"No, mamma dear. P"raps Hallie"s boots is younger than my sweet little red shoes, for they has been a great long while in the shop window, and Baldwin and Terry sawed them when they was little."
"Not "younger," Peggy dear; "newer," you mean. Boots aren"t alive. You only speak of live things as "young.""
Peggy sighed.
"It is rather difficult to understand, mamma dear."
"It will all come by degrees," said mamma. "When I was a little girl I know I thought for a long time that the moon was the mamma of the stars, because she looked so much bigger."
"I think that"s very nice, mamma, though, of course, I understand it"s only a _fancy_ fancy. I haven"t seen the moon for a long time, mamma.
May I ask nurse to wake me up the next time the moon comes?"
"You needn"t wait till dark to see the moon," said mamma. "She can often be seen by daylight, though, of course, she doesn"t look so pretty then, as in the dark sky which shows her off better. But, of course, the sky here is so often dull with the smoke of the town that we can"t see her as clearly in the daytime as where the air is purer."
"Like in the country, mamma," said Peggy. "It"s _always_ clear in the country, isn"t it?"
"Not quite always," said mamma, smiling. "But, Peggy dear, speaking of the country----"
"Oh yes!" Peggy interrupted, "I want to tell you, mamma, what a silly thing Hallie _would_ say about going to the country;" and she told her mother all that Hal had said about his boots, and indeed what nurse had said too; "and nursie was just a weeay, teeny bit cross to me, mamma dear," said Peggy, plaintively. "She wouldn"t say she"d mistooked about it."
Mamma looked rather grave, and instead of saying at once that of course nurse had only meant that Hal"s boots should last till the summer, she took Peggy on her knee and kissed her--kissed her in rather a "funny"
way, thought Peggy, so that she looked up and said--
"Mamma dear, why do you kiss me like that?"
Instead of answering, mamma kissed her again, which almost made Peggy laugh.
But mamma was not laughing.
"My own little Peggy," she said, "I have something to tell you which I am afraid will make you unhappy. It is making _me_ very unhappy, I know."
"Poor dear little mamma," said Peggy, and as she spoke she put up her little hand and stroked her mother"s face. "Don"t be unhappy if it isn"t anything _very_ bad. Tell Peggy about it, mamma dear."
CHAPTER VI
FELLOW-FEELINGS AND SLIPPERS
"If I"d as much money as I could tell I never would cry "old clothes to sell"!"
_London Cries._
MAMMA hesitated a moment. Then she began.
"You know, Peggy, my pet," she said, "for a good while now I haven"t been as strong and well as I used to be----"
"Stop, mamma, stop," said Peggy, with a sort of cry, and as she spoke she threw up her hands and pressed them hard against her ears; "I know what you"re going to say, but I can"t bear it, no, I can"t. Oh mamma, you"re not to say you"re going to die."
For all answer mamma caught Peggy into her arms and kissed her again and again. For a minute or two it seemed as if she could not speak, but at last she got her voice. And then, rather to Peggy"s surprise, she saw that although there were tears in mamma"s eyes, and even one or two trickling down her face, she was smiling too.
"My darling Peggy," she said, "did I frighten you? I am so, so sorry. Oh no, darling, it is nothing like that. Please G.o.d I shall live to see my Peggy as old as I am now, and older, I hope. No, no, dear, it is nothing so very sad I was going to tell you. It is only that the doctor says the best way for me to get quite well and strong again is to go away for a while to have change of air as it is called, in some nice country place."
"In the country," said Peggy, her eyes brightening with pleasure. "Oh, how nice! will it perhaps be that country where my cottage is? Oh, dear mamma, how lovely! And when are we to go? May we begin packing to-day?
And how could you think it would make me unhappy----" she went on, suddenly remembering what her mother had said at first.
Mamma"s face did not brighten up at all.
"Peggy dear, it is very hard for me to tell you," she said. "Of course, if we had all been going together it would have been only happy. But that"s just the thing. I can"t take you with me, my sweet. Baby must go, because nurse must, and Hallie too. But the friend I am going to stay with can"t have more of us than the two little ones, and nurse, and me--it is very, very good of her to take so many."
"Couldn"t I sleep with you, mamma dear?" said Peggy in a queer little voice, the tone of which went to mamma"s heart.
"My pet, Hallie must sleep with me, as it is. My friend"s house isn"t very big. And there"s another reason why I can"t take you--I"m not sure if you could understand----"
"Tell it me, please, mamma."
"The lady I am going to had a little girl just like you--I mean just the same age, and rather like you altogether, I think. And the poor little girl died two years ago, Peggy. Since then it is a pain to her mother to see other little girls. When you are bigger and not so like what her little girl was, I daresay she won"t mind."
Peggy had been listening, her whole soul in her eyes.
"I understand," she said. "I wouldn"t like to go if it would make that lady cry--if it hadn"t been for that--oh mamma, I could have squeezed myself up so very tight in the bed! You and Hallie wouldn"t have knowed I were there. But I wouldn"t like to make her cry. I am so sorry about that little girl. Mamma, how is it that dying is so nice, about going to heaven, you know, and _still_ it is so sorry?"
"There is the parting," said mamma.
"Yes--that must be it. And, mamma, I hope it isn"t naughty, but if you were to die I"d be _very_ sorry not to see you again just the same--even if you were to be a very pretty angel, with shiny clothes and all that, I"d want you to be my own old mamma."
"I would be your own old mamma, dear. I am sure you would feel I was the same."
"I"m so glad," said Peggy. "Still it is sad to die," and she sighed.
"Mamma dear, you won"t be very long away, will you? It"ll only be a little short parting, won"t it?"
"Only a few weeks, dear. And I hope you won"t be unhappy even though you must be a little lonely."
"If only I had a sister," said Peggy.
But mamma went on to tell her all she had planned. Miss Earnshaw, a dressmaker who used sometimes to come and sew, was to be with Peggy as much as she could. She was a gentle nice girl, and Peggy liked her.
"She has several things to make for me just now," said mamma, "and as she lives near, she will try to come every day, so that she will be with you at dinner and tea. And f.a.n.n.y will help you to dress and undress, and either she or Miss Earnshaw will take you a walk every day that it is fine enough. And then in the evenings, of course, the boys will be at home, and papa will see you every morning before he goes."
"And I daresay he"ll come up to see me in bed at night too," said Peggy.
Then she was silent for a minute or two; the truth was, I think, that she was trying hard to swallow down a lump in her throat that _would_ come, and to blink away two or three tiresome tears that kept creeping up to her eyes.
Two days later and they were gone. Mamma, nurse, Hal, and Baby, with papa to see them off, and two boxes outside the cab, and of course a whole lot of smaller packages inside.
Peggy stood at the front-door, nodding and kissing her hand and making a smile, as broad a one as she possibly could, to show that she was not crying.
When they were gone, really gone, and f.a.n.n.y had shut the door, she turned kindly to Peggy.