Robert Michael Ballantyne
Dusty Diamonds Cut and Polished: A Tale of City Arab Life and Adventure
At last, towards evening, the train rushed into a grand pine-wood. It soon rushed out of it again and entered a beautiful piece of country which was diversified by lakelet and rivulet, hill and vale, with rich meadow lands in the hollows, where cattle browsed or lay in the evening sunshine.
The train drew up sharply at a small road-side station. There was no one to get into the cars there, and no one to get out except our two waifs. On the road beyond stood a wagon with a couple of spanking bays in it. On the platform stood a broad-shouldered, deep-chested, short-legged farmer with a face like the sun, and a wide-awake on the back of his bald head.
“Mr Merryboy, I presume?” said the Guardian, descending from the car.
“The same. Glad to see you. Are these my boys?”
He spoke in a quick, hearty, off-hand manner, but Bobby and Tim hated him at once, for were they not on the point of leaving their last and best friend, and was not this man the cause?
They turned to their Guardian to say farewell, and, even to their own surprise, burst into tears.
“God bless you, dear boys,” he said, while the guard held open the door of the car as if to suggest haste; “good-bye. It won’t be very long I think before I see you again. Farewell.”
He sprang into the car, the train glided away, and the two waifs stood looking wistfully after it with the first feelings of desolation that had entered their hearts since landing in Canada.
“My poor lads,” said Mr Merryboy, laying a hand on the shoulder of each, “come along with me. Home is only six miles off, and I’ve got a pair of spanking horses that will trundle us over in no time.”
The tone of voice, to say nothing of “home” and “spanking horses,” improved matters greatly. Both boys thought, as they entered the wagon, that they did not hate him quite so much as at first.
The bays proved worthy of their master’s praise. They went over the road through the forest in grand style, and in little more than half an hour landed Bobby and Tim at the door of their Canadian home.
It was dark by that time, and the ruddy light that shone in the windows and that streamed through the door as it opened to receive them seemed to our waifs like a gleam of celestial light.
Chapter Nineteen.
At Home in Canada
The family of Mr Merryboy was a small one. Besides those who assisted him on the farm—and who were in some cases temporary servants—his household consisted of his wife, his aged mother, a female servant, and a small girl. The latter was a diamond from the London diggings, who had been imported the year before. She was undergoing the process of being polished, and gave promise of soon becoming a very valuable gem. It was this that induced her employer to secure our two masculine gems from the same diggings.
Mrs Merryboy was a vigorous, hearty, able-bodied lady, who loved work very much for the mere exercise it afforded her; who, like her husband, was constitutionally kind, and whose mind was of that serious type which takes concern with the souls of the people with whom it has to do as well as with their bodies. Hence she gave her waif a daily lesson in religious and secular knowledge; she reduced work on the Sabbath-days to the lowest possible point in the establishment, and induced her husband, who was a little shy as well as bluff and off-hand, to institute family worship, besides hanging on her walls here and there sweet and striking texts from the Word of God.
Old Mrs Merryboy, the mother, must have been a merry girl in her youth; for, even though at the age of eighty and partially deaf, she was extremely fond of a joke, practical or otherwise, and had her face so seamed with the lines of appreciative humour, and her nutcracker mouth so set in a smile of amiable fun, and her coal-black eyes so lit up with the fires of unutterable wit, that a mere glance at her stirred up your sources of comicality to their depths, while a steady gaze usually resulted in a laugh, in which she was sure to join with an apparent belief that, whatever the joke might be, it was uncommonly good. She did not speak much. Her looks and smiles rendered speech almost unnecessary. Her figure was unusually diminutive.
Little Martha, the waif, was one of those mild, reticent, tiny things that one feels a desire to fondle without knowing why. Her very small face was always, and, as Bobby remarked, awfully grave, yet a ready smile must have lurked close at hand somewhere, for it could be evoked by the smallest provocation at any time, but fled the instant the provoking cause ceased. She seldom laughed, but when she did the burst was a hearty one, and over immediately. Her brown hair was smooth, her brown eyes were gentle, her red mouth was small and round. Obedience was ingrained in her nature. Original action seemed never to have entered her imagination. She appeared to have been born with the idea that her sphere in life was to do as she was directed. To resist and fight were to her impossibilities. To be defended and kissed seemed to be her natural perquisites. Yet her early life had been calculated to foster other and far different qualities, as we shall learn ere long.
