again, rejoicing that they had not
been seen by any one. Daffy dropped off to sleep quickly in spite of
her rough blanket. Freda lay still with wide awake eyes. She trembled
when, later on, Nurse came into the room with candle in hand. She stood
over the children's beds for an instant, and Freda breathed quickly.
Would she see there was no sheet?
But Nurse passed on, muttering to herself as she sometimes did, and
Freda caught the words:
"Poor fatherless children, and their mother bored at having to think
about them!"
Then Freda burrowed her head into her pillow, and sleep soon came to
her.
The next morning was bright and sunny. But there was no sunshine in the
nurseries, for Nurse had quickly discovered the absence of pillow-cases
and sheets, and her wrath was great. Jane was called, and the children
questioned, but Freda and Daffy maintained a stubborn silence.
Nurse took hold of Freda by the shoulders and shook her.
"Not one morsel of breakfast shall you have until you've told me what
you've done with your sheet, you naughty child!"
Then Freda lost her temper. She flung the key down on the floor in
front of Nurse.
"Go and find out for yourself; I shan't tell you! I hate you!"
And even mild-tempered Daffy echoed: "Yes, go and find them, Nurse. You
always call us naughty before you know!"
Nurse seized the key.
"Jane, sit them on those chairs till I come back."
The little culprits were taken to the day-nursery. Jane seated Bertie
at the breakfast-table, then went to fetch the porridge.
"Freda, do you think she'll find him in bed?" whispered Daffy from her
high-backed chair.
"I don't care if she does," said Freda, with hot angry cheeks. "I hope
he'll kick her."
Nurse was a long time coming back. They heard her hasty steps along the
passage, and voices and doors opening and shutting. Then they heard
their mother's voice calling to Purling, and their hearts quaked and
thumped.
"They've found him asleep," said Daffy, "and now they're wondering who
he is. Oh, Freda, I do wish we hadn't done it."
Shortly afterwards the door opened and Jane came in with the porridge.
She looked very excited. Behind her was Nurse, and their mother, with
her hair braided down her back, and clad in her blue silk dressing-gown.
"Here they are, ma'am, and it beats me how they dare to do such things!
There's nothing they won't be up to, but when it comes to harbouring
thieves and vagabonds, then I say nothing but a sound whipping will do
them any good!"
"Freda and Daffy, get down from those chairs. Now what do you know
about this? Somebody has been sleeping in one of our spare rooms; he
has left this behind him, but taken away a good many things that did
not belong to him. The gardener says he met an old tramp coming down
from the house at six o'clock this morning, and he told him he had been
sleeping at the house as a guest!"
Mrs. Harrington held out a piece of notepaper, evidently a sheet that
was on the writing-table, for it bore the Harrington crest upon it, and
the address, "The Hall, Douglas Cross."
In shaky writing across it, were these words:
"My thanks to the yong ladies. A very good nite."
Freda looked at Daffy, and Daffy looked at Freda.
"Speak," said their mother sharply. "What have you been doing?"
"May we tell you alone, Mums?" said Freda. "Nurse doesn't understand.
We did get the bedroom ready for him, and told him how to get to it,
but—"
"There, ma'am," said Nurse angrily. "Now what do you think of that?
They're beyond me altogether! It's a mercy we were not all murdered in
our beds!"
"You had better give them their breakfasts and send them to me. I must
get to the bottom of it. Those Sheffield plate candlesticks and ivory
trinket boxes are a real loss. I shall have to put it into the hands of
the police."
Mrs. Harrington left the room as she spoke, and then ensued a very bad
half-hour for Freda and Daffy. Nurse could scold like nobody else.
They were only allowed dry bread for their breakfast, and were not
allowed to speak to one another. When they were sent to their mother's
room, Freda carried a little box under her arm; she was defiant, Daffy
indifferent. Nurse's scoldings had always that effect on them.
"Mums won't scold like Nurse; we couldn't hear anything worse," Daffy
said, as they walked along the passages to their mother's room.
Mrs. Harrington was sitting by her open window having her breakfast;
she always took it in her bedroom. She never had understood her little
daughters. She disliked finding fault with any one, and the loss of her
husband had affected her so deeply that she felt nothing else mattered.
Now she looked at them with a perplexed frown upon her face.
"Come in, and tell me quietly why you have been behaving in this
extraordinary way."
Freda was only too ready to be spokeswoman.
She opened her box, and produced a slip of paper which she laid upon
her mother's lap.
"You see, Mums dear, Bertie gave us the room. It belongs to him now,
doesn't it? And Daffy and me are trying to be good and to do what the
Bible tells us. And you know when Jesus Christ will stand at the door
of heaven to let everybody in, He'll ask us if we've taken a stranger
in, and given drink and food to the hungry and thirsty, and a lot of
other things. If we haven't done it, we shall have to be goats, and if
we have, we are sheep. And the sheep go inside heaven and the goats are
shut out. And Daffy and me want to be the sheep."
