CHAPTER XI

A Visit to a Farm

THE little girls became very fond of their governess. Miss Fletcher loved them all; but of the three, Dreamikins was the most difficult to manage.

One morning she was very inattentive. She sat with her slate before her, apparently working out a sum, but her brain was far away.

"Dreamikins, this is lesson-time," said Miss Fletcher sharply.

She had given up calling her Emmeline. Nobody called her that except Annette and the servants.

"Yes," said Dreamikins, smiling; "but Er is talking to me, and then I have to listen."

"Not in lesson-time," said Miss Fletcher firmly.

"Yes; I do 'sure you he does. I was asking him what happened to the little boy he took care of in a Indian forest when his Daddy was hunting lions, and got lost, and night came on in the dark,—black dark it was,—and the snakes crept up softly to the house, and the wolves sniffed and followed the snakes—"

"That will do. Go on with your sum."

"You interrup' me, and now I can't think at all—not to do sums nor nothing."

Dreamikins spoke in an injured tone. She put down her slate-pencil.

"Sit still for five minutes to clear your brain of all those exciting stories, and then begin your sum. If Er is an angel, Dreamikins, he wouldn't help you to be idle in school-time."

"No; and he doesn't," said Dreamikins quickly. "I were just going to tell you he said to me, 'You must not ask me to finish my story in sum-time.'"

She gave a triumphant look at Freda and Daffy as she spoke.

Miss Fletcher laid her watch on the table.

"I will tell you when the five minutes are up."

Dreamikins kicked her legs against her chair. Then she put her head on one side and smiled coaxingly at her governess.

"Fibo says you're a M.R.P., dear Miss Fletcher. Wouldn't you like to know what that means?"

"After lessons are over, I should."

So, with a sigh, Dreamikins tried to apply herself to her sum when the five minutes were up. It was the only lesson she disliked. Freda and Daffy did their sums in pencil in an exercise-book; Dreamikins made such a mess of her figures that she had to use a slate.

She tried hard to add up her figures, but when she brought them to Miss Fletcher they were all wrong, and angry tears rose in Dreamikins' eyes.

"It must be Satan who jumbles them up, and you won't let Er have nuffin to do with me, and so I've nobody to help me."

Then Miss Fletcher patiently made her stand by her side and count out loud, and in a very short time the sum was done and Dreamikins was happy again.

"Why need we do sums?" she asked.

"Because when you grow up you may have a good deal of money to spend, and if you don't want to waste it you must keep accounts, and put down what you spend; and when you do that, you have to add and subtract and do all the sums I am trying to teach you now."

"When I grow up," said Dreamikins, her eyes gleaming, "I shan't do nuffin that grown-ups gene'lly does. I shall have a airship, and go right away from the world for days and days, and go and see what the moon is like inside, and the stars, and p'raps, if God will let me, I shall climb as near to heaven as I possibly can, just to hear the harps and the singing. And then—"

"You must do some dictation now," said Miss Fletcher gently.

Poor Dreamikins! She was so quick in soaring away, and so quickly brought back to earth again!

Another morning she began to tell some adventures of Er, and this time Miss Fletcher did not interrupt her. She listened for some minutes, then said:

"Very interesting, Dreamikins. And now, instead of telling us the rest of it, just write it all down on your slate. Ask me how to spell the long words, and I will correct it when you've done. It will teach you how to spell."

Dreamikins very slowly obeyed. Her crestfallen little face made Freda giggle, but Miss Fletcher stopped that at once.

The sighs and groans that came from the poor little inventor were pitiable, and after half an hour's hard writing Miss Fletcher let her stop.

But after that, Dreamikins never attempted to tell stories in school-time again.

One afternoon she and Fibo went out in the pony-carriage together. It was a lovely day, bright and sunny, though there was a touch of cold in the air, and the leaves of the trees were turning a beautiful red and yellow and brown. Grinder always followed the carriage close behind, but Fibo would not have Drab or Whiskers taken in the carriage with them, though Dreamikins begged hard that they might come.

Fibo drove through the village, but when they were in the quiet lanes he let Dreamikins hold the reins. That was one of the proudest and happiest moments of her life.

She sat up like a little queen. Occasionally she would steal a glance at her uncle.

"I have my eye on you," he would say.

"Yes, Fibo dear; but I 'sure you, you can go to sleep and I'll drive quite steady. I should like you to have a little nap. It would rest your legs."

