James Greenwood - The True History of a Little Ragamuffin

“Do you want to go particlar, missus?”

“I only go to oblige you, Mr. Ballisat.”

“Then just sit down and take a cup with us, that’s a good soul. It will be another favour what I shall owe you for, if you will be so good.” With an expressive shake of the head, as though she fully understood the state of my father’s feelings, and respected him for them, Mrs. Burke yielded to his persuasion, and drew a chair up to the tea-table. Father also drew up a chair.

“Do you like your tea sweet, Jim? Will this be too much?”

“Don’t you trouble about me, missus; you look arter yourself,” replied my father, politely.

“Tut! throuble indade!” said Mrs. Burke, as she put in the spoonful of sugar, and then tasted the tea in the spoon, and put in a little more sugar, and stirred it. “I think you’ll find that to your likin’,—just thry it.”

My father looked grateful, and, with a sigh, stooped forward and helped himself to toast.

“Whisha!” exclaimed Mrs. Burke, in a tone of alarm, as she made a snatch at the slice; “is it for the likes of me to see you atein’ the top piece of all, that’s been fryin’ before the fire this hour and more? Lave that for my atein’, if you plase, and let me help ye to a bit that’s soft and butthery.”

“We shall be spiled, Jimmy, if we’re treated like this,” observed my father, turning to me as he took the proffered slice.

“You ’re welcome to your joke, Jim,” said Mrs. Burke, with a pleasant little laugh: “but, as you of coorse know, being so long a married man, that it is just these shmall thrifles that make home happy.”

“I wasn’t a-joking, don’t you think it,” replied my father, biting the slice of toast to the backbone, and slowly masticating it as he gazed contemplatively on the fire. “It ain’t a joking matter; more t’other; as much more t’other, Kitty—’scuse the word, Mrs. B., but seein’ you sittin’ so familiar-like on that side, and me on this, comes nat’ral to cut your name short”—

(“Tut!” said Mrs. Burke, pulling out the bows of her cap-strings)—“as I was sayin’, what, you was sayin’ is as much more t’other from jokin’ as anythink I knows on.”

“Put your shtool furder in the corner, Jimmy, and then daddy ’ll get a bit more of the fire,” said Mrs. Burke.

“I’m all right, thanky,” returned my father. “Now don’t you move; fact is, I’d rather the fire didn’t ketch my feet. These new ‘jacks’ do draw ’em so you wouldn’t believe, and the fire ’ll make ’em wus. I shall be precious glad to get ’em off.”

“Then why not get out of ’em at once? Don’t you know your juty to yer father, Jimmy? Unlace his boots this moment, and get him his shlippers.”

“Get out with you,” returned my father, with a laugh. “What’s the use of your a-talkin’ to me about slippers? Anybody to hear you would think you didn’t know me, and mistook me for a gentl’man.”

“Got no slippers, Jim!” Mrs. Burke couldn’t have looked more amazed had my father suddenly disclosed to her as a fact that he had no feet, and that what she had been accustomed to regard as such were in reality but two wooden stumps.

“Never had a pair in all my life,” replied my father. “What does a rough and tumble chap like I am warnt with slippers?”

“What should he want wid’m? Shure you shurprise me by axin’ the question, James,” said the shocked Mrs. Burke. “As to the roughin’ and the tumblin’, it may be thrue while you are about gettin’ your honest livin’, but at home it’s different intirely. You know nothin’ about a wife’s affections, Jim, if you don’t think that she regards him as a gintleman as soon as he sits by his fireside, and she thrates him as sich if she’s the wife she shud be. Unlace your daddy’s boots as I bad ye, Jimmy; and if he’ll let us we’ll have his poor feet in comfort in a jiffy.”

It was not the first time I had unlaced my father’s boots, and while I busied myself about them, Mrs. Burke slipped into her room, and after, as could plainly be beard, much rummaging and hunting, returned with a pair of slippers in her hand. They were capital slippers, made of fine leather, and warmly lined, and must, when they were new, have cost a sum that no one but a person of means could afford to give. Probably Mrs. Burke had become possessed of them in the course of her charing, and empty-house cleaning experiences.

“They belonged to my good man that’s dead and gone—rest his sowl,” said Mrs. Burke; “and it’s like my preshumption, as you ’ll say, to offer ye the likes of sich rubbish; but it pains me to hear you complain of achin’ feet, poor fellow; and you’ll maybe pardon the liberty on that ground. P’r’aps they’re a thrifle damp, so we’ll warm ’em.”

So she did. She went down on her knees, and held the slippers to the fire until they were as warm as the toast by the side of them, by which time I had managed to haul off the heavy ankle-jacks. Then she turned about, still on her knees, and fitted the warm slippers on to my father’s feet, clapping her hands, and looking as delighted as though they were her feet that were being comforted, to find that they fitted so nicely.

“Are your feet aisier now, Jim?” she asked.

“They feels as though they was kivered with welwet,” replied my father, holding up a foot, and regarding it approvingly. “They must have cost a goodish bit D’ye mean to say that you was able to screw the price of ’em out of Tim’s earnin’s?”

“Bedad, it would have puzzled me,” laughed Mrs. Burke. “No, Jim, I saved up to buy ’em for him; saved up out of my own earnin’s a pinny or so a day.”

“You don’t mean to say that!’ exclaimed my father, leaning back in his chair, and wonderingly regarding Mrs. Burke with his only half-sober eyes.

“And why not? Wasn’t it my juty so to do for the man who was workin’ and toilin’ for me from daylight till dark? If I couldn’t do that and a great deal more for the man of my choice and the mate of my hearth; if I hadn’t made up my mind to do it fust and forrard, I’m not the woman that would have crossed the church threshold wid him.”

After this my father settled down to his tea, without uttering another word, only from time to time regarding Mrs. Burke intently, and tossing his head as though his mind was still occupied with her astounding views of the duties of a wife.

“We ought to be very grateful, Jimmy,” said he, as he helped me to a drink out of his saucer; “even when our luck seems deadest out, Jimmy, we never knows what’s a-goin’ to turn up. As the puty song ses, ‘There’s a sweet little chirrup what sits in the loft,’ don’t you know”—

“Looks after the life of poor Jack,’” softly sang Mrs. Burke, in her pretty voice.

“Ah! and not on’y Jacks but Jims, and any other poor cove what stands in need of it,” said my father, wagging his head impressively. “I hope you will never stand in need of it, Jimmy; and if you bears in mind what the doctor said to you the other night, you won’t. So just you be a good boy, and mind what Mrs. Burke tells you.”

“He didn’t tell me to mind what Mrs. Burke told me, father; he told me to”—

“Never mind what he told you; what I tell you is what you’ve got to act up to, and let’s have none of your argyments about it,” interrupted my father, with a frown.

“Bless his little heart, he’s obejence itself,” said Mrs. Burke, at the same time handing me a slice of toast. “Eat this, my good little fellow.”

I was obliged to eat it, for she kept her eye on me all the time.

“You must have had a tightish time of it, I should think, marm,” my father presently observed, “what with minding the young ’uns, and making the place so beautiful and clean.”