Her mother looked at her gravely.
"I see. You explain very clearly. Go on!"
"Well, then, you see we had to find a stranger to take in, and an old
man passed along the road, and we were sitting on the wall, and we
asked him if he would like to have a bed for the night. We didn't know
he was a wicked thief, and we told him how to get to the bedroom up the
steps to the balcony, and Daffy and me couldn't get any sheets for him,
so we took one of ours, and that's why Nurse found it out and was so
angry."
Mrs. Harrington was looking at the paper upon her lap. She read it out
aloud:
"I give to Freda and Daffy one of my bedrooms in this house for
somebody that God wants to stay here.
"BERTIE HARRINGTON."
"Now who told you that this house belonged to Bertie?"
"Long ago," said Daffy softly, "Nurse told us that Bertie was much more
important than us, because, if Daddy died, this house would belong to
him."
"You haven't waited long to take advantage of your father's death,"
said Mrs. Harrington, rather bitterly.
Freda and Daffy hung their heads in shame.
"Now pay attention to me," their mother continued, in her slow quiet
tones; "this house does not belong to Bertie till he is twenty-five
years old. It belongs to me till then, and I forbid you to ask any
one to stay in it unless you have my permission. Until you understand
the Bible better, you are not to act out its precepts without asking
grown-up people if it is right for you to do so. I believe there is a
verse about heaping coals of fire on your enemy's head. Do you think
you ought to do that?"
"I feel I would like to do it to Nurse," said Freda, with emphasis. In
imagination she saw Nurse's cap and hair in flames, and considered it
would serve her right.
"Exactly. You don't understand that a great deal of the Bible is
figurative language."
"What is that, Mums?"
"Oh, I can't explain," said Mrs. Harrington, yawning. Then she roused
herself to speak sternly. "That old tramp decamped with a good many
valuable articles of ours. You put temptation in his way, and if the
door had not been locked outside, he would have stolen much more. Who
did that?"
"I locked the door, Mums," said Freda.
There was silence.
"Well, for children, I suppose you managed as wisely as you could. Now
go back to Nurse, she will know how to punish you. And never do such a
thing again. I thought I told you not to encourage beggars when I sent
that boy away the other day."
"Nurse will be so fearfully angry," said Daffy.
"You deserve her to be. It was doing it secretly that must be punished.
I will not have you grow up deceitful children."
"But Nurse thinks everything wicked," wailed Freda; "she wants us to
have no fun at all."
"You don't want fun when your father lies dead in a foreign land," said
Mrs. Harrington sharply.
Then she relented as she saw the forlorn look on the little girls'
faces.
"There's right fun and wrong fun, and the Bible ought not to be turned
into fun. Never. Now go back to the nursery."
Freda and Daffy crept out of their mother's room. Nurse was waiting for
them, and did what she very seldom did now, she gave them each a sound
whipping, and put them to bed.
And Freda and Daffy were two very unhappy little girls for all that
day. They felt that from the grown-up people's eyes they had behaved
badly; but they wondered if God looked down from heaven and understood
better than Nurse.
"We'll ask Dreamikins about it," said Daffy; "but she never seems to
get punished for anything."
"That old stranger ought to be punished, not us," said Freda. "We gave
him a nice bed and food, and he stole Mum's candlesticks and other
things."
"Nurse makes out the bed and the food weren't ours to give him," said
Daffy. "She treats us as if we're thieves."
"Perhaps we are," said Freda thoughtfully.
Her busy brain was hard at work. She felt shaken in her self-confidence.
It was two or three days later that Fibo asked them to tea, and though
Nurse was almost against their going, their mother said they might do
so.
Dreamikins greeted them with her usual joyous welcome.
"Cherubine and me have been longing to see you. I've had a beautiful
stranger staying in my bed, and Fibo liked him so much he stayed two
days."
"Oh!" groaned Freda. "Everything is all right with you. We took in a
stranger who was a thief, and Nurse hardly thinks us out of disgrace
yet, though it was days and days ago!"
They began to compare their experiences, and then somehow or other they
found themselves pouring it all out to Fibo, and Daffy asked him when
he had heard all:
"Now do you think we were any wickeder than Dreamikins? What's the
difference between us?"
"Why," said Dreamikins, "I've got an A.M. for my uncle, and you have a
H.D. for your nurse. That's what makes the difference."
"Now look here," said Fibo, rousing himself, as he saw Freda's and
Daffy's anxious faces. "I think I must give you all three a good
talking to, because none of you are quite as wise yet as we grown-up
people. Astonishing, isn't it? Now come and sit down, and we'll be
thoroughly comfortable before I begin."