Tim Lumpy took to this little creature amazingly. She was so little that by contrast he became quite big, and felt so! When in Martha’s presence he absolutely felt big and like a lion, a roaring lion capable of defending her against all comers! Bobby was also attracted by her, but in a comparatively mild degree.
On the morning after their arrival the two boys awoke to find that the windows of their separate little rooms opened upon a magnificent prospect of wood and water, and that, the partition of their apartment consisting of a single plank-wall, with sundry knots knocked out, they were not only able to converse freely, but to peep at each other awkwardly—facts which they had not observed the night before, owing to sleepiness.
“I say, Tim,” said Bob, “you seem to have a jolly place in there.”
“First-rate,” replied Tim, “an’ much the same as your own. I had a good squint at you before you awoke. Isn’t the place splendacious?”
“Yes, Tim, it is. I’ve been lookin’ about all the mornin’ for Adam an’ Eve, but can’t see ’em nowhere.”
“What d’ee mean?”
“Why, that we’ve got into the garden of Eden, to be sure.”
“Oh! stoopid,” returned Tim, “don’t you know that they was both banished from Eden?”
“So they was. I forgot that. Well, it don’t much matter, for there’s a prettier girl than Eve here. Don’t you see her? Martha, I think they called her—down there by the summer-’ouse, feedin’ the hanimals, or givin’ ’em their names.”
“There you go again, you ignorant booby,” said Tim; “it wasn’t Eve as gave the beasts their names. It was Adam.”
“An’ wot’s the difference, I should like to know? wasn’t they both made one flesh? However, I think little Martha would have named ’em better if she’d bin there. What a funny little thing she is!”
“Funny!” returned Tim, contemptuously; “she’s a trump!”
During the conversation both boys had washed and rubbed their faces till they absolutely shone like rosy apples. They also combed and brushed their hair to such an extent that each mass lay quite flat on its little head, and bade fair to become solid, for the Guardian’s loving counsels had not been forgotten, and they had a sensation of wishing to please him even although absent.
Presently the house, which had hitherto been very quiet, began suddenly to resound with the barking of a little dog and the noisy voice of a huge man. The former rushed about, saying “Good-morning” as well as it could with tail and tongue to every one, including the household cat, which resented the familiarity with arched back and demoniacal glare. The latter stamped about on the wooden floors, and addressed similar salutations right and left in tones that would have suited the commander of an army. There was a sudden stoppage of the hurricane, and a pleasant female voice was heard.
“I say, Bob, that’s the missus,” whispered Tim through a knot-hole.
Then there came another squall, which seemed to drive madly about all the echoes in the corridors above and in the cellars below. Again the noise ceased, and there came up a sound like a wheezy squeak.
“I say, Tim, that’s the old ’un,” whispered Bob through the knot-hole.
Bob was right, for immediately on the wheezy squeak ceasing, the hurricane burst forth in reply:
“Yes, mother, that’s just what I shall do. You’re always right. I never knew such an old thing for wise suggestions! I’ll set both boys to milk the cows after breakfast. The sooner they learn the better, for our new girl has too much to do in the house to attend to that; besides, she’s either clumsy or nervous, for she has twice overturned the milk-pail. But after all, I don’t wonder, for that red cow has several times showed a desire to fling a hind-leg into the girl’s face, and stick a horn in her gizzard. The boys won’t mind that, you know. Pity that Martha’s too small for the work; but she’ll grow—she’ll grow.”
“Yes, she’ll grow, Franky,” replied the old lady, with as knowing a look as if the richest of jokes had been cracked. The look was, of course, lost on the boys above, and so was the reply, because it reached them in the form of a wheezy squeak.
