"Oh, Tiza, how be--utiful! How did they get there?"
"It"s old Sally, our white hen you know, laid them. I found them just after dinner. Mother doesn"t know nothing about them. I never told Becky, nor n.o.body. Aren"t they beauties?"
And Tiza took one up lovingly in her rough, little brown hands, and laid it against her cheek, to feel how soft and satiny it was.
"Oh, and Tiza, I know," exclaimed Milly eagerly, "you meant these would do for supper. That would be a lovely make up. There"s three. One for Mr. Backhouse, one for Mrs. Backhouse, and one for Becky.--There"s none for you, Tiza."
"Nor none for Becky neither," answered Tiza shortly. "Father"ll want two. Becky and me"ll get bread and dripping."
"Well, come along, Tiza, let"s take them in."
"No, you take them," said Tiza. "Mother won"t want to see me no more, and father"ll perhaps be coming in."
"Oh, but, Tiza, you"ll come to tea with us?"
"I don"t know," said Tiza. "You ask."
And off she ran as quick as lightning, off to her hiding-place in the cherry tree, while Milly was left with the three brown eggs, feeling rather puzzled and anxious. However, she put them gently in the skirt of her frock, and holding it up in both hands she picked her way through the wet yard back to the house.
When she appeared at the kitchen door, Aunt Emma and Mrs. Backhouse were chatting quietly. Mr. and Mrs. Norton, and Olly, had gone on for a little stroll along the Wanwick road, and Becky was sitting on the window-sill with the baby, who seemed very sleepy, but quite determined not to go to sleep in spite of all Becky"s rocking and patting.
"Oh, Mrs. Backhouse," began Milly, coming in with a bright flushed face, "just look here, what I"ve brought. Tiza found them just after dinner to-day. They were under the hayrick right away in the corner, and she wanted to make up, so she showed me where they were, so I brought them in, and there"s two for Mr. Backhouse, and one for you, you know. And, please, won"t you let Tiza come to tea with us?"
Mrs. Backhouse looked in astonishment at the three eggs lying in Milly"s print skirt, and at Milly"s pleading little face.
"Ay, that"s Sally, I suppose. She"s always hiding her eggs is Sally, where I can"t find them. So it was Tiza found them, was it, Missy? Well, they will come, in very handy for supper as it happens. Thank you kindly for bringing them in."
And Mrs. Backhouse took the eggs and put them safely away in a pie-dish, while Becky secretly pulled Milly by the sleeve, and smiled up at her as much as to say,
"Thank you for helping Tiza out of her sc.r.a.pe."
"And you"ll let Becky and Tiza come to tea?" asked Milly again.
"Well, I"m sure, Miss, I don"t know," said Mrs. Backhouse, looking puzzled; "Becky may come and welcome, but perhaps it would do Tiza good to stay at home."
"Don"t you think she"d better have a little change?" said Aunt Emma in her kind voice, which made Milly want to hug her. "I daresay staying indoors so long made her restless. If you will let me carry them both off, I daresay between us, Mrs. Backhouse, we can give Tiza a talking to, and perhaps she"ll come back in a more sensible mood."
"Well, Miss Elliot, she shall go if you wish it. Come Becky, give me the baby, and go and put your things on." And then going to the door, Mrs.
Backhouse shouted "Tiza!" After a second or two a little figure dropped down out of the cherry tree and came slowly up the walk. Tiza had shaken her hair about her face so that it could hardly be seen, and she never looked once at Aunt Emma and Milly as she came up to her mother.
"There, go along, Tiza, and get your things on," said Mrs. Backhouse, taking her by the arm. "I wouldn"t have let you go out to tea, you know, if Miss Elliot and Missy hadn"t asked particular. Mind you don"t get into no more mischief. And very like those eggs"ll do for father"s supper; so, I daresay, I"ll not say anything to him this time--just for once. Now go up."
Tiza didn"t want to be told twice, and presently, just as Mr. and Mrs.
Norton and Olly were coming back from their walk, they met Aunt Emma coming back from the farm holding Becky"s hand, while Milly and Tiza walked in front.
"Well, Tiza," said Mr. Norton, patting her curly head, I declare I think you beat Olly for mischief. Olly never spoilt my dinner yet, that I remember. What should I do to him do you think, if he did?"
"Beat him," said Tiza, looking up at Mr. Norton with her quick birdlike eyes.
"Oh dear, no!" said Mr. Norton, "that wouldn"t do my dinner any good. I should eat him up instead."
"I don"t believe little boys taste good a bit," said Olly, who always believed firmly in his father"s various threats. "If you ettened me, father, you"d be ill."
"Oh no," said Mr. Norton, "not if I eat you with plenty of bread-sauce.
