Part 7 (2/2)

There was no question now about the little stranger staying; but, all the same, Tom went off to the mine with many misgivings, and he said to himself, as he walked quickly over the moor, that if Joan were too helpless to do for herself, how was she going to tend a babe? And that thought troubled him all the day.

But his fears were needless; for when he got home that evening and looked in at the door, he saw a sight which surprised him, yet gladdened his heart. Joan was sitting in her elbow-chair, with a face as bright as a moon in a cloudless sky, cuddling the strange babe, who was babbling to the kind face looking down into it as it lay in her arms.

'However did 'ee manage to lift the cheeld on to your lap, Joan?' he asked, when his wife saw him.

'Aw! we managed somehow or tuther between us,' she answered, with a happy laugh. 'It was as light as a feather, it was,' chirping to the babe, 'an' I do think the Small People gave it a hoist on to Mammie Trebisken's lap! Eh, my handsome?' speaking to the babe. 'An' it haven't a been a mite o' trouble nuther all this blessed day!' And then, looking up at Tom with a look he never forgot: 'An' it have a-lifted the latch of my loneliness, an' I am as happy as a queen!'

Tom was thankful to hear all this, and he thought it was no accident that had brought such comfort to his poor lonely wife. He had still greater cause for thankfulness as the days wore on; for as Joan now had her thoughts taken from herself in having a babe--which, by the way, was a maiden babe--to think for and to attend to as far as she was able, she grew better in health, and before winter was over could go about the house-place 'and do all her little ch.o.r.es her own self,'

she proudly declared. She even swept and sanded her kitchen floor, and made figgy hoggans [23] for her husband's dinner, which she had not been able to do since the early years of their marriage.

There were, however, a few things Joan could not do; but as they were all done for her in some mysterious way, and much better than she herself could have done, it was more a matter for rejoicing than regret. Whenever she put her was.h.i.+ng out in the backlet [24] to wait till Tom had time to do it, somebody took it away, and brought it back washed and dried and ironed--all looking as white as May-blossom and smelling as sweet as moor-flowers!

She was never certain who did this kindness for her, but in her heart she believed it was either done by the little old woman who brought the babe or the Small People.

Several happy years pa.s.sed away, and the little child--Ninnie-Dinnie, as they called her--so strangely brought to the moorland cottage and so strangely left, was now able to return some of her foster-parents'

kindness. This she did by helping in small household duties.

Joan, partly because it was right and partly because she feared the rheumatism might some day make her helpless again, had brought her up to be useful.

The child did not at all like work, and, but for Joan's insistence, would have been a regular little do-nothing. Perhaps she would have spared the little maid from many a small household duty if the Pail had allowed it!

In shaking up the moss and leaves in the bramble-basket the evening the mysterious little woman brought it to the cottage, Tom had found at the feet of the babe a small dark Pail, which he said must have been shaped out of a block of black tin left by the Old Men, or ancient Jews, who, ages before the art of turning black tin into white was discovered, worked the Cornish tin-mines. It was very crude, and had nothing remarkable about it save for its look of age and some curious characters cut under its rim, and which, of course, neither he nor his wife could read.

They thought the Pail was put into the bramble-basket for the child to play with, and telling themselves they would give her a better plaything when she was old enough, they set it on the dresser.

They were soon to learn that the Pail was something more than a child's toy, and had strange properties of making itself light or dark at will, thrusting its characters out of the metal in strong relief from its surface and withdrawing them again!

Tom declared it had in some mysterious way to do with the little creature's welfare, and that it was a kind of conscience--a Small People's conscience, perhaps. But Joan said she believed it was something more than that, if there was any meaning in the words of the song the d.i.n.ky old woman in the bal-bonnet had sung.

But, whoever was right, there was no doubt that the Pail showed its approval or disapproval of whatever Ninnie-Dinnie did! If the little maid was especially helpful and kind, the Pail became a lovely shade of silver and gray, and its letters stood out in glittering distinctness; but if she was lazy, or spoke rudely to her foster-parents, it grew darker than hornblende, and its characters were hardly visible.

This strange property of the Pail made Joan feel quite creepy when she first discovered its peculiarity, which she happened to do one day when Ninnie-Dinnie was very fractious and would do nothing she was bidden. She got used to it in time, and was even glad it showed its pleasure, or otherwise, in the manner it did.

She often told her husband that, when the little maid was particularly kind to her when he was at the bal, the Pail would laugh all over its sides.

Ninnie-Dinnie was now in her eighth year, counting the year she was brought to the cottage, and a dear, useful little maid she was; and no one to beat her anywhere for work, Tom declared, particularly when her size was considered.

The child was very small, so small that she could still sleep in the basket cradle she came in--and did too, for the simple reason that she was wakeful all night if she slept anywhere else.

Both Tom and Joan were sometimes troubled at her size. For she never seemed to grow bigger or fatter, whatever they gave her to eat, and they feared she would always be a little Go-by-the-ground. [25]

Joan, however, consoled herself that perhaps she was an off relation of the dear Little People.

Although Ninnie-Dinnie was exceedingly tiny, she was very sharp, and asked more questions in a day than they could answer in a year. She wanted to know the why and wherefore of everything--what the moor-flowers were made of, and who lived inside the great grey carns, and what made Carn Kenidzhek hoot--was it the giant who lived inside it?--and much besides that neither Tom nor Joan could answer, because they did not know themselves.

Tom said she was wise beyond her years, and all owing to her being moped in the cottage so much, and that she ought to be out of doors more. Joan quite agreed with him, and suggested that he should take her with him sometimes over the moor, only stipulating that she was not to go as far as the mine-works.

Tom considered this a splendid idea; and so, every now and then, when Ninnie-Dinnie was willing, she accompanied him part of the way, and as there was only one road leading back to the cottage, she easily found her way home alone.

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