Better than Play.
by Mabel Quiller-Couch.
CHAPTER I.
WASHING DAY TEMPERS.
Down at the Henders" cottage all was misery and discomfort; the house was full of bad temper, steam, and the smell of soap-suds. It was washing-day, and the children hated washing-day. For one thing, Aunt Emma was always very cross, and for another, they never knew what to do with themselves. They were not allowed indoors, for they "choked up the place," she said, "and there wasn"t room to move,"; so they had to stay outside; but they must make no noise, for she could not bear it, and they must not wander away to play, for they might be wanted at any minute, to run an errand, or chop up a few sticks. Bella, too, the eldest of them all, was needed every now and again to hang a few things on the bushes; but that was all the break they had in the weary day.
Bella often wished her aunt would let her do more to help her. She was sure she could, and it would have been ever so much more pleasant than standing around seeing everything go wrong, yet doing nothing.
Her aunt was always scolding her for being idle, and grumbling at the amount of work she herself had to do; yet, if Bella attempted to help in any way, there was a great to-do, and her aunt grew so angry about it that Bella soon gave up attempting. It grieved her dreadfully, though.
The home had been so different when her mother was alive, so neat and pretty, and all of them so happy.
There had rarely been any scolding, and certainly there was never any grumbling about the work.
"Why, work is pleasure, if you take it in the right spirit," Mrs. Hender used to say, cheerfully; "it means life and happiness--but everything depends, of course, on the spirit in which you take it."
Certainly Aunt Emma did not take it in "the right spirit." She was always grumbling, and never what you would call cheerful. If she had to go up the few stairs to the bedrooms, she grumbled, and if she had to go to the door to answer a knock, she grumbled. If the children used an extra cup, or the windows got dirty, or the steps muddy, she complained bitterly of the hardship it was to her. And few things are harder to bear than to have to live with a perpetual grumbler, to listen to constant complaints, --especially, too, if the grumbler will not let any one help her to do the work she grumbles so much about. A grumbler spoils every one"s pleasure, and gets none herself; and the worst of it is, it is a disease that grows on one terribly.
In the Henders" case it was doing great harm, as Bella was old enough to see. Her father had always, in the old days, come home after his work, and, after they had all had a cosy meal together, had worked in the garden through the summer evenings, or, in the winter, sat by the fire reading the paper or a book to his wife while she sewed. He had long since ceased all that, though, for one can"t sit and read in any comfort in a kitchen that"s all of a muddle, and to a woman who is grumbling all the time; and soon he found there was a cosy, quiet resting-place at the "Red Lion,"
with plenty of cheerfulness and good temper, and no grumbling.
The children, too, never came indoors if they could stay out, and as Aunt Emma complained of their noise if they played in the garden, they naturally went farther away, if they could manage to escape.
But for Bella, this was not so easy. She was useful, though her aunt would never admit it, and she liked to have her within call. There was nowhere that Bella cared to go, except to Mrs. Langley"s, farther down the lane, and thither Miss Hender did not allow her to go very often, though no one knew why.
Mrs. Langley, or "Aunt Maggie," as the children had been taught to call her, had been their mother"s greatest friend and nearest neighbour, and during their mother"s lifetime they had felt almost as much at home in her house as in their own. Little Margaret, indeed, had been called after her.
Altogether life was very, very different now, and to Bella"s mind the present seemed anything but a happy time.
She sat on the step to-day, and looked soberly at the sky. The weather was dull and gloomy, with a moisture in the air which would entirely keep the clothes from drying; and a bad drying day is in itself enough to try the temper of the most amiable of washerwomen.
"Oh, I do wish the sun would shine," she thought anxiously; "it would make such a difference." Bella spent her days in a state of mingled hope and dread--hope that things would happen to please her aunt, and dread of things happening to ruffle her.
The baker"s cart drew up at the gate, and the man, springing lightly down, came up the garden-path with a basket of loaves. "Now she will be vexed at having to answer the door," thought Bella. "I wish I knew what bread to take in."
That, however, was more than she dare do, so she contented herself with going in, to warn her aunt of the baker"s approach.
"The baker is coming, Aunt Emma," she said quietly.
"Well, s"posing he is! Surely you"m old enough to take the bread from him; or do you want me to do it while you look on? It won"t soil your hands to touch a loaf of bread."
"How many loaves shall I take in?" asked Bella patiently.
"Oh, I don"t know! I don"t know what we"ve got, and I can"t stay to see.
Three would do, I should hope."
Bella looked at the baker"s basket, and her spirit sank; there were pale loaves and brown ones, and loaves of all shapes. Which should she take?
Which would please her aunt? At last she picked up what she thought was a nice tempting-looking one. Surely that would do for one, she thought.