The little girls sat in a circle upon the grass round Fibo's chair,
then Dreamikins insisted upon having Grinder and Drab.
"It'll do them good to hear you, Fibo dear, and after we've all
listened hard, you must give us one choc each for good behaviour.
Cherubine is going to listen too. I know she'll say 'I told you so!'
when she hears you."
"Now then, here we go. First of all, I must remind you that those words
were addressed to grown-up people, not to children. If you look in your
Bibles, our Lord was speaking to His disciples."
"Oh, Fibo dear," said Dreamikins reproachfully, "can't children be
disciples?"
"Yes, they can, but they are not able to do everything that grown-up
people do. And this taking in of strangers is not for them, because
they don't own a house or a bedroom; nor is food even, if taken from
the kitchen, theirs to give, as B.B. and E.E. know."
"But," said Freda eagerly, "we did think the house and bedroom belonged
to Bertie; Nurse said it did, and we got him to give it to us, only
Mums says it belongs to her."
"Yes; you see, you made a mistake; that's where you showed you were not
quite wise enough to manage such a big undertaking. The fact is, though
none of you like to hear it, you mustn't act on your own. Ask advice of
older people."
"I always ask Cherubine," said Dreamikins, smiling.
"Yes, but you would do better to ask me," said Fibo.
Dreamikins put her head on one side, then she held up one small finger.
"Hush, Fibo, Cherubine is speaking."
Fibo was quiet at once, but he looked straight at his small niece with
rather grave eyes, and she gave a little wriggle.
"Oh well, Fibo, she says she'll tell me to ask you sometimes, and you
know I did ask you about the room, didn't I?"
"Yes, you did, but it was just a chance you didn't bring along a thief
into the house. You wouldn't have known the difference. Now I'll tell
you a beautiful way you can carry out our Lord's wishes. What is it He
wants you to do?"
"To give drink to the thirsty and feed the hungry," said Daffy.
"To take strangers in and visit the sick," said Freda.
"And give clothes to the naked and visit in prison," said Dreamikins.
"Very well. Now I know several good people who take ragged children in;
they feed and clothe them and give them houseroom, and nurse them when
they're sick, but they can't do this without money. Now, if you have a
collecting box, and put some of your loose pennies in, I will send up
the box to them when full, and then you will be feeding these children,
and clothing them, and taking them in as strangers with your money."
"Oh, but that would be so dull, Fibo dear," said Dreamikins.
The children's dismayed faces made Fibo laugh.
"And that wouldn't do it all; it wouldn't be visiting in prison," said
Freda.
"Well, I know people who visit in prison, and that can't be done
without money; you could have a box for that. You see, if you really
feel you can't wait till you're grown-up to do these things, you can
get some people to do it for you; that's what I mean."
"It isn't a bit the same," said Dreamikins. "And lots of children don't
grow up; you know they don't; and then we shall be goats."
Fibo looked at his niece with a funny little smile, then he said
suddenly:
"Perhaps you could do one or two of the things now, without waiting
till you turn into wiseheads."
"Oh, do tell us," cried Freda and Daffy together.
"I think you could go and visit somebody sick. Mrs. Daw was telling me
to-day of a dear old body who is in bed with very bad rheumatism. She
used to be our laundress. She lives quite alone, and would be cheered
up if you went to see her."
Dreamikins clapped her hands; but Freda and Daffy looked unhappy.
"Nurse wouldn't let us. She never will let us do a single nice thing."
"Oh, we'll manage Nurse. I'll tackle her."
"Will you really?"
Hope sprang up in their hearts.
"And what else?" they asked.
"I'm only a clumsy man, but I believe you can all use the needle. If we
could have a little sewing party one day in the week, you could make
clothes for some poor little kids who have none to wear, and I would
see that they got them all right. But we should have to get Annette to
cut the clothes out, and show you how to do them. I'm no good at that
sort of thing."
"We don't like sewing," said Dreamikins, looking at her little friends;
and Freda and Daffy both agreed with her.
"Of course, if you only want to do what you like—" began Fibo.
"We'll do it, Fibo dear, only you must tell us some most erciting
stories all the time we work, and we must have an extry good tea after,
to make up."
"I don't know that you need rewarding for doing good," said Fibo
quietly.
"No, that we'll get inside heaven," said Dreamikins thoughtfully.
"Perhaps we might try those two things."
"Yes," said Freda decidedly; "if Nurse lets Daffy and me do it, we
will."
"And we can ask Mums," suggested Daffy.
Then they all brightened up, and Fibo said he wouldn't talk any more,
not till next time; and then the little girls had a romp in the garden
together till tea came, and they enjoyed themselves as they always did,
and Freda and Daffy went home comforted.
"I always like," said Freda, "to feel there's something in front of us;
and now there is."