“Oh! I say! Did you ever! Milk the keows! On’y think!” whispered Bob.
“Ay, an’ won’t I do it with my mouth open too, an’ learn ’ow to send the stream up’ards!” said Tim.
Their comments were cut short by the breakfast-bell; at the same time the hurricane again burst forth:
“Hallo! lads—boys! Youngsters! Are you up?—ah! here you are. Good-morning, and as tidy as two pins. That’s the way to get along in life. Come now, sit down. Where’s Martha? Oh! here we are. Sit beside me, little one.”
The hurricane suddenly fell to a gentle breeze, while part of a chapter of the Bible and a short prayer were read. Then it burst forth again with redoubled fury, checked only now and then by the unavoidable stuffing of the vent-hole.
“You’ve slept well, dears, I hope?” said Mrs Merryboy, helping each of our waifs to a splendid fried fish.
Sitting there, partially awe-stricken by the novelty of their surroundings, they admitted that they had slept well.
“Get ready for work then,” said Mr Merryboy, through a rather large mouthful. “No time to lose. Eat—eat well—for there’s lots to do. No idlers on Brankly Farm, I can tell you. And we don’t let young folk lie abed till breakfast-time every day. We let you rest this morning, Bob and Tim, just by way of an extra refresher before beginning. Here, tuck into the bread and butter, little man, it’ll make you grow. More tea, Susy,” (to his wife). “Why, mother, you’re eating nothing—nothing at all. I declare you’ll come to live on air at last.”
The old lady smiled benignly, as though rather tickled with that joke, and was understood by the boys to protest that she had eaten more than enough, though her squeak had not yet become intelligible to them.
“If you do take to living on air, mother,” said her daughter-in-law, “we shall have to boil it up with a bit of beef and butter to make it strong.”
Mrs Merryboy, senior, smiled again at this, though she had not heard a word of it. Obviously she made no pretence of hearing, but took it as good on credit, for she immediately turned to her son, put her hand to her right ear, and asked what Susy said.
In thunderous tones the joke was repeated, and the old lady almost went into fits over it, insomuch that Bob and Tim regarded her with a spice of anxiety mingled with their amusement, while little Martha looked at her in solemn wonder.
Twelve months’ experience had done much to increase Martha’s love for the old lady, but it had done nothing to reduce her surprise; for Martha, as yet, did not understand a joke. This, of itself, formed a subject of intense amusement to old Mrs Merryboy, who certainly made the most of circumstances, if ever woman did.
“Have some more fish, Bob,” said Mrs Merryboy, junior.
Bob accepted more, gratefully. So did Tim, with alacrity.
“What sort of a home had you in London, Tim?” asked Mrs Merryboy.
“Well, ma’am, I hadn’t no home at all.”
“No home at all, boy; what do you mean? You must have lived somewhere.”
“Oh yes, ma’am, I always lived somewheres, but it wasn’t nowheres in partikler. You see I’d neither father nor mother, an’ though a good old ’ooman did take me in, she couldn’t purvide a bed or blankets, an’ her ’ome was stuffy, so I preferred to live in the streets, an’ sleep of a night w’en I couldn’t pay for a lodgin’, in empty casks and under wegitable carts in Covent Garden Market, or in empty sugar ’ogsheads. I liked the ’ogsheads best w’en I was ’ungry, an’ that was most always, ’cause I could sometimes pick a little sugar that was left in the cracks an’ ’oles, w’en they ’adn’t bin cleaned out a’ready. Also I slep’ under railway-arches, and on door-steps. But sometimes I ’ad raither disturbed nights, ’cause the coppers wouldn’t let a feller sleep in sitch places if they could ’elp it.”
“Who are the ‘coppers?’” asked the good lady of the house, who listened in wonder to Tim’s narration.
“The coppers, ma’am, the—the—pl’eece.”
“Oh! the police?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Where in the world did they expect you to sleep?” asked Mrs Merryboy with some indignation.
