CHAPTER XXIV.
CHARITY BEGINS AT HOME--AND ENDS THERE.
Now all this has nothing to do with the story, except to show whatsort of a girl Cissy Carter was, and how she differed from PrissySmith--who in these circumstances would certainly have gone home andprayed that God would in time make Wedgwood Baker a better boy,instead of tackling missionary work on the spot with her knuckles asCissy Carter did.
It was several days later, and the flag of the Smoutchy boys stillflew defiantly over the battlements of the castle. The great Generalwas growing discouraged, for in little more than a week his fathermight return from London, and would doubtless take up the matterhimself. Then, with the coming of policemen and the putting up offences and notice-boards, all romance would be gone forever. Besideswhich, most of the town boys would have to go back to school, and theCarters' governess and their own would be returning to annoy them withlessons, and still more uncalled for aggravations as to manners.
Cissy Carter had given Sammy the slip, and started to come over byherself to Windy Standard. It was the afternoon, and she came past thegipsy encampment which Mr. Picton Smith had found on some unenclosedland on the other side of the Edam Water, and which, spite of theremonstrances of his brother-landlords, he had permitted to remainthere.
The permanent Ishmaelitish establishment consisted of about a dozensmall huts, some entirely constructed of rough stone, others of turfwith only a stone interposed here and there; but all had mud chimneys,rough doorways, and windows glazed with the most extraordinarycollection of old glass, rags, wisps of straw, and oiled cloth. Dogsbarked hoarsely and shrilly according to their kind, ragged clothesfluttered on extemporised lines, or made a parti-coloured patch-workon the grass and on the gorse bushes which grew all along the bank.There were also a score of tents and caravans dotted here and thereabout the rough ground. Half-a-dozen swarthy lads rose silently andstared after Cissy as she passed.
A tall limber youth sitting on a heap of stones examining a dog'sback, looked up and scowled as she came by. Cissy saw an unhealedwound and stopped.
"Let me look at him," she said, reaching out her hand for the whitefox-terrier.
"Watch out, miss," said the lad, "he's nasty with the sore. He'll bitequick as mustard!"
"He won't bite me," said Cissy, taking up the dog calmly, which aftera doubtful sniff submitted to be handled without a murmur.
"This should be thoroughly washed, and have some boracic ointment puton it at once," said Cissy, with the quick emphasis of an expert.
"Ain't got none o' the stuff," said the youth sullenly, "nor can'tafford to buy it. Besides, who's to wash him first off, and him in atemper like that?"
"Come over with me to Oaklands and I'll get you some ointment. I'llwash him myself in a minute."
The boy whistled.
"That's a good 'un," he said, "likely thing me to go to Oaklands!"
"And why?" said Cissy; "it's my father's place. I've just come fromthere."
"Then your father's a beak, and I ain't going a foot--not if I knowit," said the lad.
"A what--oh! you mean a magistrate--so he is. Well, then, if you feellike that about it I'll run over by myself, and sneak some ointmentfrom the stables."
And with a careless wave of the hand, a pat on the head and a "Poo'fellow then" to the white fox-terrier, she was off.
The youth cast his voice over his shoulders to a dozen companions whowere hiding in the broom behind. His face and tone were both full ofsurprise and admiration.
"'LET ME LOOK AT HIM,' SHE SAID."]
"Say, chaps, did you hear her? She said she'd 'sneak' the ointmentfrom the stables. I tell 'ee what, she'll be a rare good plucked onethat. And her a beak's daughter! Her mother mun ha' been a piece!"
It was half-an-hour before Cissy got back with the pot of boracicdressing and some lint.
"I had to wait till the coachman had gone to his tea," she explained,"and then send the stable boy with a message to the village to get himout of the way."
The youth on the stone heap secretly signalled his delight to theappreciative audience hiding in the broom bushes.
Then Cissy ordered him to get her some warm water, which he broughtfrom one of the kettles swinging on the birchen tripods scattered hereand there about the encampment.
Whereupon, taking the fox-terrier firmly on her knee and turning upthe skirt of her dress, she washed away all the dirt and matted hair,cleansing the wound thoroughly.
The poor beast only made a faint whining sound at intervals. Then sheapplied the antiseptic dressing, and bound the lint tightly down witha cincture about the animal. She fitted his neck with a neat collar ofher own invention, made out of the wicker covering of a Chianti wineflask which she brought with her from Oaklands.
"There," she said, "that will keep him from biting at it, and you mustsee that he doesn't scratch off the bandage. I'll be passingto-morrow and will drop in. Here's the pot of ointment. Put some moreon in the morning and some again at night, and he will be all right ina day or two."
