CHAPTER V
THE GIRL WITH TWO MOTHERS
Elspeth at last did something to win Tommy's respect; she fell ill of anailment called in Thrums the croop. When Tommy first heard his mothercall it croop, he thought she was merely humoring Elspeth, and that itwas nothing more distinguished than London whooping-cough, but onlearning that it was genuine croop, he began to survey the ambitiouslittle creature with a new interest.
This was well for Elspeth, as she had now to spend most of the day athome with him, their mother, whose health was failing through frequentattacks of bronchitis, being no longer able to carry her through thestreets. Of course Elspeth took to repaying his attentions by lovinghim, and he soon suspected it, and then gloomily admitted it to himself,but never to Shovel. Being but an Englishman, Shovel saw no reason whyrelatives should conceal their affection for each other, but he playedon this Scottish weakness of Tommy's with cruel enjoyment.
"She's fond on yer!" he would say severely.
"You's a liar."
"Gar long! I believe as you're fond on her!"
"You jest take care, Shovel."
"Ain't yer?"
"Na-o!"
"Will yer swear?"
"So I will swear."
"Let's hear yer."
"Dagont!"
So for a time the truth was kept hidden, and Shovel retired, castingaspersions, and offering to eat all the hair on Elspeth's head for apenny.
This hair was white at present, which made Tommy uneasy about herfuture, but on the whole he thought he might make something of her ifshe was only longer. Sometimes he stretched her on the floor, pullingher legs out straight, for she had a silly way of doubling them up, andthen he measured her carefully with his mother's old boots. Her growthproved to be distressingly irregular, as one day she seemed to havegrown an inch since last night, and then next day she had shrunk twoinches.
After her day's work Mrs. Sandys was now so listless that, had not Tommyinterfered, Elspeth would have been a backward child. Reddy had beenable to walk from the first day, and so of course had he, but thislittle slow-coach's legs wobbled at the joints, like the blade of aknife without a spring. The question of questions was How to keep her onend?
Tommy sat on the fender revolving this problem, his head resting on hishand: that favorite position of mighty intellects when about to bephotographed, Elspeth lay on her stomach on the floor, gazing earnestlyat him, as if she knew she was in his thoughts for some stupendouspurpose. Thus the apple may have looked at Newton before it fell.
Hankey, the postman, compelled the flowers in his window to stand erectby tying them to sticks, so Tommy took two sticks from a bundle offirewood, and splicing Elspeth's legs to them, held her upright againstthe door with one hand. All he asked of her to-day was to remain in thisposition after he said "One, two, three, four, _picture_!" and withdrewhis hand, but down she flopped every time, and he said, with scorn,
"You ain't got no genius: you has just talent."
But he had her in bed with the scratches nicely covered up before hismother came home.
He tried another plan with more success. Lost dogs, it may beremembered, had a habit of following Shovel's father, and he not onlytook the wanderers in, but taught them how to beg and shake hands andwalk on two legs. Tommy had sometimes been present at these agreeableexercises, and being an inventive boy he--But as Elspeth was a nicegirl, let it suffice to pause here and add shyly, that in time she couldwalk.
He also taught her to speak, and if you need to be told with whatluscious word he enticed her into language you are sentenced to re-readthe first pages of his life.
"Thrums," he would say persuasively, "Thrums, Thrums. You opens yourmouth like this, and shuts it like this, and that's it." Yet when he hadcoaxed her thus for many days, what does she do but break her longsilence with the word "Tommy!" The recoil knocked her over.
Soon afterward she brought down a bigger bird. No Londoner can say "Auldlicht," and Tommy had often crowed over Shovel's "Ol likt." When thetesting of Elspeth could be deferred no longer, he eyed her with thelook a hen gives the green egg on which she has been sitting twentydays, but Elspeth triumphed, saying the words modestly even, as ifnothing inside her told her she had that day done something which wouldhave baffled Shakespeare, not to speak of most of the gentlemen who sitfor Scotch constituencies.
"Reddy couldn't say it!" Tommy cried exultantly, and from that greathour he had no more fears for Elspeth.
Next the alphabet knocked for admission; and entered first _M_ and _P_,which had prominence in the only poster visible from the window. Mrs.Sandys had taught Tommy his letters, but he had got into words bystudying posters.
Elspeth being able now to make the perilous descent of the stairs,Tommy guided her through the streets (letting go hurriedly if Shovelhove in sight), and here she bagged new letters daily. With Catlingssomething, which is the best, she got into capital _C_s; _y_s are foundeasily when you know where to look for them (they hang on behind); _N_sare never found singly, but often three at a time; _Q_ is soaristocratic that even Tommy had only heard of it, doubtless it wasthere, but indistinguishable among the masses like a celebrity in acrowd; on the other hand, big _A_ and little _e_ were so dirt cheap,that these two scholars passed them with something very like a sneer.
The printing-press is either the greatest blessing or the greatest curseof modern times, one sometimes forgets which. Elspeth's faith in it wasabsolute, and as it only spoke to her from placards, here was herreligion, at the age of four:
"PRAY WITHOUT CEASING.HAPPY ARE THEY WHO NEEDING KNOW THEPAINLESS POROUS PLASTER."