"Go to sleep, with the sun shining, and the fairies pelting us with leaves, and the breeze whispering stories into our ears, and the sheep and the cows calling out to us as we pass them? What do you take me for?"

"Oh, Fibo dear, I do love you!"

Dreamikins laughed out in the fulness of her joy.

"Where are we going?" she asked presently. "Always straight on?"

"Where would you like to go?"

"To see Mrs. Dufty, who called me lovie," said Dreamikins, suddenly having an inspiration. "Oh, do you think we could? I believe she would give us some tea in that lovely kitchen of hers."

"I think we might," her uncle said. "I know where she lives; we turn to the right soon."

"I'll turn when we come to it. I know how to turn! I love turning."

But if Fibo's hands had not been quickly over hers, Dreamikins would have pulled the pony right into a ditch.

"You're a little bit too energetic," her uncle told her.

The pony trotted on so quickly, and it was such a flat road, that they very soon came to the farm. Mrs. Dufty came down to the gate in great delight at seeing Dreamikins again. With the help of his crutches, Fibo managed to leave the carriage and get into the kitchen. One of the farm lads held the pony, and then Dreamikins chattered away to her heart's content. Mrs. Dufty listened to her with a beaming face, and produced out of the oven a delicious little apple dumpling.

"'Twas just as if I were expecting you, lovie. Couldn't have baked itself in better time. Only wants to be eaten; and I'll just trot off and get some cream to go with it. And perhaps the gentleman will take a glass of cider, or a drop of my rhubarb wine. I believe we have some sloe gin, if he prefers that?"

Fibo thanked her, but declared a glass of milk would suit him best.

Dreamikins was in the farmer's big armchair, and a tortoise-shell cat sprang up into her lap and purred her approval of her.

"Aren't you happy, Fibo? Isn't it lovely here? Just look at those lovely china dogs and heads on the dresser! When I grow up I shan't have a drawn-room, but a kitchen just like this, and I shall have tea-parties in it. And look at the shining pans! It's perfectly exkisit!"

"When you grow up, Dreamikins," said Fibo, shaking his head at her, "I pity your mother from the bottom of my heart."

Dreamikins was too absorbed in stroking the cat to pay attention to what he said.

When Mrs. Dufty came back, Dreamikins sat up at the table and ate her baked apple dumpling, with a generous dab of cream on the top of it, with the greatest relish.

"A darling little lady," said smiling Mrs. Dufty, turning to Fibo.

"She's an anxious charge, Mrs. Dufty," said Fibo, smiling back.

But Mrs. Dufty retorted:

"The precious things in this world always are."

And that reduced Fibo to silence; but he much enjoyed his glass of milk.

"I wish I could run about," said Dreamikins, with a wistful droop to her mouth. "I should love to see your cows, and baby cows, and pigs and chickens; and they have little turkeys, Fibo. Mr. Dufty told me so! I wish I could have a little turkey to play with Whiskers! I'm sure they'd just love each other."

"And then you would have to kill it and eat it for your Christmas dinner," said Fibo; "turkeys only live for that."

Dreamikins shuddered at this. Then Mrs. Dufty said she hoped she would come out and spend a long day at the farm when her leg was quite well. And Dreamikins promised she would.

It was almost beginning to get dusk when they started to drive home. Fibo drove this time, and Dreamikins talked hard the whole way.

When they got home there was no lad to take the pony, and Daw came out with a very grave face.

"I'll see to him myself, sir. That Michael Dunn is a bad lot, I fear."

"Michael!" cried Dreamikins in dismay. "Why, I love him. He cut me a whistle out of a stick!"

Daw shook his head.

"The police have been after him and took him away. It seems he was helping in a shop at Cressford before he come to us, and he helped himself out of the till, and some pound notes have been found in his home. It's lucky he didn't steal from us; but I had my suspicions that the oats were disappearing quicker than they ought to!"

Fibo was vexed and troubled to hear this. He sent Dreamikins upstairs to Annette, and talked for some time with Daw about the boy, who had only been with him a few weeks, and seemed a bright respectable lad.

To Dreamikins it was a terrible blow. She was full of it the next morning when Freda and Daffy came to lessons. They listened awed and dismayed to the story; then Freda's eyes began to sparkle.

"Dreamikins, it's all for the best! Think of it, he'll be put in prison!"

"Well," said Dreamikins, "that's dreadful! It makes me cry to think of it. I thought only wicked people went to prison. Michael wasn't a bit wicked to me, and he liked Shylock and Shylock liked him!"