"Thank'ee, miss," said the lad, touching his cap with the naturalcourtesy which is inherent in the best blood of his race. "I don'tmean to forget, you be sure."
Cissy waved her hand to him gaily, as she went off towards WindyStandard. Then all at once she stopped.
"By the way, what is your name? Whom shall I ask for if you are notabout to-morrow?"
"Billy Blythe," he said, after a moment's pause to consider whetherthe daughter of a magistrate was to be trusted; "but I'll be hereto-morrow right enough!"
"Why did you tell the beak's daughter your name, Bill, you bloomingJohnny?" asked a companion. "You'll get thirty days for that sure!"
"Shut up, Fish Lee," said the owner of the dog; "the girl is mainright. D'ye think she'd ha' said 'sneaked' if she wasn't. G'way,Bacon-chump!"
Cissy Carter took the road to Windy Standard with a good conscience.She was not troubled about the "sneaking," though she hoped that thecoachman would not miss that pot of ointment.
At the foot of the avenue, just where it joined the dusty road to thetown of Edam, she met Sir Toady Lion. He had his arms full of valuablesparkling jewellery, or what in the distance looked like it as the sunshone upon some winking yellow metal.
Toady Lion began talking twenty to the dozen as soon as ever he camewithin Cissy's range.
"Oo!" he cried, "what 'oo fink? Father sented us each a great bighalf-crown from London--all to spend. And we have spended it."
"Well," said Cissy genially, "and what did you buy?"
"Us all wented down to Edam and boughted--oh! yots of fings."
"Show me what you've bought, Toady Lion! I want to see! How much moneyhad you, did you say?"
Toady Lion sat plump down in the thickest dust of the road, as healways did just wherever he happened to be at the time. If therechanced to be a pool there or a flower-bed--why, so much the worse.But whenever Toady Lion wanted to sit down, he sat down. Here,however, there was only the dry dust of the road and a brown smatterof last year's leaves. The gallant knight was in a meditative mood andinclined to moralise.
"Money," said Toady Lion thoughtfully, "well, dere's the money thatyou get gived you, and wot Janet sez you muss put in your money-box.That's no good! Money-box locked! Janet keeps money-box. 'Get moneywhen you are big,' she sez--rubbage, I fink--shan't want it then--lotsand lots in trowsies' pocket then, gold sixpences and fings."
Toady Lion's eyes were dreamy and glorious, as if the angels werewhispering to him, and he saw unspeakable things,
"Then there's miss'nary money in a round box wif a slit on the top.That's lots better! Sits on mantlepiece in dining-room. Can get it outwif slimmy-jimmy knife when nobody's looking. Hugh John showed me how.Prissy says boys who grab miss'nary's pennies won't not go to heaven,but Hugh John, he says--yes. 'Cause why miss'nary's money is for badwicked people to make them good. Then if it is wicked to takemiss'nary money, the money muss be meaned for us--to do good to me andHugh John. Hugh John finks so. Me too!
"
Toady Lion spoke in short sentences with pauses between, Cissymeantime nodding appreciation.
"Yes, I know," she said meditatively, "a thinbladed kitchen knife isbest."
But Sir Toady Lion had started out on the track of Right and Wrong,and was intent on running them down with his usual slow persistence.
"And then the miss'nary money is weally-weally our money, 'cause Janet_makes_ us put it in. Onst Hugh John tried metal buttons off of hisold serge trowsies. But Janet she found out. And he got smacked. An'nen, us only takes a penny out when us is _tony-bloke_!"
"Is which? Oh, stone-broke," laughed Cissy Carter, sitting down besideToady Lion; "who taught you to say that word?"
"Hugh John," said the small boy wistfully; "him and me tony-blokeall-ee-time, all-ee-ways, all-ee-while!"
"Does Prissy have any of--the missionary money?" said Cissy; "Ishould!"
"No," said Toady Lion sadly; "don't you know? Our Prissy's awful good,juss howwid! She likes goin' to church, an' washing, an' having towear gloves. Girls is awful funny."
"They are," said Cissy Carter promptly. The funniness of her sex hadoften troubled her. "But tell me, Toady Lion," she went on, "does HughJohn like going to church, and being washed, and things?"
"Who? Hugh John--him?" said Toady Lion, with slow contempt. "'Coursehe don't. Why, he's a boy. And once he told Mr. Burnham so--he did."
Mr. Burnham was the clergyman of both families. He had recently cometo the place, was a well-set up bachelor, and represented a communionwhich was not by any means the dominant one in Bordershire.
