Part 21 (2/2)
”No, no, I'll creep yont the hedge and climb the hen-house.”
”But it would be a' found out at any rate,” she remembered, ”when I go for the peats and things at Hogmanay.”
”It needna be,” eagerly replied Tommy. ”I'll bring them to you in a barrow in the dead o' night.”
”Could you?” she cried pa.s.sionately, and he promised he would, and it may be mentioned here that he did.
”And what for yoursel'?” she inquired.
”A bawbee,” he said, ”the night afore the Muckley.”
The bargain was made, but before he could get away, ”Tell me, laddie,”
said Meggy, coaxingly, ”has Kitty Els.h.i.+oner joined?” They were all as curious to know who had joined as they were anxious to keep their own members.h.i.+p a secret; but Tommy betrayed none, at least none who agreed to his proposal. There were so many of these that on the night before the Muckley he had thirteen pence.
”And you was doing good all the time you was making the thirteen pence,”
Elspeth said, fondly. ”I believe that was the reason you did it.”
”I believe it was!” Tommy exclaimed. He had not thought of this before, but it was easy to him to believe anything.
CHAPTER XVIII
THE MUCKLEY
Every child in Thrums went to bed on the night before the Muckley hugging a pirly, or, as the vulgar say, a money-box; and all the pirlies were ready for to-morrow, that is to say, the mouths of them had been widened with gully knives by owners now so skilful at the jerk which sends their contents to the floor that pirlies they were no longer.
”Disgorge!” was the universal cry, or, in the vernacular, ”Out you come, you sweer deevils!”
Not a coin but had its history, not a boy who was unable to pick out his own among a hundred. The black one came from the 'Sosh, the bent lad he got for carrying in Ronny-On's sticks. Oh michty me, sure as death he had nearly forgotten the one with the warts on it. Which to spend first?
The goldy one? Na faags, it was ower ill to come by. The scart.i.t one?
No, no, it was a lucky. Well, then, the one found in the rat's hole?
(That was a day!) Ay, dagont, ay, we'll make the first blatter with it.
It was Tommy's first Muckley, and the report that he had thirteen pence brought him many advisers about its best investment. Even Corp s.h.i.+ach (five pence) suspended hostilities for this purpose. ”Mind this,” he said solemnly, ”there's none o' the candies as sucks so long as Californy's Teuch and Tasty. Other kinds may be sweeter, but Teuch and Tasty lasts the longest, and what a grip it has! It pulls out your teeth!” Corp seemed to think that this was a recommendation.
”I'm nane sure o' Teuch and Tasty,” Birkie said. ”If you dinna keep a watch on it, it slips ower when you're swallowing your spittle.”
”Then you should tie a string to it,” suggested Tommy, who was thought more of from that hour.
_Beware of Pickpockets!_ Had it not been for placards with this glorious announcement (it is the state's first printed acknowledgment that boys and girls form part of the body politic) you might have thought that the night before the Muckley was absurdly like other nights. Not a show had arrived, not a strange dog, no romantic figures were wandering the streets in search of lodgings, no stands had sprung up in the square.
You could pa.s.s hours in pretending to fear that when the morning came there would be no fairyland. And all the time you _knew_.
About ten o'clock Ballingall's cat was observed was.h.i.+ng its face, a deliberate attempt to bring on rain. It was immediately put to death.
Tommy and Elspeth had agreed to lie awake all night; if Tommy nipped Elspeth, Elspeth would nip Tommy. Other children had made the same arrangement, though the experienced ones were aware that it would fail.
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