“That’s best known to themselves, ma’am,” returned Tim; “p’raps we might ’ave bin allowed to sleep on the Thames, if we’d ’ad a mind to, or on the hatmosphere, but never ’avin’ tried it on, I can’t say.”
“Did you lead the same sort of life, Bob?” asked the farmer, who had by that time appeased his appetite.
“Pretty much so, sir,” replied Bobby, “though I wasn’t quite so ’ard up as Tim, havin’ both a father and mother as well as a ’ome. But they was costly possessions, so I was forced to give ’em up.”
“What! you don’t mean that you forsook them?” said Mr Merryboy with a touch of severity.
“No, sir, but father forsook me and the rest of us, by gettin’ into the Stone Jug—wery much agin’ my earnest advice,—an’ mother an’ sister both thought it was best for me to come out here.”
The two waifs, being thus encouraged, came out with their experiences pretty freely, and made such a number of surprising revelations, that the worthy backwoodsman and his wife were lost in astonishment, to the obvious advantage of old Mrs Merryboy, who, regarding the varying expressions of face around her as the result of a series of excellent jokes, went into a state of chronic laughter of a mild type.
“Have some more bread and butter, and tea, Bob and some more sausage,” said Mrs Merryboy, under a sudden impulse.
Bob declined. Yes, that London street-arab absolutely declined food! So did Tim Lumpy!
“Now, my lads, are you quite sure,” said Mr Merryboy, “that you’ve had enough to eat?”
They both protested, with some regret, that they had.
“You couldn’t eat another bite if you was to try, could you?”
“Vell, sir,” said Bob, with a spice of the ‘old country’ insolence strong upon him, “there’s no sayin’ what might be accomplished with a heffort, but the consikences, you know, might be serious.”
The farmer received this with a thunderous guffaw, and, bidding the boys follow him, went out.
He took them round the farm buildings, commenting on and explaining everything, showed them cattle and horses, pigs and poultry, barns and stables, and then asked them how they thought they’d like to work there.
“Uncommon!” was Bobby Frog’s prompt reply, delivered with emphasis.
“Fust rate!” was Tim Lumpy’s sympathetic sentiment.
“Well, then, the sooner we begin the better. D’you see that lot of cord-wood lying tumbled about in the yard, Bob?”
“Yes, sir.”
“You go to work on it, then, and pile it up against that fence, same as you see this one done. An’ let’s see how neatly you’ll do it. Don’t hurry. What we want in Canada is not so much to see work done quickly as done well.”
Taking Tim to another part of the farm, he set him to remove a huge heap of stones with a barrow and shovel, and, leaving them, returned to the house.
Both boys set to work with a will. It was to them the beginning of life; they felt that, and were the more anxious to do well in consequence. Remembering the farmer’s caution, they did not hurry, but Tim built a cone of stones with the care and artistic exactitude of an architect, while Bobby piled his billets of wood with as much regard to symmetrical proportion as was possible in the circumstances.
About noon they became hungry, but hunger was an old foe whom they had been well trained to defy, so they worked on utterly regardless of him.
Thereafter a welcome sound was heard—the dinner-bell!
Having been told to come in on hearing it, they left work at once, ran to the pump, washed themselves, and appeared in the dining-room looking hot, but bright and jovial, for nothing brightens the human countenance so much, (by gladdening the heart), as the consciousness of having performed duty well.
From the first this worthy couple, who were childless, received the boys into their home as sons, and on all occasions treated them as such. Martha Mild, (her surname was derived from her character), had been similarly received and treated.
“Well, lads,” said the farmer as they commenced the meal—which was a second edition of breakfast, tea included, but with more meat and vegetables—“how did you find the work? pretty hard—eh?”
“Oh! no, sir, nothink of the kind,” said Bobby, who was resolved to show a disposition to work like a man and think nothing of it.
“Ah, good. I’ll find you some harder work after dinner.”
Bobby blamed himself for having been so prompt in reply.