"Yes, indeedy. It was under the elm. Us was having tea. An' Mist'rBurnham, he was having tea. And father and Prissy. And, oh! such a lotof peoples. And he sez, Mist'r Burnham sez to Hugh John, 'You are goodlittle boy. I saw you in church on Sunday. Do you like to go tochurch?' He spoke like this-a-way, juss like I'm tellin' oo, down hereunder his silk waistcoat--kind of growly, but nice."
"Hugh John say that he liked to go to church--'cos father was therelistenin', you see. Then Mist'r Burnham ask Hugh John WHY he like togo to church, and of course, he say wight out that it was to look atSergeant Steel's wed coat. An' nen everybody laugh--I don't know why.But Mist'r Burnham he laughed most."
Cissy also failed to understand why everybody should have laughed.Toady Lion took up the burden of his tale.
"Yes, indeedy, and one Sunday _I_ didn't have to go to church--'cosI'd yet up such a yot of gween gooseb----"
"All right, Toady Lion, I know!" interrupted Cissy quickly.
"Of gween gooseberries," persisted Toady Lion calmly; "so I had got mytummy on in front. It hurted like--well, like when you get sand down'oo trowsies. Did 'oo ever get sand in 'oo trowsies, Cissy?"
"Hush--of course not!" said Cissy Carter; "girls don't havetrowsers--they have----"
But any injudicious revelations on Cissy's part were stopped by ToadyLion, who said, "No, should juss fink not. Girls is too great softs tohave trowsies.
"Onst though on the sands at a seaside, when I was '_kye-kying_' outloud an' kickin' fings, 'cos I was not naughty but only fractious,dere was a lady wat said 'Be dood, little boy, why can't you be dood?'
"An' nen I says, 'How can I be dood? Could 'oo be dood wif all thatsand in 'oo trowsies?'
"An' nen--the lady she wented away quick, so quick--I can't tell why.P'raps _she_ had sand in her trowsies! Does 'oo fink so, Cissy?"
"That'll do--I quite understand," said Cissy Carter, somewhat hastily,in dread of Toady Lion's well-known license of speech.
"An' nen 'nother day after we comed home I went into the park andclum up a nice tree. An' it was ever so gween and scratchy. 'An it wasnice. Nen father he came walking his horse slow up the road, n' I hid.But father he seen me. And he say, 'What you doing there, little boy?You break you neck. Nen I whip you. Come down, you waskal!' He said itbig--down here, (Toady Lion illustrated with his hand the place fromwhich he supposed his father's voice to proceed). An' it made me feelall queer an' trimbly, like our guinea pig's nose when father speaklike that. An' I says to him, 'Course, father, you never clumb up notrees on Sundays when _you_ was little boy!' An' nen he didn't speakno more down here that trimbly way, but laughed, and pulled me down,and roded me home in front of him, and gived me big hunk of pie--yes,indeedy!"
Toady Lion felt that now he had talked quite enough, and began toarrange his brass cannons on the dust, in a plan of attack whichbeleaguered Cissy Carter's foot and turned her flank to the left.
"Where did you get all those nice new cannons? You haven't told meyet," she said.
"Boughted them!" answered Toady Lion promptly, "least I boughted some,and Hugh John boughted some, an' Prissy she boughted some."
"And how do you come to have them all?" asked Cissy, watching theimposing array. As usual it was the Battle of Bannockburn and theEnglish were getting it hot.
"Well," said Toady Lion thoughtfully, "'twas this way. 'Oo seesPrissy had half-a-crown, an' she boughted a silly book all about a'Lamplighter' for herself--an' two brass cannons--one for Hugh Johnan' one for me. And Hugh John he had half-a-crown, an' he boughtedthree brass cannon, two for himself and one for me."
"And what did you buy with your half-crown?" said Cissy, bending herbrows sweetly upon the small gunner.
"Wif my half-a-crown? Oh, I just boughted three brass cannons--_deywas all for mine-self_!"
"Toady Lion," cried Cissy indignantly, "you are a selfish little pig!I shan't stop with you any more."
"Little pigs is nice," said Toady Lion, unmoved, arranging his cannonall over again on a new plan after the removal of Cissy's foot; "theirnoses----"
"Don't speak to me about their noses, you selfish little boy! Blowyour own nose."
"No use," said Toady Lion philosophically; "won't stay blowed. 'Tistoo duicy!"
Cissy set off in disgust towards the house of Windy Standard, leavingToady Lion calmly playing with his six cannon all alone in the whitedust of the king's highway.