Part 12 (1/2)
”You don't say so!” exclaimed the woman.
”But I must make my bread first, for if I don't it will not have time to rise. When I have done that I'll bring the oatmeal down with me, and make it for them. Will you let me?”
The woman thanked her; but before Meg went up to her bread she requested that a saucepan of water might be put over the fire instead of the kettle, which the woman had already put on for the early dinner.
”Will you mind measuring the water into it?” asked Meg; ”eight half-pints is what I want, and a good teaspoonful of salt.”
Mrs. Blunt said she would, and Meg went away to her bread.
That did not take her half-an-hour, but when she came down the woman had done her best to smarten up her room. The little hurt child had had its hands washed, and was now fast asleep, and the woman herself looked three degrees fresher than when Meg left her.
”I have brought half-a-pound of oatmeal if you will accept it,” she said, entering, with her clean cooking ap.r.o.n still on, and her neat hair uncovered by her hat.
”It's very kind, I'm sure,” said the woman. ”Now you must show me the right way, and then I shall know.”
”Is the water boiling yet?” asked Meg, seating herself near the fire and peeping into the steaming saucepan.
”That it is! Don't it look like it?”
”Because it must boil,” explained Meg, ”or the oatmeal would sink to the bottom and burn.”
”Oh, that's the reason?”
”Yes; and I've brought down my wooden spoon in case you had not got one.
The iron ones get so hot.”
”Must it be stirred all the time?”
”Oh no, every now and then. See, I'm going to sprinkle in the oatmeal with my hand. If I put it in all at once it would fall into lumps, and children hate lumps! At least _I_ did when I was a child.”
Mrs. Blunt stood by watching.
”And how much do ye pay a pound for it, Mrs. Seymour?”
”Twopence-halfpenny where Jem gets it.”
”What do ye eat it with? I've heard tell of treacle, but I'm no hand at sweet things myself.”
”No, more am I,” said Meg. ”Of course the best thing is a little milk; I dare say half a pint would do; but you might give them their choice of sugar.”
Mrs. Blunt sighed. She had spent nearly all she had left on the baker's loaves which went so fast, and she hardly knew where the milk and sugar were to come from.
Meg guessed that, from the change in the woman's face from bright interest to despondency.
She thought for a moment, and then she said with some little hesitation--
”I wonder if the children would think me interfering if I were to bring them a little milk and sugar as a present?”
The woman turned away to the other room, nominally to fetch the baby, who was stirring, but really to get rid of a few tears. It was the way it was done, she told herself, that was so nice. She couldn't have let every one do her such a kindness.