CHAPTER IV

COUNTRY MUD

IT was a mild afternoon towards the end of February. Sundale Station looked deserted when the London train dashed into it. Only a porter stood on the platform to welcome any arrivals, and when the one passenger proved to be our Peggy, hugging her small box, he looked at her with grim humour.

"I'm paid by the Company to wait on you, Miss, so hand over. Where are you going? Not from this part, are you?"

"I'm going to my place."

Peggy was in nowise daunted.

The journey had been a delightful one. Mrs. Jones and Mrs. Creak had both stolen a short respite from their busy life to come to the station and see her off. She had received a parting present from both of them. Mrs. Jones had presented her with a fancy workbox, gay with painted flowers, and Mrs. Creak a stout serviceable umbrella.

Peggy thought there never was such a happy girl as herself; not a shadow dimmed the future. And she looked up into the porter's face now with such a beaming smile, that an answering one appeared on his.

"Well, where's that?"

"Ivy Cottage—Miss Churchhill's."

"Oh, those be the two fresh ladies come down last Monday. You wait a bit, and I'll get my barrow and go with you. 'Tis only half a mile—a little more."

So a quarter of an hour later Peggy stood before her new home. Perhaps it did not quite come up to what her fancy depicted. It was a small red-brick house standing back from the road, with a front garden edged with trees and shrubs. Straw and newspaper littered the front path, the windows were curtainless and blindless, and the front door stood open, showing furniture blocking the way.

Peggy walked up the path with smiling assurance; then she paused, for down on the floor, at the foot of a flight of steep narrow stairs, sat Miss Churchhill, with dishevelled hair, and a handkerchief up to her face.

When she saw Peggy she sprang to her feet.

"Why, Peggy, we have completely forgotten you! Come in. Is this your box? How much is it? Sixpence. Thank you, porter; put it down here. We are all in confusion. Good afternoon. Now, Peggy, you must help us, for we hardly know what to do first, and I am in the agonies of toothache."

She tried to speak brightly, but Peggy's quick eyes rested on her face.

"Please 'm, you've bin cryin'. I'm wery sorry for yer; but, please 'm, have you tried brown paper and vinegar with a little pepper? Aunt used to find it eased her faceache wonderful, and Mrs. Jones, please 'm, used to soak her brown paper in gin. She said it was first-rate."

Miss Churchhill began to laugh; Peggy's interest and earnestness when she had hardly set foot inside the house comforted and cheered her.

"Joyce!" she cried. "Our little maid has come."

Downstairs came a bright-faced dark-haired girl. She had an apron over her black dress, and her skirt was pinned up. She smiled at Peggy.

"There's a lot to be done, so you must help us as quickly as you can. The woman who has been cleaning for us had to leave early to-day. We have got your room ready. Can we get your box up? It is quite a small one; you take one handle, and I will take the other."

The little room was soon reached. Peggy gazed at it with admiration, but her eyes remained longest on her dressing-table and looking-glass.

"I was a-wonderin' whether I'd have a glass," she said confidentially to the youngest Miss Churchhill. "You see 'm, it's rather partic'lar to me, 'cause of my caps!"

"Oh, of course," Joyce replied, hastily beating a retreat; "now take your things off, and come downstairs as quick as possible. It is tea-time."

"My dear Helen," she said, when she joined her sister, "what an extraordinary specimen you have got hold of."

"She is an original, but I'm hoping she may be a treasure. Don't laugh at her, Joyce; she takes life in real earnest. She has done me good already. I was feeling so miserable when she arrived."

"Poor old thing! You're worn out. Shut the front door, and come and sit down. We shall all feel better after a cup of tea. Do you hear the kitchen fire crackling? Doesn't that cheer you up?"

"We shall never get our furniture into the rooms," sighed Helen. "We ought to have sold more, and brought much less."

"I shan't speak to you till we've had tea!"

Joyce went off to the kitchen, singing; then a few minutes after came back to her sister.

"We haven't a drop of milk in the house. I've forgotten all about it."

"The farm is close; send Peggy."

"So I will."