“The end of this month, too, I’ll have you both sent to school,” continued the farmer with a look of hearty good-will, that Tim thought would have harmonised better with a promise to give them jam-tart and cream. “It’s vacation time just now, and the schoolmaster’s away for a holiday. When he comes back you’ll have to cultivate mind as well as soil, my boys, for I’ve come under an obligation to look after your education, and even if I hadn’t, I’d do it to satisfy my own conscience.”
The couleur-de-rose with which Bob and Tim had begun to invest their future faded perceptibly on hearing this. The viands, however, were so good that it did not disturb them very much. They ate away heartily, and in silence. Little Martha was not less diligent, for she had been busy all the morning in the dairy and kitchen, playing, rather than working, at domestic concerns, yet in her play doing much real work, and acquiring useful knowledge, as well as an appetite.
After dinner the farmer rose at once. He was one of those who find it unnecessary either to drink or smoke after meals. Indeed, strong drink and tobacco were unknown in his house, and, curiously enough, nobody seemed to be a whit the worse for their absence. There were some people, indeed, who even went the length of asserting that they were all the better for their absence!
“Now for the hard work I promised you, boys; come along.”
Chapter Twenty.
Occupations at Brankly Farm
The farmer led our two boys through a deliciously scented pine-wood at the rear of his house, to a valley which seemed to extend and widen out into a multitude of lesser valleys and clumps of woodland, where lakelets and rivulets and waterfalls glittered in the afternoon sun like shields and bands of burnished silver.
Taking a ball of twine from one of his capacious pockets, he gave it to Bobby along with a small pocket-book.
“Have you got clasp-knives?” he asked.
“Yes, sir,” said both boys, at once producing instruments which were very much the worse for wear.
“Very well, now, here is the work I want you to do for me this afternoon. D’you see the creek down in the hollow yonder—about half a mile off?”
“Yes, yes, sir.”
“Well, go down there and cut two sticks about ten feet long each; tie strings to the small ends of them; fix hooks that you’ll find in that pocket-book to the lines. The creek below the fall is swarming with fish; you’ll find grasshoppers and worms enough for bait if you choose to look for ’em. Go, and see what you can do.”
A reminiscence of ancient times induced Bobby Frog to say “Walke–e–r!” to himself, but he had too much wisdom to say it aloud. He did, however, venture modestly to remark—
“I knows nothink about fishin’, sir. Never cotched so much as a eel in—”
“When I give you orders, obey them!” interrupted the farmer, in a tone and with a look that sent Bobby and Tim to the right-about double-quick. They did not even venture to look back until they reached the pool pointed out, and when they did look back Mr Merryboy had disappeared.
“Vell, I say,” began Bobby, but Tim interrupted him with, “Now, Bob, you must git off that ’abit you’ve got o’ puttin’ v’s for double-u’s. Wasn’t we told by the genl’m’n that gave us a partin’ had-dress that we’d never git on in the noo world if we didn’t mind our p’s and q’s? An’ here you are as regardless of your v’s as if they’d no connection wi’ the alphabet.”
“Pretty cove you are, to find fault wi’ me,” retorted Bob, “w’en you’re far wuss wi’ your haitches—a-droppin’ of ’em w’en you shouldn’t ought to, an’ stickin’ of ’em in where you oughtn’t should to. Go along an’ cut your stick, as master told you.”
The sticks were cut, pieces of string were measured off, and hooks attached thereto. Then grasshoppers were caught, impaled, and dropped into a pool. The immediate result was almost electrifying to lads who had never caught even a minnow before. Bobby’s hook had barely sunk when it was seized and run away with so forcibly as to draw a tremendous “Hi! hallo!! ho!!! I’ve got ’im!!!” from the fisher.
“Hoy! hurroo!!” responded Tim, “so’ve I!!!”
Both boys, blazing with excitement, held on.
The fish, bursting, apparently, with even greater excitement, rushed off.
“He’ll smash my stick!” cried Bob.
“The twine’s sure to go!” cried Tim. “Hold o–o–on!”
This command was addressed to his fish, which leaped high out of the pool and went wriggling back with a heavy splash. It did not obey the order, but the hook did, which came to the same thing.