That"s the best way to cook little boys. Now, Milly, which of you three girls can get to that gate first?"
Off ran the three little girls full tilt down the hill leading to Ravensnest, with Olly puffing and panting after them. Milly led the way at first, for she was light and quick, and a very fair runner for her age; but Tiza soon got up to her and pa.s.sed her, and it was Tiza"s little stout legs that arrived first at Ravensnest gate.
"Oh, Becky!" said Milly, putting her arm round Becky"s neck as they went into the house together, "I hope you may stay a good long time. What time do you go to bed?"
"Oh, I don"t know," said Becky. "We go when fayther goes."
"When fayther goes!" exclaimed Milly. "Why, we go ever so long before father. Why do you stay up so late?"
"Why, it isn"t late," said Becky. "Fayther goes to bed, now it"s summertime, about half-past eight; but in winter, of course, he goes earlier. And we all goes together, except baby. Mother puts him out of the way before supper."
"Well, but how funny," said Milly, "I can"t think why you should be so different from us."
And Milly went on puzzling over Becky and her going to bed, till nurse drove it all out of her head by fetching them to tea. Such a merry tea they had, and after tea a romp in the big kitchen with father, which delighted the little farm children beyond measure. Some time in the evening, I believe, Aunt Emma managed to give Tiza a little talking to, but none of the other children knew anything about it, except perhaps Becky, who generally knew what was happening to Tiza.
CHAPTER IX
MILLY"S BIRTHDAY
Now we have come to a chapter which is going to be half merry and half sad. I have not told you any sad things about Milly and Olly up till now, I think. They were such happy little people, that there was nothing sad to tell you. They cried sometimes, of course--you remember Milly cried when Olly stickied her doll--but generally, by the time they had dried up their tears they had quite forgotten what they were crying about; and as for any real trouble, why they didn"t know what it could possibly be like. But now, just as they were going away from Ravensnest, came a real sad thing, and you"ll hear very soon how it happened.
After those three wet days it was sometimes fine and sometimes rainy at Ravensnest, but never so rainy as to keep the Nortons in all day. And every now and then there were splendid days, when the children and their father and mother were out all day long, wandering over the mountains, or walking over to Aunt Emma"s or tramping along the well-known roads to Wanwick on one side, and the little village of Rydal and Rydal Lake on the other. They had another row on Windermere; and one fine evening Mr.
Norton borrowed a friend"s boat, and they went out fishing for perch on Rydal Lake, the loveliest little lake in the world, lying softly in a green mountain cup, and dotted with islands, which seemed to the children when they landed on them like little bits of fairyland dropped into the blue water.
[Ill.u.s.tration: "Haymaking"]
And then! crown of delights! came the haymaking. There were long fine days, when the six small creatures--Milly, Olly, Becky, Tiza, Bessie, and Charlie--followed John Backhouse and his men about in the hayfields from early morning till evening, helping to make the hay, or simply rolling about like a parcel of kittens in the flowery fragrant heaps.
Aunt Emma was often at Ravensnest, and the children learned to love her better and better, so that even wild little Olly would remember to bring her stool, and carry her shawl, and change her plate at dinner; and Milly, who was always clinging to somebody, was constantly puzzled to know whose pocket to sit in, mother"s or Aunt Emma"s.
Then there was the farmyard, the cows, and the milking, and the chickens. Everything about them seemed delightful to Milly and Olly, and the top of everything was reached when one evening John Backhouse mounted both the children on his big carthorse Dobbin, and they and Dobbin together dragged the hay home in triumph.
And now they had only one week more to stay at Ravensnest. But that week was a most important week, for it was to contain no less a day than Milly"s birthday. Milly would be seven years old on the 15th of July, and for about a week before the 15th, Milly"s little head could think of nothing else. Olly too was very much excited about it, for though Milly of course was the queen of the day, and all the presents were for her, not for him, still it was good times for everybody on Milly"s birthday; besides which, he had his own little secret with mother about his present to Milly, a secret which made him very happy, but which he was on the point of telling at least a hundred times a day.
"Father," said Milly, about four days before the birthday, when they were all wandering about after tea one evening in the high garden which was now a paradise of ripe red strawberries and fruit of every kind, "does everybody have birthdays? Do policemen have birthdays?"
"I expect so, Milly," said Mr. Norton, laughing, "but they haven"t any time to remember them."
"But, father, what"s the good of having birthdays if you don"t keep them, and have presents and all that? And do cats and dogs have birthdays? I should like to find out Spot"s birthday. We"d give her cream instead of milk, you know, and I"d tie a blue ribbon round her neck, and one round her tail like the queen"s sheep in mother"s story."