Dick and Brownie | Page 6

your arms." Then, as her
eyes fell on the baskets the child had been carrying, "Was it one of
those you offered me for a bit of bread?"

"Yes, ma'am," answered Huldah, shyly.
"Well, you meant well, I don't doubt, but those baskets are worth more
than a bit of bread. They ought to sell for eighteenpence or two
shillings each, I should say."
"Yes, ma'am, Aunt Emma always asks half-a-crown, and then comes
down to two shillings or eighteenpence," said Huldah, innocently.
"Who's Aunt Emma?"
Huldah hesitated a moment, somewhat at a loss how to explain. "She
isn't my real aunt, though I calls her so. She and Uncle Tom ain't any
relation to me really. They're called Smith, and my name is Huldah
Bate; but when mother died--"
"Haven't you got any mother?"
"No, ma'am, and father is dead too. He died when I was too little to
remember, and mother earned her living by making baskets, and when I
was big enough she taught me."
"How long ago did your mother die?" asked Mrs. Perry, more gently.
"Two years, ma'am, and when she died Aunt Emma and Uncle Tom
said I was to go and live with them. They said mother had said I was
to."
"Um! Did your mother think so much of them, then?"
"No, ma'am. They was always too rough for mother, they drinks a lot,
and--and swears terrible, and they'm always fighting."
"I wonder at your mother leaving you to such people to be took care
of."
"I don't believe mother ever did," said Huldah, "she never told me so,
anyway," and she burst into bitter sobs; "but there wasn't anybody else
there, and they told the parish orf'cer that I was their little girl, and then

they went away as fast as they could, and took me with them."
"Are they kind to you?"
"They beat me--they're always beating me, or Dick, or Charlie,--
Charlie is the old horse that draws the van,--and I'd sooner be beaten
myself than see them being knocked about. We don't ever get enough
to eat, but that isn't so bad as the beatings."
"Poor child! You both look as if you had never had enough to eat in
your lives. Did they make baskets too?"
"No, ma'am, they can't. They make clothes-pegs, and they sell brushes
and mats, but my baskets brought them in as much as a pound a week
sometimes, and oh!" and she gasped at the thought, "Uncle Tom will be
angry, when he finds I don't come back!" and her eyes were full of
terror as she thought of his passion.
Mrs. Perry disappeared into the little scullery behind the kitchen, and
opened the door of the safe where she kept her scanty store of food.
There was very little in it but a ham-bone, a few eggs, a loaf of bread,
and a tiny bit of butter. The bone she had, earlier in the day, decided
would make her some pea-soup for to-morrow's dinner, but she thought
of poor Dick and his hollow sides, and came to the conclusion that her
soup would taste just as good without the bone; and Dick, when he
really grasped the fact that the whole of the big bone was really meant
for him, soon showed her that no ham-bone in the world had ever given
more complete satisfaction.
"Could you eat an egg?"
Huldah stared blankly at her hostess. She could not at first realise that
the question was meant for her. "An egg! Me! Oh, yes, ma'am, but I
don't want anything so--so good as that." She could have eaten
anything, no matter how plain, or poor, or unappetizing. But an egg!
One of the greatest luxuries she had ever tasted. "A bit of dry bread will
be plenty good enough. Eggs cost a lot, and--and--"

"My hens lay eggs for me in plenty. I don't ever have to buy one," said
the old woman, proudly. "I've got some fine hens."
"Do you keep a farm, ma'am?"
Mrs. Perry smiled and sighed. "No, child; a few hens don't make a farm.
I had a cow at one time, but all that's left is the house she lived in. Now,
draw over to the table and have your supper."
At any other time Huldah would have been shy of eating before a
stranger, for in the caravan good manners were only a subject for sneers
and laughter, and she remembered enough of her mother's teaching to
know how shocking to ordinary eyes Mr. and Mrs. Smith's behaviour
would have seemed. To-night, though, she was too ravenously hungry
for shyness to have much play. She tried to remember all she could of
what her mother had taught her, and got through fairly creditably.
"Now," said Mrs. Perry, when