The baker interposed. "Miss Hender don"t like that shape," he said shortly; "she thinks "em too crusty. Most folks prefer "em," he added meaningly.
Bella laid down the loaf and took up another.
"Miss Hender don"t----" the man began again, but stopped. What did it matter to him, he thought, what the cross-grained woman liked or didn"t like? He had trouble enough when she came to the door herself; so he hastily put two other loaves in Bella"s hands, and left as quickly as he could.
Of course, when Aunt Emma caught sight of the loaves, there was a nagging and a scolding. They were wrong in shape and colour and size, and everything else. "I should have thought a great girl like you might have known the kind of loaf we generally have, and not have taken in such things as those!"
"As you are always complaining of those we do have, I thought you"d like a change," was the retort that trembled on Bella"s lips, but she kept the words back. "I thought these looked nice," was all she said.
Indeed, they looked so nice and smelt so deliciously, she could have eaten a large crust of one then and there. She was very hungry, poor child; but on washing-days the children were not expected to be hungry, and, as a rule, no meal was got for any one between breakfast and the evening one, when their father came home. On washing-days nothing could be attended to but the washing.
Bella heard little Margery crying softly in the garden. The child was hungry too, she knew. She was but four years old, and she needed something. Bella"s heart ached for her baby sister, the little one who had been the pet and darling of the household during her mother"s lifetime. As she listened to the plaintive crying, the thought would come into her mind, "What would her mother feel if she knew that her baby was hungry, and neglected and unhappy?" and at last she could bear the thought and the crying no longer. Summoning up all her courage, she went out to the scullery, where her aunt was bustling about, grumbling to herself all the time.
"Aunt Emma," she said half-timidly, "may I give Margery something to eat?
She is so hungry. I hear her crying."
Miss Hender did not answer. "Have you seen the poker?" she demanded, impatiently. "One of those boys has walked off with it, I"ll be bound!
and here is my fire going out for the want of a stirring up. How anybody can be expected to get on where there"s a parcel of children----"
"I am sure the boys haven"t had it, Aunt Emma," declared Bella patiently.
"I saw it here just now, and they haven"t moved from the garden; they"ve been reading all the morning."
"Well, I can"t waste any more time," cried the angry woman, "I"ll take this," and impetuously catching up the stick that she used for lifting the clothes out of the copper, she thrust it into the fire.
Bella stood by wondering and embarra.s.sed. The fire burnt up the better for its stirring, it is true, but the stick was ruined for its usual purpose. Blackened and charred as it was, it was only fit for putting back into the fire again as fuel. Even to Bella"s childish mind the foolishness and wickedness of such a hasty action was only too plain.
A moment later, when the copper-stick itself was wanted, it was unusable, and there was no other at hand. One would have to be bought, or made, or found. While looking for something that would do in place of it, the poker was found lying on the table, amongst the pans and things littered there. This only made Miss Hender more irritable than before.
"To think it should have been there all the time, and me wasting all that time looking for it!" she exclaimed, as indignantly as though the poker were actually to blame.
In the corner of the scullery was a chair with one leg loose, waiting for the father to find time to mend it. Miss Hender"s flashing eye fell on this, and seizing the leg and plunging it into the boiling copper, she lifted out the clothes into the washing-tray with it. The chair leg was dusty and it was covered with yellow varnish and paint, but in her foolish and senseless rage she never stopped to think of this, and for months and months after the stains on the clothing stood as a reminder and a reproach, for not even time and frequent washings could remove them altogether.
Bella turned away miserable enough. The chair was ruined, of course, as well as the clothes, and she was old enough to understand the wicked waste such an outburst of temper may cause.
"It was one of those mother saved up for and bought," she said to herself, the tears welling up in her eyes, "and she was so proud of them.
I wish father had mended it at once, then it wouldn"t have been lying about in the scullery, in her way."
A voice from the garden, though, drove the other thoughts from her mind; it was Margery"s calling softly to her, "Bella, I"m so hungry. Give Margery something to eat, she"s so hungry."
Bella"s misery deepened to anger against the cause of all this wretchedness; the bad-tempered woman who was spoiling all their happiness.
"It isn"t her house," she argued to herself; "it"s father"s house, and ours, and I am sure he wouldn"t have Margery or any of us go hungry.
It is cruel to starve a little thing like that, and I"ve a good mind to go to the larder and get her something to eat."
But fear of the storm such an act would raise, and fear lest some of it should fall on Margery, a feeling of respect too for her aunt"s authority, kept her from doing this, but did not lessen her determination to relieve her little sister"s wants, and an idea came to her that sent her quickly to the garden with a brightened face.