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Little Meg's Children

<h4> CHAPTER IX </h4> <h3> Little Meg's Friends in Need </h3> These were hard times for little Meg. The weather was not severely cold yet, or the children would have been bitterly starved up in their cold attic, where Meg was obliged to be very careful of the coal. All her mother's clothes were in pledge now, as well as her own and Robin's; and it seemed as if it would soon come to pawning their poor bed and their scanty furniture. Yet Meg kept up a brave spirit, and, as often as the day was fine enough, took her children out into the streets, loitering about the cook-shops, where the heat from the cellar kitchens lent a soothing warmth to their shivering bodies. About the middle of December the first sharp frost set in, and Meg felt herself driven back from this last relief. She had taken the children out as usual, but she had no shoes to put on their feet, and nothing but their thin old rags to clothe them with. Robin's feet were red and blue with cold, like her own; but Meg could not see her own, and did not feel the cold as much for them as for Robin's. His face had lost a little of its roundness and freshness, and his black eyes some of their brightness since his birthday; and poor Meg's heart bled at the sight of him as he trudged along the icy pavement of the streets at her side. There was one cook-shop from which warm air and pleasant odours came up through an iron grating, and Meg hurried on to it to feel its grateful warmth; but the shutters of the shop were not taken down, and the cellar window was unclosed. Little Meg turned away sadly, and bent her bare and aching feet homewards again, hushing baby, who wailed a pitiful low wail in her ears. Robin, too, dragged himself painfully along, for he had struck his numbed foot against a piece of iron, and the wound was bleeding a little. They had turned down a short street which they had often passed through before, at the end of which was a small shop, displaying in its window a few loaves of bread, and some bottles containing different kinds of sweetmeats, such as they had indulged in sometimes in the palmy days when father was at home. The door was divided in the middle, and the lower half was closed, while the upper stood open, giving a full view of the shop within. Meg's old brown bonnet just rose above the top of the closed half, and her wistful face turned for a moment towards the tempting sight of a whole shelf full of loaves; but she was going on slowly, when a kindly voice hailed her from the dark interior. 'Hollo, little woman!' it shouted, 'I haven't set eyes on you this many a day. How's Robbie and baby.' 'They're here, sir, thank you,' answered Meg, in a more womanly way than ever, for she felt very low to-day. 'We're only doing middling, thank you, sir.' 'Why, father's ship's come in,' said her good-natured friend from the docks, coming forward and wiping his lips, as if he had just finished a good meal. 'What makes you be doing only middling?' 'Father didn't come home in the ship,' replied Meg, her voice faltering a little. 'Come in and tell us all about it,' he said. 'Hollo, Mrs Blossom! just step this way, if you please.' There was a little kitchen at the back of the shop, from which came a very savoury smell of cooking, as the door opened, and a round, fat, rosy-cheeked woman, of about fifty years of age, looked out inquiringly. She came a step or two nearer the door, as Meg's friend beckoned to her with a clasp-knife he held in his hand. 'These little 'uns look cold and hungry, don't they, Mrs Blossom?' he said. 'You smell something as smells uncommon good, don't you?' he asked of Meg, who had sniffed a little, unconsciously. 'Yes, please, sir,' answered Meg. 'I've ate as much as ever I can eat for to-day,' said her friend, 'so you give 'em the rest, Mrs Blossom, and I'll be off. Only just tell me why father's not come home in his ship.' 'He was took bad on the other side of the world,' replied Meg, looking up tearfully into his good-tempered face, 'and they was forced to leave him behind in a hospital. That's why.' 'And what's mother doing?' he asked. 'Mother's dead,' she answered. 'Dead!' echoed her friend. 'And who's taking care of you young 'uns?' 'There's nobody to take care of us but God,' said Meg, simply and softly. 'Well, I never!' cried Mrs Blossom, seizing the baby out of Meg's, and clasping it in her own arms. 'I never heard anything like that.' 'Nor me,' said the man, catching up Robin, and bearing him off into the warm little kitchen, where a saucepan of hot tripe was simmering on the hob, and a round table, with two plates upon it, was drawn up close to the fire. He put Robin down on Mrs Blossom's seat, and lifted Meg into a large arm-chair he had just quitted. 'I guess you could eat a morsel of tripe,' he said, ladling it out in overflowing spoonfuls upon the plates. 'Mrs Blossom, some potatoes, if you please, and some bread; and do you feed the baby whilst the little woman gets her dinner. Now, I'm off. Mrs Blossom, you settle about 'em coming here again.' He was off, as he said, in an instant. Meg sat in her large arm-chair, grasping a big knife and fork in her small hands, but she could not swallow a morsel at first for watching Robin and the baby, who was sucking in greedily spoonfuls of potatoes, soaked in the gravy. Mrs Blossom urged her to fall to, and she tried to obey; but her pale face quivered all over, and letting fall her knife and fork, she hid it in her trembling hands. 'If you please, ma'am, I'm only so glad,' said little Meg as soon as she could command her voice. 'Robbie and baby were so hungry, and I hadn't got anythink to give 'em.' 'I suppose you aint hungry yourself neither,' observed Mrs Blossom, a tear rolling down a little channel between her round cheeks and her nose. 'Oh, but ain't I!' said Meg, recovering herself still more. 'I've had nothink since last night, and then it were only a crust as Kitty give me.' 'Well, dear, fall to, and welcome,' answered Mrs Blossom. 'And who's Kitty?' 