"But don't you see, if he's in prison we can go and see him; that's just what we thought was quite impossible; and then we shall have done everything to make us into proper sheep."

"Dreamikins hasn't visited any one sick yet," said Daffy; "we have."

"Yes, but it's only because of my leg I haven't. I mean to visit hundreds in the village. Everybody I shall go and see. Oh, what a joyful thought, Freda!" Her little face was alight with pleasure again. "How splendid it will be! Is he in prison now? Can we go and see him to-morrow? Will they let us in?"

They could only wonder and conjecture, and then lessons began, and they could discuss Michael no longer; but the minute Dreamikins was free she seized her crutch and almost dashed into her uncle's study.

"Fibo! Fibo! When can I go and see Michael in prison? Freda and Daffy and me all want to go."

"Not so fast!" said Fibo. "Poor Michael hasn't been brought before the magistrates yet."

"But the police have got him."

"I don't know where he is at present. I'm going to find out. I assure you, he won't be hustled into prison so quickly. You seem anxious to get him there."

Dreamikins sat down on the floor with a perplexed frown on her face.

"I are sorry for him, very truly sorry, but you see, Fibo dear, he'll be in the very place we want to go to. And you mustn't on no account whatever stop us from going, because it's so very important. Don't you remember what the Bible says?"

"Now I see what you're driving at. But you're asking a big thing, Dreamikins, and perhaps you'll be disappointed. Michael may never be put in prison after all. I hope not. He'll get off with a fine, I dare say. Prison hardens lads like that. Wouldn't you rather he stayed away from prison altogether?"

Dreamikins sighed heavily.

"It's very differcult, Fibo. I don't want to feel unkind about him."

"I'm sure you don't."

Dreamikins slowly got upon her feet again.

"And how soon shall we know about him?"

"I dare say in a few days. I will tell you as soon as I hear. Are lessons over?"

"Oh, lessons!"

Dreamikins brought down her uninjured leg and foot with a stamp upon the carpet, and tears filled her blue eyes.

"It's always trying and especking and not getting. I do think it might happen easy and comfortable for Michael and us. I wish I could grow and swell up into a grown-up person quick, and then I'd just go and get everything done in one day."

"But, my poor little impatient Dreamikins, don't you know we can't all get our good deeds into one day and be finished with them? They must last our lifetime. And it is not doing a thing once that tells; it's doing it continually."

Dreamikins shook her curly head sadly.

"I always did hate that word contin'lly. It means go on, and on, and on, doesn't it? I like to go on, and then stop and do somefing different."

"So you do. And we've had enough of this sober talk. Get me my baccy-jar over there; I'm going to smoke a pipe. Will you fill it for me? And then I'll show you a picture I've been drawing this morning."

Dreamikins was her sunshiny self at once. Not again that day did she mention Michael, or the prison into which she was wanting to put him.

But the next morning she pushed her way into her uncle's room very early.

"Fibo, when I was in bed this morning, Er told me of all the people he had got out of prison. Don't you remember Peter in prison? One of God's angels got him out. Er thinks if him and me goes together we'll get Michael out very quick. It wouldn't hurt him to be in prison a teeny weeny little bit if I comed quick and let him out. So it won't be wicked to wish him there for about half an hour."

Fibo judged it best not to take his small niece seriously. He refused to be drawn into any arguments, and would only talk nonsense, distracting her mind at once from the undesirable subject.

When Dreamikins met her governess a little later, she said:

"Fibo and me have been having such pretence games in his room that I feel quite tarred. He's the funniest man in the world. He's been turning his face into all kinds of things—a H.D., and a P.D., and a A.O., and into you!"

"Into me?" said the astonished Miss Fletcher.

"Yes, into the M.R.P. That's what you are."

"I never shall understand all your letters," said Miss Fletcher pleasantly.

And then Daffy enlightened her.

"H.D. means Haughty Dragon, and P.D. means Proud Dog, and A.O. means Angry Ogre, and M.R.P. means the Mighty Ruling Power!"

"Well," said Miss Fletcher decidedly, "the M.R.P. says lessons at once, and no more talking, and as Dreamikins has been laughing till she is tired, it will rest her to have a grave face for the rest of the morning."

Nothing put Miss Fletcher out. She was always pleasant, but always firm; and Dreamikins as well as Freda and Daffy had already learnt the meaning of that long word "discipline" in the schoolroom.