Joyce ran upstairs. She found Peggy holding out one of her print dresses, and gazing at it with loving admiration.

"I'm just a-goin' to get into it, please 'm."

"Oh, you needn't do that to-night. Slip on an apron. But I want you first of all to run up to the farm for some milk. I will show you where it is. Put on your hat again, and make haste."

Peggy breathlessly obeyed.

Joyce took her outside the gate, and pointed to another large gate on the opposite side of the road.

"Go through that, and keep to the footpath across the field; then go through another gate, and you'll reach the farmyard. Get a pint of milk from Mrs. Green, the farmer's wife, and tell her who sent you. She'll know then; and it will be all right. Do you quite understand?"

"Yes 'm."

Peggy departed with pleased importance.

She was a long time gone, but at last she reappeared with a very sober face.

"Come along; where's the milk?" asked Joyce, meeting her at the front door.

"Please 'm, I haven't got it!"

"Why? Have you spilt it? What is the matter?"

For answer Peggy slowly pulled up her skirt, and displayed one boot, which she raised in the air for inspection. It was certainly very muddy.

"I had to turn back 'm. It was awful! I never see'd such mud—never! It ain't like the mud I've bin accustomed to; it sticks! And it got worse, and a cab-horse wouldn't a-walked through it!"

Joyce stared at her, then lost her patience.

"You stupid girl! It's no good to be afraid of mud in the country. Here are we waiting for our tea! How do you expect us to get our milk? If you don't do it, I must."

Tears that had been very near the surface now ran over.

"Please 'm, it's my best boots, and they cost four shillings and sixpence; but I'll try again 'm."

Peggy choked down a sob, and departed.

Joyce went back to her sister half-amused, half-vexed.

"She thinks no end of her clothes," she said. "If she could only see what a little guy she looks!"

"Oh, hush, Joyce! I don't think she is half bad-looking. She is very thin, and has that stunted, wizened appearance that most London children have, but she has a dear little face. It will be getting dark if she does not make haste. I never should have thought that mud would have turned her back."

Poor Peggy was going through worse horrors than mud, and when she finally arrived with the milk, her hat was awry, her black dress was covered with dirt, and her eyes nearly starting out of her head with terror.

Joyce snatched the jug out of her hand, and marched off to the kitchen without a word; but Helen took pity on her.

"What is the matter, Peggy? You look frightened."

"Oh, please 'm, I've never bin to a farm, and I did go through the mud, though it was almost a-drownin' of me, and then I come to a gate, and when I got through, please 'm, it was a wild beast show, only worse, for they weren't shut up in cages! There was great brown bulls with 'orns 'm, a-tryin' to run at me, and there was pigs as big as sheep, and great white geese, and a dog barkin' like mad and tryin' to break his chain to get at me, and awful-lookin' turkeys which I've never seen alive 'm before, only hung up in shops at Christmas-time, but I knewed 'em by their red beards, but the scandalous noise 'm they made at me, would frighten the king hisself!

"They all made for me 'm, they did indeed, and there was ducks and fowls by the hundreds all runnin' under everybody's feet. Please 'm, I knewed I were in dreadful danger, but I did my dooty faithful, and thought of your milk. Only what with the sticky mud, and the cocks and hens, and tryin' to dodge the bulls, and turkeys, and all the rest o' the wild animals, I fell slap down 'm, and then I give myself up for lost. I 'ollered, and 'ollered, and then a man run out, and he took the jug, and was so kind as to tell me I might wait outside the gate, and he fetched the milk to me hisself.

"And, please 'm, is there no p'lice in the country, for they wouldn't allow no such goin's-on in London; they be all on the loose and no one to keep 'em from attacking yer! And, please, 'm, must I go every day to fetch the milk?"

Peggy's breath gave out. She truly had been nearly frightened out of her wits.

Helen concealed her amusement, and spoke very kindly.

"We forgot you were a little town girl, Peggy. We will not send you till you are accustomed to country ways. I don't think the animals would have hurt you, but I'm sure it must have been very alarming. Now go upstairs and change your boots, and brush your dress, and then come down to tea."