'It's a grown-up person as lives in the back attic,' answered Meg, after eating her first mouthful. 'She helps me all she can. She's took all my things to the pawn-shop for me, because she can get more money than me. She's as good as can be to us.' 'Are all your things gone to pawn?' inquired Mrs Blossom. 'I've got baby's cloak and hood left,' she replied mournfully. 'He wouldn't give more than a shilling for 'em, and I thought it wasn't worth while parting with 'em for that. I tried to keep Robbie's cap and pinafore, that were as good as new, but I were forced to let 'em go. And our shoes, ma'am,' added Meg, taking Robin's bare and bleeding foot into her hand: 'see what poor Robbie's done to himself.' 'Poor little dear!' said Mrs Blossom pityingly. 'I'll wash his poor little feet for him when he's finished his dinner. You get on with yours likewise, my love.' Meg was silent for some minutes, busily feasting on the hot tripe, and basking in the agreeable warmth of the cosy room. It was a wonderfully bright little spot for that quarter of London, but the brightness was all inside. Outside, at about three feet from the window, rose a wall so high as to shut out every glimpse of the sky; but within everything was so clean and shining, even to the quarried floor, that it was difficult to believe in the mud and dirt of the streets without. Mrs Blossom herself looked fresh and comely, like a countrywoman; but there was a sad expression on her round face, plain enough to be seen when she was not talking. 'My dear,' she said when Meg laid down her knife and fork, and assured her earnestly that she could eat no more, 'what may you be thinking of doing?' 'I don't hardly know,' she answered. 'I expect father home every day. If I could only get enough for the children, and a crust or two for me, we could get along. But we can't do nothink more, I know.' 'You'll be forced to go into the house,' said Mrs Blossom. 'Oh, no, no, no!' cried little Meg, drawing Robin to her, and with a great effort lifting him on to her lap, where he almost eclipsed her. 'I couldn't ever do that. We'll get along somehow till father comes home.' 'Where is it you live?' inquired Mrs Blossom. 'Oh, it's not a nice place at all,' said Meg, who dreaded having any visitor. 'It's along Rosemary Lane, and down a street, and then down another smaller street, and up a court. That's where it is.' Mrs Blossom sat meditating a few minutes, with the baby on her lap, stretching itself lazily and contentedly before the fire; while Meg, from behind Robin, watched her new friend's face anxiously. 'Well,' she said, 'you come here again to-morrow, and I'll ask Mr George what's to be done. That was Mr George as was here, and he's my lodger. He took you in, and maybe he'll agree to do something.' 'Thank you, ma'am,' said Meg gratefully. 'Please, have you any little children of your own?' The tears ran faster now down Mrs Blossom's cheeks, and she was obliged to wipe them away before she could answer. 'I'd a little girl like you,' she said, 'ten years ago. Such a pretty little girl, so rosy, and bright, and merry, as all the folks round took notice of. She was like the apple of my eye, she was.' 'What was she called?' asked Meg, with an eager interest. 'Why, the neighbours called her Posy because her name was Blossom,' said Mrs Blossom, smiling amidst her tears. 'We lived out in the country, and I'd a little shop, and a garden, and kept fowls, and pigs, and eggs; fresh eggs, such as the like are never seen in this part o' London. Posy they called her, and a real posy she was.' Mrs Blossom paused, and looked sadly down upon the happy baby, shaking her head as if she was sorely grieved at heart. 'And Posy died?' said Meg softly. 'No, no!' cried Mrs Blossom. 'It 'ud been a hundred times better if she'd died. She grew up bad. I hope you'll never live to grow up bad, little girl. And she ran away from home; and I lost her, her own mother that had nursed her when she was a little baby like this. I'd ha' been thankful to ha' seen her lying dead afore my eyes in her coffin.' 'That's bad,' said little Meg, in a tone of trouble and tender pity. 'It's nigh upon three years ago,' continued Mrs Blossom, looking down still upon the baby, as if she were telling her; 'and I gave up my shop to my son's wife, and come here, thinking maybe she'd step in some day or other to buy a loaf of bread or something, because I knew she'd come up to London. But she's never so much as passed by the window—leastways when I've been watching, and I'm always watching. I can't do my duty by Mr George for staring out o' the window.' 'Watching for Posy?' said little Meg. 'Ay, watching for Posy,' repeated Mrs Blossom, 'and she never goes by.' 'Have you asked God to let her go by?' asked Meg. 'Ay, my dear,' said Mrs Blossom. 'I ask Him every blessed day o' my life.' 'Then she's sure to come some day,' said Meg joyfully. 'There's no mistake about that, because Jesus says it in the Bible, and He knows all about God. You've asked Him, and He'll do it. It's like father coming. I don't know whether he'll come to-day or to-morrow, or when it'll be; but he will come.' 'God bless and love you!' cried Mrs Blossom, suddenly putting baby down in Meg's lap, and clasping all three of them in her arms. 'I'll believe it, I will. He's sent you to give me more heart. God love you all!' It was some while before Mrs Blossom regained her composure; but when she did, and it was time for Meg and the children to go home before it was quite dark, she bound up Robin's foot in some rags, and gave Meg a loaf to carry home with her, bidding her be sure to come again the next day. Meg looked back to the shop many times before turning the corner of the street, and saw Mrs Blossom's round face, with its white cap border, still leaning over the door, looking after them, and nodding pleasantly each time she caught Meg's backward glance. At the corner they all three turned round, Meg holding up baby as high as her arms could reach, and after this last farewell they lost sight of their new friend. <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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