“A ten-pounder if he’s a’ ounce,” said Tim.
“You tell that to the horse—hi ho! stop that, will you?”
But Bobby’s fish was what himself used to be—troublesome to deal with. It would not “stop that.”
It kept darting from side to side and leaping out of the water until, in one of its bursts, it got entangled with Tim’s fish, and the boys were obliged to haul them both ashore together.
“Splendid!” exclaimed Bobby, as they unhooked two fine trout and laid them on a place of safety; “At ’em again!”
At them they went, and soon had two more fish, but the disturbance created by these had the effect of frightening the others. At all events, at their third effort their patience was severely tried, for nothing came to their hooks to reward the intense gaze and the nervous readiness to act which marked each boy during the next half-hour or so.
At the end of that time there came a change in their favour, for little Martha Mild appeared on the scene. She had been sent, she said, to work with them.
“To play with us, you mean,” suggested Tim.
“No, father said work,” the child returned simply.
“It’s jolly work, then! But I say, old ’ooman, d’you call Mr Merryboy father?” asked Bob in surprise.
“Yes, I’ve called him father ever since I came.”
“An’ who’s your real father?”
“I have none. Never had one.”
“An’ your mother?”
“Never had a mother either.”
“Well, you air a curiosity.”
“Hallo! Bob, don’t forget your purliteness,” said Tim. “Come, Mumpy; father calls you Mumpy, doesn’t he?”
“Yes.”
“Then so will I. Well, Mumpy, as I was goin’ to say, you may come an’ work with my rod if you like, an’ we’ll make a game of it. We’ll play at work. Let me see where shall we be?”
“In the garden of Eden,” suggested Bob.
“The very thing,” said Tim; “I’ll be Adam an’ you’ll be Eve, Mumpy.”
“Very well,” said Martha with ready assent.
She would have assented quite as readily to have personated Jezebel or the Witch of Endor.
“And I’ll be Cain,” said Bobby, moving his line in a manner that was meant to be persuasive.
“Oh!” said Martha, with much diffidence, “Cain was wicked, wasn’t he?”
“Well, my dear Eve,” said Tim, “Bobby Frog is wicked enough for half-a-dozen Cains. In fact, you can’t cane him enough to pay him off for all his wickedness.”
“Bah! go to bed,” said Cain, still intent on his line, which seemed to quiver as if with a nibble.
As for Eve, being as innocent of pun-appreciation as her great original probably was, she looked at the two boys in pleased gravity.
“Hi! Cain’s got another bite,” cried Adam, while Eve went into a state of gentle excitement, and fluttered near with an evidently strong desire to help in some way.
“Hallo! got ’im again!” shouted Tim, as his rod bent to the water with jerky violence; “out o’ the way, Eve, else you’ll get shoved into Gihon.”
“Euphrates, you stoopid!” said Cain, turning his Beehive training to account. Having lost his fish, you see, he could afford to be critical while he fixed on another bait.
But Tim cared not for rivers or names just then, having hooked a “real wopper,” which gave him some trouble to land. When landed, it proved to be the finest fish of the lot, much to Eve’s satisfaction, who sat down to watch the process when Adam renewed the bait.
Now, Bobby Frog, not having as yet been quite reformed, and, perhaps, having imbibed some of the spirit of his celebrated prototype with his name, felt a strong impulse to give Tim a gentle push behind. For Tim sat in an irresistibly tempting position on the bank, with his little boots overhanging the dark pool from which the fish had been dragged.
“Tim,” said Bob.
“Adam, if you please—or call me father, if you prefer it!”
“Well, then, father, since I haven’t got an Abel to kill, I’m only too ’appy to have a Adam to souse.”
Saying which, he gave him a sufficient impulse to send him off!
Eve gave vent to a treble shriek, on beholding her husband struggling in the water, and Cain himself felt somewhat alarmed at what he had done. He quickly extended the butt of his rod to his father, and dragged him safe to land, to poor Eve’s inexpressible relief.