Poor Peggy went upstairs a sadder and a wiser girl. She shook her head at herself in the glass.

"Yer clothes will be ruined, Peg, and you've no more money to buy new ones. I almost thinks I shan't like the country."

But a minute after, the glory of perching her cap on the top of her head, and feeling that it had a right to remain there, overcame all her woes.

She went downstairs with a smiling face, and when she found herself in a cheerful kitchen, which, though small, was tidy, she again congratulated herself on her good fortune.

Joyce found her really helpful in getting things to rights, and when she laid her head on her pillow that night, Peggy added the following to her evening prayer:

"And, please God, I thank you for bringin me 'ere, and making me into a proper servant. And I'll try to do my dooty to you and my missuses. And please help me to do it, for Jesus' sake. Amen."

Perhaps the supreme moment to Peggy was that in which she stood arrayed the next morning in her clean print gown. What did it matter if it was faded and old? It was starched, and crackled when she moved.

"Sounds like silk almost," she said to herself; and she certainly swept downstairs as if she were a princess robed in satin.

Poor little Peggy had never before possessed a dress that had to be washed. When water was scarce, and soap and soda had to be considered, it was natural that she could not afford the luxury of a dress that soiled so easily. A girl going to her first ball could not have taken more care not to spoil the dainty freshness of her gown, than Peggy did of her second-hand print dress that morning.

Joyce, coming down to help with the breakfast, returned to her sister upstairs exploding with laughter.

"Helen, your little maid will be the death of me!"

"What has she done now?"

"She has pinned newspapers all over herself to preserve her gown and apron. She looks like a walking edition of the 'Times!' And when I remonstrated, she said the coals and kitchen grate would soil her clothes. Can't you hear her crackling as she moves about?"

Helen laughed heartily.

"Don't hurt her feelings. I don't think she has ever possessed a cotton frock before. She will soon get accustomed to it, and, after all, such extreme cleanliness ought to be encouraged."

In a few days Ivy Cottage presented a tidy aspect. Helen and Joyce felt that their rooms, if tiny, were cosy and even pretty. And Peggy's gratification was great when the stairs were carpeted. She took a keen interest in her new surroundings and learnt to use the possessive case pretty freely.

It was "my kitchen," "my kettle," "I'm sweepin' my draw'n' room," or "dustin' my dinin' room bookcase." Everything—upstairs and down—belonged to her, and "my house, my garding, and my missuses" formed the chief topic of conversation with any passing villager. She found she had a great deal to learn, but she was so willing and anxious to please, that Joyce, who took her in hand, forgave her ignorance and awkwardness, and prophesied to her sister that though at present a rough diamond, she might prove worth her weight in gold.

Mrs. Creak meanwhile looked out anxiously for Peggy's first letter.

The Board School had certainly taught her to read and write, and though the letter arrived with many an ink-smudge and blot, it was quite decipherable.

"MY DEAR MRS. CREAK,—I'm going to write to you for this is Sunday and I've been to church, and I let you no that the cuntry aint clean at all, but downrite filthy, for I never seed mud like it in London. There is no lamps or shops when tis dark so you falls down anyweres in a ditch or pond and no pleece picks you up for there is none of them.

"Old men wears their shirts over their coats to come to church. Farms has hunderds of feerce animals kep roun them which you has to walk thro, and they all tries to kep you away from the door, and cows and bulls walks along the road all day. There is no shops noweres.

"My place is fine and I has butter to eat evry day. I has many hunderds of things to take care of. I treds on carpets evry day. I spilt tea over my apron I trys to be clean. There is more to dirt me than our room in London. My missuses are nice ladys. I am quite well as I hopes it leaves you at present.

"Your friend,

"MARGARET PERKINS.

"P. S.—Nex Sunday I goes to Sunday School. Please give my love to Missus Jones."

"Well," said Mrs. Creak, folding up the letter and taking off her spectacles, "girls is different to when I was young! The country too dirty for her! What next! Nought about the sweet, pure air and blue sky and singing birds, and green grass and trees and hedgerows. Her eyes never gets higher than the mud! I'm ashamed on her, that I be!"