Part 2 (1/2)
”Peggy,” said Hal, plaintively, ”do tum. Baby's pulling Hal's 'air adain.”
”Peggy's coming, dear,” said the motherly little voice.
And in another moment they were settled on the hearth-rug--Baby on Peggy's lap--on, and off it too, for it was much too small to accommodate the whole of him; Hal on the floor beside her, his curly head leaning on his sister's shoulder in blissful and trustful content.
CHAPTER II
THE WHITE SPOT ON THE HILL
”O reader! had you in your mind Such stores as silent thought can bring, O gentle reader! you would find A tale in everything.
What more I have to say is short, And you must kindly take it: It is no tale; but, should you think, Perhaps a tale you'll make it.”
W. WORDSWORTH.
”TELLING stories,” when the teller is only five and some months old, and the hearers one and a quarter and three, is rather a curious performance. But Peggy was well used to it, and when in good spirits quite able to battle with the difficulties of amusing Hal and Baby at the same time. And these difficulties were not small, for, compared with Baby, Hal was really ”grown-up.”
It is all very well for people who don't know much about tiny children to speak of them all together, up to--six or seven, let us say--as ”babies,” but we who think we _do_ know something about them, can a.s.sure the rest of the world that this is an immense mistake. One year in nursery arithmetic counts for ten or even more in _real_ ”grown-up”
life. There was a great difference between Peggy and Hal for instance, but a still greater between Hal and Baby, and had there been a new baby below him again, of course it would have been the greatest of all. Peggy could not have explained this in words, but she knew it thoroughly all the same, and she had learnt to take it into account in her treatment of the two, especially in her stories telling. In reality the story itself was all for Hal, but there was a sort of running accompaniment for Baby which he enjoyed very much, and which, to tell the truth, I rather think Hal found amusing too, though he pretended it was for Baby's sake.
This morning her glance out of the window had made Peggy feel so happy that the story promised to be a great success. She sat still for a minute or two, her arms clasped round Baby's waist, gently rocking herself and him to and fro, while her gray eyes stared before her, as if reading stories in the carpet or on the wall.
”Peggy,” said Hal at last, giving her a hug--he had been waiting what he thought a very long time--”Peggy, 'do on--no, I mean begin, p'ease.”
”Yes, Hal, d'reckly,” said Peggy. ”It's coming, Hal, yes, now I think it's comed. Should we do piggies first, to please Baby before we begin?”
”Piggies is _so_ silly,” said Hal, disdainfully.
”Well, we'll kiss him instead--another kiss all together, he does so like that;” and when the kissing was over--”now, Baby dear, listen, and p'raps you'll understand _some_, and if you're good we'll have piggies soon.”
Baby gave a kind of grunt; perhaps he was thinking of the pigs, but most likely it was just his way of saying he would be very good.
”There was onst,” Peggy began, ”a little girl who lived in a big house all by herself.”
”Hadn't she no mamma, or nurse, or--or--brudders?” Hal interrupted.
”No, not none,” Peggy went on. ”She lived quite alone, and she didn't like it. The house was as big as a--as a church, and she hadn't no bed, and no chairs or tables, and there was very, _very_ high stairs.”
”Is there stairs in churches?” asked Hal.
Peggy looked rather puzzled.
”Yes, I think there is,” she said. ”There's people high up in churches, so there must be stairs. But I didn't say it _were_ a church, Hal; I only said as big as a church. And the stairs was for Baby--you'll hear--p'raps there wasn't _reelly_ stairs. Now, Baby; one day a little piggy-wiggy came up the stairs--one, two, three,” and Peggy's hand came creeping up Baby's foot and leg and across his pinafore and up his bare arm again, by way of ill.u.s.trating piggy's progress, ”and when he got to the top he said 'grumph,' and poked his nose into the little girl's neck”--here Peggy's own nose made a dive among Baby's double chins, to his exceeding delight, setting him off chuckling to himself for some time, which left Peggy free to go on with the serious part of the story for Hal's benefit--”and there was a window in the big house, and the little girl used to sit there always looking out.”
”Always?” asked Hal again. ”All night too? Didn't her ever go to bed?”
”She hadn't no bed, I told you. No, she didn't sit there all night, 'cos she couldn't have see'd in the dark. Never mind about the night. She sat there all day, always looking out, 'cos there was something she liked to see. If I tell you you won't tell n.o.body what it was, will you. Hal?”
Hal looked very mystified, but replied obediently,