“What d’ee mean by that, Bob?” demanded Tim fiercely, as he sprang towards his companion.
“Cain, if you please—or call me son, if you prefers it,” cried Bob, as he ran out of his friend’s way; “but don’t be waxy, father Adam, with your own darlin’ boy. I couldn’t ’elp it. You’d ha’ done just the same to me if you’d had the chance. Come, shake ’ands on it.”
Tim Lumpy was not the boy to cherish bad feeling. He grinned in a ghastly manner, and shook the extended hand.
“I forgive you, Cain, but please go an’ look for Abel an’ pitch into him w’en next you git into that state o’ mind, for it’s agin common-sense, as well as history, to pitch into your old father so.” Saying which, Tim went off to wring out his dripping garments, after which the fishing was resumed.
“Wot a remarkable difference,” said Bobby, breaking a rather long silence of expectancy, as he glanced round on the splendid landscape which was all aglow with the descending sun, “’tween these ’ere diggin’s an’ Commercial Road, or George Yard, or Ratcliff ’Ighway. Ain’t it, Tim?”
Before Tim could reply, Mr Merryboy came forward.
“Capital!” he exclaimed, on catching sight of the fish; “well done, lads, well done. We shall have a glorious supper to-night. Now, Mumpy, you run home and tell mother to have the big frying-pan ready. She’ll want your help. Ha!” he added, turning to the boys, as Martha ran off with her wonted alacrity, “I thought you’d soon teach yourselves how to catch fish. It’s not difficult here. And what do you think of Martha, my boys?”
“She’s a trump!” said Bobby, with decision.
“Fust rate!” said Tim, bestowing his highest conception of praise.
“Quite true, lads; though why you should say ‘fust’ instead of first-rate, Tim, is more than I can understand. However, you’ll get cured of such-like queer pronunciations in course of time. Now, I want you to look on little Mumpy as your sister, and she’s a good deal of your sister too in reality, for she came out of that same great nest of good and bad, rich and poor—London. Has she told you anything about herself yet?”
“Nothin’, sir,” answered Bob, “’cept that when we axed—asked, I mean—I ax—ask your parding—she said she’d neither father nor mother.”
“Ah! poor thing; that’s too true. Come, pick up your fish, and I’ll tell you about her as we go along.”
The boys strung their fish on a couple of branches, and followed their new master home.
“Martha came to us only last year,” said the farmer. “She’s a little older than she looks, having been somewhat stunted in her growth, by bad treatment, I suppose, and starvation and cold in her infancy. No one knows who was her father or mother. She was ‘found’ in the streets one day, when about three years of age, by a man who took her home, and made use of her by sending her to sell matches in public-houses. Being small, very intelligent for her years, and attractively modest, she succeeded, I suppose, in her sales, and I doubt not the man would have continued to keep her, if he had not been taken ill and carried to hospital, where he died. Of course the man’s lodging was given up the day he left it. As the man had been a misanthrope—that’s a hater of everybody, lads—nobody cared anything about him, or made inquiry after him. The consequence was, that poor Martha was forgotten, strayed away into the streets, and got lost a second time. She was picked up this time by a widow lady in very reduced circumstances, who questioned her closely; but all that the poor little creature knew was that she didn’t know where her home was, that she had no father or mother, and that her name was Martha.
“The widow took her home, made inquiries about her parentage in vain, and then adopted and began to train her, which accounts for her having so little of that slang and knowledge of London low life that you have so much of, you rascals! The lady gave the child the pet surname of Mild, for it was so descriptive of her character. But poor Martha was not destined to have this mother very long. After a few years she died, leaving not a sixpence or a rag behind her worth having. Thus little Mumpy was thrown a third time on the world, but God found a protector for her in a friend of the widow, who sent her to the Refuge—the Beehive as you call it—which has been such a blessing to you, my lads, and to so many like you, and along with her the 10 pounds required to pay her passage and outfit to Canada. They kept her for some time and trained her, and then, knowing that I wanted a little lass here, they sent her to me, for which I thank God, for she’s a dear little child.”