Of religion, Tommy had said many fine things to her, embellishments onthe simple doctrine taught him by his mother before the miseries of thisworld made her indifferent to the next. But the meaning of "Pray withoutceasing," Elspeth, who was God's child always, seemed to find out forherself, and it cured all her troubles. She prayed promptly for everyone she saw doing wrong, including Shovel, who occasionally had wordswith Tommy on the subject, and she not only prayed for her mother, butproposed to Tommy that they should buy her a porous plaster. Mrs. Sandyshad been down with bronchitis again.
Tommy raised the monetary difficulty.
Elspeth knew where there was some money, and it was her very own.
Tommy knew where there was money, and it was his very own.
Elspeth would not tell how much she had, and it was twopence halfpenny.
Neither would Tommy tell, and it was twopence.
Tommy would get a surprise on his birthday.
So would Elspeth get a surprise on her birthday.
Elspeth would not tell what the surprise was to be, and it was to be agun.
Tommy also must remain mute, and it was to be a box of dominoes.
Elspeth did not want dominoes.
Tommy knew that, but he wanted them.
Elspeth discovered that guns cost fourpence, and dominoes threepencehalfpenny; it seemed to her, therefore, that Tommy was defrauding her ofa halfpenny.
Tommy liked her cheek. You got the dominoes for threepence halfpenny,but the price on the box is fivepence, so that Elspeth would really owehim a penny.
This led to an agonizing scene in which Elspeth wept while Tommy toldher sternly about Reddy. It had become his custom to tell the tale ofReddy when Elspeth was obstreperous.
Then followed a scene in which Tommy called himself a scoundrel forfrightening his dear Elspeth, and swore that he loved none but her.Result: reconciliation, and agreed, that instead of a gun and dominoes,they should buy a porous plaster. You know the shops where the plastersare to be obtained by great colored bottles in their windows, and, as itwas advisable to find the very best shop, Tommy and Elspeth in theirwanderings came under the influence of the bottles, red, yellow, green,and blue, and color entered into their lives, giving them many deliciousthrills. These bottles are the first poem known to the London child, andyou chemists who are beginning to do without them in your windows shouldbe told that it is
a shame.
In the glamour, then, of the romantic battles walked Tommy and Elspethhand in hand, meeting so many novelties that they might have spared atear for the unfortunate children who sit in nurseries surrounded by allthey ask for, and if the adventures of these two frequently ended in themiddle, they had probably begun another while the sailor-suit boy wasstill holding up his leg to let the nurse put on his little sock. Whilethey wandered, they drew near unwittingly to the enchanted street, towhich the bottles are a colored way, and at last they were in it, butTommy recognized it not; he did not even feel that he was near it, forthere were no outside stairs, no fairies strolling about, it was a shortstreet as shabby as his own.
But someone had shouted "Dinna haver, lassie; you're blethering!"
Tommy whispered to Elspeth, "Be still; don't speak," and he gripped herhand tighter and stared at the speaker. He was a boy of ten, dressedlike a Londoner, and his companion had disappeared. Tommy never doubtingbut that he was the sprite of long ago, gripped him by the sleeve. Allthe savings of Elspeth and himself were in his pocket, and yielding toimpulse, as was his way, he thrust the fivepence halfpenny into JamesGloag's hand. The new millionaire gaped, but not at his patron, for thewhy and wherefore of this gift were trifles to James beside thetremendous fact that he had fivepence halfpenny. "Almichty me!" he criedand bolted. Presently he returned, having deposited his money in a safeplace, and his first remark was perhaps the meanest on record. He heldout his hand and said greedily, "Have you ony mair?"
This, you feel certain, must have been the most important event of thatevening, but strange to say, it was not. Before Tommy could answerJames's question, a woman in a shawl had pounced upon him and hurriedhim and Elspeth out of the street. She had been standing at a cornerlooking wistfully at the window blinds behind which folk from Thrumspassed to and fro, hiding her face from people in the street, but gazingeagerly after them. It was Tommy's mother, whose first free act oncoming to London had been to find out that street, and many a time sincethem site had skulked through it or watched it from dark places, neverdaring to disclose herself, but sometimes recognizing familiar faces,sometimes hearing a few words in the old tongue that is harsh andungracious to you, but was so sweet to her, and bearing them away withher beneath her shawl as if they were something warm to lay over hercold heart.
For a time she upbraided Tommy passionately for not keeping away fromthis street, but soon her hunger for news of Thrums overcame herprudence, and she consented to let him go back if he promised never totell that his mother came from Thrums. "And if ony-body wants to kenyour name, say it's Tommy, but dinna let on that it's Tommy Sandys."
"Elspeth," Tommy whispered that night, "I'm near sure there's somethingqueer about my mother and me and you." But he did not trouble himselfwith wondering what the something queer might be, so engrossed was he inthe new and exciting life that had suddenly opened to him.